Edit your audio on a budget with RipX
A while a go I was reached by the team behind the audio manipulation software suite RipX, to see if I was interested in doing a review of their tools. When they explained to me what the software is capable of I couldn’t resist and said “heck yeah”. RipX consists of 2 modules DeepRemix and DeepAudio. Together they represent an extensive competition to iZotope RX and Celemony Melodyne Studio but for a fraction of the combined price. Read along to learn about my first impressions as I test some of the more enticing features of RipX!
My tests
RipX integrates with all the major DAWs thanks to a plethora of different plugin types. It also comes with a standalone version for when you don’t feel you need to launch your DAW. When I launched it for the first time I was a bit intimidated by the user interface. Although it visually cues at the extensive list of tools, accessing them is not an intuitive journey and reaching the manual is sometimes the only way forward. This is mostly not a dealbreaker although I do prefer when software is designed in a human/intuitive way.
Importing a file
Depending on the audio file length and complexity the importing times ranged between 2 and 5 minutes. Although it is certainly not a blazingly fast analysis knowing it in advance one can open the project while completing other tasks elsewhere and come back to it once it is done.
Move a note or change the pitch
I experimented with a variety of different pieces with different orchestrations. I found most subtle changes work really well. Especially when acting on the main melody lines or lower bass parts. More extreme edits easily generate artefacts.
Extract or mute an instrument
It’s a bit of a hit-and-miss situation depending on what instruments are present RipX either works amazingly well in extracting or muting an element or it doesn’t. I will say however that when it does work one might think magic exists!
Change a mix balance
This is where RipX really shines in my opinion. The algorithm’s precision in isolating the various elements of a mix means small adjustments work really well. I often forgot I was working on a printed audio file as I was changing the mix of a few pieces.
Extract MIDI from audio
Proportionally to how good of a job RipX does with a specific piece, the MIDI extracted from it will be more or less accurate. As a tool to extract a starting point MIDI file from audio RipX is excellent.
Clean and repair audio
This is where my experience with RipX has been more frustrating. Being a fervid iZotope RX user I can’t help but notice how large the gap is between the two. A convoluted user interface coupled with less-than-stellar results make me think I’ll stick with RX for my audio repair duties for the time being.
My verdict
Although not perfect RipX is a very powerful piece of software. A film composer will certainly be often in a situation where RipX editing or remixing features can save the day. There is definitely room for improvement but considering the price point I would recommend RipX to those for whom purchasing RX and Melodyne is not a sustainable solution.
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