Working with Files - RX 8 Help

June 2024 · 13 minute read

Table of Contents

Opening Files

RX supports opening up to 32 audio files at a time. Files can be opened in the RX Audio Editor using the following methods:

  • Navigate to the File menu, select Open… and choose the files from the system dialog that appears. Alternatively, the following keyboard shortcuts can be used to launch the Open… system dialog: Command+ O (Mac) or ctrl+ O (Windows).
  • Drag and drop files into the main editor window to open them in a new file tab.
  • Drag a file from Finder/Windows Explorer onto the RX Audio Editor icon in the Dock/Desktop.
  • Click on the Open file button that appears in the RX Audio Editor window when no files are loaded.
  • Double-click on the RX logo in the middle of the RX Audio Editor interface when no files are loaded.
  • Supported File Formats

    A number of different file formats can be opened and edited in the RX Audio Editor. The next three sections outline the supported file formats and channel count configurations that can be opened in the RX Audio Editor. For information about file formats when saving or exporting files in RX, see the Saving Files and Export Format Options sections below.

    Supported Audio File Formats

    The following audio file formats can be opened in the RX Audio Editor: AAC, AAX (Audible Audiobook Format), AIFF/AIF, BWF, CAF, FLAC, M4A, MP3, OGG, SD2, WAV, WMA

    Supported Video File Formats

    The RX Audio Editor supports loading video file formats, but does not support video playback. When a video file is opened in RX, only the audio data from that file will be imported.

    The following video file formats can be opened in the RX Audio Editor: AVI, M4V, MOV (RX requires that Quicktime is installed in order to open Quicktime file formats, e.g. .mov files.), MPEG, MPV, WMV

    File Format Dependencies

    Some file formats may have dependencies based on your operating system that may prevent you from importing them into the RX Audio Editor. For example, Windows native formats (like WMA and WMV) may not open on Mac and QuickTime formats (like AAC, MOV, and M4V) may require installing QuickTime on Windows and running the RX Audio Editor in 32-bit mode.

    Supported Channel Configurations

    The RX 8 Elements Audio Editor and RX 8 Standard Audio Editor support opening mono and stereo audio files.

    Tip: Option for opening Split Stereo files in one tab

    Mono audio files with (.L and .R) or (.1 and .2) extensions can be opened as either mono files (2 mono tabs) or split stereo (1 stereo file tab). See Preferences > Misc for more information. Note that this option is only applicable to split stereo files and does not apply to split surround files.

    Multichannel File Support

    The RX 8 Advanced Audio Editor supports opening audio files with up 10 channels per file tab. Multichannel audio device settings can be configured in the “Audio” tab of the Preferences menu.

    The channel selector labels can be configured by selecting an option in the Channel Order menu. To access the Channel Order menu, right-click on the Time ruler and navigate to the “Channel Order” sub-menu. The options available in the Channel Order menu depend on the number of channels in the active file tab.

    Creating New Files

    To create a new file in RX:

  • Open the File menu
  • Select “New…”
  • You will be prompted for the name, sample rate and channel count of the new file you are creating.
  • Tip: Create a new file from the contents of the clipboard

    If you have existing audio data in your clipboard (for example, if you have copied a selection from an existing file in RX), you can create a new file based on that audio data.
    Open the “File” menu, choose “New from Clipboard” or use the keyboard shortcut: Command+Shift+N (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+N (Windows). The new file will match the sample rate and channel count of the audio data present on your clipboard.

    Managing File Tabs

    RX supports having up to 32 files open at once. You can navigate between tabs by clicking on a tab or using the following keyboard shortcuts:

    Saving Files

    There are a number of ways to save a file in the RX Audio Editor. The Save Operations include:

    NameDescriptionDefault Mac ShortcutDefault Windows Shortcut
    SaveFor uncompressed file formats (.wav or .aiff): Overwrites the original file on diskCommand+SCtrl+S
    For compressed file formats: Opens the Export File dialogCommand+SCtrl+S
    Save As…For uncompressed file formats (.wav or .aiff): Save a copy of your file using the same file formatCommand+Shift+SCtrl+Shift+S
    For compressed file formats: Opens the Export File dialogCommand+Shift+SCtrl+Shift+S
    Save RX DocumentSaves file as .rxdoc file extension (more information below)
    Save RX Document As…Saves copy of your .rxdoc file

    Autosave

    The RX Audio Editor will automatically save backups of your editing session by default. When the RX application is launched, it will open your most recent editing session. The option to turn it off is located under the Preferences > Misc tab as “Resume last editing session when app starts.”

    Saving RX Documents

    You can save a file using the RX Document file format (.rxdoc) to archive your edits. An RX Document includes your original file, all the edits you’ve made to it, and your most recent selection and view state. RX Documents can only be opened in the RX Audio Editor. If you need to save your file so it can be opened somewhere else (like a DAW or media player), you need to export it in another format (like WAV or AIFF).

    To save an RX Document, select File > Save RX Document… and select where you would like to store the file. Keep in mind that the size of the RX Document file can be very large, especially if your list of edits include multiple processes on the whole file.

