Topic: iZotope RX dark magicks

[nulldogmas]

Long story short: Four years ago I went to a Superchunk show, and I ended up too close to the stage so the vocals were really low in my recording, plus later it turned out that my mic cable was going bad (CA-14s, what a surprise), leading to a loud recurrent crackle in one channel. Also my then-15-year-old son made a bunch of comments during songs that my mics picked up loud and clear. I gave the resulting recording one listen, then set it aside as a total loss.

Almost four years later, I got a copy of iZotope RX, and wondered if its de-click and music rebalance filters could do anything to improve things. Reader, they did, and more than I could ever have expected.

Here's the start of one song pre- and post-RX filter application. The vocals (raised by 6 dB via music rebalance) are notably clearer, and the crackle is just straight-up gone:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6pskyw29oq9ghni/what-a-time-pre-RX.flac?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g4g0yh34zg6jcci/what-a-time-post-RX.flac?dl=0

And here's a before-and-after of a section of another song, where not only the crackle by also my son's comment about security (there was a lot of, let's just say, inexperienced moshing going on) disappeared seamlessly:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/06lyepyy7e6d7bx/cloud-of-hate-pre-RX.flac?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9d3yjux4r8zx76o/cloud-of-hate-post-RX.flac?dl=0

Anyway, just wanted to echo the opinion of others here that iZotope RX is wizardry, and worth whatever you have to pay for it, though if you're patient there are enough deals that you can get away with a lot less than list price. And now, I must quit my job so I can spend all my time remastering every show I ever recorded.

Full show, for anyone interested, is on DIME but also here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bnnygi2i4ubh5hd/AABToBV3aHXCO1Px_bJqSMxQa?dl=0