iZotope RX 12 is the audio repair suite for recordings with noise, clicks, hum, clipping, room echo or a voice buried under everything else. It comes in three editions: Elements at $99, Standard at $399 and Advanced at $1,399 on iZotope's US store on October 20, 2026. Standard is the edition most people should buy, because it is the first one with the RX Audio Editor; Elements is six plug-ins with no editor, and Advanced earns its extra $1,000 only when its post-production modules are part of your regular work.
My rule for RX is to start from the fault, not the edition. Find the problem in the fix table below, note the module that handles it and the edition that carries that module, then decide. If every fault you meet sits in the Standard column, the Advanced price buys nothing you will use. Before paying, run the trial inside the host you actually work in, because a plug-in that will not load there is not worth any price. Sound Forge stays the main editor on this site, so most repair rows also point to the Sound Forge guide for the same job; RX is the toolkit you add when Sound Forge's own tools run out.
Ownership changed this year. Boris FX announced its acquisition of iZotope on July 2, 2026 and said existing iZotope products, licenses and subscriptions stay active. The same company had already announced the purchase of Sound Forge, Vegas Pro and Acid Pro from MAGIX on March 30, 2026, so RX and Sound Forge now share an owner. The current build is 12.1.0, released on October 15, 2026, according to iZotope's RX release notes; it adds support for the Boris FX license activation method and changes the branding in the app and installer.
Start here
Four pages cover most first visits. If RX is new to you, read them in this order.
| Your question | Page | What it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Is RX 12 worth buying? | iZotope RX 12 review | The verdict per edition, why Stems view is the real gain, composite test results from published reviews, limits and upgrade advice |
| How do I make my first repair? | RX 12 tutorial for beginners | Reading the spectrogram, previewing and rendering a first noise repair, and saving without overwriting the original |
| Do I need RX if I own Sound Forge? | iZotope RX 12 vs Sound Forge | Spectral repair, noise cleanup, plug-ins, editions and pricing side by side, and when you need both |
| What is wrong with my recording? | Audio restoration: diagnose and repair | How to identify hum, clicks, clipping, reverb and codec damage, and a safe repair order before you pick any tool |
RX 12 editions and prices
The split that matters is whether you get the RX Audio Editor, the standalone app with the spectrogram, spectral editing tools, module chains and the batch processor. Elements does not have it; Standard and Advanced do, and in the editor the only feature reserved for Advanced is multichannel processing. The rest of the difference is modules. iZotope's RX 12 overview lists every module and plug-in by edition, and it is the page to check before you buy for one specific job.
| Edition | What you get | US price, Oct 20, 2026 | Subscription route | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elements | Six plug-ins: De-click, De-clip, De-hum, De-reverb, Repair Assistant and Voice De-noise; no RX Audio Editor | $99 | Included in iZotope Plus ($15 a month or $150 a year) | Podcasters and musicians who fix only noise, clicks, clipping, hum and reverb inside a DAW |
| Standard | RX Audio Editor with 33 modules and 19 plug-ins, including Dialogue Isolate, Music Rebalance, Spectral Repair, De-bleed, Breath Control, Stems view, RX Connect and RX Monitor | $399 | Included in iZotope Pro ($25 a month or $250 a year) | Most buyers: voice work, music, archive transfers and video audio |
| Advanced | 46 modules and 22 plug-ins: 13 Advanced-only modules, multichannel processing, and a high-quality offline mode plus multi-band processing in Dialogue Isolate | $1,399 | Not part of any iZotope subscription | Dialogue editors and post mixers who need De-rustle, De-wind, Scene Rebalance, Ambience Match or the tape tools |
The 13 Advanced-only modules are Ambience Match, Azimuth, Center Extract, De-rustle, De-wind, Deconstruct, Dialogue Contour, EQ Match, Leveler, Scene Rebalance, Spectral Recovery, Trim Silence and Wow & Flutter. The list price is rarely the whole story. Owners of any paid iZotope product can crossgrade to RX 12 Standard for $349, Elements owners pay $299 to move to Standard, and RX 11 Standard owners update to RX 12 Standard for $129. The RX 12 Advanced store page lists $269 for RX 11 Advanced owners and two step-up prices: $999 from RX 12 Standard, but $799 from RX 11 Standard, so an RX 11 Standard owner who wants Advanced should skip the Standard update. Education licenses are half price: $49.50, $199.50 and $699.50. If you need Advanced plus other post tools, RX Post Production Suite 9 costs $1,799 and includes RX 12 Advanced.
