# Izotope RX8 alternatives?



## CatComposer (Jun 5, 2021)

I'm finding RX8 to be great for breath removal, and see that RX8 Elements is brilliant for click removal in voice recordings.
However, this software is very expensive and I can't find any alternative software that does the same thing.
Do they have the monopoly on this technology?


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## paulmatthew (Jun 5, 2021)

Acoustica is 1/2 the cost and a decent alternative to RX8. https://acondigital.com/products/acoustica-audio-editor/ The standard version is $59 and the premium version is $199 but can be bought for a lower price at JRRshop. It's worth a look.


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## Markrs (Jun 5, 2021)

I think Steinberg Specralayers does some of the same things









SpectraLayers: Advanced Spectral Audio Editor


SpectraLayers is a new approach to audio editing, with new concepts to transform the way you work. Visualize audio in astonishing new ways.




new.steinberg.net





This also gets bundled in the at times heavily discounted Magix Samplitude. 

It was $199 not that long ago 



https://vi-control.net/community/threads/samplitude-pro-x5-suite-at-67-off-with-free-spectralayers-pro-7-izotope-rx-7-elements-ozone-9-elements-corefx-suite-s-forge-pro13.98293/


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## jcrosby (Jun 5, 2021)

Acoustica's a great alternative. Unless you need to do forensic level dialogue repair, it's more or less pretty even between the two...


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## Justin L. Franks (Jun 5, 2021)

Do you already have RX Elements? If not, there's a pretty amazing sale going on from Izotope. The whole Elements suite (Neutron, Ozone, and RX), and several other plugins, for $49.



https://vi-control.net/community/threads/izotope-community-appreciation-bundle.109728/


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## fakemaxwell (Jun 6, 2021)

I haven't found anything that encompasses everything that RX Advanced has, but not sure it has a monopoly on the technology. Each of the modules probably has an equivalent from another manufacturer, but it's not all in the same piece of software. If you only need one or two modules from RX, you'll save money looking elsewhere. If you need everything, all at once, there's nothing else.


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## Technostica (Jun 6, 2021)

Sseltenrych said:


> I'm finding RX8 to be great for breath removal, and see that RX8 Elements is brilliant for click removal in voice recordings.
> However, this software is very expensive and I can't find any alternative software that does the same thing.


Do you need Standard or Advanced? 
You can get Standard cheaply if you buy their Production Suite 4 and unbundle it. 
Takes time and effort though.


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## Markrs (Jun 6, 2021)

Technostica said:


> Do you need Standard or Advanced?
> You can get Standard cheaply if you buy their Production Suite 4 and unbundle it.
> Takes time and effort though.


It got RX7 standard on the used market via Knobcloud for £60 so you can get it cheap that way as well


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## R. Soul (Jun 6, 2021)

RipX DeepAudio can do some of the things RX8 can do, like noise removal, but it's more meant for things like remixing I think. Interesting tool though.








RipX: Remove Vocals, Create Stems, Learn & Practice Songs, Remix Tracks & Fix Audio


RipX: Remove Vocals, Create Stems, Learn & Practice Songs, Remix Tracks & Fix Audio




hitnmix.com





The most obvious alternative is probably ERA 5 bundle though, as it has things like noise remover, mouth de-clicker, reverb remover, de-esser etc.





Accusonus - Audio and Video Editing Software For Creators


Easily clean-up your audio tracks. Add engaging sound effects & background music. Modify your voice with efficient sound design. Increase your content's production value with modern technology. Join accusonus - we democratize content creation




accusonus.com


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## CatComposer (Jun 6, 2021)

fakemaxwell said:


> I haven't found anything that encompasses everything that RX Advanced has, but not sure it has a monopoly on the technology. Each of the modules probably has an equivalent from another manufacturer, but it's not all in the same piece of software. If you only need one or two modules from RX, you'll save money looking elsewhere. If you need everything, all at once, there's nothing else.


Yes, I've been researching today and found this to be true.
I want the breath removal and click removal, which are both present in the RX8 Standard.
This is what I've been using with my Izotope membership.
Since I'm essentially renting Melodyne as well, which I need, I think I'll stick with the membership option for now.


