Tone2 Saurus2...The Great Underrated?

[Apostate]

I've got the 1st Saurus. It's a great synth that would have been a legendary synth if it was hardware. You get fantastic fat sounds with low CPU usage.
I've no idea why it doesn't get more recognition.

Don't miss out on 2! It's a definitely worthwhile upgrade, trust me on this

[robindrieghe]

waiting for the moment they decide to give it away like warmverb,bifilter,firebird and filterbank 3 i bought from them.

[fmr]

I've got the 1st Saurus. It's a great synth that would have been a legendary synth if it was hardware. You get fantastic fat sounds with low CPU usage.
I've no idea why it doesn't get more recognition.

Don't miss out on 2! It's a definitely worthwhile upgrade, trust me on this

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).

[Ingonator]

. 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).

For me the iLok update seemed to work and with the Saurus v2 update it is not really a problem anyway here.

[fmr]

. 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).

For me the iLok update seemed to work and with the Saurus v2 update it is not really a problem anyway here.

Yes, but I am with Saurus 1. They sent me an update (or modified version - never knew what it was really), and it worked for a while, but Pace updated the software, and there we go again . There is also at least another instrument that has the same problems, but I still didn't identify which one is. I already downloaded all the current updates to install them, but I didn't yet.

[fluffy_little_something]

waiting for the moment they decide to give it away like warmverb,bifilter,firebird and filterbank 3 i bought from them.

I don't think that will happen anytime soon. Maybe in 2025 or so And by then it will be rather outdated, just like Firebird is today. I don't even want to use the latter for free, it sounds like crap to me.

[chk071]

Saurus for free? I'd take that.

Well, maybe they make a magware out of it. That'd be nice.

[EnGee]

I have tried the demo of Saurus 2. Hmmmm, I didn't feel it is analogish synth! I compared it with Retrologue 2, Monark, LuSH 101 and even Predator. Also with ACE and Hive. All the listed sound more analogue and more interesting for me (much more in fact!). I think it is the less interesting one in Tone2 synths.

[himalaya]

Saurus 1 sounds as analog as the rest of the usual suspects (never used Saurus 2 though). Have a listen to the demos I posted ealier, they are made to sound old-school on purpose to bring the 'analog' tone more to the front (the Skrillex one is cheesy on purpose).

I grew up on such sounds and Saurus can nail them, no problems. Its vintage strings are especially good. Lots of character.

Diva, Saurus, Monark, The Legent, Cyper, Strobe, Amber, Lush101, OBXD and more, they all give a contrasting 'analog' sound. All good, all authentic if you know what you want and how to achieve it. For example, I've been able to recreate sounds from my ancient Korg mini 700 in Cypher, but nobody here would associate Cypher (on paper) with that silky, nasal, full of 'electrons' sounds that seem to emanate from this little Korg.

[SLiC]

Saurus2 is a great VA, it has more polish (fx) than say Monark or Legend; but the raw sound is pretty good. I know its been said 1000 times before, but by the time a synth is in the mix with effects and mastered you will be hard pushed to tell from one from another (and if you can. I bet you no one who listens to music can, they just like the tune!)

I like Saurus2 pre-sets, they inspire me to write music (rather than listen for oscillator artefacts so that I can write reviews!) and that is what counts....Its a very good synth, easy to use, good sound and some great pre-sets...problem is, I can name at least a dozen other VA's that do the same job....the market is getting pretty saturated!

For what its worth, I have a lot of analogue hardware, I still haven't found a VST that sounds as good...they are all simulations, but even hardware recorded in to a digital DAW and dithered down for distribution looses a lot of its sparkle...its only really live or on studio monitors that you can really hear the difference.

[Apostate]

Saurus2 is a great VA, it has more polish (fx) than say Monark

Monark is yet another excellent "retro" synth, but I don't like the gui/workflow. I'm especially not a fan of the way the modulation features work...very awkward to me. Thus, it's more of a preset synth for me. I practically never do sound design with it.

To put it more succinctly, I would never recommend Monark over Diva, XILS IV, or Saurus2 when I'm recommending that type of synth to sound designers. Same with Retrologue, though I pretty much just plain don't use that one for anything, as it's very uninteresting to me (and why should I reach for that when I already have the above to choose from? Those four synths offer quite a range of useable sounds).

Not to mention, Zebra/HZ easily has the capability to produce many of those sounds, and if I were going desperately broke, I'd sell all the above and simply keep Zebra/HZ

[EnGee]

Saurus 1 sounds as analog as the rest of the usual suspects (never used Saurus 2 though). Have a listen to the demos I posted ealier, they are made to sound old-school on purpose to bring the 'analog' tone more to the front (the Skrillex one is cheesy on purpose).

I grew up on such sounds and Saurus can nail them, no problems. Its vintage strings are especially good. Lots of character.

I have listened just now to your examples, which I like, reminded me of Vangelis Except of Skrillex of course!

I think if you used Icarus instead, you would have more interesting sounds! But I agree the strings are nice with Saurus. Anyway, for me I prefer what I mentioned really. Maybe it is just a matter of taste, but it is easy to notice the depth of the analogue sound in LuSH or Retrologue for example.

[wagtunes]

Quite honestly, I don't know what the f**k people are hearing when they listen to this synth and go "It doesn't sound analog".

When I went to their web site and turned on the first demo and heard "Jump" screaming out of the speakers, a song I grew up with, the first thing I said was "Holy shit, they nailed it."

I dare ANYBODY in a blind test to tell the difference between the Saurus and the OB-X if both were used to create a cover of that song. No f**king way.

So like Jeff Daniels in The Newsroom when they ask him what makes America the greatest country in the world and he starts rattling off all the reasons why it's not and finally says "So when you say that America is the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the f**k you're talking about", yeah, I don't know what the f**k you're talking about when you say that Saurus doesn't sound analog.

/rant

[Apostate]

Quite honestly, I don't know what the f**k people are hearing when they listen to this synth and go "It doesn't sound analog".

When I went to their web site and turned on the first demo and heard "Jump" screaming out of the speakers, a song I grew up with, the first thing I said was "Holy shit, they nailed it."

I dare ANYBODY in a blind test to tell the difference between the Saurus and the OB-X if both were used to create a cover of that song. No f**king way.

So like Jeff Daniels in The Newsroom when they ask him what makes America the greatest country in the world and he starts rattling off all the reasons why it's not and finally says "So when you say that America is the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the f**k you're talking about", yeah, I don't know what the f**k you're talking about when you say that Saurus doesn't sound analog.

/rant

Oh dear.

[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.