A major twist in the audio software industry: iZotope, the developer of RX, Ozone, Neutron and Nectar, is leaving the Native Instruments umbrella to join Boris FX. Announced on 2 July 2026, this buyout reshuffles the deck for AI-assisted post-production and mastering. Here’s what is actually changing — and what is not — for your plugins.
An acquisition that redraws the audio plugin landscape
On 2 July 2026, Boris FX made the acquisition of iZotope official. The brand, known to every sound engineer for its restoration, mixing and mastering tools, will no longer belong to Native Instruments and will instead join a group previously associated almost exclusively with visual effects. On paper, the merger is surprising: what is an image specialist doing in audio signal processing? In practice, the move follows a very clear industrial logic, which we detail below.
From Native Instruments to Boris FX: how the break-up unfolded
To understand the situation, we need to go back to January 2026, when Native Instruments entered insolvency proceedings. The group, which had assembled under the Soundwide banner an impressive portfolio — including iZotope — went up for sale. inMusic, the parent company of Akai, Alesis, Denon and M-Audio, acquired Native Instruments, with the deal completed on 30 June 2026. But not everything went into the same basket: iZotope was subject to a separate acquisition by Boris FX, signed two days later. In other words, Soundwide’s legacy catalogue was split between two buyers, each walking away with the part that interested them.
RX, Ozone, Neutron, Nectar: what happens to your licences?
Users can be reassured straight away: nothing changes overnight. Licences and subscriptions remain fully active, support continues through the same channels, and crucially the iZotope development team — engineers included — is moving across to Boris FX. Todd Baker, head of audio products, keeps his role. The only visible change over time: the plugins will gradually lose their Native Instruments branding as updates roll out.
The acquired portfolio covers most of the tasks in a modern studio:
- RX — the benchmark for audio restoration and post-production, able to isolate dialogue, music and effects from the same file thanks to its Scene Rebalance and Stems View modules.
- Ozone — the AI-assisted mastering suite found on countless master buses, from home studios to professional mastering rooms.
- Neutron — the mixing tool with its Visual Mixer and track balancing assistants.
- Nectar — the processing chain dedicated to voice, from podcasting to music production.
Why an image specialist is buying into audio
The key to this move can be summed up in one word: post-production. Boris FX has spent three decades building tools for the image — Sapphire, Mocha Pro, Continuum — which have become standards in film and television. Yet the same studios have exactly the same needs on the sound side: cleaning up a take, repairing dialogue, isolating a source, remixing a scene. By acquiring RX, the de facto standard in audio restoration, Boris FX can now offer post houses a unique proposition that covers both picture and sound under a single brand. The group had already paved the way by taking over Vegas Pro, Sound Forge and Acid Pro from MAGIX in March 2026, as well as Sequoia and Samplitude. The logic then becomes obvious.
| Image division (VFX heritage) | Audio division (under construction) |
|---|---|
| Sapphire | RX (restoration & post) |
| Mocha Pro | Ozone (mastering) |
| Continuum | Neutron / Nectar (mixing & voice) |
| Silhouette | Sound Forge, Acid Pro, Vegas Pro |
My take on this consolidation
I’ve watched audio move from analogue to computer-based production, then plugins shift from add-ons to the core tools of the studio. What stands out to me in this buyout is not the logo on the box, but the development trajectory. RX has no real equivalent: in post, it’s the tool you open when nothing else can do the job, and there’s nothing on the market that can replace it at a moment’s notice. As long as the teams keep iterating — as they did with Scene Rebalance or the overhaul of Dialogue Isolate — I’m not overly concerned about who owns the brand. I stay pragmatic: what matters is the sonic result and product continuity, not brand skirmishes. The real question is how much Boris FX is willing to invest to keep these tools moving forward, at a time when AI is reshaping the landscape of mixing and mastering — a trend we were already seeing with Waves StudioVerse’s real-time stem separation or the alliance between SSL and sonible around AI.
What to watch for
Three points deserve attention in the coming months. First, the business model: will subscriptions survive in their current form, and at what price? Second, integration: will we see concrete bridges between the audio tools and the Boris FX video pipeline? Third, the pace of updates, which will reveal how serious the investment is. In the mastering space, competition is not slowing down — WaveLab 13 and its new era of Dolby Atmos mastering is a recent reminder. Boris FX has inherited a jewel of audio software; we now have to see whether they will polish it or let it gather dust.
