Tone2 will release Icarus - 3D WaveTable Synthesizer

[recursive one]

https://soundcloud.com/boyss/tone2-icarus-factory-demo

Very well produced and arranged tune, except some very ugly whistling frequencies which, according to my understanding, come from the vocoder patch. The demos posted earlier by Fidox also are well made, good mix and good sound choise.

But as for the synth itself i have to say that these demos show pretty bland and tame sound, no real charatcer, no "bang", which confrims my own experience with the demo. I think Icarus maybe a good choise for beginners wanting a versatile and easy to use synth, but for people already having several state-of-art synths I'm not sure it will add anything.

[Ingonator]

But as for the synth itself i have to say that these demos show pretty bland and tame sound, no real charatcer, no "bang", which confrims my own experience with the demo. I think Icarus maybe a good choise for beginners wanting a versatile and easy to use synth, but for people already having several state-of-art synths I'm not sure it will add anything.

IMO it is wrong (like Mac of Bionight already explained early here...) to judge the synth only based on sounds used in certan demos. The fact that those specific sounds were used there does not mean that the synth is not capable also of other sounds.
I could poost an audio demo with 100 different patches and those could reprsent just a fraction of what is possible with the synth.
I am working on more patches for Icarus too but that will representis how I want Icaus to sound while other sound designers will maybe do totally different stuff and i would never dare to say i would come close to cover everything that is possible, except maybe if i would do thousands of patches.

When i do patches i am also not always looking to use tons of features and use the most "fancy" ones. Sometimes also a quite simple patch could sounds great. At the end is the sound that matters and not who used the most and/or the most advanced features.
FWIW i usually prefer to use custom waveforms and wavetables and only very rarely used factory waveforms/tables so far. Even for the "standard" waveforms and analog style PWM i got waveforms/wavetables based on samples of real analog synths (e.g. from a Moog Slim Phatty or Bass Station II).

With a synth that has so many features it is hard to say what "that" Icarus sound really is, also as it has lots of different filter modes that define a big part of the sond of a patch (oposing to certain other synths taht maybe only have a single filter mode or a very limited amount).
If you mean that Icarus has no good low end depending on how you use it this could be very good (also depending on the wavetable, filter and EQ settings used).

Of course as Icarus is a wavetable synth a lot of the overall sound of a certain patch will depend on which wavetable or single waveforms you use and the options there are endless, also as you could create your own waveforms and tables from scratch.

[recursive one]

With a synth that has so many features it is hard to say what "that" Icarus sound really is

Yes, I understand this. I have only scratched the surface of the demo, but I mostly come up with sounds which I'd call "tame and bland". Probably with some work it is possible to make some really "coloured" sounds in Icarus but I have yet to hear them.

Generally speaking it's just me having preference towards relatively simple, yet characterful synths, like Spire, Monark or Massive (and as you see, I named mostly the "agressive" sounding synths, which also tells something about my preferences). Propbably people who prefer more "tame" synths, like, say, Dune2 would love Icarus just for being "tame" as well.

[Ingonator]

nvm

[Ingonator]

Generally speaking it's just me having preference towards relatively simple, yet characterful synths, like Spire, Monark or Massive (and as you see, I named mostly the "agressive" sounding synths, which also tells something about my preferences). Propbably people who prefer more "tame" synths, like, say, Dune2 would love Icarus just for being "tame" as well.

FWIW two of my favorite and most productive synths in terms of own patches are Tone2 Saurus and PPG Wave 3.V (more than 250 own patches for each of them).

Those are not the most advanced in terms of features but they simply work for me and IMO also got a great overall sound.
I got a bunch of other wavetable synths (including some other Waldorf synths and also a hardware Blofeld) that seem to be superior to the PPG but still i had not made as many patches with them as i did with the PPG.
Icarus could be a synth where i get the same amount of patches or even more.

[Ingonator]

While using the Morph modes to create new/modified wavetables i also checked an interesting feature in the wavetableeditor called "Mix with copy" (in the MIX menu). This offers mixing two waveforms or two wavetables. The procedure seems to be like this:

1.) load a wavetable or waveform or create one from scratch

2.) select a single waveform, a selction of waveforms or the whole wavetable (selection of multiple waveforms with holding the left mouse button and then dragging the mouse over the desired selection of waveforms)

3.) Cick at "COPY" at the upper left of the editor (below "Undo/Redo")

4.) load the second waveform or wavetable or create a new one from scratch

5.) select "Mix with copy" from the MIX menu

6.) Now you should have a mix of both waveforms or wavetables and you could save the new table

7.) You could repeat the same procedure with the new wavetable you just created, either again with the same wavetables or to mix with another one.

8.) If you mix with the same wavetable again you could increase the amount of this one in the mix.

Another option for mixing two single waveforms is using the crossfade feature (avaiable in the MIX menu too), cut out the desired new waveform (for example using TRIM in the editor) and then save the new waveform.

[OneOfManyPauls]

I think Icarus maybe a good choise for beginners wanting a versatile and easy to use synth, but for people already having several state-of-art synths I'm not sure it will add anything.

