As a user of the RX5 Plug-in Pack I was made an offer I couldn't refuse for RX6 Elements plus some other goodies including a cut-down version of Ozone.
Had a quick wander around what I got this afternoon... well-impressed thus far - and yippee for the Spectral Editor - goodbye coughs, late-comer door clicks and chair scrapes from live recordings!
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound...
(But generally posting my own personal views and not necessarily those of SOS, the company or the magazine!)
In my world, things get less strange when I read the manual...
I've been thinking about buying RX since it was first released but keep finding new tweaks in Audition that allow me to achieve most things. Now that I'm about to have more time to devote to recording and restoration I'm coming around to the idea that perhaps I ought to upgrade but I was wondering just how much better RX would be? The other question is whether Cedar (which was mentioned in the alternatives in the review) is enough of an improvement to be worthwhile?
The processing features in RX are nothing short of amazing. However, if you're used to doing both editing and processing within one package, I wonder whether it might feel a bit clunky to have to split those aspects of the job between two programs.
I've just plumped for the upgrade from 5 => 6 (both Advanced)....best start working out how to use it properly now to justify it....rather than blag what I've needed to....
Mike Thornton's test of RX6's Dialogue Isolate impressed even though the background noise at the trade show was only mild and didnt detract from intelligibility. If it can actually improve speech intelligibility on badly noisy backgrounds I guess this will be a boon for audio restoration in various areas.
Sam Inglis wrote:The processing features in RX are nothing short of amazing. However, if you're used to doing both editing and processing within one package, I wonder whether it might feel a bit clunky to have to split those aspects of the job between two programs.
Nowadays I fire up Audition from within Reaper just to do scratch removal or noise reduction so it would make no difference to the workflow if I fired up RX instead of Audition.
I use both RX and Audition extensively, but prefer RX for restoration/rescue work. It just feels quicker and easier to me...
And good though RX certainly is, CEDAR remains the master for audio restoration work because it is even easier to use and can be pushed harder before artefacts become audible. But that small benefit costs a great deal more... so I remain happy to use RX and just take smaller bites at the bad bits!
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound...
(But generally posting my own personal views and not necessarily those of SOS, the company or the magazine!)
In my world, things get less strange when I read the manual...
Hmmm... jumped the gun there I'm afraid... the Spectrum adjustment in Elements is quite a crude beast and just replaces the highlighted area with silence... so believe it or not it may be back to Magix Audiolab 15 for a form of spectral editing that has a replacement facility...
Mike Stranks wrote:Hmmm... jumped the gun there I'm afraid... the Spectrum adjustment in Elements is quite a crude beast and just replaces the highlighted area with silence...
Shouldn't be that crude... the area you select can be processed according to any of the available modules. For example, the gain module will allow you to turn a selected area down (or up), rather than delete it.
Obviously, Elements doesn't have the spectral repair module, so you can't synthesise a filler noise from the surrounding ambience... but you should definitely be able to do more subtle things other than just punch holes!
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound...
(But generally posting my own personal views and not necessarily those of SOS, the company or the magazine!)
In my world, things get less strange when I read the manual...
Hugh Robjohns wrote:I use both RX and Audition extensively, but prefer RX for restoration/rescue work. It just feels quicker and easier to me...
Thanks for the reply Hugh - that's useful to know. A few months ago I had a chance to compare my efforts at restoring an old vinyl recording with whoever did the mastering for a Cherry Red compilation. I know that we were both working from the same start point as I supplied the file to Cherry Red. I can't find any credits to know who it was but I was impressed with the results they achieved so I tried to replicate them in Audition. I reckon that I just about managed it but it took quite a few passes and quite a bit of manual intervention. There are so many parameters in Audition's click removal tool and I ended up having to use all kinds of tricks to make it work.
Hugh Robjohns wrote:
And good though RX certainly is, CEDAR remains the master for audio restoration work because it is even easier to use and can be pushed harder before artefacts become audible. But that small benefit costs a great deal more... so I remain happy to use RX and just take smaller bites at the bad bits!
At the moment I guess I'm doing around one album project a month and not all of those require the use of restoration software - I guess that if you are doing transfers every day then Cedar makes sense.
Maybe I should wait and see where the new business goes before splashing out too much money. Current enquiries seem more tape oriented - either people wanting an all analogue recording or wanting to process their digital recordings through one of my analogue tape machines.
Mike Stranks wrote:Hmmm... jumped the gun there I'm afraid... the Spectrum adjustment in Elements is quite a crude beast and just replaces the highlighted area with silence...
Shouldn't be that crude... the area you select can be processed according to any of the available modules. For example, the gain module will allow you to turn a selected area down (or up), rather than delete it.
Obviously, Elements doesn't have the spectral repair module, so you can't synthesise a filler noise from the surrounding ambience... but you should definitely be able to do more subtle things other than just punch holes!
H
Thanks Hugh!
I shall continue to experiment... I did think I might be missing something! Unfortunately., good though they are, the Help files refer to the 'full' RX6 so I'm in "try this" mode at present...
Mike Stranks wrote:
Is there a trial version of RX6 you could play with?
Only problem is that I'm still running Windows XP on my music computers which won't run RX6. A new laptop is under consideration - but I'd like one that would work with my Focusrite Firewire interface so it would probably have to be a refurbished model rather than brand new. I'm still trying to work out the best way to upgrade without breaking too many things that work fine at the moment.
Hugh was, of course, right with regard to the Spectral view editor in Elemnts. Once you've highlighted the dodgy area you can then use the limited range of tools available to ameliorate the problem sound. Still not as good for full repairs as the Spectrum Editor available in the cheapy Magix Audio Lab 15... and later versions of that don't have it either...
While Elements is a lot more powerful than the previous RX5 plug-in pack, it is clearly designed to tempt you into upgrading to the Standard edition which opens the door to a far more sophisticated raft of spectral editing tools... and actually, I reckon the standard edition is pretty good value for money if you find yourself needing to fix things (for other people, naturally... ) fairly regularly.
H
Last edited by Hugh Robjohns on Thu Aug 03, 2017 1:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound...
(But generally posting my own personal views and not necessarily those of SOS, the company or the magazine!)
In my world, things get less strange when I read the manual...
While Elements is a lot more powerful than the previous RX5 plug-in pack, it is clearly designed to tempt you into upgrading to the Standard edition which opens the door to a far more sophisticated raft of spectral editing tools... and actually, I reckon the standard edition is pretty good value for money if you find yourself needing to fix things (for other people, naturally... ) fairly regularly.
H
Point well-made...
I'm on the cusp of needing the Standard version. I'm using de-click and de-clip a lot these days when dealing with material from others and the voice denoiser is pretty powerful. But I'd find it hard to justify the upgrade unless I move to more commercial status on projects. Stuff recorded here, in the 'studio' is, of course, pristine.
It's not helped by following someone on YouTube who keeps demonstrating the wizzy things you can do with the Standard version when live recordings have unexpected 'noises-off'!
Last edited by Mike Stranks on Thu Aug 03, 2017 6:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
) fairly regularly.