iZotope has released the latest version of their iconic audio restoration software RX 10. In this article, we have all the details of what is new, an exclusive extended first-look video, and we tell you what we think of RX 10 and RX 10 Advanced from iZotope.

What’s New In RX 10

Repair Assistant Plug-in (Standard, Advanced & Elements) – The Repair Assistant uses artificial intelligence to recognise specific problems automatically and intelligently propose fixes that you can modify to taste. iZotope has re-built the Repair Assistant module from the ground up and also made it a plugin so you can access the power of the AI-powered tool from within your favourite DAW.

Text Navigation (Standard & Advanced) – This has been designed to enable users to be able to quickly navigate long dialogue files more effectively. This new feature analyses speech and displays a text transcription above the spectrogram, in sync with the corresponding audio, so that the text can be used to select and edit recordings. (only available in US English for RX 10)

Multiple Speaker Detection (Advanced Only) - As part of the text navigation feature, if you have RX Advanced, anyone working on a single audio track with more than one speaker. It is designed to automatically detect up to eight speakers and the sections of speech associated with those speakers.

Dynamic Adaptive Mode in De-Hum (Standard & Advanced) – This improvement has been designed to save time by removing hums and buzzes on the fly with a new Adaptive mode that automatically eliminates complex noise that changes pitch, like electromagnetic interference, without sacrificing quality.

Upgraded Spectral Recovery (Advanced Only) – Spectral Recovery has been designed to improve the sound quality of recordings made on mobile phones or non-studio-grade recording equipment. The new version improves upon the quality of re-synthesised upper frequencies and can now add missing lower frequencies, too.

Selection Feathering (Standard & Advanced) – Make smoother edits with improved Selection Feathering, which now works in both the time and the frequency domain.

What iZotope Say About RX 10

Built on decades of research and powered by machine learning, RX 10 is the complete toolkit for audio post-production. From analysing audio capture and production issues to providing processing solutions, RX 10 speeds up editing workflows, salvages poor audio takes that were once unfixable, and delivers reliably clear sound quality.

Whether editing a podcast, meeting a demanding TV deadline or working on a blockbuster movie, post-production professionals and creators of all sorts can captivate audiences by bringing out the best in recorded audio. iZotope Principal Product Manager Mike Rozett told us…

"For RX 10, we've added a new way to edit dialogue and speech, along with major updates to assistive technology and machine learning. The result it that RX 10 is more comprehensive and even easier to use. Whether you’re a music producer or an audio engineer, a dialogue editor or a re-recording mixer, an influencer or a content creator, RX is here for you."

iZotope Also Announce A New Version Of RX Elements And RX Post Production Suite 7

RX Elements - This is the entry-level version of RX, which now consists of the brand new Repair Assistant plug-in and five component plugins: De-Hum (with updated Dynamic Mode), De-Click, De-Clip, Voice De-Noise, and De-Reverb.

RX Post Production Suite 7 - iZotope has also released the latest version of their RX Post Production Suite, which comes with all of the tools designed to fix noisy production audio, bring a story to life, and send final deliverables at the right specifications. This flagship package includes RX 10 Advanced, Neutron 4, Dialogue Match, and Insight 2 metering, plus two surround reverbs by Exponential Audio, Stratus 3D and Symphony 3D, which have been updated to run natively on Apple silicon and feature a refreshed look and feel.

What We Think About iZotope RX 10 And RX 10 Advanced

In this extended first-look video, Mike Thornton takes a detailed trip through all the key new features and improvements that iZotope has added in the release of RX 10 and RX 10 Advanced.

• 00:00 Introduction

• 00:49 Repair Assistant

• 08:23 Text Navigation and Multi-Speaker Detection

• 13:19 Adaptive mode in De-hum Dynamic mode

• 15:25 Updated Spectral Recovery module

• 18:24 Time and Frequency Feathering

• 18:48 Outro

Repair Assistant Plug-in (Standard, Advanced & Elements) – Repair Assistant was introduced in RX 7. With the release of RX 10, iZotope has taken the opportunity to completely re-design the audio restoration assistant from the ground up with new analysis, processing and a streamlined user interface. Even better, there is a new plug-in version, so now, for the first time, you can harness iZotope’s AI tool from within your favourite DAW.

