iZotope Retires Iris 2, Breaktweaker, & Trash 2

iZotope has announced that it’s retiring Iris 2, Breaktweaker, and Trash.

iZotope has announced that it is retiring Iris 2, Breaktweaker, and Trash 2.

  • iZotope Iris 2 is a sample-based synthesizer that they said combines ‘the power of a sampler, the flexibility of a modular synth, and the fun of spectral filtering’.
  • BreakTweaker was created as a collaboration with BT, and was described as ‘futuristic drum sculpting and beat sequencing machine’.
  • iZotope released Trash 2 in 2012, an update to its audio mangling and distortion app for Mac & Windows. They called it “the ultimate distortion plug-in for any instrument.”

The products are no longer available for purchase on the company’s site. Support will remain in effect for 12 months from your date of purchase.

In explaining the reasoning for their decision, iZotope said “We occasionally need to retire older products in order to focus our resources and development efforts on building new, innovative products and features.”

The news follows the 2021 announcement that Native Instruments and iZotope were partnering to create a new technology group, now known as Soundwide; and Native’s announcement last month that they were retiring Absynth.

For more information, see the FAQ on the iZotope site.

25 thoughts on “iZotope Retires Iris 2, Breaktweaker, & Trash 2

    1. It would be nice if they could at least open source the applications.

      But this never happens, because companies think that the code might be repurposed into their other apps, and they don’t want a competitor to pick it up and make money with it.

      1. I think I got all of them for super cheap from som deal or other. I remember getting BreakTweaker for under $10 including all the expansions. That’s why “I”m not mad, …I’m just disappointed, son.”

  1. maybe, I got iris 2 and trash 2 for free and breaktweaker I got a little while ago on sale for $.99 so I could see them giving them away

    1. yeh – it really helps to observe reality……… and then also to remember those observations, doesnt it? its really effective

      unless you are interested in something other than reality… like bullshit dreams that have no basis in anything other than someone else’s vapid and essentially meaningless thoughts…. which so many people seem to be fatally obsessed with

      but hey – life is about choices, isnt it?

      1. Yeah, reality is a pretty reliable thing, but every now and then something else pops up. Today I received, in the mail, a plastic skeleton of a small dog. For a moment, I felt unreality. I didn’t order this dead dog. Whom, where, what has decided I should possess a small, plastic dog skeleton? Then I figured it out, and reality returned.

    2. Like you, I got these for free or near free so I don’t have a lot of room to complain, and honestly have not explored them as much as I intended to when I downloaded them. The good news is being on a windows based machine they should work for me for quite some time. That being said I always feel a little sad when I see a company choose to drop support for cool, older products without announcing a new version/follow up product, because that usually indicates there are no plans for a future version to come out and the product line will simply die where it is currently at.

  2. I have all three products and have used them all to varying degrees. iZotope either needed to give these plugs some attention or stop asking for money for them. Some developers let their products rot on the vine while continuing to sell them, so it’s right for them to make the clear decision.

    Trash 2 is probably the most in-line with the signal processing purpose of iZotope’s product line. However, there are so many options for distortion/overdrive/harmonics/color/etc. that it is probably not worth it for iZotope to invest in development to chase a tiny slice of that market.

    Iris 2 is cool, but clunky to use/edit. There’s a pretty hefty to-do list to make it a proper modern synth.

    Of the three on the chopping block, BreakTweaker is the most understandable, but the most heart-breaking. A drum machine is not in iZotope’s wheelhouse; but this drum machine is so clever and flexible. Even just going through the factory content, including the expansion packs, is a wonderful listening and learning experience. BreakTweaker’s MicroEdit features which are the star of the show, offering a super-fun exploration of unique rhythms, blurring the boundary between rhythm and pitch. The GUI needs significant work, and I wish it offered a few more options for step rates– to say nothing of making it AS-native.

    iZotope (like NI) COULD have made a different announcement: “We are giving these 3 plugins the massive updates they richly deserve.” But that’s not where the money is, I suppose.

  3. On the one hand: no commercial success, need to complete rewrite for M1/M2 native compatibility.
    One the other hand: be profitable or NI will kill you following the Absynth 5. If so, NI could retire FM8, Massive 1, Reaktor and some other products. Doing this, they killing themselves.

    1. There’s something special about Iris & BT, and they are both under-rated for the unique things they do.

      If both of those apps were a labor of love, AND got support from iZ, they’d evolve.

      As with Absynth, clearly a labor of love, it seems their cold financial calculations determined its fate.

      It would be one thing if there were lovely grounding-breaking new things that came along to supplant them with something better. But oft times, we just say goodbye to things that are awesome, and hello to things that are meh.

  4. breaktweaker streamlined making tracks but the format of expansions was lame i know you can import wav aiff but i would bet that hardly anyone uses the feature just flip thru the presets….which were mostly good in the expansions…and if you check the load kit only you can load a pattern from one kit and change the kit retaining the pattern from previous and get endless variations of things really cool to layer two instances using the same pattern but different kits. i still use it to make a quick ghost pattern and then u can trigger the patterns with midi which can create edits as if chopping an audio clip and arranging on sequencer….it is a really good idea that they should rethink it has alot of room to improve and there arent many drum module vsts that allow for c ontrol of the parameters like there are in breaktweaker mostly just one shot things like battery….but sugarbytes drum computer is dope AF…that and breaktweaker are good for instant inspiration because you can get a lot of shit in a track done just by using them alone…bass or stabs and shit using the two together is even crazier.

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