Spire: Music Recorder & Studio 4+

As a songwriter, I’ve always wanted a quick and easy way to demo a new song. Most of the time, I’ve just used my iPad to capture it. And if I had the time— I’d fire up Garage Band. If I really wanted to share to a wider audience, I’d work through it on my Protools setup. But now, Spire helps me make a quick and easy demo in my living room that sounds darned close to a studio version. The more I use it, the better I get and the better I sound. It does feel like a magic little box. The mic check dials in the levels, the effects sound nice and clean and above all it takes me minutes— not hours! My biggest wish would be to improve the ability to punch in to fix a guitar clam. It’s close to impossible so I usually try to get a complete and acceptable take before moving on to vocals. Punching in a vocal isn’t hard because there’s usually a dead space that I can come in on. I hope iZotope is still working on this little gem because it would be great to be able to at least add an easy dissolve to smooth a punch in. But hey, I actually couldn’t be happier with this thing.

Hey! Thanks a ton for the review! We couldn't be happier to know that Spire is a magic demo machine for your musical experience. Your suggestion about punching in with guitars has been forwarded along to the rest of the team and we are always working on improving the app (and the Spire Studio). Send us an email at support@izotope.com if you have any other thoughts or questions -- thanks again!

This is absolutely hands-down one of the best apps I’ve ever used on my phone it’s incredibly powerful for an iPhone app or anything really. The app itself and Spire have made an unreal amount of progress over the past few months, it seems like every time I open it they’ve added some new tweak, improvement or update and it continues to get better. I’ve been pro since the beginning and well worth the subscription price and more... really good developer team.

Couple super nit-picky wishes / ideas:

-in same way you can import a base sound I wish you could import just like a short (ten second) clip into a channel... like for example a producer tag or a sound effect.

-I like the the ‘inspire me’ effects; but I wish you could either (a) delete and/or hide the ones you don’t want or (b) favorite the ones you do so you can find them more easily, they are very cool but so many to sort through that I forget the name or want to compare fewer against each other to find the best one.

- Canyou not do the effects and inspire me together on the same track? Seems like right now if I add one it removes the other effect (which is fine just curious)

Thanks you guys for all that you do, fantastic job and always improving! Rating 10 / 10.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Thanks for the review! Lots of great features coming up so stay tuned!

It is so surprising to me that this has been out for so long and they still haven't improved basic obvious things. Like, for example, who could think that it's a good idea to have the Spire completely disconnect every time you change apps? And then when it reconnects, it opens a new project instead of going back to the one you were on? And how you can't change effects after recording, or change the volume of certain sections? And how the "crop" function is extremely tedious and limited in its usage? I know the goal is for this program to be super simple, but there's no reason not to also include extra tools that you can use (or not use). If iPhone Garageband could easily connect to the Spire as an interface, I would always use that app instead and would never open this one again. I'm surprised that iZotope, a great company, hasn't improved this app. Also, I hate that they want you to pay for Spire premium. I already paid a ton of money for the Spire, don't ask me to then pay a monthly fee to have your frustrating app be slightly less frustrating. Ridiculous.

We appreciate you taking the time to deliver this feedback about your experience with the app and Spire Studio recorder. If you have further feedback or concerns you'd like to have addressed, please don't hesitate to reach out to our customer care team at: support@izotope.com