In the new Repair Assistant, there are four modes, Voice, Musical, Percussion and Sound FX. You will see that the modules change depending on what type of content you are working with. You should choose the one closest to the type of material you are working on.

In Pro Tools, all you need to do is click Learn, and the Repair Assistant sets to work analysing the audio. Once the AI engine had finished its work, on the example used in the extended demo video, it enabled all the modules except the De-clip and set the Amounts for each module.

If you aren’t happy with the settings offered by the AI, then you can change the amount of processing for each module.

The Repair Assistant has a clever display in the centre displaying a spectral analysis of the audio coming up from the bottom and a frequency-based gain reduction display coming down from the top.

You can also use the ‘ear’ icon, found in most modules, to see what each module is taking away, again, all without having to leave your favourite DAW.

The standalone version of iZotope’s Repair Assistant looks very similar to the plugin, except that the standalone Repair Assistant doesn’t have the display in the middle, but what it does offer is the option to open the setting as a Module chain. Note that the ‘Open as Module Chain’ option is only available in the RX 10 Advanced standalone version.

From here, you can view and adjust the settings for each module. Note that there is a module in the list which isn’t in the main window, and that is De-hum.

The new Repair Assistant is available in RX Elements, RX 10 Standard and RX 10 Advanced.

Text Navigation (Standard and Advanced) and Multiple Speaker Detection (Advanced Only)

Next is a brand new feature for RX 10 - Text Navigation. Imagine you have an interview, and you want to jump to a particular word, or you have a recording of a podcast or interview with multiple speakers, and you want to process everything one person says but not impact the other speakers. These are some of the tasks that text Navigation and Multiple Speaker Detection have been designed to assist with. So lets see how they work.

Down in the bottom left-hand corner, we have two new icons in RX 10…

1. The option to show or hide the Text Navigation Word Lane

2. To show or hide the Text Navigation pane. 

Enabling the Word Lane (right-hand icon) triggers the transcription process, which iZotope says works at around 7 to 9 times real-time.

You can click on the iZotope logo (see right) to see where it's up to. You will also see words starting to appear across the top of the Spectrogram.

Once the transcription process has been completed, if you have RX10 Advanced, then RX will go through the audio and identify up to 8 speakers.

When that has been completed, each speaker will be allocated a unique colour.

With the example used in the extended first-look video, when we open the Text Navigation pane, we can see that RX has identified 2 speakers. Clicking on each speaker highlights everything said by that speaker, enabling you to be able to treat all that speaker’s audio without impacting the other speakers (see above). You can double-click on the Speaker in the text navigation pane and rename it appropriately.

You can use the Search facility in the text navigation pane to search for specific words. For example, if I type in ‘Listen’, let’s see what we get…

We have three responses, and if we click on each one, we can hear a clip. However, you will notice that the 3rd one isn’t the word ‘listen’; it’s the word ‘like’. In querying this with iZotope, this is because they are using a fuzzy search. It first looks for exact matches, then for close variants of the search term, and then for words that might be several letters or more different from the original term. They have chosen this type of search to help users find words that may not have been transcribed accurately.

You can zoom in, and if you go far enough in, you can see the words displayed individually. You can correct the transcription errors by double-clicking on the incorrect word in the Word Lane and typing in the correct word.

In my tests, I found that the transcription was not very accurate, and in the example I used in the extended first-look video, there would need to be a lot of corrections before the text navigation would be useful. In addition, the multiple speaker detection was not able to tell the difference between Graham Kirkman’s Scottish accent and my Northern English accent. It considered us to be one person. However, it did correctly identify the other speaker, even though Roger Guerin has a French Canadian accent.

Once you read the manual, the reason for these issues becomes clearer. IZotope qualifies what this feature can do…

“Text Navigation is designed to be an editing navigation tool and not a transcription service. It is optimized for American English. Accuracy may vary if there is noticeable background noise or a speaker has a non-American accent.”

For those of us outside the US, it is disappointing that the algorithm appears to have only been taught using North American speakers. Maybe it is a limit to what machine learning can handle. Hopefully, iZotope will be able to expand the range of accents that it ‘understands’ as well as handle other languages in the future.

Dynamic Adaptive Mode in De-Hum (Standard & Advanced)

The next new feature in RX 10 to look at is the addition of an Adaptive mode in the Dynamic De-hum module, first released in RX 9.

This feature means you don’t even need to use the Learn option, it will adapt as it goes. This is especially useful for audio where the hum varies in pitch.

In our RX 9 test, you may remember that we used a clip of some PA Feedback, and using the De-hum module in the Dynamic mode, we were able to pretty well get rid of it, but not quite fully because the pitch of the feedback changed slightly with time. So how would the new Adaptive mode handle this example?

In the extended first-look video, I started by repeating the technique using the RX 9 Dynamic mode, but this time using the frequency range controls to limit the De-hum process to the range of frequencies around the feedback, and as with the previous RX 9 test, it very nearly gets rid of the feedback. Then I enabled the Adaptive mode and reran it, and all signs of the PA Feedback were eradicated.

Upgraded Spectral Recovery (Advanced Only)

Spectral Recovery was introduced in RX 8 Advanced, and now in RX 10 Advanced, it has been redesigned with a new interface and the ability to add missing lower frequencies, and iZotope has improved the quality of re-synthesized upper frequencies.

RX 8 and RX 9  users will notice that most of the controls have gone. All we have now are frequency cut-off controls and gain for the synthesised elements.

In the extended first video, I used an example of a recording using a popular VoIP application, which has somewhat mangled the audio. 

As this audio has suffered a lot of data compression, I chose to enable the Spectral Patching option before I hit the Learn button, which is designed to help fill in the gaps created by heavy audio data compression.

Then I carefully increased the low-frequency cut-off control until the bottom end of my voice became richer. Although it is easy to overdo it, used carefully, it helps the subjective quality a lot.

Then I showed what happens when the gain of the high-frequency synthesis was increased. Again it’s possible to overdo it, but used carefully can really make a difference.

Selection Feathering (Standard & Advanced) 

The last improvement that iZotope has brought to RX 10 is how it handles feathering around the edges of a selection.

If you draw a simple selection with the Lasso tool and then click on this new Feather icon, there are now two controls, one for time and the other for frequency.

Seasoned RX users may recall that there was a Feathering control in the Misc tab of the iZotope Preferences window; what you may not have been aware of is that was only time-based feathering. Now with RX 10, we can control both time and frequency feathering, and we don’t need to dive into the Preferences window to adjust it. 

Is It A Make-It-Better Release?

As we saw with RX 9, there is no doubt in my mind that RX 10 is another ‘make-it-better’ release rather than one which adds a raft of new features, as we saw with releases like RX 8, which had new features including Spectral Recovery, Wow & Flutter, Loudness Control, Guitar De-noise, 32 Audio Tab Limit and Horizontal Scrolling with improvements made to Music Rebalance, Batch Processor and De-Hum. With RX 7, we saw new features that included Dialogue Contour, Dialogue De-reverb, Pro Tools AudioSuite plug-ins for processes like De-Rustle and Dialogue Isolate, Multi-channel support, Repair Assistant, Music Rebalance and the ability to remove or isolate vocals.

At least RX 9 had one ‘star-of-the-show’ new feature, the dynamic hum redesign with an ‘honourable-mentions’ going to selective undo feature where you can choose to undo processing within a selection and the improvements to Dialog Isolate.

In my view, RX 10 lacks any significant ‘star-of-the-show’ improvements. That said, honourable mentions must go to the new Repair Assistant module and the improvements to both the Spectral Recovery and Dynamic De-hum modules.

Arguably the cleverly named Text Navigation and Multi-Speaker Detection features are an interesting start but are let down by the reduced accuracy for non-UK English speakers and by the lack of a floating transcription window in which you could see the text in a much larger block. With only having access to the Word Lane across the top of the Spectrogram, reading the text requires that you are zoomed right in, at which point the text flies past so quickly that it makes it hard to follow. Whereas a floating text window, maybe using some of the empty space in the Text Navigation pane would make the feature much more useful.

Who Is It Aimed At?

The improvements brought in RX 9 were squarely pitched at the audio post-production sector and making our lives easier; it seems to me that RX 10, if its aimed at one particular group, is aimed at the novice user, someone who perhaps isn’t fully conversant with all the intricacies of iZotope’s audio restoration toolset, and so needs a toolset that can help improve the quality of the audio they are working with without having to learn all the clever features in great detail. Things like the new Repair Assistant, the adaptive Dynamic De-hum and the new Spectral Recovery window.

