Here's another blog post targeted at a very select subset of my readers.
Do you make a lot of audio edits… particularly of vocal narration as in podcasts and webinar recordings? Would it be worth several hundred dollars to you to clean up audio quality on problematic recordings more quickly and easily? Then read on.
I often deal with horrendous source recordings coming from remote presenters. They'll be in noisy environments or in conference rooms that act as echo chambers or using speaker phones and laptop microphones that create a "tin can" effect. I can go crazy trying to clean up the vocals to make them more prominent, clear, and intelligible.
A while ago I saw a product announcement from Izotope. They have a digital audio editor called RX 7. It comes in three levels of capability. The highest, most expensive level is called RX 7 Advanced. This software is really designed for professional audio engineers who handle music and vocal tracks. But they recently added a set of special AI-driven effects designed for cleaning up vocals.
Those effects are nothing short of magical. I can do things now with a click or two that used to take me endless fiddling and experimentation. And the results are better than anything I can come up with on my own.
Click here to listen to a short YouTube I made showing a bad source recording and my one-click edits in RX 7. The recording was made in a reverb-heavy room and has some kind of noise floor under the vocals (maybe from air conditioning or line noise). The second speaker has an especially awful reverb.
I ran the clip through three RX 7 effects in sequence. In each case, I left settings at default and let the software figure out what to do. I think the outcome is astonishing. The reverb is gone, voices are clear, and their individual vocal characteristics are retained.
The fly in the ointment is the price of the software. It's not targeted at the consumer market. Take a big breath… It costs $1200 for a single license. Ouch. But this month you can bring your cost down to $430, which is still too much for the hobby market, but a more reasonable business expense for people who do this a lot.
Step 1: Go to B&H Photo Video or Plugin Boutique and buy the cheapest version of RX 7, called RX Elements. They are running specials for it as a loss-leader. It will set you back $29.
Step 2: Install it on your computer and then check for upgrades in your Izotope account. During the month of April, they are running a special deal to upgrade from any version of RX 7 to Advanced for $400. Voila… You end up with the big bad version for $770 off the retail price! The deal is only valid this month. Considering the advertised April deal for buying RX 7 Advanced as a new product is $700, I just saved you an extra $270. You're welcome.
