iZotope Iris 2

[Apostate]

I love Alchemy but never really got on with spectral editing in it, I found Iris to be much more focused and fun. Plus I don't think you can load waveforms into Alchemy's spectral editor can you? As far as I remember you just draw Spectral waveforms, but it's been a long time since I played with that corner of the beast

I find them both fun, but of course Iris has features Alchemy most certainly doesn't. I still don't see myself getting rid of Iris 2 anytime soon, I've already started one heck of a cool sounding library with it. It's a great synth, but I hope they keep that price down for others. 150 is perfect, really.

[wagtunes]

Well, I watched some Iris 2 videos and it's essentially a sample based Cycle though it appears to be a tad bit easier to program than Cycle, which can be a royal PITA. However, it is capable of doing similar type sounds albeit with a lot more work as it isn't sample based.

Also, I am sure Iris 2 is probably a lot more stable than Cycle, which adds to its attractiveness.

Still, $200? (What it would cost me)

IMO, a little pricey for what it does.

[Michael L]

Well, I watched some Iris 2 videos....

Watch them again, or download a demo. Its not like Cycle.

[wagtunes]

Well, I watched some Iris 2 videos....

Watch them again, or download a demo. Its not like Cycle.

Do you have Cycle? Have you worked with it extensively as I have?

As I said, from watching actual "programming videos" the main difference appears to be that Iris 2 is sample based which gives it a wider range of sounds with less work.

Cycle can do some outrageous stuff, but it's a bitch to program.

But yes, in a sense that one is sample based and the other is literally wave shape based, they are quite different. In a sense of how sound is manipulated (the raw material) they are quite similar, unless the videos I watched were not Iris 2 synths.

Actually, I guess if you want to be really accurate, Cycle can do more to the generic raw material than Iris 2 can. But like I said, programming it is a bitch whereas Iris 2 appears to be dirt simple.

[Astralp]

Whatever iZotope thinks Iris should be used for, it's still up to us what we do with it, no matter how they market it. After 3+ years with Iris, creating hundreds of patches and samples for it, I'm still fascinated by the rather simple yet effective spectral masking/filtering it uses, despite the lack of this and that and that and this. Many people around the world seem to use it, occasionally I hear some of my Iris sounds on TV, so it's seems to be quite popular and alive, despite the disappearance of support-Brad and the ongoing non-support of the half-baken Iris 2.

And thank's for the mention, guys.

Simon, where are you're patches for iZotope Iris 2? Do you have any up for sale with demos? I didn't see them on your site.

Simon uses a subscription model he has a thread here

[Ben H]

There's so much more to it than that. I guess if you're looking mostly for presets to use, and/or for presets to inspire you, Iris 2 doesn't have a bunch of them. However, if you start from init, read the manual, and begin exploring, a whole world opens up.

I'm not claiming that I only want to use presets. I'm just pointing out how pedestrian the demo presets are. Only a handful of the 35 or so demo presets made me think "wow, I can't get this sound anywhere else."

I mean, they're trying to sell the product, right? Why include sounds that other vsts can do as well or better at making? It's odd. When I think of the potential of Iris, I think of awesome soundscapes and maybe 1 or 2 ho-hum presets in the demo would fall in that category.

Maybe one of their artificial intelligence forum robot reps can come here, acknowledge my question, and then answer some completely unrelated question.

I can actually answer that question. It is because they're trying to sell the product that they include sounds that other synths can make, especially in certain genres. They are trying to appeal to the masses with a synth that, in reality, should appeal to everybody else.

Ultimately, they don't believe there are enough "everybody else's" out there to justify creating a bunch of off the wall presets that only a handful of people will use.

In short, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Personally, I would make two banks if this was my synth.

Bank 1 - Bread and butter
Bank 2 - For all you nerds

And have an equal amount of each.

But I'm stating that without having done their market research to determine if that's the right course of action.

They are being stupid and have ended up alienating many of the people that bought Iris 1 because of its strengths as a sound design and sound exploration tool, and at the same time trying to market it to people who will just compare it to the likes of Serum or Massive for the sort of sounds they currently seem to be trying to say it can make and see that they are fooling themselves. So they have managed to undermine themselves on 2 fronts at once, quite an achievement really, it no longer plays to its strengths but instead painfully highlights its weaknesses, from being a very focussed product it's gone to something that tries to be a bit of something for everyone and ends up not really knowing what it is.

I completely agree.

[Michael L]

+1, sadly...

[Ben H]

Does anyone know if they have fixed the bug with Sample&Hold LFO sporadically working/not-working has been fixed yet?

My 10-day demo expired ages ago, so I cannot check to see if this is fixed. :/

Also, did they add the pre/post switch for the send levels?

[zerocrossing]

There's so much more to it than that. I guess if you're looking mostly for presets to use, and/or for presets to inspire you, Iris 2 doesn't have a bunch of them. However, if you start from init, read the manual, and begin exploring, a whole world opens up.

I'm not claiming that I only want to use presets. I'm just pointing out how pedestrian the demo presets are. Only a handful of the 35 or so demo presets made me think "wow, I can't get this sound anywhere else."

I mean, they're trying to sell the product, right? Why include sounds that other vsts can do as well or better at making? It's odd. When I think of the potential of Iris, I think of awesome soundscapes and maybe 1 or 2 ho-hum presets in the demo would fall in that category.

Maybe one of their artificial intelligence forum robot reps can come here, acknowledge my question, and then answer some completely unrelated question.

I can actually answer that question. It is because they're trying to sell the product that they include sounds that other synths can make, especially in certain genres. They are trying to appeal to the masses with a synth that, in reality, should appeal to everybody else.

Ultimately, they don't believe there are enough "everybody else's" out there to justify creating a bunch of off the wall presets that only a handful of people will use.

