Tone2 will release Icarus - 3D WaveTable Synthesizer

[flakes2]

[quote="Torchlight"]Just flicking through the presets on the demo, it strikes me that it would almost be worth buying for the BT presets alone. Is that Bigtone?.[/quote]

If you click on the icarus logo the about screen opens. There you can read the names of the designers. The BT sounds are indeed from Bigtone (nico herz)

[recursive one]

They emailed me back with an upgrade price of GBP 109.56 which isn't too bad.

You have some their other products, do you? May I ask which ones?

I have Saurus v.1 which I rarely use, would like to "upgrade" it to Icarus, I'm fine even if I'll have to cancel my Saurus license. Well, will ask them.

[Ingonator]

As Icarus is now officially released this could be helpful for customers:

If you got questions, bug reports or feature requests for Icarus it could be also worth to first check the Icarus sub forum at the official Tone2 forum.

Here is a link for the Icarus sub-forum: http://www.tone2.org/forum/index.php?board=39.0

Markus, the developer and owner of Tone2, is posting and replying there at a regular basis.

To become a member of the official forum you usually have to own at least one of their commercial products.
At the registration form it seems to ask for a "ShareIt ordering number or Service code" of your purchase (Shareit number if you bought directly at Tone2, the Service Code if you bought at Best Service that is an official Tone2 distributor). Not sure how this works if you bought the products at other online shops than Tone2 or Best Service. Best is to ask official Tone2 support for help then.

Here is a link for the Registration form for the Tone2 forum:
http://www.tone2.org/forum/index.php?action=register

[OneOfManyPauls]

I also found Icarus at JRR Shop but currently still at a "pre-order" price similar to the official Tone2 shop. Possible that this will change soon. Usually JRR Shop has a lot of good offers compared to the orignal prices (and so far he does not seem to take extra VAT from EU customers...).

I looked at jrr and saw $199 too, same as the tone2 site USD price - but if you pay in euros at the tone2 site, you get it for €149 which is circa $165 USD. That's a ~16% saving right there for doing nothing more than changing currency.

tone2 listed prices say they include 20% VAT regardless of currency - so it's comparing apples to apples.

[Kraznet]

They emailed me back with an upgrade price of GBP 109.56 which isn't too bad.

You have some their other products, do you? May I ask which ones?

I have Saurus v.1 which I rarely use, would like to "upgrade" it to Icarus, I'm fine even if I'll have to cancel my Saurus license. Well, will ask them.

I doubt you have need to cancel your Saurus license. It seems that the discount you get doesn't relate to how many products you already own. Synthwise I have SaurusV 1&2, Rayblaster, Electra2, Nemesis and Firebird. Plus I have Akustix, Filterbank3 and Warmverb. I think the original Filterbank was the first thing they ever released?

[Ingonator]

Someone at the Tone2 forum just posted a Icarus patch that uses a wavetable based on the waveforms in the Moog Sub 37 (wavetable included in teh download too):
http://www.tone2.org/forum/index.php?topic=2411.0

FWIW my factory preset called "Hyper Brass IW" is based on a sample of the Sawtooth from a Moog Slim Phatty that i sold last year. I also got a full wavetable of the waveforms from the Phatty here (6 waveforms). I just added a download at the thread mentioned above.

[recursive one]

They emailed me back with an upgrade price of GBP 109.56 which isn't too bad.

You have some their other products, do you? May I ask which ones?

I have Saurus v.1 which I rarely use, would like to "upgrade" it to Icarus, I'm fine even if I'll have to cancel my Saurus license. Well, will ask them.

I doubt you have need to cancel your Saurus license. It seems that the discount you get doesn't relate to how many products you already own. Synthwise I have SaurusV 1&2, Rayblaster, Electra2, Nemesis and Firebird. Plus I have Akustix, Filterbank3 and Warmverb. I think the original Filterbank was the first thing they ever released?

Thanks, I see.

