Tone2 will release Icarus - 3D WaveTable Synthesizer

[Mystic]

I think I might wait and see what kind of third party presets come out for this first. I don't do a whole lot of sound design so presets are a bit of a necessity for me and I prefer using third party as they are usually better developed than stock though I guess the majority of the stock is made by some great sound designers like PluginGuru. If he jumps in on this one with whole sets, I'm sold.

[Cinebient]

I think I might wait and see what kind of third party presets come out for this first. I don't do a whole lot of sound design so presets are a bit of a necessity for me and I prefer using third party as they are usually better developed than stock though I guess the majority of the stock is made by some great sound designers like PluginGuru. If he jumps in on this one with whole sets, I'm sold.

I would bet he does because he already had a little preview video about Icarus and said (in his latest video with Steve Duda) that a bigger one is coming to explain why we will love Icarus.

[Cinebient]

I also must say that i was wrong about the resynthesis. I used some samples i made with Sculpture and imported them in Serum, Alchemy 2 and Icarus. Icarus sounded the best across the octaves.
Great. But i experienced one thing now. When turning some knobs fast with the mouse or writing them as automation in Logic i get a lot cracks. Even with a simple panning of an OSC. When i modulate it via LFO inside Icarus it sounds smooth.
Maybe it´s a kind of graphical cpu spike thing? Not sure.
Anyone else? Just try to load a int. patch, hold some keys and turn the OSC pan button fast. It´s crackling like hell. But only if i turn the knobs on the GUI. The same when i move the mod matrix sliders. So maybe not so good when i want to control it live.

[kokotte]

i have try with the pan knob, no crackle on win 7 / reaper , you have crackle with automation too?( i have that with the osc vol but not with the master vol( markus respond to me: no linear curve on vol osc for cpu optimusation but on master vol yes) we can t have all:) normal

[exmatproton]

I also must say that i was wrong about the resynthesis. I used some samples i made with Sculpture and imported them in Serum, Alchemy 2 and Icarus. Icarus sounded the best across the octaves.
Great. But i experienced one thing now. When turning some knobs fast with the mouse or writing them as automation in Logic i get a lot cracks. Even with a simple panning of an OSC. When i modulate it via LFO inside Icarus it sounds smooth.
Maybe it´s a kind of graphical cpu spike thing? Not sure.
Anyone else? Just try to load a int. patch, hold some keys and turn the OSC pan button fast. It´s crackling like hell. But only if i turn the knobs on the GUI. The same when i move the mod matrix sliders. So maybe not so good when i want to control it live.

Same here. It seems to skip certain values when moving fast. Test this:

When you set the pitch bend to +2 semitones and move real quickly, nothing is wrong. Now set the pitchbend to +48 and you will hear skipping of values which in turn result in glitchy sounds. Never had a plugin with such a slow update rate...and you can see this as well with other knobs. Everything seems to update really slow.

Edit: was wrong: Waves plugins have this as well.

[Cinebient]

However, after i thought it´s nothing special and dived deeper into it and programmed a few patches it slowly transforms into my favourite synth at the moment.
There are a few things missing (like i would like to have also much slower LFO´s than 0.02Hz) but the sum of it´s part makes this a fantastic tool. And most important it´s really a joy to experiment with it.
Sadly i just bought another tool which came out yesterday....so i have to wait a few weeks to the next paycheck.
I´m sure i will grab it from best service (my prefered reseller) when it´s official released.
I think this synth will be a winner!

[exmatproton]

However, after i thought it´s nothing special and dived deeper into it and programmed a few patches it slowly transforms into my favourite synth at the moment.
There are a few things missing (like i would like to have also much slower LFO´s than 0.02Hz) but the sum of it´s part makes this a fantastic tool. And most important it´s really a joy to experiment with it.
Sadly i just bought another tool which came out yesterday....so i have to wait a few weeks to the next paycheck.
I´m sure i will grab it from best service (my prefered reseller) when it´s official released.
I think this synth will be a winner!

+1

My niggles a.t.m.:

* I really miss a coarse (pitch) knob at the OSC's.
* I would love to see filter panning.
* i would like to have auto tab selection disabled. Or an option to turn it off.
* skin with 2D perspective would be way better IMHO.
* stereo width control for the multi OSC's per OSC.
* More clk speeds to shoose from on the mod's. At this point it is really not on par with many other synths.
No dotted speeds, no tripplets below 3/4.
* all the colour schemes are a bit off of what i would like to see. Would be fun to be able to custom colorcode the synth.
* OSC to OSC modulation possibilities.
* Free running/fixed (BPM/Song) LFO settings at the LFO level. The settings page with hard/soft/free settings, are a major pain in the a** if you ask me.

Seems a lot, but even without these points it is a fine synth.

[Cinebient]

However, after i thought it´s nothing special and dived deeper into it and programmed a few patches it slowly transforms into my favourite synth at the moment.
There are a few things missing (like i would like to have also much slower LFO´s than 0.02Hz) but the sum of it´s part makes this a fantastic tool. And most important it´s really a joy to experiment with it.
Sadly i just bought another tool which came out yesterday....so i have to wait a few weeks to the next paycheck.
I´m sure i will grab it from best service (my prefered reseller) when it´s official released.
I think this synth will be a winner!

+1

My niggles a.t.m.:

* I really miss a coarse (pitch) knob at the OSC's.
* I would love to see filter panning.
* i would like to have auto tab selection disabled. Or an option to turn it off.
* skin with 2D perspective would be way better IMHO.
* stereo width control for the multi OSC's per OSC.
* More clk speeds to shoose from on the mod's. At this point it is really not on par with many other synths.
No dotted speeds, no tripplets below 3/4.
* all the colour schemes are a bit off of what i would like to see. Would be fun to be able to custom colorcode the synth.
* OSC to OSC modulation possibilities.
* Free running/fixed (BPM/Song) LFO settings at the LFO level. The settings page with hard/soft/free settings, are a major pain in the a** if you ask me.

