It’s not typical for us to say this — especially at the beginning of a review — but this is an exception: RX6 is the best audio repair tool out there. It fixes everything. Well, almost anything. It’s not going to make up for not recording something, but it will help you make the audio you accidentally recorded from a far-away camera usable for when you forgot to hit record on your external audio recorder.
For virtually every audio mistake this reviewer has ever encountered while making videos–the RX6 could have helped or totally resolved the issue.
For virtually every audio mistake this reviewer has ever encountered while making videos–the RX6 could have helped or totally resolved the issue. The best part: it’s intuitive to use. The tools are named for what they do. Want to isolate dialogue? There is a tool called dialogue isolate. Want to get rid of the rustle of a lapel mic on a shirt? Use the De-rustle tool.
We reviewed RX4 a couple of years back, and even two versions ago, iZotope was onto something. We loved RX4, so it goes to figure we should like RX6. We appreciate that iZotope didn’t mess up a good thing; they improved on it.
What’s New
There is a long list of new tools offered in RX6, from de-rustle, de-wind, de-bleed and de-ess to mouth de-click and dialogue isolate. These tools are quite self- explanatory and they work well too. In most cases, the presets in each is enough to get the job done. In other cases, a few tweeks and your tracks are cleaned up. While we were recording a voice over, the talent had a bad habit of smacking his lips before reading each line. This is something that is easily edited by muting the track before each line. However, with mouth de-click, the repair was only one click. What a time-saver!
Along with the new tools, RX6 offers some updates to already existing tools offered in the last version of RX. Tools like de-click, find similar, voice de-noise, de-plosive, ambience match, center extract and deconstruct all saw updates. Ambience match is a great tool. The opposite of the de-reverb tool, ambience match will put the room noise back in. Say you have to do some automated dialogue replacement (ADR) in a studio, but need it to fit in the scene with dialogue recorded on location. With ambience match, you select the track you want to match, have the tool learn the ambience, then apply that ambience to your ADR track. Poof! It fits right in.
When you have a lot to fix, a great feature to use is batch processing. Not all repairs should be done in bulk; some require a surgical touch, so no one-size-fits-all. However, doing something like de-noise in a batch process certainly will save you time.
RX6 works as a plug-in or as a standalone program. We found it worked best in our workflow as a standalone program, however depending on your existing tools, it might be better to use it as a RTAS, AU or VST plug-in. It’s compatible with most digital audio workstations (DAWs) and video editing system on both OS X and Windows systems.
In Use
We used RX6 on every issue we could try. The easy stuff like removing the sound of the air conditioning without negatively affecting dialogue is literally a three-click process. We wanted to see what kind of audio we could get off an iPhone placed 20 feet from the sound source. First, we were able to normalize the audio without increasing the noise floor, so we had a strong healthy signal. Then, we used dialogue isolate to get some clarity and to clean up unwanted reflections from the room. This did a good job of removing most of the reverb of the room, but to go even further we used de-reverb. De-reverb learns the reflections and then removes them. The processes so far have been clicking and waiting, no hard work at all. At this point, we have a track that could be used. Does it sound as good as the shotgun mic that was just two feet from the sound source? No. However, if we didn't have the shotgun mic and only the audio from the iPhone, it would be completely usable for a professional product.
Marketplace
RX6 Standard is a much more affordable option to RX6 Advanced costing just $400 dollars. It’s everything that Advanced offers with 10 fewer features. The tools not included are loudness, leveler, eq match, deconstruct, center extract, azimuth, ambience match, dialogue isolate de-wind and de-rustle. These are some of the more usable tools in RX6, but for the lower price tag, if you don’t have the budget for Advanced, this is a great option with a great value.
The lowest cost RX 6 product is Elements at $130 dollars. Elements, just like with Standard, offers fewer tools. Elements has 23 fewer tools than standard and 33 fewer than Advanced. The bad news doesn't stop there, the excluded tools from standard make Elements quite weak. All of the high value tools have been eliminated for the price point. What you are left with is not much more than what you get standard with most audio editors.
The best value is RX6 Standard. It has enough tools to repair many issues. If you need a repair tool, but don't have the budget to spend more than a thousand dollars, Standard is your best bet. RX6 elements does not offer enough tools to justify buying, so stick with Standard or Advanced.
Final Thoughts and Recommendation
RX6 Advanced is an amazing tool. It’s easy to use and is great for fixing big problems, but it also makes good audio great. Imagine being able to have dry, clear and present dialogue without room noise or any other problems. Although it will help you out in a pinch, most will use it on everything to always have the best sounding audio. We absolutely recommend iZotope RX6 Advanced. In fact, we flat-out love it.
iZotope
www.izotope.com
PRICE: $1,200
STRENGTHS:
- Intuitive
- Easy to use
WEAKNESSES:
- Big jump in price from Standard to Advanced
SUMMARY:
iZotope RX6 advanced is a strong tool that can repair just about every audio problem a video producer will face. It’s easy to use, but at $1,200 dollars, it’s a bit pricy.
RECOMMENDED USERS:
- Event Videographers
- Documentarians & Indie filmmakers
- Commercial & Corporate filmmakers
- Journalists & Travel videographers
- Post-production specialists
TECH SPECS:
Supported operating systems:
- Windows: 7, 8, and 10
- Mac: OS X 10.8.5 – 10.12
Supported plug-in hosts: Audition CC 2017, Cubase 9*, Final Cut Pro 10, Live 9, Logic Pro X, Media Composer 8.8, Nuendo 7, Premiere Pro CC 2017, Pro Tools 10-12, Studio One 3. *Supported in OS X 10.12
Supported plug-in formats: AAX (64-bit), Audiosuite DPM, Audio Unit (32-bit and 64-bit), RTAS (32-bit), VST 2 (32-bit and 64-bit), and VST 3 (32-bit and 64-bit).
Chris Monlux loves recording music. He is also Videomaker's Multimedia Editor.
