Izotope Spire Studio (2nd Generation)

I bought one of these several years agofor my son before he decided to get into music production at a professional level. For me, I wanted to get a portable recording studio for myself, but I was always leaning towards a more traditional looking multi-track recorder/mixer. When I saw that iZotope had developed a 2nd generation portable studio, I jumped right on it. All of the research I had done on other products went out the window. This product is amazing. Although it seems gimmicky made out of cheap plastic, it's a totally professionally built audio product that is solid and rugged. The smart phone or iPad user interface is pure genius. It allows a better way to "see" the placement of instruments or vocals in a room versus the legacy style sliders and panning knobs seen on other recording/mixing products.

I love the new 2nd Generation iZotope Spire Studio. New features that allow better sound recording and so easy to use. A professional music studio that allows from great musical creativity to occur. I ordered online from Amazon USA and arrived in Australia at my door 4 days later - that’s amazingly fast! Ok I paid a little more with import duties but it was worth it for me. This is an easy to use recording studio, portable and reliable and such a terrific product.

I am a singer songwriter, and I often feel overwhelmed and annoyed about having to set up a bunch of equipment and navigate a DAW just to record... this is life changing. The audio quality is seriously high for such a functional and small piece of equipment. Truly the best thing I have bought in a LONG time.

This thing is easy to use and you get great results

This device is simple to use and produces extremely high quality studio sound.

The Izotope Spire Studio is a neat little recording gadget, but there are things that could be better. For starters apparently most of if not all tutorials on line are for Gen 1. version. Apparently with the Gen 1 system you could punch in, or over dub within the track you are working on which to me was good and should be expected. However with the Gen 2 system to do a punch in you have to use (waste) another track. The base version of Spire has only 8 tracks, while there is a "pro" version that has 16 tracks which is supposed to be free for six months, however it did not automatically download on the original set up. ??? There is a monthly fee for the "pro" version after 6 months. The only reason I can figure for the change to the punch in function is so the user will use the 8 tracks and be forced to purchase the "pro" version to finish and have a decent recording. I am a believer in user manuals for products and I wish Izotope would publish an on line manual for this product that can be printed. If you are using your phone to operate the program it's troublesome having to exit the program to try to find the answer from an on line source. I have also found Izotope slow to respond to questions submitted via email. When you are working on a project it is very inconvenient to wait days for an answer to a question. It is for these reasons for the ease of use rating. The sound quality is decent, however I have had trouble with the metronome bleeding over into the recording where there are quietier places in the recording. I really don't understand why the metronome is not sent only to the headphone jacks and be incapable of being on the recording. The Spire is also unable to perform a fade out. I read where an Izotope rep. said if you want to make a fade to send you recording to a DAW and create the fade. So you need another piece of equipment to create a fade effect; something to consider before purchasing. My rating for the unit is based primarily on the ease of finding the information need to operate the unit in a timely manner which I have found troublesome. I am a 60+ year old man. A younger person who has been exposed to more digital electronics devices and products may not have the learning curve problems I have experienced with the Izotope Spire Studio.

Even after research studies for updating the Spire via Spire 2 there is no great changes? Izotope had a great idea, amazing software but delivered a mediocre unit. For 2021 it's really lacking in the app design and don't even get me going on "Spire Pro" what a joke! Most of the sounds are horribly gimmicky and mostly unusable for any serious artist and they want a sub for it lol. This unit does have a great AI and produces decent sound. It is just extremely limited due to the Spire app. Feels like a glorified 8 track recorder for$700! They should of let this connect to Daws as an interface. That would’ve helped for the lack in features. Once again this is just an idea box. A $700 idea box. If I was Izotope I'd take this back to the drawing board. Next time listen to your customers Izotope we are the ones that support you :(

Game changer !!