I'm intrigued as to what you'd class as "state of the art synths"?

How many other synths have 3 full wavetables with a wide range of unison and morphing modes, do solid resynthesis, and have high quality dual parallel/series filters?

[exmatproton]

I think Icarus maybe a good choise for beginners wanting a versatile and easy to use synth, but for people already having several state-of-art synths I'm not sure it will add anything.

I'm intrigued as to what you'd class as "state of the art synths"?

How many other synths have 3 full wavetables with a wide range of unison and morphing modes, do solid resynthesis, and have high quality dual parallel/series filters?

I don't believe Icarus is a bad synth, i love it (as a whole). However, there are some synths out there with better developed elements. The way z3ta +2 morphs the waves, fits me better (the sound and quality). The filters on Nave, Largo and Serum fit me better. The fx in Falcon, Dune2 and Harmor fit me better. And i could go on.

Don't get me wrong; Icarus is a fun and good allround wavetable synth. With awesome elements, a good quality overall and fun tweak options. But the more i use it, the more i find the weaker points dealbreakers in certain tracks i do.

On the other hand, for fast (i'm not talking about the arp/seq here, cause that is awefully small and a pain to edit) and fun sound sculpting, it is nice addition to what i already have and use.

[recursive one]

I think Icarus maybe a good choise for beginners wanting a versatile and easy to use synth, but for people already having several state-of-art synths I'm not sure it will add anything.

I'm intrigued as to what you'd class as "state of the art synths"?

How many other synths have 3 full wavetables with a wide range of unison and morphing modes, do solid resynthesis, and have high quality dual parallel/series filters?

I believe Serum covers the wavetable/resynthesis territory pretty well and sounds more "characterful" than Icarus. As for the filters, I think they are decent but nothing special. Filters in Spire, Diva and Virus TI sound much more interesting to my ears.

[chk071]

I agree. And that's also my general perception with the Tone2 synths. When trying them out, i was often like "Hey, nice!", in the first couple of hours. But then, the impression often changes, when it comes to judging the filters, oscillators, the overall handling, GUI, and stuff like that. Their synths are anything but bad, but, unlike the marketing tries to tell people, they're not so special after all. As has been said by exmatproton and recursive, the filters are good, but others are better. The oscillators aren't bad, but others sound better to me (and are real stereo oscillators). And especially regarding the handling, i often feel like the Tone2 synths always have some odd things, which require workarounds, or which are just not as straight forward, as they could be. And, what i always find when using Tone2's synths, they could just be more raw, and have more "bang", and sweetness with extremer settings. Especially Electra2 pretty much falls apart with high resonance settings, or fast modulations, it sort of sounds pretty lame then. Icarus is better in that regard, and the development of the filters really went upwards with Saurus, but, still, sounds all a bit tame, and not very aggressive. Of course, fair enough, if you want tame. Just like with Dune 2, you just can't get that synth to sound very aggressive too. Each to his like.

[AnX]

Just like with Dune 2, you just can't get that synth to sound very aggressive too.

I can. Its quite easy, even if you only know the basics of synthesis. Do you know the basics?

[chk071]

I believe so. Can you get it to sound as aggressive and bangy as Monark? I'd be thrilled to hear that. For me, it sounds very soft with most sounds.

[AnX]

I agree. And that's also my general perception with the Tone2 synths. When trying them out, i was often like "Hey, nice!", in the first couple of hours. But then, the impression often changes, when it comes to judging the filters, oscillators, the overall handling, GUI, and stuff like that. Their synths are anything but bad, but, unlike the marketing tries to tell people, they're not so special after all.

100% agree.

[Cinebient]

I agree. And that's also my general perception with the Tone2 synths. When trying them out, i was often like "Hey, nice!", in the first couple of hours. But then, the impression often changes, when it comes to judging the filters, oscillators, the overall handling, GUI, and stuff like that. Their synths are anything but bad, but, unlike the marketing tries to tell people, they're not so special after all. As has been said by exmatproton and recursive, the filters are good, but others are better. The oscillators aren't bad, but others sound better to me (and are real stereo oscillators). And especially regarding the handling, i often feel like the Tone2 synths always have some odd things, which require workarounds, or which are just not as straight forward, as they could be. And, what i always find when using Tone2's synths, they could just be more raw, and have more "bang", and sweetness with extremer settings. Especially Electra2 pretty much falls apart with high resonance settings, or fast modulations, it sort of sounds pretty lame then. Icarus is better in that regard, and the development of the filters really went upwards with Saurus, but, still, sounds all a bit tame, and not very aggressive. Of course, fair enough, if you want tame. Just like with Dune 2, you just can't get that synth to sound very aggressive too. Each to his like.

And this are mostly things which could be flavour, user fault, needs, workflow....whatever!
I totally disagree here!
But that doesn't mean you (and others) are not right.
I mean it is good...otherwise we don't would have such different tools

[AnX]

I believe so. Can you get it to sound as aggressive and bangy as Monark? I'd be thrilled to hear that. For me, it sounds very soft with most sounds.

Sure. There are lots of options. FX obviously, but driving the filters is a good start.