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## CatComposer (Jun 6, 2021)

Technostica said:


> Do you need Standard or Advanced?
> You can get Standard cheaply if you buy their Production Suite 4 and unbundle it.
> Takes time and effort though.


Yeah I saw that, but it's got a pretty hefty price tag, and I'm not sure I need the other bundled plugins yet.


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## CatComposer (Jun 6, 2021)

Justin L. Franks said:


> Do you already have RX Elements? If not, there's a pretty amazing sale going on from Izotope. The whole Elements suite (Neutron, Ozone, and RX), and several other plugins, for $49.
> 
> 
> 
> https://vi-control.net/community/threads/izotope-community-appreciation-bundle.109728/


Yes, I saw that, but the RX Elements doesn't have breath removal, which is the main thing I'm after.
I spent a while finding out what all those other plugins are, and don't think I need any of them.


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## jcrosby (Jun 6, 2021)

If you're looking at doing things like breath removal Izotope's the best game in town. Breath recognition happens via some form of machine learning where you 'teach' it what a breath is... Basically while others may come along in short order, (and they will!) I'm pretty sure there aren't a lot of other options for the moment that will give you the consistency RX has... (Funny enough I used RX's breath detection this weekend...)

This would be forensic level voice repair as I mentioned in my 1st reply... Izotope currently do this better than anyone else... It's kind of been their jam since they started... RX has got to be well past 15 years old at this point....

Acon is nipping at Izotope's heels, (and frankly doing a decent job where they can - I know/use both developers' frequently)... But machine learning stuff like detecting something as specific as breaths/gasps/inhales? Currently Izotope dominate this level of audio detection consistently... But again I mention Acon as they've been taking the fight to Izotope, and following up with a reply quickly... Acon often often have their own version of a comparable editing module a few months later..

The key here is that understanding that removing something as specific as breaths; (and yet at the same time something as generic as a breath - this is where the nuance is...) This has to be done by _teaching_ a piece of software what a breath is... While plugins can do this, they require a lot of lookahead, and have to be taught what a breath is before they can detect it accurately...

So far Izotope dominates that space...


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## CatComposer (Jun 6, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> If you're looking at doing things like breath removal Izotope's the best game in town. Breath recognition happens via some form of machine learning where you 'teach' it what a breath is... Basically while others may come along in short order, (and they will!) I'm pretty sure there aren't a lot of other options for the moment that will give you the consistency RX has... (Funny enough I used RX's breath detection this weekend...)
> 
> This would be forensic level voice repair as I mentioned in my 1st reply... Izotope currently do this better than anyone else... It's kind of been their jam since they started... RX has got to be well past 15 years old at this point....
> 
> ...


Thanks!
That's what I suspected.
I was blown away by how well it knew what a breath sounded like and removed them all for me.


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## Justin L. Franks (Jun 6, 2021)

Sseltenrych said:


> Yes, I saw that, but the RX Elements doesn't have breath removal, which is the main thing I'm after.
> I spent a while finding out what all those other plugins are, and don't think I need any of them.


Keep in mind that Izotope does have upgrade paths to the higher tiers. You can get Elements for $42 (15% off the $49 bundle from JRR). And Sweetwater has the upgrade to Standard on sale for $99.

Alternatively, you can get the Music Production Suite for $295.80 from JRR (by getting the $49 bundle, and the upgrade to Music Production Suite on sale for $299, with 15% off of both). The Music Production Suite adds RX Standard, Nectar 3 Plus, Ozone Advanced, Neutron Advanced, Neoverb, R4, VocalSynth 2, Insight 2, Nimbus, and Total Balance Control 2.


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## d.healey (Jun 6, 2021)

Audacity can be used for a lot of audio cleanup tasks but it's a much less automated process than you'll get with RX


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## rrichard63 (Jun 6, 2021)

paulmatthew said:


> Acoustica is 1/2 the cost and a decent alternative to RX8. https://acondigital.com/products/acoustica-audio-editor/ The standard version is $59 and the premium version is $199 but can be bought for a lower price at JRRshop. It's worth a look.


