iZotope has done it again. They have taken an incredibly powerful tool in RX 7 and made it even better with the release of RX 8. New features include Guitar De-noise, Spectral Recovery, Wow and Flutter, Loudness Control, improved Music Rebalance and Hum modules and much more. In this article, we break down all the new and improved features in iZotope RX 8 including an exclusive test of the key new modules.

What iZotope Say About RX 8

RX is an industry-leading audio editor with advanced machine-learning technology for assistive editing. It can diagnose and repair audio issues in music or post-production, rebalance mixes after export, and optimize loudness for broadcast—in short, it performs the impossible.

• Remove hum, clicks, pops, crackle, hiss, noise, and more from audio files

• Adjust musical mix elements from a summed audio file

• Perform processing on an entire library of files at once

• Includes a standalone audio editor application and several module plug-ins

• 3 Tiers: Elements, Standard, and Advanced

New And Improved Features In iZotope RX 8

• NEW - Spectral Recovery (Advanced Only) - Restores frequencies above 4 kHz, turning bandwidth-limited audio into clear, articulate recordings.

• NEW - Wow & Flutter (Advanced Only)  - Corrects pitch variations and fluctuations associated with tape, vinyl and optical transfers. Use Wow to fix longer, sustained pitch drift, and Flutter to correct pitch variances that occur at faster rates.

• NEW - Loudness Control (Advanced and Standard) - Instantly load preset loudness targets and conform production audio to broadcast requirements in seconds, and monitor levels using the built-in numeric and history plot readouts for integrated, short-term, and momentary loudness.

• NEW - Guitar De-noise (Advanced and Standard) - Allows refining to guitar recordings for maximum clarity in seconds. Manage sounds that can unintentionally be emphasized by the effect of compression or limiting, like electrical amp noise and interference, distracting fret or string squeaks, and harsh pick attacks.

• NEW - 32 Audio Tab Limit (All Versions)  - RX 8 doubles the previous 16-tab limit, now allowing users to view and edit up to 32 files within RX Audio Editor.

• NEW - Horizontal Scrolling (All Versions) - Horizontal scrolling is now built into the intuitive Spectrogram Display. Use the scroll gesture on a trackpad or mouse to scroll through your audio across the X-axis for lightning-fast edits.

• IMPROVED - Music Rebalance (Advanced and Standard) - Users can easily reanimate a mix, make room for scene dialogue in post, remove or isolate vocals for a remix, or even create and export new stems for further processing and mixing.

• IMPROVED - Batch Processor (Advanced and Standard) - Process many files at a time, view pertinent metadata in your audio, then apply a full series of processors with Module Chain.

• IMPROVED - De-Hum (All Versions) - Now features independent frequency reduction bands, and a redesigned, intuitive interface.

Want To Know Which Model Of RX 8 Is Right For You? Check Our Comprehensive Comparison Chart

* = Available as a plug-in

** = Available as a Pro Tools AudioSuite

What Others Think Of iZotope RX 8

What We Think Of iZotope RX 8 With Exclusive Demo And Tutorial Video

RX 8 is primarily a music focussed release with Guitar De-noise module and the improvements in the Music Rebalance module and it is very good to see that iZotope have included the Guitar De-noise module in both the Standard and Advanced versions of RX 8.

The De-squeak part of the Guitar De-noise module is very clever, but I was blown away with the Amp section, which as I show in the demo video, is able to a much better job of cleaning up an electric guitar part than even the improved De-hum module.

Although the Music Rebalance module is optimised for music and singing rather than the spoken world, the improvements in what Music Rebalance can do is astounding. We are very close now to being able to produce completely clean stems from a mixed track, as I show in the demo video.

That’s not to say that the post community haven’t been left out because, for starters, the improved Music Rebalance module will be very helpful for us especially when we need to rebalance a track to enable it to underscore better, or just to be able to rebalance the VO on a mixed track. On that point, I would like to reiterate my plea when Music Rebalance was introduced with RX 7 for a Voice option to be added, please.

Looking at the new audio restoration features, especially the Spectral Recovery module and the new Wow and Flutter modules, will both be very useful in both post and music applications.

Spectral Recovery, as I show in the demo video, is a tool I have waiting for every since ISDN lines came on the scene, as it enables me to recreate the top end that gets chopped off when using the G722 codec. However, the Spectral Recovery module is a timely inclusion in the premiere version, RX 8 Advanced, with more and more content being recorded at home often using smartphones that also tend to have a high frequency cut off.