Still didn't decide between this and Serum (or should I wait for Avenger instead? first world problems )

[flakes2]

There is a new tutorial about the resynthesis available. I found this really impressive:


arpeggiator features


filter section


effect section


oscillators

[Sendy]

A bit disappointed by the "3D wavetable" thing. I was expecting actual 3D wavetables, which you could then go onto mangle with oscillator effects. As it stands, we have a normal wavetable - one dimension of freedom, plus an oscillator effect. That's... 2D? Pretty much the same as NI Massive, only Icarus has a lot more options, and a more modern design (and arguably better sound).

Playing Devil's Advocate, if U-he were to adopt this terminology, they would be rocking the 5D wavetable technology - 1D wavetable, the two spectral effects now generating a cube of waveform possibilities, then PW (inverted mixing of a dephased copy) and self-sync. That's a 5D hyper-hyper-cube of available waveforms, each one smoothly navigable to the next - right at the oscillator level.

THAT SAID - this is totally just a gripe with the marketing (once again); the synth is great, packed with awesome features and creativity, and the price point is spot on. Some of the features, such as the different tuning algorythms to emphasise thirds, octaves, etc, are really commendable, and I wish more companies added things like this. I love Tone2's effects and filters, I know they market hard at the EDM and wubstep crowd, but for contemporary abstract sounds, their synths are perfect, and Icarus feels like a combination of all of the features we've seen so far. Almost like a "best of" synth, with the best bits from all their others and some new stuff thrown in too.

And the oscillator and it's editing abilities are great, regardless of "how many D" they have. I really, REALLY like those oscillator morph modes which stick to the same frequency regardless of what key you play, giving you fixed formants and harmonic peaks of many different flavours. Such a cool sound design tool for semi-real or more organic sounding instruments.

Another plus is the "synthesize a random wavetable" feature. This makes really cool stuff, and makes up for the apparent lack of wavetables; as do the editing facilities and tools to make your own tables.

I haven't gotten into the resynthesis and vocoding aspects of the synth yet, but I do appreciate the ability to use the oscillator as a one-shot wav player. I don't know how well that works, but I remember getting good mileage out of sample mangling via Rayblaster, so I'm expecting a similar level of quality here.

Some suggestions off the top of my head: All (or as many as possible) of the oscillator effects that work in jumps (like in octave etc) need a crossfaded version. Volume levels for filters (as some others have stated - though thinking about it now, I can see this being easily worked around by changing oscillator volumes before they hit the filter). I really liked the chip yodel effect, though it needs some minor thirds in there as well as major intervals and chords. Mostly I'll be using it for octaves and fifth powerchords, but the ability to switch between major and minor arps is important in chiptune composition. Either way, respect for putting that in there, it's really fun!

Oh, and I missed a way to modulate the shape of the LFO. In the meantime I'll get by using MIDI learn, but changing the shape of the LFO makes some really funky effects.

Tiny nitpick: It's really weird having the resonance knob to the LEFT of the cutoff knob, and having both knobs the same size and colour. I mean, it's good that the res knob has all that range of travel, but this one design aspect always throws me for a split second when I reach for it. Maybe have one coloured, and the other in greytone? Or maybe it's just me.

One final thing: One day I'll work out Tone2's arp system. I know it's very powerful, I just never got my head around it. Luckily there's a tutorial post about it in the post above mine, I should get on that.

Anyway, congrats on a fantastic release! Ignore the marketing buzzwords and just check it out And if I have made a mistake regarding my use of 1D, 2D and 3D wavetables, please accept my apologies and correct me.

[OneOfManyPauls]

Oh, and I missed a way to modulate the shape of the LFO.

I don't think that's possible at the moment.

[Sendy]

Oh, and I missed a way to modulate the shape of the LFO.

I don't think that's possible at the moment.

Well that would be an awesome update, using one LFO to change the shape of another. Like I said, though, MIDI mapping is fine. I was just disappointed to not see it in the matrix, as pretty much everything else was.

[EnGee]

Still didn't decide between this and Serum (or should I wait for Avenger instead? first world problems )

You mean you haven't got Serum yet?! I think it is a no brainer deal!

