iZotope RX6

[Ian Watson]

Hi
Quick question to you lovely people out there...
Is anyone using RX6 with Pyramix?
I've been using RX4 now for a number of years, and I know it's very clunky using RX Connect with the FX Rack, but it does sort of work and RX has some really useful features... Has anyone upgraded to RX6? It's not officially supported, but does it still work with Pyramix? It's got some nice-looking new things and I would love to upgrade, but am nervous about losing what I already have!
BTW, if anyone from Merging ever reads these things, please can you work with iZotope to make it all work properly with RX?!? RX's integration with Pro Tools is really good and quick, and being able to send 16 tracks to and from RX is great. Makes Pyramix seem really out of date! Please...?
Thanks
Ian

[fl]

RX6 works great with Pyramix. The main improvement with RX6 is its ability to "stack" a number of mono tracks, and apply the same processing - great for working with multi-track recordings, whereas with RX4 you are limited to working with a maximum of 2 tracks. RX Connect works the same as it always has.

[Ricardo Ryan]

Hi Ian & Frank,

We recently discovered issues when using RX4 in the FX Rack and FX Rendering with potential gaps in the processing and large offsets. Once moving to RX6 the stability was enhanced. So we'd rather recommend RX6 to RX4.

Best Regards,
Ricardo

Merging Technologies

[fl]

Well, it appears I spoke too soon. Attempting to Render either a mono track or a stereo pair through the Effects Rack loaded with RX Connect, crashed Pyramix.

There's a workaround - do a simple Render to a WAV, save the project and quit Pyramix, and then open all the files in RX6 in its standalone form. Not quite as elegant, for sure, but it does what's needed, and as mentioned before, RX6 can process multiple sound files simultaneously, so you can process all tracks of a multi-track recording in one operation. For the trip back, deleting the processed files' .pk2 files prior to booting Pyramix will result in a forced re-draw of the waveforms to reflect their new (and hopefully improved) states.

[StephenMarsh]

The list of things I'd personally be willing to do in order to get better RX integration with Pyramix is growing by the day...and in diametric opposition to my self respect.

[Ian Watson]

Thanks so much for your input; much appreciated!
Wouldn't it be great if iZotope and Merging could work together on this though...
Ian

[Pencilgeek]

Thanks so much for your input; much appreciated!
Wouldn't it be great if iZotope and Merging could work together on this though...
Ian

I've been a beta tester for RX since RX-1. I'll see if the RFE section of their beta forum is still open and make such a request.

[RickTarrant]

I seem to recall someone at Merging telling me in an email a couple of years ago how closely they were planning to integrate RX into the Pyramix workflow.

More recently I contacted iZotope about a matter and they informed me that Pyramix was not one of their APPROVED platforms.

I use RX6 with PMX 10.2 daily and for the most part things work well rendering via RXConnect. I have noticed that if RX is not launched and running before I re ender, my attempt at sending audio to RX will result in a blank RX screen. Subsequent attempts work as expected.

Rick

[Ricardo Ryan]

Hi,

Wouldn't it be great if iZotope and Merging could work together on this though...

Lets say that we've been talking and very recently, lets see what comes up.

Best Regards,
Ricardo

Merging Technologies

[Stephen Rinker]

Does only know of a way to maintain the original time reference when importing or exporting to RX6 or ,7,

Thanks

[fl]

There is an explanation of how to do this in the Izotope Knowledge Base found here: https://www.izotope.com/en/support/know ... ramix.html. Note that this was written at a time when RX could only handle two track material - the newest version (RX7) can handle multi-track material up to eight tracks, but I believe that the Render/FX Rack/RX Connect Plug-in stuff is still correct.

I haven't done this in a while, and there may still be a propensity for Pyramix to crash when this is attempted, but I've found that repeated attempts usually find success after you've recovered from the initial crash. If you get no joy from the RX Connect method, you can always make a selection (remembering RX's multi-track limitations), Render it as a WAV file, save your Pyramix Project and then quit. Open the Rendered file (or files) in RX directly. When you're done, save the file without changing its name in any way - essentially you're tricking Pyramix into thinking that it's still the same file. Save the file, and before re-opening Pyramix, go to the media folder where the clip is located and delete the .pk2 file with the same file name. This will force Pyramix to re-draw the waveform display when Pyramix and your project are re-opened. Essentially, the RX Connect method just automates this process, more or less.

[Stephen Rinker]

Thanks Frank

Forgive my hurried, bad English. I'm pretty new to Izotope and purchased the new RX7 to remove some ventilation hum from a concert and I am seriously impressed. For coughs, mobile phones, etc I've always used Cedar Retouch which of course is directly available from the Render window. I have not had good experiences using RX connect though, crashes more times than it works but I will give your suggestion a go.

Thanks a lot

Stephen

[fl]

I had some time to test things out in Pyramix 11.1.5 today, with the RX6 Connect plug-in in the Effects Rack.

My problems were due to my having an older instance of the RX Connect plug-in loaded to the Effects Rack. I think the best option is to simply re-load it before doing anything else, just to make sure.

When I did get things working properly, I almost got through the process but was momentarily stopped when the message "Press %1 to commit changes" appeared in the RX Connect's window after I had "Sent Back" the material from RX. After some experimentation, I determined that the "%1" is a placeholder and should have indicated the "Process" button in the Effects Rack window. I guess the programmers at Merging have a small text-display bug to squash...

Here's the successful method I found:
1. Select a portion of audio on the Pyramix Timeline. Select a little extra at the beginning and the end of what you want, so that you have enough material to do nice cross-fades in and out of the RXified material, when you've successfully completed the processing and sent it back. For RX6 and below, select only one or two tracks, maximum. For RX7, you can choose up to 8, although I have not tested this personally.
2. Call the Render Window where you determine the file type (WAV or BWF), a file name and a file writing location folder. Then click on "Render".
3. In the Effects Rack window which opens, load, or re-load the RX Connect plug-in to the first slot, just to make sure. Then click "Show" beside the plug-in's name to reveal the RX Connect window where you determine whether the material is to be used as a reference (one way trip) or for processing (two way trip - the more commonly used option).
4. Back in the Effects Rack window, Click on "Process" (near the bottom, third from the left).
5. The material will call RX and open the file where you can do the processing you wish, and when finished click on the blue "Send Back" Tab at the top of the RX window. Your file will remain open in RX, should you wish to save it as an audio file or as an RXDOC file.
6. Go back to Pyramix, and once again open the Render window where everything should be the same as when you were last there, click on "Render" which again opens the Effects Rack where a click on "Show" displays the RX Connect window with the weird message with "%1" displayed where it should say "Process".
7. Click on "Process" back in the Effects Rack window to have your RX processed material replace the selected region of audio in a new Clip. You may need to finesse the joins at the beginning and end of this clip, in Pyramix's Fade Editor.

What could be simpler and easier? Yeah, right...
Be prepared for this process not to work the first time, but if you try enough times, it will eventually start to function properly, uh, I hope.


Added Oct. 12: The RX Connect plug-in does not play nicely with the new FX Effects TAB, introduced in Pyramix 11. Among other things, your audio will not be in sync once it completes the trip to RX and back, whereas using the older Render/Effects Rack method keeps everything in its proper place. Also, the "%1" issue described above only happens with newer versions of RX - version 6.10 build 2340 and RX 7 - earlier versions of RX will display the proper "Process" text.