Seems a lot, but even without these points it is a fine synth.

I also have a long list of wishes but that would maybe introduce too high cpu usage and some new bugs.
I gave up on that ONE synth. I prefer to layer some to get the best out of everything.
I thought Falcon is THE thing but then i can't go crazy with it because without multi-core threading it's useless for me. So it's mainly a sample library and sample manipulate tool for me yet.
But hell, Icarus will go straight to my top like it is...followed by Sculpture and Dune 2.
But my list of favourite tools is changing from time to time.....
I would like to have a full screen of the morphing wavetables, it looks just so nice

[chk071]

I also have a long list of wishes but that would maybe introduce too high cpu usage and some new bugs.
I gave up on that ONE synth.

Indeed. And the way i have experienced it, Markus isn't really the kind of guy who implements many of the user wishes into his already architected synths. Maybe minor things. It's understandable too, as some things would require either a change of the architecture of the synth, or a restructuring of the GUI. The semitone control for example, as much as i'd want to see it, it would need to be placed somewhere in the osc section. That's actually a mistake IMO though, to not put it there in the first place. And with the explanation that it's "not necessary for sound design". I mean, come on, semitone tuning is essential for some multi oscillator patches. That's actually my niggle with Tone2 a bit in general. Their synths all have too many flaws, and odd stuff, and Markus seems a bit reluctant towards "industry standards", or straight forward operation. A bit idiosyncratic, which is fair enough, but it'd also be cool to have at least half an eye open to the way others do it, and what is considered a intuitive operation, or standard functionality.

[exmatproton]

I also have a long list of wishes but that would maybe introduce too high cpu usage and some new bugs.
I gave up on that ONE synth.

Indeed. And the way i have experienced it, Markus isn't really the kind of guy who implements many of the user wishes into his already architected synths. Maybe minor things. It's understandable too, as some things would require either a change of the architecture of the synth, or a restructuring of the GUI. The semitone control for example, as much as i'd want to see it, it would need to be placed somewhere in the osc section. That's actually a mistake IMO though, to not put it there in the first place. And with the explanation that it's "not necessary for sound design". I mean, come on, semitone tuning is essential for some multi oscillator patches. That's actually my niggle with Tone2 a bit in general. Their synths all have too many flaws, and odd stuff, and Markus seems a bit reluctant towards "industry standards", or straight forward operation. A bit idiosyncratic, which is fair enough, but it'd also be cool to have at least half an eye open to the way others do it, and what is considered a intuitive operation, or standard functionality.

Yeah, i guess so. However, they decided to "introduce" an open beta. That is quite a step forward for them, won't you agree? SO i hope they will use this beta period to include some stuff from users as well, like it should

[KingTuck]

I want semitone tuning in the Oscs too. Doing it through the Mod Matrix is unheard of to be honest. If Markus added that I'd be mostly down on everything else, it has its flaws but it's basically very strong I think. Just the lack of semitone adjustments for the Osc.....I mean that's pretty insane to be honest.

[chk071]

I also have a long list of wishes but that would maybe introduce too high cpu usage and some new bugs.
I gave up on that ONE synth.

Indeed. And the way i have experienced it, Markus isn't really the kind of guy who implements many of the user wishes into his already architected synths. Maybe minor things. It's understandable too, as some things would require either a change of the architecture of the synth, or a restructuring of the GUI. The semitone control for example, as much as i'd want to see it, it would need to be placed somewhere in the osc section. That's actually a mistake IMO though, to not put it there in the first place. And with the explanation that it's "not necessary for sound design". I mean, come on, semitone tuning is essential for some multi oscillator patches. That's actually my niggle with Tone2 a bit in general. Their synths all have too many flaws, and odd stuff, and Markus seems a bit reluctant towards "industry standards", or straight forward operation. A bit idiosyncratic, which is fair enough, but it'd also be cool to have at least half an eye open to the way others do it, and what is considered a intuitive operation, or standard functionality.

Yeah, i guess so. However, they decided to "introduce" an open beta. That is quite a step forward for them, won't you agree? SO i hope they will use this beta period to include some stuff from users as well, like it should

Definitely, yeah, can't argue with that.

[KingTuck]

I'm hoping so too. Fingers crossed.

[Sound Author]

I'm a little confused about the length of samples I can load up into the wavetable. If a single cycle is 2048 samples in length, and I have 256 cycles, then that would be 524,288 samples, which is approximately ten seconds of audio.

But if I take a sample half that length and try to import it into the wavetable, I get a nag screen that says "You loaded a large sample. Do you want to trim it after 256 cycles (recommended)?"

(I shouldn't have to trim it. The sample I just loaded is much shorter than 256 cycles.)

If I say "no", roughly half of the wavetable slots are used up. If I say "yes", all 256 slots are used up. I'm guessing that, in this case, nothing has actually been trimmed (because it doesn't need to be trimmed), but instead the sample has been stretched to occupy all 256 slots?

Another problem I noticed in both scenarios is that the first waveform in the very first wavetable slot fades to a zero crossing at the end of its cycle and doesn't blend with the next waveform. The sample I loaded loops seamlessly when loaded up into a sampler, but because of this one waveform fading to a zero crossing in the first wavetable slot, I get a nasty click when using LFO1 to modulate the "Wave" parameter.

Is there a way to keep this zero crossing from happening? I know the sample I loaded is not too long, but it seems like it has been trimmed somehow. I'm trying to create wavetables that loop seamlessly and I'm having trouble doing that because of this. Any ideas?

-- Bryan Lake

[Touch The Universe]

what are the beta limitations?