iZotope Iris Synthesizer Lets You Transform Sound Visually

iZotope has introduced Iris, a new sampling re-synthesizer that lets you visually transform sound:

Start by dissecting up to three distinctive audio samples, using Iris’s spectrogram display and easy selection tools to spotlight the most interesting spectral characteristics. Blend and layer your modifed samples, then beef up their impact with a choice of suboscillator waveforms.

Still hungry for more? Add attitude and dimension to your creation by applying iZotope’s world-class effects and processors, including chorus, reverb, delay, distortions, and flters.

In addition to its visual synthesis tools, Iris has more traditional synth options, like amplitude envelopes, LFOs, root note detection and key mapping.

Features:

  • Discover what’s inside any sound: Load audio into Iris and explore spectral details that a regular waveform locks away.
  • Highlight what intrigues you: Extract and isolate the most interesting sonic components with a full suite of visual selection tools.
  • Layer diverse sound sources into unique combinations.
  • Use intelligent root note detection to help shape musical material from noise, ambient textures and soundscapes.
  • iZotope reverbs, distortions and delays
  • Spark your imagination with over 500 patches.

Here’s a video introduction to iZotope Iris:

This next video offers a general overview of Iris:

Finally, the last video demonstrates sound design with Iris:

Iris is currently available for $149; regular price is $249.

If you’ve used iZotope Iris, let us know what you think of it.

18 thoughts on “iZotope Iris Synthesizer Lets You Transform Sound Visually”

  1. Oh. Desire. However–

    “Iris is available direct from iZotope as a digital download. The download version includes Iris and a complete help guide. Please note: After purchase, instructions for downloading the full 4 GB Iris Sound Library will be provided via email.”

    That is more than 1/2 my monthly downloading bandwidth allowance. Even if I went and sat in a Starbucks, at wifi speeds that would take some time. This will require some thought.

      1. (Sorry if this double posts–are the comments working?)

        I get 7.5g/month mobile broadband for around $45, no contract. It’s okay, almost never goes down. But once after I downloaded a MST3K movie and realized I used up a sizable chunk of my monthly bandwidth, and almost all night time-wise, I became thoughtful about what I download.

      1. Good questions! The answers aren’t up-front on their site, but are on the “support” page. It says:

        System Requirements

        Operating system requirements:

        Windows (XP Service Pack 2 or later, x64, Vista, 7)
        Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later (Intel-based Macs only)

        Plug-in formats:

        Standalone application
        Pro Tools 7.4+ (RTAS/AudioSuite), VST and VST 3, Audio Unit

        Plug-in host compatibility:

        Pro Tools, Cubase, Nuendo, GarageBand, Logic, SONAR, ACID, REAPER, Sound Forge, Peak, Ableton Live, Digital Performer, and many more

  5. Man this is sick! i have seen this company grow and become very cutting edge. I am excited to see them release something more instrument related and i hope they branch out into instruments.

  7. Looks pretty great! I’m impressed that it seems like a user can actually learn how to specifically manipulate the visual information in predictable ways, while also preserving the very high exploration/reward value. A lot of attempts at visual/spectral editing are mostly crapshoots, but this looks like a really powerful tool.

  9. Pips and crackles on retrigger when using the Radius RT mode (i.e. the mode that is the whole point of this tool). Just like Kontakt 5, there seems to be a problem with the coders getting over this pips issue when in a high quality stretch mode.

    Also where is the length parameter, tools like Mach 5 and Kontakt5 allow you to change the playback rate of your sample….

    No easy means to change the start position of your sample, there is ‘offset’ instead, at the bottom, which doesnt’ respond very well, and shows no visual indication of where your start point is in the wave.

    The arrows to select left and right the next wave in your folder at the top right, are about 1.3 microns across, I’m not even sure if they are fully using one pixel on my display. Another reason plugins endlessly fail to inspire.

    The Radius RT high quality mode sounds great in terms of playing at different pitches, but the pips are a show stopper, sorry iZotope, fix this before you sell it to people, shame on you.

  11. I tried out the demo the other night and it kept me up all night. It’s very intuitive and fun to use. I made a file with examples of some of the patches I created using just a bunch of my own samples lying around on my computer. You can come up with some really interesting results very quickly.

    I’ve included the original sample before each of the new IRIS patches I created. Enjoy!

    http://soundcloud.com/jgeer/iris-examples

  13. It’s been fun and interesting spending some time with this demo. Iris has a lot of the same features as CamelAudio Alchemy, in that they can both resynthesize a sample and then directly edit a spectral image, make selections, paint with a brush, etc. Alchemy lets you import a PNG file, which is a big plus, and also import a png as the brush itself. Nice to have the great synth engine and amazing modulation capabilities of Alchemy too. But Iris is really slick and easy to use, has more mature selection tools, and the focus of having all the controls and options in one tight package makes working with it really easy, fun and intuitive.

    I’m not sure yet if it offers enough extra to warrant a purchase, given I can already do the majority of this in Alchemy. But it sure is a nice piece of software!

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