First, a bit of the backstory as we know it. iZotope is widely recognized as one of the go-to brands that’s critical to the audio community. Users have been nervous for the past few months, because the former parent company Native Instruments GmbH filed for preliminary insolvency in Germany at the start of the year.

Native Instruments was saved from bankruptcy thanks to its acquisition by inMusic Brands, whose portfolio includes Akai Professional, Moog Music, and other music technology companies. For iZotope users in particular, any uncertainties have now been resolved through the company’s acquisition by Boris FX – a leading post-production software developer.

Boris FX was launched in 1995 and for much of its existence has focused on visual effects software, specifically in the form of plugins, such as its Continuum line. Along the way, it’s acquired and integrated several other effects developers, including GenArts, SynthEyes, and others. They’ve even delved into editing applications, acquiring Media 100 in 2005 and more recently Vegas Pro (acquired from MAGIX). The launch of Optics added photography effects to their specialities.

Starting three years ago with the acquisition of CrumplePop, Boris FX has moved squarely into the audio space. Since then, Boris FX has been building an audio portfolio that includes Sequoia (a mastering DAW), SoundForge and Acid Pro (from the Vegas Pro acquisition), and other audio applications. The addition of iZotope to the audio group is complementary to the rest of this audio line-up. I expect good synergy, since both are Massachusetts-based companies.

What iZotope brings to the table

The iZotope brand is based upon four core products: Neutron, Nectar, Ozone, and RX. In addition, there’s a range of individual speciality plugins. Neutron, Nectar, and Ozone are principally focused on music production, recording, mixing, and mastering. While RX has many tools designed for music, it’s typically used for audio post – specifically by video editors and dialogue editors/sound designers. Like Boris FX’s visual effects products, the iZotope RX tools have been used on countless feature films and television series worldwide.

Let’s zero in on the new Ozone 12 and RX 12 and how they apply to video editors. RX 12 is considered audio restoration and repair software. It comes in the form of a standalone RX application that acts as the host for a range of processing modules. These are designed for audio clean-up, editing, and polish. Ozone 12 consists of ‘virtual rack’ that hosts individual Ozone audio plugins and is not a separate application. You can insert Ozone onto a track or bus in a DAW or NLE and then add, re-arrange, and adjust any combination of iZotope Ozone plugins/modules within the Ozone ‘rack’. In short, Ozone functions like a console channel strip, but with multiple, customizable effects.

Both RX and Ozone come in three versions: Elements, Standard, and Advanced. There are key differences to these packages. Elements offers the fewest plugins/modules; Advanced has the maximum number; and Standard is in-between. The Advanced versions of Ozone and RX also install the individual components as separate plugins (AU, AAX, VST3). Many RX functions are processor-intensive and require rendering. Therefore, only the real-time RX modules are installed as separate plugin effects.

RX 12 Advanced comes with over 50 restoration tools in the suite. Ozone 12 Advanced includes 20 modules that load into the Ozone host or as individual plugins, along with a Stem Focus workflow. The plugin collection includes a healthy set of modern and vintage-style EQs, compressors, and tape emulations. Many of iZotope’s modules have been updated from previous versions to use Machine Learning technology for improved results. If you are an audio professional working in Pro Tools, Cubase, Logic Pro, or another audio application, then adding Ozone and/or RX to your bag of effects is a no-brainer. But if you are a video editor, what do these tools do for you? Here are a few use cases.

Ozone 12

Editors often deal with library music cues and on-camera or voice-over dialogue. The Ozone modules are useful in tailoring each to best fit together, tame the music, or enhance/clean the dialogue. There’s also a workflow advantage. You edit in Premiere, for example. You can insert its stock plugins onto a track, but can only open one at a time. However, if you insert Ozone and then add several of its integrated modules, they all appear within the Ozone ‘rack’ as tabs. Click from one to the next to easily adjust the settings in real-time.

The mix for a video project also needs a certain level of ‘mastering’ – just like in the music world. If that’s all you want it for, then Ozone 12 Standard or maybe even Ozone 12 Elements would suffice. Insert Ozone 12 onto your Premiere mix bus. You can either use Ozone’s Master Assistant, one of the various presets, or add modules from scratch. Adjust the settings and finalize the mix to a target loudness level, such as -23 LUFs for broadcast distribution.

You can use the Master Assistant as a starting point. Once it’s ‘learned’ your track and assigned modules, customize the settings for each, especially the loudness level of the Maximizer module. All of the component modules are designed with visual displays that show the audio waveform and how that module is impacting the signal.

Ozone 12 added a number of new features that are useful to music mixers and video editors alike. Let’s say you get location audio, a VO, or a music track that’s overly compressed or even just slammed to the point of distortion. Dial that back with the new Unlimiter module to bring back transients and revive the track. There’s a new Bass Control module to add punch or balance out the low end of your track. Finally, there’s Stem EQ. Ozone divides the signal into vocals, bass, drums, and other instruments. While this is most useful for music mastering engineers, video editors can also use it to separately adjust the EQ on just dialogue. That might be needed when you only receive a mixed track and not individual audio files.

RX 12

RX is the tool to use to repair audio. Its Spectrogram display has been a hallmark of the application. Unwanted sounds, like squeaks, barks, etc can be ‘painted’ over to highlight the offending areas and RX handles the repair to eliminate the distraction. In addition, there are plenty of processing modules to tackle hiss, reverb, hum, clicks, breath control, mouth noises, guitar noises, clipping, and more.

Much of iZotope’s latest development effort with RX 12 has gone into the Stems view, which allows you to split a mixed track into several component parts. Once split, you can separately process each stem, eliminate one or more stems, or rebalance the relative levels of those stems. You can split the mixed track into stems through Scene Rebalance, Music Rebalance, or Dialogue Isolate. The specific process you pick depends on whether this is a musical production or a mixed track for a video project.

Stem-splitting isn’t new technology, but it has certainly improved in recent years, thanks to Machine Learning. Comparisons versus RX 11 on a recent Boris FX livestream demonstrated a marked improvement in quality using RX 12.

iZotope engineers have done a good job to avoid AI hallucinations, which is more critical than you might think. That’s because RX is a favored tool for those working in the field of audio forensics.

This can be useful when you need to revisit an old video production. The client needs to revise a commercial that you edited several years ago. They want to change the VO or the music track, but all you have is the final, mixed commercial. No separate tracks to work with. I tested this scenario and RX easily split my mixed commercial into three stems: dialogue, music, and effects (nat sound in this case). When I soloed each stem, the isolation was mostly perfect. Music and effects held no hint of the dialogue. The dialogue stem sounded natural without hearing the other two. I could have easily put in new music or a new dialogue track and remixed it with acceptable results.

Final thoughts

It’s very early in this acquisition. There will be an ongoing process of integration within the Boris FX family. For now, nothing changes for existing iZotope software owners or how new owners purchase and license their software. The iZotope website is getting updated to reflect this corporate change.

Now that iZotope is part of a larger audio group that includes such high-end products as Sequoia, I would imagine in the future you’ll see some cross-pollination between these products. I’d love to see more real-time functions in RX and maybe a refreshed user interface as part of new development efforts.

Regardless of whether you are a video editor or an audio engineer, it’s hard to go wrong with any of the iZotope products. Both RX 12 and Ozone 12 contain an extensive set of effects. If you were to purchase these as individual plugins from other developers, you’d spend far more. iZotope has been an industry leader for a reason. The tools are high-quality and effective. For Boris FX, these ongoing acquisitions have turned a small plugin developer into a comprehensive powerhouse for post-production software.