There are two different trials. The RX 12 product trial lasts 10 days with export disabled, which is enough to check that the modules load and handle your material. iZotope Plus and Pro start with a 7-day free trial, and Pro includes Standard. Subscriptions install through Native Access rather than Product Portal, which matters later if something stops working.
| Your question | Page | What it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Which edition do I need? | RX Elements vs Standard vs Advanced | What each edition adds, the Advanced-only modules in practice, upgrade math and the right pick by job |
| What will I pay, and what does the trial allow? | RX price, trial and license rules | Every RX upgrade route, what the 10-day trial allows and the license rules for computers and transfers |
| I own RX 11. Should I update? | RX 12 vs RX 11 | What changed per edition, update prices from $129, the cheaper route to Advanced and who should wait |
| I own other iZotope plug-ins | iZotope upgrade price guide | Every iZotope update, upgrade and crossgrade price, and when iZotope Pro or a sale costs less |
Fix by problem: which module and which edition
Find the fault, read the module and its edition, then open the guide. "All" means Elements, Standard and Advanced. Where Sound Forge has its own method, its guide is listed as well, because it may solve the job without buying anything.
| Problem | RX 12 module (edition) | Guides |
|---|---|---|
| Steady background noise: fans, air conditioning, preamp hiss | Voice De-noise (All); Spectral De-noise (Standard, Advanced) | Remove background noise in RX 12; Sound Forge noise reduction |
| A voice under changing noise or room sound | Dialogue Isolate (Standard, Advanced; Advanced adds the high-quality offline mode and multi-band processing) | RX Dialogue Isolate guide; AI audio restoration |
| Room reverb and echo on speech | De-reverb (All); Dialogue Isolate (Standard, Advanced) | Remove echo without wrecking speech |
| Clicks, pops and vinyl crackle | De-click (All); De-crackle (Standard, Advanced) | Remove clicks and pops in Sound Forge; digitize and restore vinyl |
| Mouth clicks in voice-over | Mouth De-click (Standard, Advanced) | Remove mouth clicks without damaging speech |
| Hum, buzz and hiss | De-hum (All); Voice De-noise (All) or Spectral De-noise (Standard, Advanced) for hiss | Remove hiss and hum in Sound Forge |
| Clipped peaks and distortion | De-clip (All) | Repair clipped audio in Sound Forge; fix distorted audio by finding the fault first |
| Harsh S sounds | De-ess (Standard, Advanced) | Reduce sibilance in Sound Forge |
| Plosive pops on P and B | De-plosive (Standard, Advanced) | Remove plosives without thinning the voice |
| Loud breaths | Breath Control (Standard, Advanced; rebuilt in RX 12) | Edit breaths in Sound Forge |
| Lavalier clothing rustle | De-rustle (Advanced; the plug-in is AAX AudioSuite only) | Reduce lavalier rustle in Sound Forge |
| Wind on a voice recording | De-wind (Advanced) | Reduce wind noise in Sound Forge |
| Headphone or instrument bleed | De-bleed (Standard, Advanced; the RX 12 real-time plug-in needs no reference track) | Reduce headphone bleed in a vocal |
| Keyboard clicks, coughs and other one-off noises | Spectral Repair (Standard, Advanced) | Reduce keyboard noise in Sound Forge; Sound Forge spectral analysis |
| A vocal or instrument level inside a finished song | Music Rebalance, Stem Split pane and Stems view (Standard, Advanced) | remove vocals in Sound Forge |
| Dialogue, music and effects locked in one stereo mix | Scene Rebalance (Advanced; the plug-in is AAX AudioSuite only) | The edition comparison linked above, where Scene Rebalance is one of the Advanced-only reasons |
| Tape wow, flutter or azimuth error | Wow & Flutter and Azimuth (Advanced) | The edition comparison, which covers the Advanced-only modules |
| Room tone jumps between edits | Ambience Match (Advanced; the plug-in is AAX AudioSuite only) | Record, edit and use room tone in Sound Forge |
| Not sure what is wrong | Repair Assistant (All; Voice and Music modes) | The audio restoration diagnosis page and the beginner tutorial, both in Start here |
Repair Assistant detects common problems in the audio and suggests settings, with separate Voice and Music modes, so it is a reasonable first pass in any edition. For the one-off sounds in the table, Spectral Repair replaces the selected area with audio from around it, and that single module is the strongest reason I recommend Standard over Elements.
