iZotope Iris

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Pixelwarrior wrote:Is there something Iris can do to the sound that I can't do with Ableton's Sampler and an automated EQ?
With Iris you have the visual aid of working directly on a Sonogram Image. This is a workflow advantage in some cases.

I would not know if you could wth careful use with your setup achieve very similiar results. But in my view it would be needlessly diffuclt in comparison.

Not to say that I'm not a big fan of working with what I have. I love to work with automating my effects like U-he UHBIKS Q, and Filterscape also has it's own Envelope Followers Step Sequencers and delay and so it's very powerful. But still these tools don't come close to achieving the results I can easily reach with Iris.

I remember that before I bought Filterscape I reasoned that surely I could setup a few UHBIK Q EQ's plus a delay or two to achieve the same results. But I quickly gave up as my FX chain combined with all the Lfo modules and envelope Followers, step sequencers modules available in Numerology Pro got more and more ungainly. My DIY setup would be useful and perhaps more powerful then Filterscpae, but because of the increasing complexity in the end My DIY certainly did not end up being more used. Workflow efficiencey went down the drain. I still learned some useful things by going through the exercise though.

Filterscape or Iris are not tools that are absolutely essential, they are very nice to have as a way to flesh out a production system. Also getting tools and learning about the mindset behind them,is for me as much about educating myself about general sounddesign production methods as achieveing superior quality gains in my output. Each piece of gear I learn and get experience with means I gain access to one more piece of the overall puzzle of how to approach Sound, Music production Like a sort of master course. Maybe in the End you can just reduce and simplify a production setup because you have becomed more Seasoned, have more indepth understanding after using all the advanced tools..
waves break, but somehow it all makes sense.

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Ok, thanks. Looks like the plugin speeds up workflow and allows for a more surgical treatment of the sound.

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Pixelwarrior wrote:Ok, thanks. Looks like the plugin speeds up workflow and allows for a more surgical treatment of the sound.
Well surgical is to me too clinical a tern. As Iris is mostly intended as a creative play interface, so how precise the "selections" are done is not super critical. You are basically erasing a mask layer covering the total frequency spectrum, using the tool. Here your free to experiment with broad brush strokes and then perhaps zero in to more detailed editing if it's necessary. But much seems to be acheivable with a fairly loose and relaxed wrist so to speak..

What gets interesting is that you can work on and see four tracks at once then blend them levels wise use send effects to get individual control of each sound source in the Iris internal effects mixer, and of course use Lfo's one on each track plus a global Lfo.

Iris is perhaps not as full featured as a sampler like Kontakt or Mach 5 at first glance. But remember it's the initial sound painting phase that's the most powerful element. The other tweaking you can do within the Iris interface is just adding an extra level of control.

Another point is that some of the Sample materiel that's been used in many presets Demoed in this thread For example Patchpools patchs are heavily produced before bringing into the Iris in this case Iris is being used as a final mixing and super Equ phase in the sound design workflow.

Which ever way you call it there's a lot of variation that can be gotten of any source material that is brought into Iris.
Last edited by TwoToneshuzz on Mon Nov 05, 2012 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
waves break, but somehow it all makes sense.

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TwoToneshuzz wrote:
Pixelwarrior wrote:Ok, thanks. Looks like the plugin speeds up workflow and allows for a more surgical treatment of the sound.
Well surgical is to me too clinical a tern. As Iris is mostly intended as a creative play interface, so how precise the "selections" are done is not super critical. You are basically erasing a mask layer covering the total frequency spectrum, using the tool. Here your free to experimetn with broad brush strokes and then perhaps zero in to more detailed editing if it's necessary. But much seems to be acheivable with a fairly loose and relaxed wrist so to speak..

What gets interesting is that you can work on and see four tracks at once then blend them levels wise use send effects to get individual control of each sound source in the Iris internal effects mixer, and of course use Lfo's one on each track plus a global Lfo.

Iris is perhaps not as full featured as a sampler like Kontakt of Mach 5 at first glance. But remember it's the initial sound painting phase that's the most powerful element. The other tweaking you can do within the Iris interface is more just adding an extra level of control.

Another point is that some of the Sample materiel that's been used in many presets For example Patchpools patchs are heavily produced before bringing into the Iris so it's more a a final mixing and super Equ phase in the sound design workflow.

Which ever way you call it there's a lot of variation that can be gotten of any source material that is brought into Iris.
It's interesting how perceptions can differ. When I read the term "surgical treatment", I thought it was the perfect analogy.

When I look at Simon's patches they appear quite precise and surgical to me, but YMMV.

Perhaps "creative surgery" or "exploratory surgery" would suit.

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ajoe wrote:
It's interesting how perceptions can differ. When I read the term "surgical treatment", I thought it was the perfect analogy.

When I look at Simon's patches they appear quite precise and surgical to me, but YMMV.

Perhaps "creative surgery" or "exploratory surgery" would suit.
True enough that there are selections in the Patchpool presets that seem insanely complex. But once you get working with the tools there's lots of ways to get pretty wild with selections without a huge amount of effort.

It's just the use of the term surgical implies the need for high precision to get usable results. But this is revealed in many examples to not be the case.

When I think surgical I get the image in my head that it's about repairing something or that one small blunder brings the patient into a coma.. I think the craft of sonogram painting is more forgiving than that and I'd guess that it is better to be using broad strokes first to see if that gets you where you need with the paticualr materiel or idea your trying out, then if you need to go into detail you whip out the magic wand... or zoom in.

