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RX 11 Manual

RX Spectral Editor

Overview

The Spectral Editor plug-in combines ARA 2.0 technology with the award-winning DSP and selection-based editing workflows of the RX Audio Editor. It allows you to identify and reduce undesirable sounds in your tracks without leaving your DAW.

Getting Started with Spectral Editor (ARA)

Logic Pro 

Spectral Editor is currently only available in Logic Pro as an ARA 2.0 plug-in (Rosetta only). You can add RX Spectral Editor (ARA) to your project using the following steps:

  1. Make sure you are using the latest version of Logic Pro. The RX Spectral Editor ARA plug-in is supported in Logic Pro 10.7+ or higher. We recommend that you update Logic Pro to the latest available version to ensure the best experience using RX Spectral Editor (ARA).

  2. Add RX Spectral Editor (ARA) as the first insert on an Audio track.

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  3. Select a clip in Logic and start playback. The selected audio will appear in the spectrogram view of the Spectral Editor (ARA) plug-in after starting playback.

  4. Make a selection in the spectrogram view of RX Spectral Editor.

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  5. Process your selection using one of the following modes described below.

  6. To work on another clip in your session, select it and start playback. Once playback has started, you will see your new clip load in the spectrogram. Trimmed clips appear the same way in the spectrogram as they do in Logic.

Pro Tools 

You can add RX Spectral Editor (ARA) to your Pro Tools project using the following steps:

  1. Make sure you are using the latest version of Pro Tools. The RX Spectral Editor ARA plug-in is supported in Pro Tools 2024.6 or higher.

  2. Clip menu:

    1. Select a clip on the timeline

    2. Open the Clip menu at the top of Pro Tools

    3. Select RX Spectral Editor > Edit to open that clip in the Spectral Editor.

  3. You can add Spectral Editor to an entire track in one of two ways:

    1. The Elastic Audio/ARA plug-in selector drop down on the track itself

    2. Track menu 

      1. Select a track

      2. Go to Track Menu at the top of Pro Tools

      3. Select RX Spectral Editor > Edit. 

      4. Once added to a track, select a clip on the track to open it in Spectral Editor. 

All clips that exist on a track at the time Spectral Editor is added to it will be visible to the editor. If you add additional clips to the track or process pre-existing clips with AudioSuite, you will need to manually enable Spectral Editor on those new clips with the Clip menu method above.

Closing & Reopening the Editor 

You can close and reopen the Spectral Editor window by clicking on the insert that appears in the Elastic / ARA slot on a track. You can also access it via the RX Spectral Editor tab at the bottom of the Pro Tools Edit window.

Committing edits to a new file on disk 

When you’re finished making edits with Spectral Editor, if you prefer, you can commit your edits directly to a new audio file on disk. This is similar to an AudioSuite workflow. To accomplish this, right click on a clip you want to commit and select RX Spectral Editor > Render. From this same menu, you can also clear or bypass Spectral Editor ARA processing.

If you edit a clip with Spectral Editor ARA and then process that clip with an AudioSuite plugin, your edits will be committed to the new file.

Studio One 

The VST3 version of Spectral Editor ARA works directly on clips as an “Event FX” in Studio One. Event FX are applied to individual audio events rather than as inserts on entire tracks.

macOS Note

Although an AU version of Spectral Editor ARA will show up as available in Studio One, it is not supported. The UI will direct you to use the VST3 version.

You can add RX Spectral Editor (ARA) to an audio event in your Studio One session using one of the following methods:

  1. Make sure you are using the latest version of Studio One. The RX Spectral Editor ARA plug-in is supported in Studio One 6.0 or higher. Studio One 6.5 introduced additional improvements that make it easier to access ARA plugins.

  2. Event FX Context menu [Studio One 6.5 or higher]:

    1. Right click on an audio event

    2. In the context menu, select Event FX > RX 11 Spectral Editor

  3. Effects Browser:

    1. [Studio One 6.5 or higher], Spectral Editor will appear in the “Event Editors” category at the top of the Effects browser.

      • Click & drag RX 11 Spectral Editor onto an audio event

    2. In Studio One 6 versions before 6.5, Spectral Editor will appear under the regular VST3 location.

      1. While dragging Spectral Editor onto your event, if the status text doesn’t say “Add Event FX”, then hold OPT (Mac) or ALT (Win) and that message should appear.  