Do either of the Acon Digital products (Acoustica Premium and Restoration Suite) include a breath removal module? @Sseltenrych 's inquiry was specific to that one function.


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## Markrs (Jun 6, 2021)

Justin L. Franks said:


> Keep in mind that Izotope does have upgrade paths to the higher tiers. You can get Elements for $42 (15% off the $49 bundle from JRR). And Sweetwater has the upgrade to Standard on sale for $99.
> 
> Alternatively, you can get the Music Production Suite for $295.80 from JRR (by getting the $49 bundle, and the upgrade to Music Production Suite on sale for $299, with 15% off of both). The Music Production Suite adds RX Standard, Nectar 3 Plus, Ozone Advanced, Neutron Advanced, Neoverb, R4, VocalSynth 2, Insight 2, Nimbus, and Total Balance Control 2.


That is a very good deal, if I had noticed that I probably would have upgraded instead of buying the RX7 standard on knobcloud


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## Trash Panda (Jun 6, 2021)

Nectar 3 Plus includes RX8 breath control and I’m sure there’s a cheap upgrade path to get it.


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## ryst (Jun 6, 2021)

R. Soul said:


> RipX DeepAudio can do some of the things RX8 can do, like noise removal, but it's more meant for things like remixing I think. Interesting tool though.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


ERA 5 bundle is my go-to these days. Especially for noise removal. It does an excellent job. I also use RX8 and Acoustica. They all have their strengths.


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## rhizomusicosmos (Jun 6, 2021)

Overall, RX 8 standard or advanced are actually good value considering the cost of something like the CEDAR Cambridge modules . . .


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## paulmatthew (Jun 6, 2021)

rrichard63 said:


> Do either of the Acon Digital products (Acoustica Premium and Restoration Suite) include a breath removal module? @Sseltenrych 's inquiry was specific to that one function.


It does not appear so. Can always pair acoustica with Nectar 3 which can be had on sale for $125 at times which is still a cheaper option than RX8.


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## rhizomusicosmos (Jun 6, 2021)

Sseltenrych said:


> Yes, I saw that, but the RX Elements doesn't have breath removal, which is the main thing I'm after.
> I spent a while finding out what all those other plugins are, and don't think I need any of them.


How loud are the breaths you are dealing with? Have you tried using an expander/gate to duck the breath sounds before any compression?


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## CatComposer (Jun 6, 2021)

rhizomusicosmos said:


> How loud are the breaths you are dealing with? Have you tried using an expander/gate to duck the breath sounds before any compression?


Pretty loud.
I tried using an automated gain reduction method before discovering RX8, and it was cumbersome and imperfect.
I found RX8 to do a perfect job.
I don't know about the method you mention.


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## CatComposer (Jun 6, 2021)

Trash Panda said:


> Nectar 3 Plus includes RX8 breath control and I’m sure there’s a cheap upgrade path to get it.


This might be the most helpful post on the thread.
I decided to get Nectar Elements today in the sale, and will wait for a cheap upgrade to Nectar 3 with RX8 breath control later in the year.
Are Black Friday sales typically the best of the year?


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## Trash Panda (Jun 6, 2021)

Black Friday is a pretty safe bet, but there are good deals that happen all the time between Izotope itself and resellers. Just keep your eyes open and sign up for emails to sites like Audiodeluxe, JRR Shop and others. Or just watch the deals forums here.


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## CatComposer (Jun 6, 2021)

Trash Panda said:


> Black Friday is a pretty safe bet, but there are good deals that happen all the time between Izotope itself and resellers. Just keep your eyes open and sign up for emails to sites like Audiodeluxe, JRR Shop and others. Or just watch the deals forums here.


Thanks, Panda!


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## Justin L. Franks (Jun 7, 2021)

Sseltenrych said:


> This might be the most helpful post on the thread.
> I decided to get Nectar Elements today in the sale, and will wait for a cheap upgrade to Nectar 3 with RX8 breath control later in the year.
> Are Black Friday sales typically the best of the year?


