Tone2 Icarus is the most underrated synth in Existence.

[chk071]

I felt the same with most of their synths, except for Electra2. Still the one with the best sound for me. Unfortunately, i absolutely detested the operation. It made things very hard which are easy with most others of such flagship type synths. I never liked Icarus enough to purchase it. It's not bad, but... there's something about the sound which is not super pleasing for me. Nice feature set though.

[tasty tatsyn]

I for one love this synth dearly. It never ceases to be entertaining, mesmerising and downright therapeutic to me. I love to init the whole thing, set up some basic wavetable scanning with a slow LFO, and then generate random wavetables until something clicks. Then it is so easy to evolve that wavetable into a few new generations with all the tools provided. I usually end up with exactly the sounds that I always loved and wanted to make, but in such an intuitive and random way. Somehow it feels like a magical toy to me, and that's worth a lot. I always loved programming synths, but this makes it both so easy and fun to me that it is one of my favourite synths of all time. I tried all the other Tone2 synths and I never got along with them - either I didn't like the sound or the interface. But Icarus hit a homerun on both fronts for me. