When the AI boom hit the music industry (which is still ongoing), there was a product that gained attention under the name 'AI DAW', and that was Hit'n'Mix's RipX.
If we were to broadly categorize the areas where AI technology is being applied in music, there's stem separation, noise reduction, AI generators, and sound morphing that transforms existing sounds into different voices or instruments.
With that in mind, RipX, which is capable of stem separation, sound morphing, noise reduction, and even integration with AI music generators like Suno and Udio, seems worthy of being called an 'AI DAW'.
So how does it perform? To conclude from the start, my thoughts on RipX are the same as my thoughts on current AI products: "Very interesting and has potential, but still difficult to commercialize."
This review was written after receiving an NFR (Not For Resale) license from Plugin Boutique. I declare that there are no affiliate codes in the links and this is not a sponsored review.
A Quick Look at RipX
After attaching the grand modifier 'AI DAW', it might seem like a quite complex and difficult product, but in fact, it's a fairly simply designed software. Of course, simple doesn't necessarily mean easy to use.
RipX is divided into a regular version and a 'Pro' version. I received and used the Pro version, so I'll explain based on the Pro version. However, I understand that the basic functions are the same, with just a few additional features added to the Pro version.
When you drag and drop a 2-track stereo audio file into RipX, the DAW starts analyzing. Here, it converts the song into a proprietary format called 'Rip'. Rip is both a kind of session and project, and also refers to the collection of analyzed instruments and sound elements.
When the analysis is complete, you can see the instruments divided in the Layers on the left. You can see that the colors assigned to each instrument are distributed according to the scale in the center screen.
These individually separated instrument stems can be soloed/muted for listening, or their levels can be adjusted. You can also adjust the stereo field or apply a 3-band equalizer consisting of Low/Mid/High.
With a specific instrument selected in Layers, if you select FX on the right, the FX effect is automatically applied to that instrument. It's also possible to adjust the intensity of the FX effect as automation at the bottom.
By selecting an instrument listed in Sounds, it's possible to morph the sound of the current Layer into a different instrument.
Modified songs can be exported as common audio extensions like WAV, MP3 in the Export section, or can even be made into MIDI files.
Evaluation of Stem Separation
First, considering that many stem separation tools typically separate vocals, bass, and drums, and group other instruments as 'etc', RipX creates and separates Layers quite meticulously.
I tried loading an MP3 file of a guide track I had made into RipX as a test. It was about a 4-minute long audio consisting of 5 tracks, and it took 13 minutes for analysis.
However, if I unchecked the option to separate guitar and piano, the time was reduced to 3 minutes.
Seeing that it asks to secure at least 15GB of hard disk space before loading a file, it seems quite a lot of work is done in the process of creating the Rip file. However, given that it was possible to work even without actually having 15GB free, it seems they meant to secure about 15GB for safe operation.
How was the quality of the separated stems? When listening to all stems simultaneously, I didn't feel a big difference from the original, but when soloing individual stems, it didn't feel very clean. Compared to Gaudio or Logic Pro 11 Stem Splitter that I had tested before, it's slightly inferior.
Maybe my expectations were a bit high because I waited quite a long time for the results to be extracted in offline render mode. Of course, it's definitely better than stems separated by other online render methods. The audio quality for 'karaoke' purposes of just muting the vocals was excellent.
What's impressive about RipX's stem separation is that the notes within the separated Layers can be manipulated like individual MIDI files (expressed as 'Rip files' in this product). You can freely modify pitch, rhythm, length, velocity, etc. as if handling a MIDI editor. You can even draw in new beats.
Quality of FX Effects
The way of applying FX effects in RipX is very simple and convenient. First, select a specific Layer or specific Rip note with the mouse. Then, when you click on the FX effect on the right and it's highlighted, that FX effect is applied.
In existing DAWs, to apply separate FX effects to specific notes or instruments, you had to go through complex processes such as separating into different tracks or applying automation to parameters.
In fact, such effects should be completed at the composition/arrangement stage, but in RipX, you can go back and forth in the order of work as you like. It was interesting as if I could glimpse the future of music production in the AI era.
What I expected a lot in the Pro version was the noise reduction FX effect. When you select Repair from the Panels menu at the top, six sound improvement FX effects appear.
It was simple to use, but the quality wasn't impressive. I wonder what it would have been like if more diverse manipulations were possible for precise quality noise reduction. If a professional-level noise reduction function is built in in the future, the usability of RipX will increase tremendously.
For a long time, the music production process has proceeded in the order of composition/arrangement - recording - editing - mixing/mastering, and the importance of this order in the process was considered an immutable law. In other words, the roles that should be performed in composition, recording, and mixing were clearly divided.
However, the development of software, especially AI, is cracking this traditional production method. It's handling composition, arrangement, recording, and editing simultaneously. The development of AI is making this process faster and more convenient, and the functions implemented in RipX give hints about what the future work process might look like.
Integration with AI Music Generators
When you click on the brain-shaped icon in RipX, you move to the Hit'n'Mix website and can enter AI music generators like Suno, Udio, Stable Audio, etc.
Detailed integration with these services hasn't been achieved yet, nor is AI composition function built into the RipX software. It just implements a function that automatically starts analysis in RipX when you generate and download audio from that service.
Usually, AI generators provide completed '2-track studio tracks' of 'demo versions'. Of course, there are services like Soundraw or MixAudio that manipulate individual tracks as if composing, and Suno and Udio are also gradually introducing functions such as stem download and additional arrangement.
In RipX, even 2-track stereo audio generated by AI could be stem-separated with clean quality as if it was directly separated by that service. If it's linked with AI music generators in the future, I think it can have much more potential for use.
Overall Evaluation
RipX is a very interesting DAW. It seems to be saying 'This is music production in the AI era' by presenting a working method that we couldn't imagine, that we thought was impossible.
However, my evaluation of RipX is the same as my current evaluation of AI. If the intention and purpose of this software are 100% realized, it will be revolutionary. But for now, the quality is holding it back.
No matter how much stem separation technology has improved, even the audio separation technology of brands that are currently highly rated isn't perfect. If you could choose between using AI to separate stems and extracting sounds separately in actual music work, no one would choose AI.
Therefore, this is not a limitation of RipX, but a limitation of current AI technology. RipX is ready to utilize AI technology in every way. You can separate audio with AI, change sounds at will, and fill in new rhythms and sounds. But the sound created in this way may be unsatisfactory to music producers.
It's a great idea to sound morph the separated main melody into various instruments like saxophone, piano, guitar, etc. But it wasn't a quality that could be used in actual work. (Of course, since I only tried with audio, the results might be a bit different with MIDI input signals.)
However, the sound morphing work on rhythmic instruments with short transients like drum kicks or snares was impressive. You can even change regular acoustic drum kicks and snares to 808 sources. In fact, I think the manipulation of percussion alone is enough reason to purchase RipX.
I didn't explain in detail, but there was also a function to manipulate sound in the spectrogram of the audio source, like iZotope RX Audio Editor. However, it wasn't suitable for use in actual work in terms of practicality or convenience.
RipX has everything. What's lacking now is 'quality'. But we must remember that AI technology is constantly evolving at a rapid pace. In other words, RipX now only needs to meet higher audio quality with advanced AI technology.
At this point, RipX doesn't offer infinite possibilities for work as an AI DAW. However, if you're interested in AI technology or future AI-based music working methods, I recommend you pay attention to RipX. Moreover, it's being sold as a permanent license method, not a subscription product, so it might be good to purchase it in advance when you have the opportunity.
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