Tone2 Nemesis is released!

[ThomasHelzle]

Had a bit time while waiting for renders to finish, downloaded the demo, went through many many presets, found about 5 I found interesting...

Hm...

Not sure I understand the point of this synth.

And I agree about the GUI. Every LFO waveform and many other things laid out very spaciously and then a lot of things cramped into tabs in a fake "display"? Interesting decision.

Fell for the Web Tab as well. Not a good place for it IMO.

Nice overall GUI design though.

Cheers,

Tom

[Examigan]

Great to see it is out now
It is fun/easy to design sounds with it.

[Sendy]

Definitely has some interesting modulations. It doesn't quite live up to the hyperhype, and it's not going to replace a complex FM synth with a matrix and several operators, but I like it, and it has it's own niche of complexity to explore. Not sure I need it, though. This might be the first Tone2 synth I pass on, at least for now.

In fact it seems most at home doing grinding syncoid sounds. Many flavours of sync and formanty sounds. Some overlap with Rayblaster in that respect. I LOVE the hollow formant mode. I'm not even sure what's going on behind the hood in that one, but my ears approve.

Favourite preset so far: Wavery Keys.

[Igro]

Fun to work with. Easy. In many cases it's exactly what is needed. Many waveforms!

But Decay as in every Tone2 synth is crippled. Seems like they are testing their synths using 5 dollars earplugs. Here is an audio sample (first NeoFM followed by NI Razor):

https://app.box.com/s/xct23tw8zv60sopwra13

[3ee]

OK, another round of testing:

What I like:

+init stuff within file menu!
+GUI, in general looks good
+factory patches (randomly, quickly checked out a dozen and they seem (very) nice!
+Additive spectral editor for the osc.
+Many effects to choose from and they seem good quality atm!
+ some form of Hermode tuning? nice!


What I don't like:

-Digital artifacts! sorry, but some FM modes seem unusable! (even if the waves are filtered)
-unnecessary marketing antics, (incl Shop as tab, seriously? So important that it's part of the workflow? )
-re-trigger phase unison (No, wait! good ol' random phase if the osc phase is set to minimum, that's cool!)
-2 matrix tabs instead of a two part matrix tab (people seeing lots of tabs might think: Oh boy, what a complexly cool synth!") just kidding.
-Overall objective sound (not bad, but IMO, it's not enough to make me get it. )

----

Conclusion. (from a sound designer's perspective)

Interesting idea, but could have been better implemented. A good number of interesting "neoFM" modes to choose from so you can find a couple that are good and can work with.

Great that it has a mod matrix, no synth should be without one! gate, arp and a good number of effects rounds up any synth pretty nicely. Pretty cool patch browser also.

I thought that there would be some sort of algorithm control/finetuning, but it's not the case, kinda disappointing. That would have been "neo-FM" maybe.

As it is, I can define it as a blend of FM/PM and sync with some different experimental algos (some good, some not so good IMO)

The basic sound engine can sound thin and ropy sometimes but you can also get some pretty interesting timbres out of it so I would understand if people will be interested in it!

Not convinced... yet!

[foosnark]

I have mixed feelings about it too. It seems like it has an interesting engine, but I don't really find the UI particularly intuitive, coherent, polished or professional.

(Examples: settings in the left window where there's no visual distinction between parameter name and value and no indication of range of values. Waveform selection seems disjointed from other osc controls. There could have been visual feedback of the path from modulator to carrier, and what the controls actually do, for different algorithms. Many of the important controls are through "mystery meat" right clicking. The browser seems inconsistent from the look of the rest of the synth.)

Compared to, say, Firebird which had a very slick UI, it doesn't appeal.

I find the overall workflow less intuitive than FM8; I feel like I don't have a good handle on what will happen when I change settings. But then, I'm one of those crazy people who never really thought Yamaha style FM was hard.

The sound is occasionally pretty nice, in a thin and pointy digital way (as one might expect) and sometimes it has that weird greasy feeling (I don't know how else to describe it) that I associate with the last couple other Tone2 synths.

The demo restriction was incredibly obnoxious. A few minutes, then it basically freezes with an obnoxious beep that lasts several seconds. I didn't bother to keep demoing it, I just uninstalled at that point.

I'm kind of sad I didn't enjoy this more, but then, I did just spend a lot on Maschine so I'm also kind of relieved at not spending more money.

[pdxindy]

And I agree about the GUI. Every LFO waveform and many other things laid out very spaciously and then a lot of things cramped into tabs in a fake "display"? Interesting decision.

Fell for the Web Tab as well. Not a good place for it IMO.

Nice overall GUI design though.