The upgrade to the Tonal Balance Bundle (Nectar 3 Plus, Ozone 9 Advanced, Neutron 3 Advanced, Tonal Balance Control 2) is on sale for $199 now, which you are eligible for since you bought the $49 bundle.


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## CatComposer (Jun 7, 2021)

Justin L. Franks said:


> The upgrade to the Tonal Balance Bundle (Nectar 3 Plus, Ozone 9 Advanced, Neutron 3 Advanced, Tonal Balance Control 2) is on sale for $199 now, which you are eligible for since you bought the $49 bundle.


I don't think I need any of those, apart from the Nectar one.
I think I will look for a sale of it this year.
I am not in a hurry to get it, as I have the Izotope membership. 
I do want to wean off it though when I have my needs covered.


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## robgb (Jun 8, 2021)

Sseltenrych said:


> Yes, I saw that, but the RX Elements doesn't have breath removal, which is the main thing I'm after.
> I spent a while finding out what all those other plugins are, and don't think I need any of them.


You can do breath removal with a noise gate.


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## gamma-ut (Jun 8, 2021)

Sseltenrych said:


> I don't know about the method you mention.


Basically, you use the same method as that used to deal with the amp noise from an electric guitar or overspill from percussion in room mics. It's just a signal-controlled gate. An expander (a compressor but working the opposite way round) can be a bit more gentle but you set the threshold of a gate to be higher than the sound of the breath but lower than the voice onset itself. You might be lucky in that there's quite a gap between the breath intake and the speech so you could try a slow attack on the gate on the breath itself. This misses the breath but lets the voice through.

The danger is that the voice onset gets cut off, which is not great. One possibility is to make the gate frequency dependent. Send a low-pass version of the signal to the side chain of the gate so you can key to the very start of quiet word. The breath, being mostly high frequencies doesn't get through. Some de-essers are quite flexible in this department by letting you cut just the breathy stuff or triggering the compression/expansion from a narrow band - I think DMG's Essence might be able to do it, though I haven't tried it for that kind of job.

If you're on the subscription, I believe Neutron has a multiband gate so you can try that.


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## Nimrod7 (Jun 8, 2021)

ryst said:


> ERA 5 bundle is my go-to these days. Especially for noise removal. It does an excellent job. I also use RX8 and Acoustica. They all have their strengths.


I am using ERA too and RX8. 

I really disliked accousonous when they moved to subscription model, and hidden as well as gave a huge bump to the perceptual licenses and upgrades. Hate this tactics, but it’s their right to sell their products however they want. I just won’t support anymore.


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## rrichard63 (Jun 8, 2021)

Nimrod7 said:


> I really disliked Accusonus when they moved to subscription model, and hidden as well as gave a huge bump to the perpetual licenses and upgrades. Hate this tactics, but it’s their right to sell their products however they want. I just won’t support anymore.


Off topic here, but I feel the same way. I don't think any of the other developers that have introduced subscriptions have been as aggressive about channeling their customers into subscriptions and away from perpetual licenses.


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## labornvain (Jun 8, 2021)

I can't imagine letting an automated process do many of the things that I can do better manually.

For example, breath noises. I rarely ever want to completely cut out the breath noise and instead opt for lowering its volume.

As for plosives and mouth clicks I've had much success simply opening the audio editor and zooming in till you get a pencil tool, and then drawing out the offending waveform.

All in all a typical vocal editing session takes me about 30 minutes. This includes deleting silent space clip gaining which includes breath noises and removing artifacts manually.


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## jcrosby (Jun 8, 2021)

labornvain said:


> I can't imagine letting an automated process do many of the things that I can do better manually.
> 
> For example, breath noises. I rarely ever want to completely cut out the breath noise and instead opt for lowering its volume.
> 
> ...


I'm guessing you've never actually tried using RX for this kind of thing. You have total control over how many decibels you reduce it by. You can literally have it turn them down .1 dB, nuke them completely, or set it anywhere in between. In the editor you could adjust the level of every breath discretely if you really wanted to. 

You can then fine tune anything after the fact in your DAW or in RX. You could even isolate the breaths with the 'listen' feature, render those and export or print them as a separate track. If you're smart about how much, or how you apply processing RX in no way impedes your ability to refine things after the fact, it just makes doing them quicker.