    Export Options

    There are a number of different export options in the RX Audio Editor:

  • Export File
  • Export Selection
  • Export Regions to Files
  • Export Screenshot
  • Export History as XML
  • Export File

  • Select File… > Export
  • Select the file format you want to Export to and adjust the associated settings as desired (available settings explained in the table below)
  • Click “OK”
  • In the system window, name your file and choose where you would like to save it to
  • Click “Save” to export your file
  • Tip

    Checking the Reopen file in RX checkbox will open your exported file in the RX 8 Audio Editor after the export completes successfully

    Export Format Options

    The following file formats are available when exporting files from the RX 8 Audio Editor:

  • WAV - Uncompressed
  • AIFF - Uncompressed
  • FLAC - Compressed: Lossless Compression
  • OGG - Compressed: Lossy Compression
  • MP3 - Compressed: Lossy Compression
  • Uncompressed File Formats

    The RX 8 Audio Editor allows you to export files to the following uncompressed file formats: WAV and AIFF.

    WAV

    The following options are available when exporting files to this file format:

    AIFF

    The following options are available when exporting files to this file format:

    Compressed File Formats

    The RX 8 Audio Editor allows you to export files to the following compressed file formats: FLAC (Lossless Compression), OGG Vorbis (Lossy Compression) and MP3 (Lossy Compression).

    FLAC (Lossless)

    The FLAC file format offers lossless compression. The following options are available when exporting files to this file format:

    OGG (Lossy)

    The Ogg Vorbis file format offers lossy compression. The following options are available when exporting files to this file format:

    MP3 (Lossy)

    The mp3 file format offers lossy compression. The following options are available when exporting files to this file format:

    Prevent Clipping

    Predicts and prevents codec clipping when exporting audio in lossy formats (MP3 and OGG) by checking for decoded levels and adjusting levels of the original signal.

    Prevent Clipping Processing Time

    Prevent Clipping may run significantly slower than regular encoding, since it computes the correct level adjustment depending on the amount of clipping occurring in the file. Files with little to no codec clipping usually will encode quickly, whereas heavily clipping files may take longer.

    There are two types of file level adjustments that can be applied:

  • Normalize: attenuates overall level of the file to ensure that the encoded/decoded file does not exceed 0 dBTP.
  • Limiter: attenuates parts of the file that could become clipped to retain the level of non-clipping sections, while overall true peak levels are limited to 0 dBTP.
  • Choosing Normalize or Limiter

    The Limiter will leave larger sections of the file unchanged in level and will only attenuate sections that would experience clipping. However, like any dynamic processing, this may create pumping. The Normalize mode can completely avoid pumping at the expense of slightly reducing the overall level of the file.

    Export Selection

    This option will allow you to export only the audio that is contained within your current selection, as opposed to the entire audio file.

  • Select File > Export Selection, and the Export File dialogue box appears.
  • Follow the additional aforementioned steps.
  • Export Regions to Files

    This option allows you to export multiple regions of any audio file that has regions as discrete audio files. To export regions:

  • Select File > Export Regions to Files.
  • Choose the exported file format in the Export window
  • In the File Save dialogue box, navigate to where you want to save the files.
  • If you want, enter a prefix for your series of files in the Optional prefix field.

    Note

    If you choose not to add a prefix, the names of the files will be the names of the regions. If any regions have the same name, numbers will be appended sequentially.

  • Click Save.
  • Export Screenshot

    This option allows you to export your current Spectrogram/Waveform display as a PNG image file. This can be very helpful for archiving any restoration process or for forensic documentation.

    When clicking on Export Screenshot from the File menu, your current Spectrogram/Waveform view will be used for adjusting your screenshot size and position.

    Note

    The Spectrogram/Waveform transparency balance must be set before selecting File > Export Screenshot as this cannot be changed in this window.

    To define the size of your screenshot, simply click and drag in order to enlarge or shrink the screenshot window. The dimensions of your resulting screenshot will update automatically, however these can also be entered manually by clicking once in either Width or Height.

    Note

    The max resolution attainable for your screenshot will be limited by the individual computer’s screen resolution.

    When you are finished changing the dimensions of your screenshot, click on the Save button to name and save your .PNG screenshot to your chosen directory.

    Tip

    To save screenshots faster (at the expense of having a larger file on disk), disable Maximum image compression.

    Export History as XML

    Export the Undo history list of your current file tab to an .xml document.

    File Info

    The File Info window can be opened by navigating to Window menu > File Info. There are two sections in the File Info window: General Info and More Info. The More Info section lists information dependent on the file type. The following information is available in the General Info and More Info sections of the File Info window:

    Closing Files

    The following sections describe different methods availble for closing file tabs in the RX Audio Editor.

    Close One File Tab

    Single file tabs can be closed using the following methods:

    Close Other File Tabs

    To keep one file tab open and close all other file tabs: Right-click on the file tab that should remain open and select “Close others” from the context menu.

    Close All File Tabs

    All file tabs can be closed using the following methods:

    Closing File Tabs With Unsaved Changes

    If a file has been edited or processed in the RX Audio Editor and the changes have not been saved, a small dot will appear in the corner of the file tab to indicate that there are unsaved changes. When closing file tabs that have unsaved changes, a prompt will be displayed before the file is closed. The prompt will include options to save, revert changes or cancel before closing the modified file.

    The following options are available in the prompt:

    Closing The Application With File Tabs Open

    The RX Audio Editor application will open all file tabs present when it was last closed if the “Reopen previous audio files when app starts” option in the Preferences > Misc tab is enabled.

    If this option is enabled and the application is closed when files with unsaved changes are present, a prompt will not be displayed. Any unsaved changes will be stored in the RX session data folder and will load the next time the application is opened.

    If this option is disabled, a prompt will appear to save or discard changes when closing the application if any file tab has unsaved changes. A separate prompt will appear for each file tab with unsaved changes. If any of the prompt dialogs are canceled, the application will remain open.

    RX 8.5.0

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