Introducing Spire Studio: Portable, Professional-Quality Recording Made Simple

Today, I’m proud to announce our new hardware product, Spire Studio, and to offer early access for members of the iZotope family. Spire represents a step toward our vision of modern audio production with the ultimate goal of inspiring creative expression.

The journey of this product starts on a personal note. It was early on a Sunday evening a few years ago. My wife was playing her guitar, and I joined her on the piano. We both were in the creative zone, having fun, and we thought it was worth recording.

Then the trouble started. I live in a city apartment, so like many people, my “studio” lives in a box in the closet. I started the setup, racing against my wife’s patience—we had plans for dinner that night. I found the missing cable, fussed with the mic stands and power strip, discovered my audio drivers weren’t working, checked the levels, coaxed my wife back to her guitar, and was finally ready to capture our creative inspiration…just in time to leave for dinner.

Sound familiar?

It was in that moment that I wished for something different. I wanted something that kept me in the creative mindset rather than stuck in the frustrating space of troubleshooting and setup. I didn’t want to think about cables and drivers. I wanted to think about melody and lyrics. I wanted something that would go beyond just enabling me to record. I wanted something that would inspire me to make music.

This was the beginning of Spire.

The iZotope Approach

Our mission has always been to help musicians, producers, and engineers focus on their craft and creative vision—not the technology behind it. For the past 16 years, we have pursued this goal through our software products and plug-ins, and that’s not changing. (In fact, we have more big announcements coming this fall with software, so stay tuned!).

We’ve always tried to borrow from the latest technology to pursue this mission—whether it’s innovations in digital signal processing research, machine learning, user interface paradigms, graphic visualizations, or educational techniques. Today when we look at trends outside the audio industry, it’s amazing the technology we take for granted in consumer devices: they're intelligent, cloud connected, wireless, and mobile. At iZotope, we’re inspired by the simplified workflows and creative possibilities these new platforms enable, and we wanted to help lead the way to realize their power.

Introducing Spire

Combining the needs of a musician with the latest in tech trends, we’re happy to introduce Spire Studio: a portable, wireless recording studio that keeps you in the creative zone. We designed it to be simple to use, professional quality, and beautiful—equally at home in your living room or the green room for the next time inspiration strikes.

Spire Studio starts recording right out of the box. Just turn it on and hit record to get going. It has a high-quality built-in microphone and is battery-operated with hours of recording memory.

It has two XLR/quarter-inch combo jacks with phantom power to plug in external mics and other instruments. It also features two stereo mini-jack headphone outputs so you can record with a friend.

Under the hood, Spire Studio achieves professional-quality recording with iZotope’s intelligent audio processing and mic pre-amps designed by Grace Design. On the surface, the LED display is touch-sensitive so you can quickly adjust headphone volume and select and mute tracks.

For deeper editing and to control onboard effects, open the free Spire iOS app. The app seamlessly integrates with Spire Studio over high-speed Wi-Fi. Originally released in 2015, the app has offered tens of thousands of people a simple way to record, mix, and share songs. When used with Spire Studio, you can also share your tracks with fans, share projects to collaborate with friends, or export stems to continue working in your favorite digital audio workstation.

We spent time perfecting the little things to make creating music enjoyable, and it will only get better: through software and hardware updates, we will continue to expand functionality and respond to your feedback.

Who is Spire Studio for?

Spire Studio is for musicians who are new to recording as well as experienced producers and engineers who are looking for a complement to their current recording setup.

As we’ve been testing it in the world, we've seen the power of Spire Studio as a way to augment traditional recording practices, as well as a catalyst for a musician to finally capture a song.  We’ve seen touring musicians’ eyes light up talking about leaving their clunky travel rig back home. We’ve seen artists gravitate toward it for pre-production, where Spire Studio’s recording quality has enabled the unique intensity of a scratch vocal performance to make it to the final mix. We can’t wait to see how you use it.

“Spire is the audio equivalent of a jetpack. You don’t need to get in your car and drive to the airport—you just put on your jetpack and fly.” —Chris Shaw, four-time GRAMMY-winning producer and engineer (Wilco, Weezer, Bob Dylan, Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, and others)

What’s next?

As I write this, Spire Studio is in production at our US-based manufacturing facility and our official launch will be coming soon. Inventory will be limited at first, so we’ve arranged a special way for friends of iZotope (you!) and friends of friends of iZotope (your friends!) to secure early access.

Learn much more about Spire Studio at spire.live.

I started iZotope as a musician trying to figure out how to make a recording sound great. As you can imagine, I've learned a lot over the years, but in my heart, I'm still a musician trying to make a good recording. Whenever and wherever you’re making music, we wish the same for you.

Best always,

Mark Ethier