Cheers,

Tom

I find the gui frustrating... I mean I like how it looks but it is not efficient... as you point out, the 2 lfo's take up so much space and so do the env's... yet besides env1 + 2 in the osc section, there is no modulation except within those tiny mod matrices which are crammed together and split into two tabs.

Some other niggles:

Up in the osc "display" you have a very long waveform list that requires scrolling and then no indication of which waveform is currently selected... even if you look down the list, the currently selected waveform is not indicated.

Modulation options also require scrolling (both source and target)

You can have saturation on both the config tab and the fx tab... too much tabbing again

Also, with 4 osc, 4 'filter', 2 feedback and 2 FM knobs, 2 env and 2 lfo seems too few


On the + side, Tone 2 has some fun mod sources

and the whole thing is fun just cause it is different (which I appreciate)

[pdxindy]

The demo restriction was incredibly obnoxious. A few minutes, then it basically freezes with an obnoxious beep that lasts several seconds. I didn't bother to keep demoing it, I just uninstalled at that point.

No beep here... I was appreciating the demo restrictions... no annoying sounds, noise etc... just a time limit that I found reasonable enough to explore without it timing out too fast. Of course I would like it to last a little longer since it is an unusual synthesis setup and an init patch would be helpful!!

[Examigan]

The demo restriction was incredibly obnoxious. A few minutes, then it basically freezes with an obnoxious beep that lasts several seconds. I didn't bother to keep demoing it, I just uninstalled at that point.

No beep here... I was appreciating the demo restrictions... no annoying sounds, noise etc... just a time limit that I found reasonable enough to explore without it timing out too fast. Of course I would like it to last a little longer since it is an unusual synthesis setup and an init patch would be helpful!!

I have the full version, so not sure if the demo is exactly the same..
try this:

File menu
Init all

[dalor]

Fun to work with. Easy. In many cases it's exactly what is needed. Many waveforms!

But Decay as in every Tone2 synth is crippled. Seems like they are testing their synths using 5 dollars earplugs. Here is an audio sample (first NeoFM followed by NI Razor):

http://app.box.com/s/i25uotnswimgpfy3o0jm

Not sure what you mean by crippled? Neo's decay sounds linear, Razor's exponential.

[Igro]

Fun to work with. Easy. In many cases it's exactly what is needed. Many waveforms!

But Decay as in every Tone2 synth is crippled. Seems like they are testing their synths using 5 dollars earplugs. Here is an audio sample (first NeoFM followed by NI Razor):

http://app.box.com/s/i25uotnswimgpfy3o0jm

Not sure what you mean by crippled? Neo's decay sounds linear, Razor's exponential.

gated

[fluffy_little_something]

Fun to work with. Easy. In many cases it's exactly what is needed. Many waveforms!

But Decay as in every Tone2 synth is crippled. Seems like they are testing their synths using 5 dollars earplugs. Here is an audio sample (first NeoFM followed by NI Razor):

http://app.box.com/s/i25uotnswimgpfy3o0jm

Is the pitch bend range setting working properly? In Saurus it is slightly off

[pdxindy]

The demo restriction was incredibly obnoxious. A few minutes, then it basically freezes with an obnoxious beep that lasts several seconds. I didn't bother to keep demoing it, I just uninstalled at that point.

No beep here... I was appreciating the demo restrictions... no annoying sounds, noise etc... just a time limit that I found reasonable enough to explore without it timing out too fast. Of course I would like it to last a little longer since it is an unusual synthesis setup and an init patch would be helpful!!

I have the full version, so not sure if the demo is exactly the same..
try this:

File menu
Init all

Thanks... that works... mostly... it still ends up with bass boost on and softclip...

also, just an odd thing, though one is playing the straight saw, the Nemesis meters waver

[foosnark]

The demo restriction was incredibly obnoxious. A few minutes, then it basically freezes with an obnoxious beep that lasts several seconds. I didn't bother to keep demoing it, I just uninstalled at that point.

No beep here... I was appreciating the demo restrictions... no annoying sounds, noise etc... just a time limit that I found reasonable enough to explore without it timing out too fast. Of course I would like it to last a little longer since it is an unusual synthesis setup and an init patch would be helpful!!

I was demoing it in Maschine. It help one long loud beep that didn't stop until I muted it from Maschine, closed the UI and reopened it.

[Brittlestem]

Initial thoughts.

The Good -
Love the sound, has a smoother, sweeter sound with less of the "enhanced" Tone2 effect than their other synths.
The browser is a huge improvement, very impressive.

The Bad -
The SHOP tab is both redundant (as there's a "Download Sounds under the File tab) and looks, frankly, desperate and cheap.

Tone2's FX are *superb*, so why they're relegated to a small screen with no knobs and then limited to 2 is beyond me.
Add a delay and reverb as standard and then have 2 or more slots for the other great FX.