In short, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Personally, I would make two banks if this was my synth.

Bank 1 - Bread and butter
Bank 2 - For all you nerds

And have an equal amount of each.

But I'm stating that without having done their market research to determine if that's the right course of action.

Here's what they should have done. Pretty much exactly what they did for V1. Just do the best patch design that shows off the capabilities of the synth and include all the patches as well as the samples from the iZotope expansions. Then, offer a free copy to the EDM designers who will contribute additional patches. Let's say they get a free copy if they do 32 good patches. Then, most likely, they keep going and sell their additional patches as commercial banks for those who want more of that type of sound. It's a win/win. They make the hard core V1 fans happy, they introduce it to the EDM crowd and everyone's happy. Anyway, I hope that v2 is just enough of a failure to make them go back and do a v2.5, which will be more like an actual v2. (v2 feels like a 1.5 update to me) More spectral tools, etc. Don't get me wrong, I'll never turn down an LFO, and Iris' are great. Not Mpowersynth great, but great. I think the most kick ass thing they could add that would really get people talking would be morphable spectral selections. Imagine being able to draw one selection and have it be able to morph to another via control from an LFO or envelope... or even CC.

[Sampleconstruct]

Whatever iZotope thinks Iris should be used for, it's still up to us what we do with it, no matter how they market it. After 3+ years with Iris, creating hundreds of patches and samples for it, I'm still fascinated by the rather simple yet effective spectral masking/filtering it uses, despite the lack of this and that and that and this. Many people around the world seem to use it, occasionally I hear some of my Iris sounds on TV, so it's seems to be quite popular and alive, despite the disappearance of support-Brad and the ongoing non-support of the half-baken Iris 2.

And thank's for the mention, guys.

Simon, where are you're patches for iZotope Iris 2? Do you have any up for sale with demos? I didn't see them on your site.

I have 456 iris 1-patches with 10 GB of samples and up to now have converted 92 of them for Iris 2.

There are 7+ hours of audio demos and about 50 videos on the website, yes, I am mad.

All my Iris 2 vids are here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... uQKe5SudQj

[billcarroll]

Whatever iZotope thinks Iris should be used for, it's still up to us what we do with it, no matter how they market it. After 3+ years with Iris, creating hundreds of patches and samples for it, I'm still fascinated by the rather simple yet effective spectral masking/filtering it uses, despite the lack of this and that and that and this. Many people around the world seem to use it, occasionally I hear some of my Iris sounds on TV, so it's seems to be quite popular and alive, despite the disappearance of support-Brad and the ongoing non-support of the half-baken Iris 2.

And thank's for the mention, guys.

Simon, where are you're patches for iZotope Iris 2? Do you have any up for sale with demos? I didn't see them on your site.

I have 456 iris 1-patches with 10 GB of samples and up to now have converted 92 of them for Iris 2.

There are 7+ hours of audio demos and about 50 videos on the website, yes, I am mad.

All my Iris 2 vids are here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... uQKe5SudQj

Thanks, Simon. If you were and end-user, would you choose to get into HAlion 5 or Iris 2 at this point?

[Sampleconstruct]

Thanks, Simon. If you were and end-user, would you choose to get into HAlion 5 or Iris 2 at this point?

That would depend on what I was looking for, those 2 programs can't be compared in any way, HALion 5 is a hybrid monster with a fantastic granulator, a fully fledged sample player and a great sounding synth module, plus all the sequencer stuff you can do with it and some superb FX - and Iris 2 does exactly 1 thing: spectral filtering on up to 4 samples simultaneously or split across the range, some basic filtering, modulation for the basic parameters of synthesis: volume/pitch/pan/cutoff/resonance, and a timestretch-mode which only preserves the original sample speed, but doesn't stretch or compress time (and is so CPU heavy that it's hardly usable, even on super-fast computers like my new Mac Pro with 12 cores).

But I would never want to miss Iris, it's a very inspiring program.

[Stan Navi]

I am new on Iris 2. Can somebody tell me. If i use Ableton, what can Iris 2 do what Ableton Sampler can't, except spectral filtering?

I can make instrument rack with 4 (or more) samplers + native effects and i think it will work not bad in comparison on Iris 2 and more cpu efficient.

Maybe i mistake...please correct me.

[deastman]

I am new on Iris 2. Can somebody tell me. If i use Ableton, what can Iris 2 do what Ableton Sampler can't, except spectral filtering?

I can make instrument rack with 4 (or more) samplers + native effects and i think it will work not bad in comparison on Iris 2 and more cpu efficient.

Maybe i mistake...please correct me.

The whole point of Iris is the spectral filtering. Just as a sampler without that, it is pretty basic and doesn't really offer anything special.

[tdm]

Hello,

I just purchased Iris 2 and have been getting hung notes when using the Radius RT transposition mode (one of the reasons I purchased the program). This only seems to happen when the volume release time is set to about 90 ms or greater. Longer times and more notes played seems to exacerbate the problem. Does anyone else have this problem?

I've contacted iZotope's customer service about this and was told that they were unaware of the problem, but will look into it. From other posts I've read, it doesn't seem like they are very good about updates. So, it may be time to try and cobble together a "watchdog" note off retransmitter in Bidule.

My computer is a 2012 MacBook Pro with 16 GB of memory and a 2.6 GHz Quad Core i7 processor. I only use this computer for sound generation and do not run a DAW on it. With nothing else running, when I play 10 Radius RT voices, I’m only using about 25% of one of the eight threads available; about 3% of the processors total power. So, this doesn’t look like it's a computer issue. This problem occurs in an AU and VST within Bidule and with Iris 2 running standalone. I have no problems of this sort with any other sound generation software.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Tom