RX Question (AKA Am I going Mad)?

[James Perrett]

I'm starting to wonder if I am imagining things here...

A while ago I seem to remember seeing a video of someone using RX to fix bum notes. They just selected the fundamental frequency in the spectral view, RX automatically selected the harmonics and then, using a control key or similar, just dragged the note to the new pitch.

Now tonight I had something that needed this feature and I can't find it anywhere. I've trawled through the RX help and looked at the videos on the Izotope website and there's no mention of it. I can select the note and harmonics and cut it out without affecting the other notes happening at the same time but I can't work out how to paste it at a new pitch.

Did I imagine it or was this some other piece of software that I thought was RX?

[MOF]

Possibly Melodyne 5.
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[Wonks]

Fixing bum notes?

You need ArseX, not RX.

[James Perrett]

I don't think it was Melodyne as I'm sure it had a full spectral display. One possibility could be Acon Acoustica because I had a demo version of that a few months ago although I can't find much detail on their spectral editing on their website.

[Fishnish]

Spectralayers can do this I believe, although as a long-time RX user who is just starting to get to grips with Spectralayers I haven't tried it myself yet.

[James Perrett]

I think I have a work around for RX...

• Select the offending note and harmonics
  Cut the selection
  Paste to a new file
  Pitch shift to required note
  Mix paste back into original file

It doesn't seem too onerous.

[Hugh Robjohns]

You can certainly do what you want in CEDAR Retouch. I thought you could do it in RX too. Make a selection then use the mouse over the selection to get the hand 'grab' and move as necessary....

But I'm not near my studio now, so I can't check. I'll try and have a fiddle with it tomorrow.

[James Perrett]

You can certainly do what you want in CEDAR Retouch. I thought you could do it in RX too. Make a selection then use the mouse over the selection to get the hand 'grab' and move as necessary....

That's exactly what I thought too. But the hand grab just moves the selection and the audio stays where it was. Maybe I was watching a demo of something else...

[Hugh Robjohns]

Hmmmm...

I can move an individual tone. Select, cut, drag selection box to new pitch and paste. That works.... but if I select harmonics I can't find a way to move all the selection boxes, just the one the hand is over. So it is possible to realign each harmonic pitch individually, but quite a faff.

I'll try and get in touch with the iZotope guys to see if there's a better way...

[James Perrett]

Thanks for trying that Hugh.

What is also really annoying is that you can't use the Pitch Shift effect on just a small pitch selection - it adjusts the pitch of everything within the selected time.

It will be interesting to see if Izotope come up with anything. I don't know if it makes any difference but I'm using RX8.5 Advanced.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I've pinged off an email and am awaiting their response.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Definitive answer from iZotope (thank you Christoph):

In RX, it's impossible to pitch-shift the signal using selection and copy-paste operations. Even if you modify the selection frequencies between copy and paste, the signal will not be pitch-shifted.

The workflow you're describing could in fact be in a different product, like Cedar Retouch (and even there I'm not sure if they do a pitch shift or a mere frequency translation via modulation).

In RX, you'd need to copy-paste your hamonic selection into a new tab, then apply Time&Pitch, Variable Pitch, or Dialogue Contour modules, then paste back into the original file (deleting the original selection content before pasting).

Multi-pitch editing tools like Melodyne DNA will provide a more elegant workflow for this pitch tuning task.

I would love RX to be able to do this at some point though so thanks for the reminder.

[James Perrett]

Thanks for asking Hugh. They're basically suggesting the same workflow as I suggested although I cut, rather than copy the note into a new file before pitch shifting so that I can then just mix paste the data back again.

[Hugh Robjohns]