IMO, they have different sounds and characters. I have spent enough time with them both. Icarus is the Tone2 version of Virus, while Serum is more like Massive 2. They can overlap of course but the differences are noticeable when you get deeper and try making your presets.

IMO Dune 2 is between the two, but more towards Icarus. Anyway, it is still different from them both, as it has the additional FM oscillator.

[woodsdenis]

THAT SAID - this is totally just a gripe with the marketing (once again); the synth is great, packed with awesome features and creativity, and the price point is spot on. Some of the features, such as the different tuning algorythms to emphasise thirds, octaves, etc, are really commendable, and I wish more companies added things like this. I love Tone2's effects and filters, I know they market hard at the EDM and wubstep crowd, but for contemporary abstract sounds, their synths are perfect, and Icarus feels like a combination of all of the features we've seen so far. Almost like a "best of" synth, with the best bits from all their others and some new stuff thrown in too.

And the oscillator and it's editing abilities are great, regardless of "how many D" they have. I really, REALLY like those oscillator morph modes which stick to the same frequency regardless of what key you play, giving you fixed formants and harmonic peaks of many different flavours. Such a cool sound design tool for semi-real or more organic sounding instruments.

Another plus is the "synthesize a random wavetable" feature. This makes really cool stuff, and makes up for the apparent lack of wavetables; as do the editing facilities and tools to make your own tables.

I haven't gotten into the resynthesis and vocoding aspects of the synth yet, but I do appreciate the ability to use the oscillator as a one-shot wav player. I don't know how well that works, but I remember getting good mileage out of sample mangling via Rayblaster, so I'm expecting a similar level of quality here.

.

Good points, there is a lot of T2 history here from previous releases, never affected me as I never used their products before but as witnessed here in this thread very polarised views on the company, and the way it operates ( or did operate). My 2 biggest gripes with them are their appalling Mac installers which scatter files in the wrong folders and their indefensible pricing policy for non EU residents. Their history on KVR seems to make any comments from them here a no go, which is a shame for the potential users like me who don't have a back history and really want a dialogue with the developer in the same way that UHE does. This problem is then magnified by some of the fanboy responses to legitimate questions.That all being said this is a pretty good synth with a lot of cool features and possibilities, and I agree with your summation of its attributes.

[Ingonator]

A bit disappointed by the "3D wavetable" thing. I was expecting actual 3D wavetables, which you could then go onto mangle with oscillator effects. As it stands, we have a normal wavetable - one dimension of freedom, plus an oscillator effect. That's... 2D? Pretty much the same as NI Massive, only Icarus has a lot more options, and a more modern design (and arguably better sound).

Playing Devil's Advocate, if U-he were to adopt this terminology, they would be rocking the 5D wavetable technology - 1D wavetable, the two spectral effects now generating a cube of waveform possibilities, then PW (inverted mixing of a dephased copy) and self-sync. That's a 5D hyper-hyper-cube of available waveforms, each one smoothly navigable to the next - right at the oscillator level.

The 3 dimensions are:
- 1st dimension : single waveform
- 2nd dimension : wavetable scanning (Wave knob and modulation of this)
- 3rd dimension : Osc Morph modes and modulation of the corresponding Morph knob (e.g. FM amount at the FM modes)

You could also render the combination of the current setting of the Morph knob and the current wavetable to a new wavetable (with "Apply Morph to Wavetable" from the Tool menu in the current Osc), do the same with another Morph mode and so on. Compared to the original wavetable this could be somehow seen as adding additional "dimensions"...

A "1D wavetable" does not exist as this would correspond to a single waveform.
Actually even a single waveform has 2 dimensions: Amplitude and time

IMO it's really time to stop those ongoing rants about the "3D wavetable" term and just accept it the way it works in Icraus (which could be quite versatile and/or powerful).

[chk071]

Well, 3D usually means to be able to move through a 3-dimensional space (or in 3 ways). I can't see how a single waveform would represent any kind of movement, while your 2nd and 3rd dimension represent a kind of movement. I agree with Sendy, the term used in this context is a bit misleading.