ANOTHER Movie Edited on FCP X!

[Chris Harlan]

Go Lance! (and his clones!)

[Craig Alan]

Hi Lance,

Great article!

“Using Izotope RX4 directly inside FCPX I dug into the dialog and cleaned every shot the first week.”

I’ve had my eye on Isotope RX4 to do some cleaning up of audio on a short-form series I’m working on.

I wrote Isotope support about using it within FCP X (as plug in?)

Here was their response:

“Yes! You may insert some RX modules as realtime plugins in FCPX. However, expect to have much latency and CPU spikes with Final Cut.”

I’m using El Capitan latest update. FCP X latest update.
iMac i7 2015.
AMD Radeon R9 M395X
32 GB 1867 MHz DDR3

So how exactly are you using Izotope RX4 directly inside FCPX?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Ronny Courtens]

Craig,

I use Izotope RX5 Advanced on a regular basis inside FCP X. If your audio has been recorded in a fairly decent way and you just need to do some cleaning up (denoise, dialogue denoise, de-reverb etc…) you will have no latecy or CPU spikes whatsoever when you apply one of the Izotope modules from the FCP X effects browser on your audio clip in the timeline.

Actually, this works pretty well and even with more problematic audio you will often get an instant good-sounding result that you only need to tweak a little bit to get exactly what you want. You can open the interface for each Izotope module in the FCP X inspector to see all the settings you can tweak.

If your audio has big problems, you will need to use the more advanced processing options in the Izotope UI to try fixing the mess. Playing back the advanced option in realtime is very heavy on your system resources, which may cause playback latency when you apply the Izotope plugin directly to the clip in the timeline. In such cases it’s best to export the audio clip first and then open the file in the standalone Izotope application. When the audio has been cleaned up, you just need to export it again and replace the original clip on the timeline with the cleaned-up one.

– Ronny

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Ronny. My primary need is to filter out a consistent background noise – air through vent noise – that occurs on some days in the studio. Though all the thermostats are turned off for the shoot, air will still blow through the ducts. Some days. The voices are recorded clearly at good levels. When using the background noise removal in FCP X, I find it distorts the quality voices before I’m happy with the degree of removal. I’ve been told by audio tech’s that they are really happy with Isotope RX, thus the mention of it in this article about using FC really caught my attention. And if it can be used in FC rather than round tripping would make it even sweeter.

My only concern using third party apps is wondering if they will remain updated as Apple updates the OS and FC.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Ronny Courtens]

Although it took hem a few weeks to update some of their plugins for compatibility with El Capitan, Izotope has a pretty decent history of keeping up with the platforms and applications they support. I think it’in the interest of any third-party manufacturer to do so if they want to keep selling their products.

– Ronny

[Craig Alan]

Thanks again. i’m in.

That said third party software is often left behind. i like Black Magic products, but their drivers are often out of date. it seems. where as really old printers from Brother and HP still work fine with a 2015 Mac. I will most likely never buy an epson printer again. When I moved to OS X, I had an expensive inkjet photo printer from them that did not get a driver update until it was too late for me. Moved to a Canon.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Darren Roark]

[Craig Alan] “That said third party software is often left behind. i like Black Magic products, but their drivers are often out of date. i”

Agreed that their updates aren’t timely enough, one NLE works great, the other two don’t and so on.

I will say that it’s better than it was ten years ago where you had to freeze your system for six months or even indefinitely because a product was EOL’d without any notice. (I’m looking at you Matrox!)

[Tony West]

I would second Ronny on RX, Craig. The RX “Dialogue Denoiser” inside X is pretty much all I used. It does an amazing job at not effecting the person’s voice.

If I had something complex to fix I went into the app itself, as I contacted them and was told pretty much what they told you.

I didn’t have any problems throughout the edit and I worked on my film for 5 years through different versions of X and RX, and my Mac pro is a lot older then the one Lance used.

One of the options I am most impressed with in RX is the “Declipper” that you can also use inside X

It used to be that if you overdrove something you were pretty much done. Not anymore.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks, that is exactly what I hope to be able to use. Don’t mind round tripping if something is truly a mess. But in this series, at least, that will be rare. I do get asked if I can fix things on other projects.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.