But here’s the rub for me. iZotope’s RX 10 is not cheap, especially RX 10 Advanced, and so I have to wonder whether novices will be prepared to invest what is now a lot of money on RX, especially when there are now competitive products that are significantly cheaper, especially compared to RX Advanced.

Is There Enough Innovation?

When we reviewed RX 9, I said, “For me, it feels like RX 8.5 rather than RX 9.” In reviewing RX 10, if RX 9 should have been RX 8.5, then for me, perhaps RX 10 should be RX 9.

Looking at the last two iterations of iZotope RX, It seems to me that iZotope has lost its drive to innovate. We started to see this with the RX 9 release, which for me has been reinforced with the release of RX 10. iZotope used to be at the forefront of audio restoration, bringing game-changer after game-changer but over the last few years, the competition has stepped up and offered better and more cost-effective alternatives; just take a look at our recent premium audio restoration blind shootout and low cost audio restoration shootout.

It is a real disappointment to me that iZotope hasn’t chosen to respond to the competition by developing and releasing innovative audio restoration solutions. Instead it seems that iZotope has chosen to tinker at the edges and do just enough to be able to justify, at least in their minds, a new version of what has been long regarded as the leading audio restoration software. Just take a look at the comments we got when we ran the news article teasing RX 10.

iZotope RX 10 System Requirements

Operating Systems:

• Mac: macOS Catalina (10.15.7) – macOS Monterey (12.5.x)

• Win: Windows 10 – Windows 11

* Supported on Intel Macs & Apple silicon Macs (Apple M1 chips) in Rosetta 2 and native.

Plug-in formats
AU, AAX, AAX Audiosuite, VST3, AU ARA.

Plug-in format notes:

• All plug-in formats are 64-bit only.

• RX 10 Spectral Editor ARA & Music Rebalance ARA plug-ins are only available in Logic Pro on Intel Macs or Apple silicon Macs (Rosetta only).

• RX 10 Ambience Match, Dialogue Isolate, and De-rustle plug-ins are only available as AAX Audiosuite for Pro Tools.

• RX 10 Repair Assistant in Pro Tools is Audiosuite only. RX 10 Repair Assistant is available in VST3 & AU formats in other DAWs.

• RX 10 plug-ins are not available in VST2 format.

RX Audio Editor Notes
RX 10 Elements consists of plug-ins only; the RX Audio Editor application is not included with RX 10 Elements.

Plug-in hosting in the RX 10 Audio Editor application

• AU & VST2 plug-ins can be hosted in the RX Audio Editor application.

• AU plug-in hosting is available on Intel or Apple silicon Macs (in Rosetta or native).

• VST2 plug-in hosting is available on Windows, Intel Macs, or Apple silicon Macs (in Rosetta only).

• VST2 plug-in hosting will be deprecated and replaced with VST3 plug-in hosting in a future RX 10 update.

Supported Hosts (DAWs/NLEs):

Logic Pro 10.6.3 - 10.7.x, Pro Tools 2021 - 2022, Ableton Live 11, Cubase 11 - 12, Nuendo 12, Studio One 5, Reaper 6, FL Studio 20, Audition CC 2022, Premiere Pro CC 2022

Plug-in Hosting:

AU and VST2 plug-ins can be hosted in the RX Audio Editor.

• Note: VST2 plug-in hosting will be deprecated and replaced with VST3 plug-in hosting in a future RX 10 patch.

iZotope RX 10 Pricing And Availability

RX 10 is available on the iZotope website and from selected retailers from today, with introductory pricing through October 11, 2022:

• RX Post Production Suite 7: $999 USD (normally $1,999 USD) - Save $1,000

• RX 10 Advanced: $799 USD (normally $1,199 USD) - Save $400

• RX 10 Standard: $299 USD (normally $399 USD) - Save $100

• RX 10 Elements: $99 USD (normally $129 USD) - Save $30

Existing iZotope customers may be eligible for additional loyalty discounts on RX 10. Details can be found in your Account section on iZotope’s website.