Think of all those socially distanced tracks recorded by people using their phones and now you are able to recreate the high-end frequencies that were never captured. In the ADR world, people are using smartphones to capture their ADR lines rather than go into a studio. Again with Spectral Recovery, it will now be possible to recreate the missing high frequencies.

But that’s not all. Spectral Recovery is also able to patch holes in the frequency spectrum as a result of lossy codecs like mp3s and those used by the likes of Zoom and Skype and Spectral Recovery. making it an extremely timely new feature in RX 8 Advanced.

Moving onto the Wow and Flutter module, this is incredible and will enable us to use legacy recording only available on old mechanical based formats. Again this could have been so useful to have over the years. Yes, there has been the technology available for a while with Capstan from Melodyne, but at €3,790 I could buy two copies of RX 8 Advanced for the same money and get a suite of tools as well. Again check out the examples in my demo video, iZotope has done an amazing job in providing an accessible solution in RX 8 Advanced.

The Loudness module has become the Loudness Control module. There is now a loudness history plot, similar to what we find in Insight, which shows the integrated, short-term, and momentary loudness metrics over time whenever you apply the loudness processing. The options panel is now accessible from the gear button at the top right, from which, there is now the option to export the loudness history plot as a CSV data file.

There are now controls to adjust the Target settings for Short Term loudness and a tolerance for the Loudness as well as controls for True Peak and Integrated Loudness that were on the old RX 7 Loudness module.

All this flexibility makes it even easier to make sure we can deliver loudness compliant content.

In RX 8 iZotope have improved the De-hum module, which now has 16 bands available to enable attenuation of higher frequency harmonics/buzz. The audio spectrum is now displayed in the graph and each individual band can now be enabled or disabled. Finally, the Q "handles" in the graph now give finer control at high Q amounts.

That said, I have to say that for me the Amp section of the Guitar Denosie module has made the De-hum module obsolete. In the limited time that I have had with RX 8, the Guitar De-noise module has beaten the De-hum module with everything I have thrown at it, including my old faithful - No Earth fie from back in the RX 2 days. For those who haven’t come across this test file of mine, it was a funeral recording, which it transpired afterwards, the microphone’s cable has faulty, which meant there was no screen connected.. Take a look and a listen at the before and after images and audio files to judge for yourself.

The Batch Processor has undergone some improvement in RX 8. iZotope has updated the user interface. The input file list now displays the channel count, bit depth, sample rate, and duration of each file. When dragging a folder to the input file list, the original folder hierarchy of those files is remembered and recreated within the output directory.

A module chain has replaced the processing steps to provide the same functionality found in the Module Chain window.

Output options are now shown directly in the window rather than in a separate dialogue. Multiple output options can be configured to encode results to more than one file type. There are now cancel and pause buttons to control the processing.

New Music Production Suite And Post Production Suite

iZotope has also released RX Post Production Suite 5, which includes RX 8 Advanced, Dialogue Match, Neutron 3 Advanced, Nectar 3 (with Melodyne 5 essential), Insight 2, RX Loudness Control, Relay, Symphony 3D and Stratus 3D by Exponential Audio, and Tonal Balance Control 2, plus a one-year all-access pass to Groove 3, a video training tool. 

In addition, iZotope will release Music Production Suite 4 this fall, which will include RX 8 Standard, Ozone 9 Advanced, Neutron 3 Advanced, Nectar 3 (with Melodyne 5 essential), Insight 2, NIMBUS by Exponential Audio, and Tonal Balance Control 2. Those that have purchased Music Production Suite 3 after September 2nd, 2020, will receive a free upgrade to Music Production Suite 4.

iZotope RX 8 Price And Availability

RX 8  is now available at iZotope’s website and selected retailers…

• RX 8 Elements: Introductory price $99 - Regular price $129

• RX 8 Standard: Introductory price $299 - Regular price $399

• RX 8 Advanced:  Introductory price $999 - Regular price $1,199

• RX Post Production Suite 5: Introductory price $1,499 - Regular price $1,999

Conclusion

Ther you have it, although on the surface RX 8 may feel feature light when you dig into it, there is so much to like about the latest iteration of iZotpe’s iconic audio restoration package. It is good to see key new features included in RX 8 Standard, rather than just in RX Advanced.

I cannot leave this look at iZotope RX 8 without mentioning the elephant in the room, the lack of ARA support, which is a real shame. I really do hope that iZotope can bring this feature to RX sooner rather than later, maybe even in RX 8.5, rather than having to wait for RX 9.

All in all RX 8 is a great development and I have already been making good use of some of the new features in my day to day work. Thank you iZotope.