Tone2 Saurus2...The Great Underrated?

[fluffy_little_something]

I had it myself already, and it was a Any One Synth version of the OSC so I picked Saurus to use as the synth.

Ah ok, never heard of such an OSC Must be fun to crush Charlatan with Omnisphere...

[Examigan]

I had it myself already, and it was a Any One Synth version of the OSC so I picked Saurus to use as the synth.

Ah ok, never heard of such an OSC Must be fun to crush Charlatan with Omnisphere...

You can check out the other entries here:
https://sites.google.com/site/kvrosc/os ... -one-synth

[surreal]

Sythmaster was my featured Synth in that OSC!! Was so cool... I wish Brian would consider one more Challenge like that!

[JPQ]

I dont yet updated Saurus 2. But i have Saurus is one my favorite synths. actually 2nd synth what i ever buyed (not count Komplete becouse i buyed it many reasons and its not single synth) and another is Blue.(what i allreaday upgraded to Blue 2). I think i can do most softsynth sound needs with these.

[chk071]

I would say there are soft synths which sound way more analog than Saurus does. Especially the filters are rather the typical, quite artificial sounding Tone2 filters. Crank up the resonance, and compare it to analog filters, the classic ones, Moog, Oberheim, Roland, and you will hear the difference. Tone2's filters always have that sheen, artificial resonance behavior, which seem to attenuate the cutoff frequncy, but, at some point, seem disconnected from the signal, and do their own thing, if that makes sense. They also pretty much fall apart with fast modulation. That said, i don't think they're bad at all, and i kind of like the character. Yet, it is not exactly "analog".

In general, i would say the sound engine sounds Tone2-ish, which is fair enough, as no company develops a synth from scratch, not using any algorithms, or knowledge from their former synths. Yet, i was definitely able to tell that it is a Tone2 synth, even when i played the raw oscillators in Electra2. Maybe a blind test would have fooled me, but, when you know what you have to look for, you will find it. As i wrote, don't take this as bashing the synth. But i do think that Tone2 do a better job with "digital" synths, than with a pure analog emulation. Companies like u-he, NI, or Synapse kind of raised the bar for this type of thing, and it's difficult to reach that, if it's not for some tedious, and long work, to do similar.

Some really good points here, and I agree especially with the fact that Tone 2 (like Waldorf synths...at least in general) is more of a digital and "character" synth developer; overall the effects and general sound are indeed digital to my ears...just nowhere near as "vanilla digital" as something like Serum. They have a sound all their own. Thus, not as malleable as the aforementioned Xfer product, but the Tone2 synths have a definite place in my own music.

I guess...it really depends on what you define "analogue" as being. To me that word means a certain sound-presence, weight that I get when hearing, oh...a hardware Moog, Roland, VCS. I don't get that as much with Saurus as I do Diva or XILS IV (or, to get a bit oblique, Zebra/HZ), but I do hear it in the former significantly more than, say, Largo (a good example of a basically "digital" synth), and the abovementioned Serum.

But, I guess we could dally over this subject for pages on, and I probably went on a bit of a rant meself. Au found, I hear an analogue side to Saurus, while the effects can really ring in the digital. If that makes any sense lol!

FWIW, anything i heard so far from Serum sounds plain boring to me. Probably shouldn't judge it by that though, as, when you program it, or fiddle yourself, it is a different thing. Yet, i can understand why people tend to call it sterile, clinical cold, and a bit harsh. But, hey, there's a place for that too. Z3TA for example, as digitally cold as it may sound, does for some nice, cold, metallic, glittery deep space pads. I agree that the Waldorf synths also have quite a unique sound, and sound a bit digital too, especially the latest iterations.

Anyway, IMO, if you have Icarus, Saurus becomes a tad obsolete, as it also has some nice filters. The jump from something like Electra2 to Saurus was a bit bigger IMO, as Saurus not only models saturation in the synth path, but also has the better (ZDF?) filters. But, ok, if you're looking for a rather "classic" subtractive synth layout, then you're probably better off with Saurus. For 99 €, it seems a bit pricey to me, like Retrologue. 49 € would be more what i'd pay for it, but that's just my 2c.

[Apostate]

FWIW, anything i heard so far from Serum sounds plain boring to me. Probably shouldn't judge it by that though, as, when you program it, or fiddle yourself, it is a different thing. Yet, i can understand why people tend to call it sterile, clinical cold, and a bit harsh. But, hey, there's a place for that too. Z3TA for example, as digitally cold as it may sound, does for some nice, cold, metallic, glittery deep space pads

I bought Serum when it first came out, held onto it for over a year (mostly because of the continued and undeservedly huge accolades at the time), then sold it for what I perceived as a prevailing flat sound (truly bizarre when it was aimed at the EDM crowd), and a wide range of what seemed to me mostly useless filters, and oscillators that...well, give Serum a spin, anyone, and prepare to break out Massive instead.

But Duda-dude has made good on his promise of progression (all the Duda day). I took Splice for a spin and, lo and behold, Serum's continual updates have paid off; it's not exactly the same synth it was, and the improvement is in some ways delightfully radical. I'm a believer now...however, I still break out Zebra and Nave more (shrugs). But anyway, to me Serum is more than worth having now imo. Don't make the mistake I did and completely give up.

