Tone 2 - Saurus 2 is available

[Apostate]

Probably. I think the user interface has a lot to do with the way a synth is perceived. Behind that, though, Tone2 synths probably share a lot of code. It's the same programmer, so I assume he has his way of doing filters and what not. He won't reinvent the wheel just because he makes a new synth. He will stick to what he knows from his previous work.

That makes sense. Sometimes I wonder if certain people are just as much collecting guis as synths. And I also wonder if sometimes certain people want to spend money just to spend money. Perhaps a "sky's the limit when it comes to my creativity!" attitude informs the latter.

[dwozzle]

FYI, there's a discussion on the Tone2 list about pitchbend setup options, including this from Markus:

chances are good that we are able to include a more comfortable pitchwheel programming in the next update. The update will be for free for all Saurus2 customers.

Feel free to chime in (not that you need my invite...).

[EnGee]

Nice thread! It made me curious, so I downloaded Saurus 2 demo and compare it with other VA synths I have.

Well, I have mixed feelings about it after demoing it for about one hour. The presets sound better than the demos in their website. It is a nice synth and can produce a wide range of sounds but as analog synth it doesn't excel in any. I compare it with Vacuum Pro, Retrologue, Arp 2600 V, SEM V, and Korg MS-20. Saurus can't compete with any of them. They all sound more analog and more pleasant to my ears, but Saurus can cover most of their sounds although not as good, but still good enough for someone who needs 'all in one analogish synth'.

Some of the presets are really good. It made me like to make some dance music. I think it can inspire easily into dance music and the sound although share some similarity with Electra and other Tone 2 synths, it still different (and IMO sounds better than the others).

So, if I was into EDM, I would purchase it mostly (if not for the sound, then for the inspiration). However, for me, it doesn't add anything that I don't have already that with nicer character and GUI (of course it is a matter of taste).

[fluffy_little_something]

Why does the noise knob influence the sound when the respective oscillator is set to zero with the mix knob? According to the signal flow it should not influence the sound, just like the tone knob before it on the same path when that osc is set to zero.

Yes, EnGee, Retrologue is hard to beat among low-CPU synths
For 50 bucks it has everything they recommended Electra to me for: complete pitch bend range settings (luxurious actually, with separate settings for up and down), decent noise implementation, mono mode with complete retriggering instead of resuming (actually one can choose either), and the sound is also pretty good. I wish Steinberg would make an update as well and add a few things, like a third envelope for pitch or noise manipulation. They should also remove the keyboard and use the space for displaying both LFOs and both effects all the time instead.

[Apostate]

Yes, EnGee, Retrologue is hard to beat among low-CPU synths
For 50 bucks it has everything they recommended Electra to me for: complete pitch bend range settings (luxurious actually, with separate settings for up and down), decent noise implementation, mono mode with complete retriggering instead of resuming (actually one can choose either), and the sound is also pretty good. I wish Steinberg would make an update as well and add a few things, like a third envelope for pitch or noise manipulation. They should also remove the keyboard and use the space for displaying both LFOs and both effects all the time instead.

I wish both Retrologue and Arturia would do away with the archaic preset thing. The whole way things are listed sucks, especially when compared to Tone 2 and U-he. It makes searching daunting. Other than that, I really like Retrologue, but I notice I don't use it as much as the other synths mentioned recently.

[2ZrgE]

Haven't checked the prices, but for my taste U-he's Diva has much more to offer than Saurus, sound-wise at least.

Saurus may have more mod possibilites due to the use of a mod matrix or the built-in step-sequencer (?, AFAIR). On the other hand, the FX-section is too limited for a modern style synth.

But then again, why not just go directly for Electra2? Only because Saurus is labelled as "analog synth"? It's a strange mixture between "old school analog style" with extended mod possiblities.

I like the name though...always think of Jurrassic Park and the likes

[fluffy_little_something]

Yes, the browser is a bit old-skool But unlike Saurus it lets you use subfolders for your own categories. Now, if they added a simple Init button somewhere on the GUI I could leave the whole factory directory collapsed and I would only see my own folders, that would be pretty cool. Actually, I could add an INIT patch into my own directory, that should work.

I used to own Retrologue, but sold it and I don't even remember why. I just didn't use it a lot, either. It is a standard synth, so I suppose people who want something out of the ordinary get bored with it fast.

[dwozzle]

See, that's the thing, I felt that some of the options in Saurus made it just enough more than a "standard synth" to be interesting.

I'd try Retrologue I guess, but is it true that there's no demo?

[Apostate]

See, that's the thing, I felt that some of the options in Saurus made it just enough more than a "standard synth" to be interesting.

I agree.

[fluffy_little_something]

See, that's the thing, I felt that some of the options in Saurus made it just enough more than a "standard synth" to be interesting.

I'd try Retrologue I guess, but is it true that there's no demo?

I am using the demo as we write 30 days without any limitations, which is pretty generous...

[dwozzle]

Huh, Retrologue page I was on before didn't have download, specs, etc tabs. Got it, thanks. Can't check it out until later tho.

[EnGee]

Yes, EnGee, Retrologue is hard to beat among low-CPU synths

Well, I'm fan of Retrologue, in spite of when I first tried it, I didn't like it and preferred Korg Mono/Poly so I bought the second instead. But after time and as my understanding and taste got better (I think ), I got interested again and then bought it. It is old school synth and can't replace Saurus in everything IMO.

But between Retrologue (or Vacuum Pro ..etc) + Hybrid3 and Saurus + Electra, I would choose the first group even for EDM, as Hybrid3 is a great synth with a very pleasant sound.

Still I think Saurus is a very good synth and might be the only synth one needs although the price is little bit high (but my opinion is the same about Hive and Hybrid3 if not in sale).

