iZ Technology Corporation has begun shipping Radar Studio – a rack mounted audio appliance, designed to run popular DAW software on integrated, optimized hardware.
Here’s what they have to say about it:
“The RADAR studio is free of unnecessary bloatware and it runs beautifully with its high speed SSD’s and massive RAM capacity,” said Dan Brace of Sonic Farm Recording Studio in Buffalo, NY, an early adopter of RADAR studio. “The converters are providing the same sweet sound we experienced with RADAR 6, but with the added editing power Pro Tools provides.
Radar Studio Key Features:
- Near-zero jitter, pristine signal path and the latest converter technology
- Runs Pro Tools – track, mix and automate, using all plug-ins and features of native DAW software
- Simplicity – just arm tracks and hit record.
- Workflow – integrate iZ Session Controller and Meter Bridge for a traditional studio feel
- Customizable – configurable I/O, drive bays, external media, DSP cards, and peripherals
- Support – 10 years of free customer support.
Here’s the official intro video:
Pricing & Availability
Radar studio is now shipping. Pricing depends on configuration. See the IZ site for details.
If this was 1995, instead of 2015, I could see the market for this single-application computer.
But I wish these guys well.
Well… It’s only your point of view. Thanks for sharing. There is still plenty of reason to use this tool. It depends of course on the kind of production you want to produce and the level of quality you need to meet.
Their A/D/D/A converters are second to none…..
But yeah not sure you need the computer integrated…
Not again with the overpriced stock hardware and free downloaded VST packages!
Windows 8.1 machine for $4000. Oookay…..
I have slightly older processor and half the RAM at home, for about $1000 if I recall.
I see nothing in their spec that would take a new machine way over $2K.
Oh, and the included DAW, that’s $500 with all plugins if you buy it direct from maker.
But… it’s Ardour in a proprietary non-open-source shell?!
The main stability advantage is that this machine might not suddenly drop out due to arbitrary network activity, email ping or unnecessary anti-virus scan of your soundfiles folder.
For my own part I think I’m capable of pulling the Ethernet cable and turn off notifications when in a sensitive session.
If that’s worth $3K to you, knock yerselves out!
Community revered convertors. Also its running pro tools, if you have a license. Ships with Harrison Mixbus. You made up that $500 number. Website says it has it’s own stable OS. I didn’t see a mention of windows 8.1 anywhere. Customizable drive bays, dsp cards, dual disc dubbing, – one for the producer, one for the artist right before they walk out. This machine was well thought out in terms of work flow. Next time research before you rain on someone’s parade
Windows 8.1 is in the iZ radar spec. “price-a-radar” page if you will
Harrison mixbus DAW on the iZ same radar spec page.
The $500 from looking at the Harrison website.
Mixer itself $39 + all the plugins — i’m giving them benefit of assuming that they’re all included in the iZ package.
Nevermind, really.
Midi sequencing?
When they announced this on April 1, I was 100% sure it was just an outlandish joke…
$5k for this, wow. I could see bands using something like this for backing tracks. Reliability is key in that sort of situation but would this really be any more reliable than a decent PC?
Just reading the whole write-up, I see reference to included converters that are supposed to be very good. Maybe that’s where the bulk of the cost is going?
I know a couple of guys who use radar systems and they sound incredible. The experience is much more old school than a typical daw though. Kind of like a really responsive and stable tape machine. A totally different way of working that some really appreciate (like programmable “rewind” time and the way it accelerated when you start/stop). If they’ve managed to keep that feel and the overal sound quality AND add a better editing environment they’ll make a lot of people happy.
“a rack mounted audio appliance, designed to run popular DAW software on integrated, optimized hardware.”
What we like to call a windows PC. But If I was spending this kind of money on a computational machines then I’d go Macbook and Waves DigiGrid ios, that would slaughter this for a similar setup cost.
Waves didigrid only runs waves. I wouldn’t say slaughter by any means
depeche mode use them a lot.
I could be mistaken, but this product does not appear to aimed at all the world class musicians on here that create tunes with their Dells and free softsynths.
It looks like it is aimed at live sound engineers that need super stable DAW playback with a quality AD converter.
You know, like a professional engineer running live sound for big touring bands.
Like the ones using Macs with ProTools perhaps?
(NB windows user, but I do know where the latency lives)
It’s all tablet music over here
sounds like a computer to me???????????
It looks like they have thrown in some nifty woolen hats, a good reason to pay such a high price. You know, summer is around the corner, so you never can be short of woolen hats now!
From a marketing perspective, my advice would be not to advertise such a product with a song named “Worthless”.
For those picking on price
1. 10 years suport,,look up the price on that
2. rack mount case,,look price on that
3. optimised,,try that on you own
I am not rushing out to buy one, nor for them, just pointing out something
But my phone is sooo stable to run apps on /s
Sound is out of phase when the kids give testimonials lol…
Basically stability is the issue that computers are not providing us with.
Timing and reliability in music are vital, it is like we have been conned by parasitic software companies.What a product is meant to do and what they actually do are often two different things.
Great to see products dealing with the REALITY of the problems we face.
I’ve used a Radar system in a studio and it’s freaking amazing. The converters alone are worth the cost of entry. The interface is fast and precise. Even with years of experience in other DAWs, I was never able to work as fast as in a Radar system. I wish I could afford a system like this at home, but these kinds of systems are for the pros, the big boys – not the wee bedroom/project studio producer/engineer working with their laptop and an all-electronic setup. If you think your base-level install of MacOS/WindowsOS is optimized to handle audio correctly OTB, you’re fooling yourself and you probably don’t know much about computer system architecture. It’s okay, that’s we hire real pros when it counts.
I’m surprised at the snapback from some considering the latest craze in the synth world is the all-analog, back-to-basics, knob-per-function synth. In the recording world, this is as close to the old tape model you can get, but with power of digital. Think about how you love your new temperature-controlled VCO/DCO and this is the equivalent as far as recording goes.
I am all for an all-in-one machine system – but what I really want is something like a dedicated portable piece of ableton hardware with multi in multi out, usb, 5 pin, cv, multi touch, swappable SSD and some physical controls (it is actually not all that much when you think about it). Personally I would like it to be windows based so that it can take synthedit plugins.
I would mainly like it so that instead of bringing a laptop, hub, soundcard, cables and dealing with a degree of latency – I could have something that was more stable and can fit in a DJ style rack suitcase and I can just turn on and go with –
This is a scam. It’s literally a Micro-ATX computer running Windows inside a rackmount box. It even uses an ASRock motherboard, model H97M Pro4. (ASRock is a budget manufacturer mostly known for cheap gaming hardware). It’s not even a particularly well-reviewed board.
Cramming a bunch of DAC/ADC cards into the PCI slots of a gaming motherboard doesn’t make “Integrated, optimized hardware”. You can buy a laptop and a few USB peripherals and get the same effect (and also have a laptop).