As far as Z3ta...you know, I've heard (and made) patches with that synth that had a striking amount of punch and weight. I'm not getting rid of that synth anytime soon. Same with Audjoo Helix. Both have that somewhat vanilla-yet-powerful sound that Serum lacks overall. Still, Serum is a modulation monster, especially with the effects but not just. I really recommend, if you haven't lately, demo'ing the more recent version.

[chk071]

Yeah, i wouldn't get rid of Z3TA, it somehow always manages to stay in my plugin folder, even when i don't really use it much. It can do some lovely, spacey, wavetable-ish stuff when you modulate the waveshapers, and always comes with new flavours, due to the waveshaping. The filters are a bit weak (and pretty harsh with resonacne), but apart from that, it's really cool. And it has surprisingly snappy envelopes, considering it is that old already (not sure, but i don't think they did something to the sound engine with version 2).

As for Serum, i will surely give it a spin one day. Maybe it does indeed surprise me.

[Apostate]

Yeah, i wouldn't get rid of Z3TA, it somehow always manages to stay in my plugin folder, even when i don't really use it much. It can do some lovely, spacey, wavetable-ish stuff when you modulate the waveshapers, and always comes with new flavours, due to the waveshaping. The filters are a bit weak (and pretty harsh with resonacne), but apart from that, it's really cool. And it has surprisingly snappy envelopes, considering it is that old already (not sure, but i don't think they did something to the sound engine with version 2).

As for Serum, i will surely give it a spin one day. Maybe it does indeed surprise me.

I was happily surprised, so much so that I decided to buy the synth again, which is extremely uncharacteristic of me.

You might give it another spin just to check out the changes, like or not.

[recursive one]

Serum's continual updates have paid off; it's not exactly the same synth it was, and the improvement is in some ways delightfully radical.

What exactly was added/improved? Iirc it was announced that Serum got 8 lfos instead of 4, a better reverb and wavetable import. Not really radical changes, maybe except for that import thing (but I don't have much high quality content to import anyway).

And was the demo ever updated?

[Apostate]

Serum's continual updates have paid off; it's not exactly the same synth it was, and the improvement is in some ways delightfully radical.

What exactly was added/improved? Iirc it was announced that Serum got 8 lfos instead of 4, a better reverb and wavetable import. Not really radical changes, maybe except for that import thing (but I don't have much high quality content to import anyway).

And was the demo ever updated?

You can go on the Xfer forum to get all the info you need as far as that goes, and probably put way better than anything I could come up with. I'm not sure, but I think you have to demo Serum directly from Splice to get the more updated version. I could definitely be wrong on that, apologies if so.

All I know is, I don't buy synths a second time...this is the only exception (and I own a TON of synths).

[zerocrossing]

I seem to remember it aliased like a stuck pig... at least v1 did. There was nothing about the general sound of it that really inspired a buy. The presets, as usual with Tone2, aren't my bag either. I couldn't really figure out a reason to buy this one, and it's not like I'm not a fan of their instruments. I've got Gladiator 2, Nemesis, Electra 2 and Mult-FX. I think I may have looked at Saurus 2 at some point, but it still didn't have anything that inspired a buy. Not that it's really bad, but I've got a pile of really good already.

[Apostate]

I seem to remember it aliased like a stuck pig... at least v1 did. There was nothing about the general sound of it that really inspired a buy. The presets, as usual with Tone2, aren't my bag either. I couldn't really figure out a reason to buy this one, and it's not like I'm not a fan of their instruments. I've got Gladiator 2, Nemesis, Electra 2 and Mult-FX. I think I may have looked at Saurus 2 at some point, but it still didn't have anything that inspired a buy. Not that it's really bad, but I've got a pile of really good already.

Nemesis and Electra are terrific imo. That last reason you gave has been my default override when it comes to buying synths and libraries these days. It's the reasonI passed on Icarus, as great as I thought it sounded.

Having learned Zebra/HZ top to bottom also had me selling synths and avoiding new ones. Once I mastered that one (shoot, I still study up on it), my huge collection of other synths became...well, more like a collection.

[szurcio]

Not IMO. The GUI is worse, I don't hear any notorious difference in sound (have v1 and tried v2 demo) and the price for the upgrade is exagerated, considering the alleged improvements. For something like 29 and with the possibility to maintain the old GUi (I hate those new knobs), I could maybe consider the upgrade. But for 49, no way. Anyway, I like the old version as it is. What I would like is a version that could coexist with iLOK without problems (they sent me one that supposedly should have fixed it, but the problem returned, and I simply had to give up on it).

Where did you see the upgrade for $49? It's $69 on their website.

[Ingonator]

Here is a dedicated page about teh changes in Saurus v2:
https://tone2.com/html/upgrade1.html

[fmr]

Here is a dedicated page about teh changes in Saurus v2:
https://tone2.com/html/upgrade1.html

As I said, what was added doesn't justify a 50% fee to upgrade. The list speaks for itself.

Besides, it's even debatable if that's enough for a 2.0 version (IMO, it isn't - a 1.1 version maybe). We got more in DIVA for a .x update, and for free. Even Serum, that's been mentioned, has got more in the updates. This list looks like the Apple "improvements" when they change OS versions.

This, added to the fact the GUI is worse, IMO (in spite of Tone 2 claimings it's better) made me pass on it.