[Ingonator]

I got Retrologue included with Cubase Pro 8 and admit i never use it really much compared to other synths like e.g. Saurus, Diva and others. Feature wise and also sound wise Saurus and Retrologue seem to be quite different and not easily comparable IMO.

For example the Osc section of Saurus has 2 Sub-Oscs instead of 1 in Retrologue (and you got 8 waveform choices there in Saurus) and Saurus has a 3rd envelope. The biggest differences re in the filer that has a 0df design in Saurus and the oscillator section that has 8 waveforms with a second morphable waveform for each of them (pure second waveform with the PW knob at maximum).
The 0df filter design indeed needs more CPU but usually much less than e.g. in Diva or some other 0df synths.
The Saurus filter also has some nice features like e.g. Filter FM, Feeedback, Drive and the "Soft" button that switches to a different ("softer") Resonance behavior.

When the Unison is used the "Pan" knob below the Unison controls the stereo spread of the voices.

Besides that the "Tone" knobs in the Osc section could change the basic sound of the oscillators quite a lot and could act like a second filter or an EQ. For a more "vintage" tone the tone knobs should be below the center position.

Some of the Saurus mod sources like e.g. "Decay2s" act as simple envelopes with a defined time that is shown in the name of the source.
Mod Sources like e.g. "Sine2Hz" act like a Sine LFO with a 2 Hz rate in that case. This way it is possible to use more than than the 2 full featured LFOs (those go up tp 440 Hz BTW).

Saurus could also load and save the Arpeggiator/Sequencer patterns as files and those files are compatible with those in e.g. Rayblaster.

What many people seem to miss is that Saurus for using Noise besides the F/A Noise knob in the Osc section also includes a "normal" noise source. If you want to hear that pure Noise source you have to do this:
- set Osc Mix to Osc 1
- set Sub-Osc mixes to 0
- in the mod matrix send a "Const" source to the "Osc1 Vol" destination and set the value to -100 (= minimum)
- in the mod matrix send a "Const" source to the "Noise Vol" destination and set the value to 100 (= maximum)

That way you should be able to use the pure Noise. The F/A Noise in the Osc section (for each Osc) is a different kind of Noise.

Besides that there also two mod sources called "White Noise" and "Pink Noise" to use Noise as a mod source.



As mentioned earlier it is also possible to switch off the oscillator keytracking (e.g. for doing "Drone" sounds) by using a "Key" mod source and a "Osc1 Pitch" or Osc2 Pitch" mod destination and then a value of -100 (= minimum). According to Bastiaan from Tone2 i was the first to do this in a few patches at one of the official soundsets available at Tone2. In other synths like e.g. my Waldorf Pulse 2 there are on/off switches for Osc keytracking in Osc1 and 2. Also in the minimoog you were able to switch off keytracking in Osc 3 which normally was used for using Osc 3 as a LFO (at the "Low" octave setting).

[dwozzle]

Thanks for this Ingo, especially didn't know about the "normal" noise feature.

Not so much that specific feature (noise as a generator as opposed to a modulation is pretty standard, and typically more directly available actually), but other features you've listed, plus others too, are the sorts of things that make Saurus not just a standard VA synth, both sonically and feature-wise. As I keep saying, personally I don't care if it's "analog sounding", whatever that means, I just like the sounds, and I like that there are options to explore.

[fluffy_little_something]

@Ingo

Yes, it has more waveforms, but when you cycle through the presets, most only seem to use one of the first four/upper row, i.e. the basic ones, anyway.

What you describe about the noise is one of the things that I don't like. Basic stuff like that should not be so clumsy. I don't want to use a matrix (by the way, they refer to mod slots as matrices, so there are 15 matrices as modulation targets, not sure that makes much sense) just in order to shut up the oscillators or use something as basic as white noise. Especially not because the display is hard to read due to its poor contrast.
In Retrologue standard things such as envelope velocity have their dedicated knobs. The envelopes have sliders instead of knobs, which is also more user-friendly.

The sound of Saurus is indeed very different from Retrologue's. The latter allows for much warmer/softer pads, resonance is more musical in my view. Saurus sounds much more aggressive to me, which might be why it excels at brass, nasty leads and such things, it has a harsher sound character.

Retrologue on the other hand can do those fine, silky, spacey Jupiter 8-like background pads, together with the Chorus it sounds just lovely. I can't get that out of Saurus no matter what I do. Saurus is more in your face. Despite Saurus' pan knob in unison mode, it doesn't sound as dense and surrounding as Retrologue. The difference is more obvious on headphones.

Yeah, I suppose Retrologue does not have 0df filters, but since I rarely use resonance or extreme modulations anyway, so that's not really a limitation for me. But for EDM kids it might be a problem, who knows...

I experimented with the aux envelope, it seems somehow limited. Hard to describe. For instance use the digital init patch. It has identical env settings. Now turn back cutoff to like 9 o'clock and route the aux env to cutoff. Then compare the two envelopes when alternately setting their amounts to max, the aux env seems to allow for only half the amount.

I guess they kind of had to add sines in the matrix because the regular LFO's don't have sines, but waveforms like ramped noise, which is really odd in my view.

I have also had some ugly hanging notes in Saurus by the way, but I don't know how to reproduce them.

All in all, Saurus is a mixed bag in my view. I could never use it as my only synth, it sounds way too "specific", not standard enough. Now that EnGee has found the reason for the unwanted noise in Retrologue and I can easily stop it, I might buy that synth a second time as it indeed is enough to be my one and only subtractive synth, an almost perfect analog allrounder Sorry to say this in the Saurus thread

What Tone2 and Steinberg have in common is that they charge a lot for their sound sets, which probably contain the good patches