      2. The plugin will display a warning message if it has been incorrectly added as a normal channel effect.

  4. Inspector:

    1. Open the Inspector (the ‘i’ icon in the top left)

    2. Select an audio event

    3. Underneath the Mixer section of the inspector, there is a section with info about the currently selected event.

    4. Click the Event FX Enable button, which will open a toggle dropdown

    5. In the Inserts section that appears, use the + sign to add Spectral Editor directly to the clip as an Event FX.

Reopening the Editor 

To re-open the Spectral Editor window on a clip after you’ve closed the UI, either

  • Select the clip and double click the Spectral Editor Event FX insert at the bottom of the Inspector

  • [Studio One 6.5 or higher] Right click on the clip and select Event FX > RX 11 Spectral Editor from the context menu again.

Committing edits to a new file on disk 

When you’re finished making edits on a clip with Spectral Editor, if you prefer, you can commit your edits directly to a new audio file on disk. You do this with the Render command. With the Inspector open, (‘i’ icon in the top left), clicking on a clip will display info about that clip at the bottom. Click the orange Render button under the Event FX section at the bottom. You can also click Restore if you wish to bring the Editor back after Render.

A note about duplicated/copied audio 

In Studio One, all copies of the same source audio will inherit the same edits when Spectral Editor is applied to each copy. For example, if there are two copies of Clip A in your session and you add the Spectral Editor plugin to each, then any processing applied to copy 1 will be synchronized to copy 2, and vice versa. 

If you wish to decouple edits for multiple copies of the same source audio, right click on your clip and select Audio > Audio Parts > New Clip Version. You will see a small number appear in the bottom left of your clip. Clips with the same version number will share edits, as long as Spectral Editor ARA is applied on all the clips. In the session Pool, all clip versions will be grouped under the parent clip and can be swapped in/out from there.

Consult Studio One’s help documentation for more information about Clip Versions and working with Event FX.

Playback is required to reflect changes in spectrogram

ARA plug-ins are updated when playback is started. If you trim or otherwise change a clip that was already loaded in Spectral Editor, the spectrogram will not be updated until you’ve stopped and restarted playback with the clip selected.

Troubleshooting

If you find that RX Spectral Editor (ARA) is missing from the plug-in selection menu, try the following:

  1. Ensure you are adding the RX Spectral Editor (ARA) plug-in to the first insert slot of an Audio track.

  2. Clear the AudioUnit Cache and rescan plug-ins:

    • Logic 10.7 or higher: Go to the Logic Pro menu > Preferences… > Plug-in Manager… and select “Full Audio Unit Reset” at the bottom of the window to reset the cache and rescan plug-ins.

  3. See the ARA Requirements and Limitations section below for more information about working with Spectral Editor (ARA) in Logic Pro.

Controls

Once your clip is loaded in the spectrogram view of the Spectral Editor, you’ll have access to the following controls:

Processing Mode

Select Attenuate, Replace, Gain, De-click or De-hum and the relevant processing parameters will appear on the right side of the plugin.

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Selection Tools

Determines the selection tool type used when making audio selections in the spectrogram.

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See the Interactive Tools chapter for more information about selection tools and modifiers.

General Controls

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  • Undo: Reverts to the previous processing step.

    EDITING COPIES OF CLIPS

    The Undo function in Spectral Editor will apply to all non-unique copies of a clip. If you wish to edit different copies of the same clip independently using Spectral editor, please bounce them first.

    UNDO HISTORY WARNING

    Undo history is cleared when a session is saved.

  • Redo: Re-applies the next processing step in your history.

  • Reset: Reverts all changes in the audio to the unprocessed state.

  • Settings: Opens the plug-in General Settings menu.

  • Help: Opens the installed HTML help documentation in your default web browser.

USE THE TRACKPAD TO NAVIGATE THE SPECTROGRAM

Scroll with the trackpad vertically to zoom in and out, and horizontally to scroll forward/backward in time.

Processing Modes

Attenuate

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Attenuate removes sounds by comparing the content inside of your selection to the content outside of your selection. It modifies dissimilar audio in your selection to be more similar to the surrounding audio. Attenuate does not re-synthesize any audio.

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  • Strength: Adjusts the amount of attenuation.

  • Region: Defines how much of the surrounding content will be used for interpolation.

  • Weight: Gives more weight to the surrounding audio before or after the selection.

  • Direction: Determines where the material used in the repair process is located in relation to the current selection. Note: Replace mode always uses Horizontal interpolation when processing a selection.

  • Horizontal: Signal to the left and right of the current selection will be used for interpolation.

  • 2D: Signal above, below, to the left and to the right of the current selection will be used for interpolation.

  • Vertical: Signal above and below the current selection will be used for interpolation.

