Old 10-20-2020, 09:24 AM   #1
Birches
Human being with feelings
 
Birches's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2020
Posts: 12
Default Using Izotope RX8 with REAPER

Hi. Any Izotope RX8 experts out there?



I've been using REAPER for some months to record and edit voiceover work, but I just purchased Izotope RX8 to clean up mouth clicks, plosives, hums, etc. I am having trouble finding basic info on how best to interface the two products.



I have RX8 registered in REAPER as an external editor. I can right-click on an "item" of a track to choose "Open Items In Editor". Then I choose RX8 as the editor.


This opens RX8 with the item. After I run one or more clean-up utilities, I want to save the cleaned up item back into REAPER. I go to the RX8 File menu, but it is not clear which option to use:
- Save As...
- Save RX Document
- Save RX Document As...
- Overwrite Original File
- Export...
- Export Selection...
- Export Regions to Files...


Anyone know which to use that will let me go back to REAPER to see the cleaned up recording in my track?



Also confusing is how to make changes with RX8 without losing the ability to roll back (recover) to the track or item as it was before making changes with RX8. First of all, I should say that, rather than sending just one item in a track to RX8, what I have been doing to clean up an entire track is highlight all the items in the track, right click, and choose "Glue Items". That creates a single item using a filename based on the date and time and the word "glued". Then, I right-click the track and choose "Duplicate Track". My intention is to create a new .wav file in the folder where I store the media so I can mess with it in RX8 but not impact the original track. But the filename above each track in REAPER is the same. So I am pretty sure if I send one glued track to RX8 and make changes, those changes will impact both the original track and the duplicate track back in REAPER. So, rather than use "Duplicate Track", I tried creating a new track, then copying and pasting the contents of the original track into the track I want to send to RX8. But that seems to have the exact same impact as using "Duplicate Track".


I hope I was able to clearly explain my problems. Anyone able to help?


Thanks!
Birches is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-20-2020, 10:23 AM   #2
clepsydrae
Human being with feelings
 
clepsydrae's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Posts: 3,409
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Birches View Post
This opens RX8 with the item. After I run one or more clean-up utilities, I want to save the cleaned up item back into REAPER. I go to the RX8 File menu, but it is not clear which option to use:
- Save As...
- Save RX Document
- Save RX Document As...
- Overwrite Original File
- Export...
- Export Selection...
- Export Regions to Files...
"Overwrite original file" is the one that will, well, overwrite the original file, and then reaper will notice the changes when you go back to it. You may need to enable Reaper -> Preferences -> Media -> "Set media items offline when application is not active" or RX won't be able to write to the file.

Personally, I more often use "open item copies in primary external editor" -- this does a glue as a new item take, and then opens that copy in RX. Then you can overwrite it without concern of touching the original file.

The RX Document save options allow some degree of rolling back changes AFAIK, but to be honest I never use them, as they won't usefully integrate with reaper anyway.

(Also remember that you have click/plosive/hum plugin forms as well if you want to do it as a plugin directly in reaper.)

Quote:
First of all, I should say that, rather than sending just one item in a track to RX8, what I have been doing to clean up an entire track is highlight all the items in the track, right click, and choose "Glue Items". That creates a single item using a filename based on the date and time and the word "glued". Then, I right-click the track and choose "Duplicate Track". My intention is to create a new .wav file in the folder where I store the media so I can mess with it in RX8 but not impact the original track. But the filename above each track in REAPER is the same. So I am pretty sure if I send one glued track to RX8 and make changes, those changes will impact both the original track and the duplicate track back in REAPER. So, rather than use "Duplicate Track", I tried creating a new track, then copying and pasting the contents of the original track into the track I want to send to RX8. But that seems to have the exact same impact as using "Duplicate Track".
Yeah, there are a few ways to go about it. If you are always wanting to RX on a collection of items as a single file, but leave the original items around, you could make a custom action:

Custom: glue and RX
Track: Duplicate tracks
Item: Select all items in track
Item: Glue items
Item: Open item copies in primary external editor

...then you end up with a new track with two takes on it: the original glued track and a copy of that glued track that RX can work on. This is disk-intensive, as you now have three file copies laying around: the original items, the glued version, and the copy of the glued version (which will be overwritten by RX when you "overwrite original file".) This also selects all the items on the track, whereas you may want a subset. But you get the idea. E.g. you could elect not to open a "copy" in the external editor but just the glued file itself, since you would still have the original individual items around as backup.
clepsydrae is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-20-2020, 12:19 PM   #3
Birches
Human being with feelings
 
Birches's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2020
Posts: 12
Default

Thank you very much, clepsydrae. That is very helpful!


I had not noticed the option to open a copy in the primary external editor.


It doesn't behave for me quite as you said, though. (I realize there are so many preferences in REAPER that no two setups are the same.) I am trying not to glue all the items before calling on RX8. When I select multiple items on a track, then right-click on one of the highlighted items, and choose "open item copies in primary external editor", only the item I specifically right-clicked on shows up in RX8.


As for...


..."(Also remember that you have click/plosive/hum plugin forms as well if you want to do it as a plugin directly in reaper.)" ...



... I did not know that was possible. And I can't find any documentation on how to do it. I could probably take care of 90% of my editing with just click, plosive and hum plugins. Are you saying that there is a VST version of, say, de-click, and that I can import that into REAPER as a plugin somehow without using RX8 as an external editor?


Lastly, I have never created a custom action macro like the one you discussed. I just looked at the REAPER documentation on how to do that. It could be a timesaver, since I'll probably do the same thing on virtually every voiceover project I ever do.


Again, thanks for your quick, detailed and generous reply to my questions.
Birches is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-20-2020, 04:25 PM   #4
clepsydrae
Human being with feelings
 
clepsydrae's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Posts: 3,409
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Birches View Post
It doesn't behave for me quite as you said, though. (I realize there are so many preferences in REAPER that no two setups are the same.) I am trying not to glue all the items before calling on RX8. When I select multiple items on a track, then right-click on one of the highlighted items, and choose "open item copies in primary external editor", only the item I specifically right-clicked on shows up in RX8.
Oh, so the goal is to open all the items as individual files in RX? Yeah, not sure about it... when I test opening multiple items with a dummy editor (e.g. just a media player) it works, but RX maybe can't handle it... e.g. maybe RX only allow one file to be opened at once or something. (I'm not in front of RX this second.)

But you can assign "open item copy in external editor" to a hotkey so it's super quick. Or even quicker, you could go to Reaper -> Prefs -> Editing Behavior -> Mouse Modifiers -> Context: Arrange view -> middle click, then under the "Shift" modifier set the behavior to "Action list..." and choose the "open item copy in external editor" or whatever custom action you have made. Then you could shift-middle-click an item and it will open in RX. Just an idea. (And of course you could choose whatever other combination of keys/clicks made sense.)

I like to have both the "open item" and "open item copy" shortcuts to hand, because sometimes you just want the original audio and then the "working copy" audio, and if you want to go back in to the working copy and edit some more in RX without making additional takes, you can use the "open item" version.

Quote:
Are you saying that there is a VST version of, say, de-click, and that I can import that into REAPER as a plugin somehow without using RX8 as an external editor?
Yeah, when you install RX it will by default install the plugins. Maybe you accidentally disabled that? They have AAC, VST2, and VST3 versions. Only some of the RX features are in plugin form, but a bunch are. AFAIK they have plugin versions for each edition (elements/standard/advanced).

Quote:
Again, thanks for your quick, detailed and generous reply to my questions.
You bet!
clepsydrae is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 02:10 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.