VariousArtist
I hear you. I enjoyed the trial version so much but couldn't justify the cost of it just yet, even though I want it for "those occasions". I feel that the advanced version would be worth it if
(a) you need those advanced tools (well, duh)
(b) you have time to really learn those advanced tools and use them effectively
(c) you can justify the cost in terms of paying clients or true personal satisfaction as a hobby.
I couldn't yet see myself qualifying on that criteria, but for pure gear lust I know I want it and need it, hehe ;-)
I bought RX3 basic. That is pretty expensive, and the ADVANCED version is huge bucks beyond that. I find myself doing a lot of clean-up of live recordings. RX3 is really magic. It cannot do everything I wish I could do. For example, I have had little success eliminating talking from a musical track. One of their videos shows the elimination of a whistle sound during concert recording. It turns out that is a very bast case scenario because:
a) There were no overtones to deal with
b) the whistle was above the frequency of the main material.
Knocking that out was easy and didn't leave an apparent void. But talking tends to have overtones and falls right into the middle of the musical content. Nonetheless, this tool is invaluable. I routinely do a pass to cut BG noise on every recorded track. Even if the noise is barely audible, it is worthwhile to do this because the noise is cumulative as you mix.
I have noticed some self-noise patterns on certain mics that I never really heard. The pattern becomes really obvious under RX3, and it completely wipes that out if you can give it a couple of seconds of quiet program for the "learn" mode. And conversely, I have seen that my RODE stereo mics are even cleaner than I thought they were -- almost no self-noise showing on those tracks.
I had another project where somebody had recorded straight to computer over firewire. The quality was OK, but it had lots of pops. RX3 fixed all of that.
I may have to spring for the full version, as it has some powerful additional capabilities, particularly the ability to discriminate between tonal and non-tonal material. If they would just have even a modest sale for that upgrade, that would probably push me over the edge.