Tone2 will release Icarus - 3D WaveTable Synthesizer

[Mac of BIOnighT]

did I miss the part where this site was only about what you wanted?

Actually, the whole world should only be about what I want, obviously I can't content myself with a simple website, I want and deserve the Universe.

;-P

I'll say it differently: if somebody wants to talk for 16524331 pages about something that is not the main topic of the thread - what used to be called "off topic" - they should simply open another thread entirely dedicated to that topic, so that the people who are interested in the main topic can avoid wasting hours trying to sort through mountains of off topic information/opinions in order to find something useful about the topic they're interested in.
And expressing such a complicated concept in a second language at this time of night after a very, very long day is quite a task, so even if the result is not the best I could obtain and you still disagree anyway, please do appreciate my effort

[OneOfManyPauls]

people comparing icarus to serum isn't off-topic though - it's front and centre, and certainly something that most "professional" reviewers are likely to do.

I want and deserve the Universe...And expressing such a complicated concept in a second language at this time of night after a very, very long day is quite a task, so even if the result is not the best I could obtain and you still disagree anyway, please do appreciate my effort

I do - and I appreciate the banter staying light and not getting heated. Nothing wrong with a bit of healthy disagreement. G'nite

[Teksonik]

so that the people who are interested in the main topic can avoid wasting hours trying to sort through mountains of off topic information/opinions in order to find something useful about the topic they're interested in.

You mean like your last several posts ? Irony.........sweet irony.

[Mac of BIOnighT]

You mean like your last several posts ? Irony.........sweet irony.

Exactly! Isn't that so very artistic?

[pdxindy]

Plenty of times someone has said, hey, I like how Synth X implements this function better. Then I can download the demo of that synth and try it out and see for myself.

And you're willing to sit though six or seven pages of that before you try it out and see for yourself, which you have to do anyway? Clearly, you have plenty more spare time than I do

It does not take very long to scan through a page. I only infrequently get caught up in the stuff that is not interesting to me.

What I wish there were more of is audio demos. For example, if someone says they like Synth A more than Synth B, post an example. If someone says the like the workflow of a particular synth better, give specifics of why. I like specifics. Vague statements do not invite fruitful discussion as well as specifics do. I've learned a lot at KVR over the years. I appreciate it as a resource. Like I said, I find it easy enough to scroll past the various trollings, arguments, etc that happen.

[pdxindy]

please do appreciate my effort

certainly!

[thetechnobear]

I had a good play with it, yesterday, but was a bit unclear on the best way to do the following.

lets say I have 3 waves... which I put in a table slots 1,2,3.
now I want Icarus to expand that table to (e.g) 128 tables, with it morphing 1 to 2 to 3.

the only way I could find to do this was add intermediate (blank) slots in between each wave,
then highlight all waves from 1 to 2 and do mix crossfade, then highlight 2 to 3 then mix cross fade.

this works but is a bit cumbersome, if you now expand this to say 8 waves, and do over all 256 slots.

also what is the crossfade actually doing, is this simply crossfading the amplitude of the two waves involved, or is it doing an FFT and then crossfading the harmonics by recombining with additive synthesis.
(from memory this is what was happening in audioterm)

the above, using key 'wave' frames, was an approach that seemed straight forward in Serum, when I demoed it (but that was a while ago, and I didn't get due to other things i didn't like so much in serum)
... so seemed odd it was so difficult/involved to do in Icarus.

on the flip side, I will say, I do like all the wavetable manipulation function and the way you can use 'apply morph to wavetable' is fantastic for creating new wavetables.

for me, I want to use icarus in 2 waves (so perhaps a bit unfair), first obviously is as a synth... but the second is as a way to create wavetables for other synths by saving the wavetable, for which i currently use audio term.
(I like AudioTerm, fantastic app, but while i like its flexibility, but is a bit of a pain using on a mac via wine, so would love a 'modern' replacement)

anyway, very tempted with Icarus, not as pretty perhaps as Serum, but so far... I seem to get more interesting results and wavetables from it.

[Ingonator]

also what is the crossfade actually doing, is this simply crossfading the amplitude of the two waves involved, or is it doing an FFT and then crossfading the harmonics by recombining with additive synthesis.
(from memory this is what was happening in audioterm)

The Crossfade seems to morph the partials/harmonics between the two waveforms, not the ampltude. This could be noticed when checking the spectrum dispay of the original and crossfaded waveforms.

[thetechnobear]

also what is the crossfade actually doing, is this simply crossfading the amplitude of the two waves involved, or is it doing an FFT and then crossfading the harmonics by recombining with additive synthesis.
(from memory this is what was happening in audioterm)

The Crossfade seems to morph the partials/harmonics between the two waveforms, not the ampltude. This could be noticed when checking the spectrum dispay of the original and crossfaded waveforms.

cool thanks. I had noticed the partials were altered, but was unsure if this was cause or effect

[Sendy]

Mix Crossfade is doing exactly as it says on the tin. It's mixing the two waves together and crossfading between them, just like a DJ mixer. Whether it's doing it in the frequency domain by gradually interpolating between the value of each harmonic, or in the time domain, by moving each datapoint on the waveform (I don't know how Icarus stores it's info, I think it may be able to do both).

The reason crossfading two waves can seem more complicated than it is, is because some points on the wave have to cross through zero, while others simply get larger or smaller, creating a unique middle wave which can have interesting properties dependant on the phase relationship of the two target waves.

This is most evident by trying to crossfade two sawtooth waves with varying amounts of phase offset. It can produce notches in the frequencies, or even a middle wave that's silent! This is also why crossfading between a large amount of waves in a big wavetable can produce such interesting, pulsating sounds. Emergent complexity.

[OneOfManyPauls]

Something else that's surprisingly good with Icarus, at least to my ears, is how musically useful the randomized patches can be - it has a very high hit-rate of "keepers" for me.

[cake builder]

So I don't really need another synth, but all the praise for this one had me curious, so I played with the demo for a couple of hours yesterday. I have to say, this thing sounds fantastic!

It was definitely love at first listen for me, but I'm going to spend a little more time with the demo and make sure it's not just puppy love. I hate to draw the obvious comparison, but the modulation feels very stiff and limited compared to Serum. Serum is top-tier in my opinion as far as handling modulation. However, I found Icarus' presets much more inspiring than Serum's. The sound is just pure joy for me.

Does the vocoder only allow you to use simple sounds as a modulator? I got excited when I first read about it because I thought you would be able to modulate a voice by another wavetable. It's still awesome to have a built in vocoder. I guess it's expecting a bit much to expect the flexibility of a dedicated unit.

edit: Also, is there a way to swap out the vocal sample without changing the whole patch?

[wagtunes]

Well, I was actually going to bite the bullet and get this but when I went to the shop and saw the ridiculous price difference between euro (149) and US dollars (199) I just couldn't do it. Why they insist on royally screwing over US customers with their moronic pricing policy is beyond me but I don't care how good this synth is, I'm not spending $199 on it.

Tone 2 can go F themselves.

[cake builder]

Is there anything stopping you from choosing EUR as the currency and checking out with Paypal? I just tried it and backed out at the last minute and it seemed like it would have worked just fine.

[mhog]

Well, I was actually going to bite the bullet and get this but when I went to the shop and saw the ridiculous price difference between euro (149) and US dollars (199) I just couldn't do it. Why they insist on royally screwing over US customers with their moronic pricing policy is beyond me but I don't care how good this synth is, I'm not spending $199 on it.

Tone 2 can go F themselves.

I thought it was 149€ + VAT (178 €) = 199$