I think the difficult part of all this is to a sensibilty, a vision of the whole effect of what you want bring out in any sonic scene and uncovering it to the extent and detail needed. As proof of this majority examples I've looked at don't go into super detail yet have a great effect..

Interesting to that many simpler examples with just one sample loaded seem to be very satifying indeed.
waves break, but somehow it all makes sense.

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I can only say that some of the patches take several hours to make, surgical selection is indeed what I often go for, but that takes time.

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Sampleconstruct wrote:I can only say that some of the patches take several hours to make, surgical selection is indeed what I often go for, but that takes time.

Then is it several hours at the selection stage that is the time consuming part or is it the gathering and preparation of the sample material phase?

I think the most challenging aspect of sound design is just to have a overall vision of where you want to get to, and achieve this within a reasonable time frame.


Sorry if I appeared to be a reductionist in anyway as to the work involved in making your sounds.

I'm just out to define what's going on in the Iris interface where the work lies. And how often new users can go into a new interface and begin too early to work on the fine detail when getting the basic bulding blocks to function together takes you a lot further alot faster.

I notice that your samples sound steller before you've done any selecting at all.
Last edited by TwoToneshuzz on Mon Nov 05, 2012 4:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
waves break, but somehow it all makes sense.

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TwoToneshuzz wrote:
Sampleconstruct wrote:I can only say that some of the patches take several hours to make, surgical selection is indeed what I often go for, but that takes time.

Then is it several hours at the selection stage that is the time consuming part or is it the gathering and preparation of the sample material phase?

I think the most challenging is just to have a vision to get somewhere useful within a reasonable time frame.


Sorry if I appeared to be a reductionist in anyway as to the work involved in making your sounds.

I'm just out to define what's going on in the Iris interface where the work likes. And how often new users can go into a new interface an begin to early to work on the fine detail before getting the basic bulding blocks to function together.

I notice that so much of your samples sound steller beofre you've done any selecting all, when I solo them with selections blanked out.
No probs, Wade - I'm not that sensible :)
Both can be time consuming, making the samples as well as the spectral selection, then the setup of the Macros, modulation assignments and whatnot. The sounds were I use lots of spectral dots distributed over a longish sample of a minute or so are hard to make, the selection is not random at all, I choose the frequencies that fit together harmonically (or don't fit together), then you choose the size of each dot, the overall density, the eraser tool is on heavy rotation, so is the undo button, but when it all comes together I find it just beautiful and wondrous. It's like recomposing something you have already composed...

Having a plan when starting a patch is actually always the case.

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I just bought Iris 'tother day and havent dug in yet or read TFM

I thought a feature allowed you to select similar/related frequencies which should make editing easier?
Amazon: why not use an alternative

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Just to say that the last patchpool's Iris subscription sets are IMO the best ever made!!
All sets together, make Iris compete as one of the best ambient-synth on the market (IMO of course...).

By the way, I also played some of Simon's samples with blank selection, and I understood way better why he choosed "sampleconstruct" as a nick. ;-)

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matteogk wrote:Just to say that the last patchpool's Iris subscription sets are IMO the best ever made!!
All sets together, make Iris compete as one of the best ambient-synth on the market (IMO of course...).

By the way, I also played some of Simon's samples with blank selection, and I understood way better why he choosed "sampleconstruct" as a nick. ;-)
I've been playing the last set of 6 patches and yes they are very rich and nice. But I feel almost like I'm stealing when it's so good from his hand there's nothing for me to take credit for! Oh well i'll have to sort out my own ego issues and just lean back and enjoy the ride, and learn...
waves break, but somehow it all makes sense.

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VariKusBrainZ wrote:I just bought Iris 'tother day and havent dug in yet or read TFM

I thought a feature allowed you to select similar/related frequencies which should make editing easier?
There is a magic wand tool that selects the linked field of sounds in that amplitude range, and it gets pretty quick to move through adjacent frequence/partials.

For less well defined regions it's the old paint and erase technique, helped on by the invert selection tool..

You can also join selected regions and move them as group then break them up with the eraser again and adjust.

You can copy selection from sample to sample by loading a new sample in a sample slot with the option "clear selection on sample load" in the DISABLED state.


I've worked loads with photoshop so am quite quick at this from the get go..
waves break, but somehow it all makes sense.

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matteogk wrote:Just to say that the last patchpool's Iris subscription sets are IMO the best ever made!!
All sets together, make Iris compete as one of the best ambient-synth on the market (IMO of course...).

By the way, I also played some of Simon's samples with blank selection, and I understood way better why he choosed "sampleconstruct" as a nick. ;-)
Thank's for all these flowers :)

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TwoToneshuzz wrote:
I've been playing the last set of 6 patches and yes they are very rich and nice. But I feel almost like I'm stealing when it's so good from his hand there's nothing for me to take credit for! Oh well i'll have to sort out my own ego issues and just lean back and enjoy the ride, and learn...
Hey, I'm just trying to make some decent patches for others (and myself) to use in their/my music, and sometimes the boundaries have to be pushed out a bit :)

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Sampleconstruct wrote:
TwoToneshuzz wrote:
I've been playing the last set of 6 patches and yes they are very rich and nice. But I feel almost like I'm stealing when it's so good from his hand there's nothing for me to take credit for! Oh well i'll have to sort out my own ego issues and just lean back and enjoy the ride, and learn...
Hey, I'm just trying to make some decent patches for others (and myself) to use in their/my music, and sometimes the boundaries have to be pushed out a bit :)
Push Push Push :)
waves break, but somehow it all makes sense.

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