Izotope Iris 2

[Mr. Watts]

Seeing a lot of mixed reviews on this sample/synth. Reverb has it on sale for $49 and it seems to be a decent deal given the 11gb of downloadable content in the Izotope website. From what I understand Iris 2 was a bit underwhelming compared to Iris 1 and Izotope has basically dropped development for Iris. Given these circumstances do you still see Iris 2 as a usable and valuable tool to have? And if not, does the downloadable content and factory sounds make it worth it? Thanks

[platzangst]

Given these circumstances do you still see Iris 2 as a usable and valuable tool to have? And if not, does the downloadable content and factory sounds make it worth it? Thanks

It kind of depends what you want out of it. The hook to it is that you're basically drawing a filter plot and/or letting Iris magically select out bits of audio to play like any other sampled sound. The things you can do with Iris would be difficult to achieve with, say, a bank of conventional high/low/band-pass filters and automation tracks. There's a lot of good potential for experimental sound design.

That said, if you're not really into experimenting, it becomes just a multiple-voice sampler. The banks you can get from iZotope can be interesting, but whether you find them usable is dependent on the kind of music you want to produce.

I like it, I bought it on release, but I'll be the first to admit it's probably not for everyone.

[Mr. Watts]

Cool thanks. Yea it looks like a very different kind of sampler than what I’m used to. It seems very intriguing to experiment with given the paint brush tool which I haven’t seen outside of Photoshop. I guess I was just a little put off by the kvr/gslutz bashing from the Iris 1 users. I went ahead and bought it anyways though because for $49 I figure it’s gotta at least be worth the sample library if I can’t get any use out of Iris 2 itself. Not to mention the potential for a cross grade deal in the future. Thanks for your input.