  • Process: Applies processing to the current selection.

  • Resize: Allows you to click and drag to change the size of the plug-in window.

Replace

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Replace resynthesizes badly damaged sections (such as gaps) in tonal audio. It completely replaces the selected content with audio interpolated from the surrounding data.

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  • Strength: This control is not active in Replace.

  • Region: Defines how much of the surrounding content will be used for interpolation.

  • Weight: Gives more weight to the surrounding audio before or after the selection.

  • Direction: This control is not active in Replace. The Replace mode always uses Horizontal interpolation when processing a selection.

PROCESSING SELECTIONS LONGER THAN 10 SECONDS Processing Selections Longer than 10 Seconds

Attenuate: Horizontal, Attenuate: 2D, and Replace mode do not support processing selections longer than 10 seconds. If your selection is longer than 10 seconds, the processing will automatically default to Attenuate: Vertical.

Gain

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Gain boosts or cuts the level of the signal by the designated decibel amount.

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De-click

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De-click analyzes audio for amplitude irregularities and smoothes them out. Use De-click to remove a variety of short impulse noises, such as clicks caused by digital errors, mouth noises, and interference from cell phones.

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  • SENSITIVITY: Determines how many clicks are detected in the signal.

  • ALGORITHM: Provides options for adjusting the configuration and processing quality of click interpolation, depending on the types of clicks and pops present in the audio.

    • SINGLE BAND: Processes quickly and works well on very narrow “digital” clicks

    • MULTI-BAND (PERIODIC CLICKS): Uses multi-band processing for removing regularly repeating clicks with a wider spectrum, or regular clicks that have concentrated low or high energy (like thumps or optical soundtrack perforation noise)

    • MULTI-BAND (RANDOM CLICKS): Uses multi-band processing for wider vinyl clicks and thumps, with a protective algorithm for preserving periodic audio elements characteristic to certain instruments such as brass or vocals

    • LOW LATENCY: Works well on mouth clicks and other clicks that cannot be handled by other algorithms. Low latency mode is suitable for real-time work.

De-hum

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De-hum is designed to remove persistent tonal noise, like AC noise, electrical buzz or interference introduced by EMF (Electro-magnetic fields). De-hum uses the Dynamic mode with Adaptive learning enabled.

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  • SENSITIVITY: Adjusts the amount of hum that will be removed.

  • BANDS: Controls the number of dynamic notch filters, which update their gains based on the input signal to avoid ringing. Adjust to higher values for complex hums, at the expense of transparency.

  • FILTER Q: Controls the bandwidth of the notch filters.

Working with Comp Takes in Logic Pro

Spectral Editor supports comp takes in Logic. 7.5+ (Rosetta only). To process comp takes, the individual takes that make up the comp must be selected and processed.

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The Logic comp region at the top will not appear in the spectrogram if selected. Choose the individual takes and toggle playback to work on comps in Spectral Editor.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The following keyboard shortcuts are available in Spectral Editor. CMD is for Mac, CTRL is for Windows:

  • Undo in Spectral Editor: CMD/CTRL+Z

  • Redo in Spectral Editor: Shift+CMD/CTRL+Z

  • Switch to Attenuate mode: CMD/CTRL+1

  • Switch to Replace mode: CMD/CTRL+2

  • Switch to Gain mode: CMD/CTRL+3

  • Switch to De-click mode: CMD/CTRL+4

  • Switch to De-hum mode: CMD/CTRL+5

  • Process: CMD/CTRL+Enter

  • Choose Time selection tool: 1

  • Choose Time-frequency selection tool: 2

  • Choose Frequency selection tool: 3

  • Choose Lasso selection tool: 4

  • Choose Brush selection tool: 5

  • Choose Magic wand selection tool: 6

ARA Requirements and Limitations

  • Spectral Editor (ARA) must be the first plug-in on a track.

  • Spectral Editor (ARA) cannot be added to a software instrument track or bus.

  • Spectral Editor (ARA) is not supported by Selection Based Processing.

  • Host presets are not supported by Spectral Editor (ARA).

  • Automation is not supported by Spectral Editor (ARA).

  • Playback must be started to gather audio data. After editing, playback must be stopped and started again to update data.

  • Spectral Editor (ARA) cannot process Apple Loops, compressed audio, flex audio, or reversed regions. These regions can be bounced in place in order to be processed by Spectral Editor (ARA).

  • Spectral Editor (ARA) will output silence for stereo files on mono tracks.

  • Spectral Editor (ARA) will output silence for regions whose sample rate does not match the sample rate of the session.