30 minutes? This could easily be done in 5-10 minutes, with some post-refinements after the fact. If you're on someone else's clock, and time is a factor, I just don't see why anyone would prefer the longer route.


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## X-Bassist (Jun 8, 2021)

Sseltenrych said:


> Pretty loud.
> I tried using an automated gain reduction method before discovering RX8, and it was cumbersome and imperfect.
> I found RX8 to do a perfect job.
> I don't know about the method you mention.


I really like RX Advanced, use it all the time. But there are alts for breaths:

Waves DeBreath is $28 atm; probably cheaper at JRRshop:








DeBreath Vocal Plugin | Waves


A timesaver for voiceovers, music and multimedia, DeBreath vocal plugin lets you control how much breath you want on vocal tracks and even add room tone where breaths have been reduced.




www.waves.com


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## topaz (Jun 15, 2021)

Markrs said:


> It got RX7 standard on the used market via Knobcloud for £60 so you can get it cheap that way as well


knobcloud makes me nervous


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## Markrs (Jun 15, 2021)

topaz said:


> knobcloud makes me nervous


As you have to use PayPal good and services for payment I have found it pretty good to use. Lots of reselling of freebies, or splitting bundles and making a profit on their though.


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## topaz (Jun 15, 2021)

Markrs said:


> As you have to use PayPal good and services for payment I have found it pretty good to use. Lots of reselling of freebies, or splitting bundles and making a profit on their though.


indeed, it worries me when I see the same person selling the same package more than once ;-(


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## Markrs (Jun 15, 2021)

topaz said:


> indeed, it worries me when I see the same person selling the same package more than once ;-(


Sweet water have a very good deal on RX8 standard for $99 or on Knobcloud someone is selling RX Post Production Suite 5 (which comes with RX8 Advanced) for $289 which looks a solid price for what you get.

https://www.knobcloud.com/i/12511/izotope-rx-post-production-suite-5








RX Post Production Suite 7 Plugin Bundle | iZotope


RX Post Production Suite 7 includes RX 9 Advanced, Dialogue Match, Neutron 4 Advanced, Nectar 3, Stratus 3D, Symphony 3D, Insight 2, RX Loudness Control, Relay, and Melodyne 5 essential.




www.izotope.com


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## topaz (Jun 15, 2021)

Markrs said:


> Sweet water have a very good deal on RX8 standard for $99 or on Knobcloud someone is selling RX Post Production Suite 5 (which comes with RX8 Advanced) for $289 which looks a solid price for what you get.
> 
> https://www.knobcloud.com/i/12511/izotope-rx-post-production-suite-5
> 
> ...


I fear the latter is wayyyy to be good to be true.


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## Markrs (Jun 15, 2021)

topaz said:


> I fear the latter is wayyyy to be good to be true.


could be but you do get protection via paypal, I have never needed to use that feature so others might be able to speak on it's effectiveness. It is a stellar price, If I didn't have nearly everything from Izotope I would have been tempted, but RX7 standard will be good enough for my needs


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## Markrs (Jun 15, 2021)

topaz said:


> I fear the latter is wayyyy to be good to be true.


The seller has 18 positive feedback https://www.knobcloud.com/user-profile.php?username=Giorgio89

also seller on KVR has it for the same price and could be the same person.









KVR Forum: FS: Plugin Alliance SALE and iZotope Music Production Suite 5 - Sell & Buy (+Special Offers, Deals & Promos) Forum


KVR Audio Forum - FS: Plugin Alliance SALE and iZotope Music Production Suite 5 - Sell & Buy (+Special Offers, Deals & Promos) Forum




www.kvraudio.com


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## topaz (Jun 15, 2021)

Yep, and 2 of them are production suite.

paranoid Android


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## Markrs (Jun 15, 2021)

topaz said:


> Yep, and 2 of them are production suite.
> 
> paranoid Android


good point. Nothing wrong with being cautious when you are talking about these types of money!


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## topaz (Jun 15, 2021)

if it looks to good to be true.......


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