iZotope Iris – Computer Music – July 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
Review extracts
They knocked our socks off with the RX spectral editor, and now iZotope's visual editing technology is being used to power a synth...
[...]
Unlike a standard waveform-style audio editor, Iris' Spectral view is actually used for isolating the parts of the sound spectrum that you want to hear on playback. To do this, you're provided with an array of graphical editing tools. You could be forgiven for thinking of it as a filter of sorts – and in a way it is – but this is nothing like the filters you might find in your analogue synth emulations. The spectral selections made here represent sharp and clinically 'masked out' portions of the sound that can be drawn to take pretty much any shape you like.
For example, throw in a bright synth pad sample and use the graphical tools to make multiple selections in a speckled, polka dot configuration to produce a twinkling, bird-like atmosphere. Alternatively, if you were to draw in a deselection pattern, all manner of phasing, swirling, evolving sounds would be heard on playback due to the 'holes' created in the frequency spectrum.
[...]
As well as unusual soundscapes and ambiences, Iris is thoroughly capable of producing lush pads, glowing piano patches and other more 'conventional' sounds, with the unmatched ability to add intricate details that would be nigh-on impossible using traditional synthesis methods.
[...]
Iris deserves to be a big hit with sound designers and hunters of new and unusual noises. If the idea of taking total control over every aspect of your samples, precisely extracting frequency-defined sections and then creating truly unique sounds out of them gets your imagination going, then this is a phenomenal studio tool that you absolutely have to try.
Rating: 9/10 and Performance and Innovation awards
Click here to read the review in full at Music Radar
|