What is new in RX 12
RX 12.0.0 arrived on April 28, 2026, and 12.1.0 followed on October 15, 2026. The RX 12 launch notes tag each change by edition:
- New in Advanced: Scene Rebalance, which separates dialogue, music and effects from a single stereo render, and Trim Silence, which finds and standardizes silent regions in long files.
- New in Standard and Advanced: Stems view, a track-based way to apply RX modules to individual isolated stems.
- Rebuilt in Standard and Advanced: De-bleed, now with a real-time plug-in that needs no reference track, and Breath Control.
- Improved in Standard and Advanced: the neural networks behind Music Rebalance and Dialogue Isolate.
- In the editor: a larger spectrogram, module search and a resizable history panel.
None of the headline additions is tagged for Elements. For the full change list per edition and whether an update pays off, read the RX 12 vs RX 11 comparison; for how the new tools hold up in published reviews, read the RX 12 review.
RX in your DAW: RX Connect, formats and hosts
RX works inside a host in two ways. The plug-ins run on tracks or as offline processes, and Standard and Advanced add two bridges to the full editor. RX Connect sends one or more clips from the host to the RX Audio Editor, either with Send For Reference, which is for analysis only, or with Send For Repair, which lets you fix the clips and send them back. It appears in the AudioSuite menu in Pro Tools and as an AU or VST3 plug-in in other hosts. RX Monitor plays the editor's output through the host's audio driver when the host is holding the audio device.
All RX 12 plug-ins are 64-bit only, in AU, AAX, AAX AudioSuite, VST3, AU ARA and VST3 ARA formats. Ambience Match, De-rustle and Scene Rebalance are AAX AudioSuite only as plug-ins, so outside Pro Tools you use them in the Advanced editor. The Spectral Editor runs as AU ARA in Logic Pro 10.7 or later, on Apple silicon only under Rosetta, and as VST3 ARA in Studio One 7 and Studio Pro 8. RX 12 supports macOS Sonoma, Sequoia and Tahoe on Intel and Apple silicon Macs, plus Windows 10 22H2 and Windows 11 24H2. The release notes list these hosts: Logic Pro 12, Pro Tools 2025, Ableton Live 12, Cubase 15, Nuendo 15, Fender Studio Pro 8 (Studio One 7), Reaper 7, FL Studio 25, Adobe Audition 2026, Adobe Premiere Pro 2026, DaVinci Resolve 19 and Reason 13.
Sound Forge is not on that list. The Sound Forge pricing page says both current editions host VST2, VST3 and ARA plug-ins, so the VST3 versions of RX are the ones to try, but treat Sound Forge as an unlisted host: install the RX trial and process a real file in your own Sound Forge setup before you pay. These pages help with that step:
- Sound Forge plugins by edition: what Sound Forge and Sound Forge Plus include and how to load third-party VST3 and ARA plug-ins.
- The Sound Forge Plug-in Chainer: building and saving a chain, for example an RX de-noise followed by your usual EQ.
