iZotope Cascadia — A Mix Product of the Week

New York, NY (December 2, 2024)—The latest plug-in from iZotope’s Catalyst Series, Cascadia (Mac/Windows) is a tape delay with intelligent unmasking and flexible controls.

The GUI features three main sections: the Delay controls on the left, the spectrum analyzer-based Display section in the center, and the Unmask section on the right.

The delay can be tempo-synced or set freely, and it offers standard, ping-pong or reverse algorithms. It includes a unique Delay Amount knob that functions differently from a wet/dry control. The manual explains it as follows: “Cascadia has an internal bussing system and this (Delay Amount) knob controls the gain of the delay bus. The result is like if you were to create a delay bus in your DAW.”

If you’d prefer to put the delay on an actual aux bus, press the Solo Delay button in the GUI header. This button mutes the dry signal completely.

Other delay section controls include Feedback and Width. The latter allows you to adjust how wide the delay taps are spaced. On stereo instances, you can use the Width knob to adjust the spacing of the ping-pong effect, which also has an on/off button.

Modulation Depth and Rate controls are available for dialing in the built-in LFO.

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The Unmask section uses a psychoacoustic model to intelligently vary the delayed signal’s contents to ensure the dry signal has enough space to cut through. It offers controls for the amount of the process, Attack, Release and Sensitivity. The latter functions as a threshold control for the unmasking. If you want to check what Cascadia removes from the wet signal, press the Delta button to hear it soloed.

Cascadia’s Display area is large, and its Spectrum Analyzer splits the waveforms into dry and wet components. The Low-Cut and High-Cut filter sliders allow you to modify the frequencies of the delayed signal. If you’ve turned on the Unmasking, you’ll see a curve moving downward above the waveforms that visualizes the frequencies and amount of the signal getting ducked.

The plug-in includes more than 50 factory presets, split into Classic and Creative sections.

Cascadia is available for $49, and for a limited time, you can crossgrade from any paid iZotope product for only $39. Find out more at the iZotope website.