Troubleshooting: crashes, missing plug-ins and sign-in
Update to 12.1.0 before anything else. Besides the Boris FX activation support, it fixes an RX Connect bug that showed a "Capturing audio" message in Fender Studio Pro 8 on Windows. Then match the symptom:
| Symptom | First check | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| RX crashes at launch, on reopen or during a plug-in scan | Note the exact moment it crashes and protect unsaved work before reinstalling | RX keeps crashing or won't open |
| RX plug-ins missing from the DAW | The edition first (Elements has six plug-ins and no RX Connect), then the format and a host rescan | RX plugins not showing up |
| Ambience Match, De-rustle or Scene Rebalance missing outside Pro Tools | Expected: those three plug-ins are AAX AudioSuite only | The plug-ins guide above |
| Spectral Editor missing in Logic on an Apple silicon Mac | It runs there only when Logic is opened under Rosetta | The plug-ins guide above |
| Sign-in loop, missing product or authorization error | Which app your license belongs to: subscriptions install through Native Access, not Product Portal | Product Portal install, sign-in and authorization fixes |
| Bought RX from Native Instruments and cannot find the serial | The Native Instruments store creates an iZotope account with the serials added and emails activation steps | The Product Portal guide above |
| RX works in another host but not in Sound Forge | Sound Forge is not on iZotope's host list; check Sound Forge's plug-in folders and rescan | Sound Forge VST plugins not showing |
Loudness and delivery
RX can also measure and set loudness, but only in the editor: Loudness Control, Loudness Optimize and Streaming Preview are Standard and Advanced modules, and none of them is an Elements plug-in. The targets themselves do not depend on which editor you finish in, and these pages cover them:
- Free online LUFS meter: integrated loudness and true peak of a finished file.
- Podcast loudness standard: LUFS and true-peak targets plus an export check.
- Streaming loudness standards: what the platforms actually publish.
- True peak explained: dBTP, sample peak and codec headroom.
- Batch processing in Sound Forge: convert, normalize and check many files at once.
- Sound Forge for podcast editing and Sound Forge for voice-over recording: complete spoken-word workflows where RX fits as the repair step.
Alternatives and comparisons
RX is not the only repair tool, and for some jobs it is not the cheapest one. These pages compare it directly or place it among the alternatives:
- Best iZotope RX alternatives: replacing RX module by module with SpectraLayers Pro, Acoustica, dxRevive, Hush Pro and free picks.
- CrumplePop vs iZotope RX: one-knob timeline cleanup against a full repair editor.
- Best audio restoration software: eight tools matched to damage, platform, workflow and price.
- Best audio noise reduction software: eight tools by job, with a trial protocol for your own recording.
- Boris FX audio hub: the wider family RX now belongs to, from dialogue cleanup to Sound Forge.
- iZotope hub: the whole iZotope catalogue beyond RX.
Deals and free tools
- iZotope Black Friday 2026: past November discounts, current RX 12 prices and the price at which each edition is worth buying.
- Free iZotope plugins: the five real freebies, none of them an RX module, and what is only a trial.
- Deals hub: current offers on the software this site covers.
- Free plugins hub: free tools collected across the site.
How to choose
- Buy Elements ($99) only if every fault you meet is noise, clicks, clipping, hum or reverb and you always fix inside a DAW. It has no editor, no Dialogue Isolate and no Spectral Repair.
- Buy Standard ($399) in almost every other case. It is my default: the editor, Dialogue Isolate, Music Rebalance, Spectral Repair, De-bleed, Breath Control and RX Connect cover voice, music and archive repair.
- Buy Advanced ($1,399) when De-rustle, De-wind, Scene Rebalance, Ambience Match, the tape tools or multichannel files are weekly work. If they come up once a year, the $1,000 difference rarely pays back.
- Choose iZotope Pro ($25 a month or $250 a year) if you prefer renting to buying. It includes Standard, but no iZotope subscription includes Advanced.
- If you already own Sound Forge, read the Sound Forge and RX comparison and try the Sound Forge guide in the fix table first. Buy RX when a fault keeps beating Sound Forge's own tools.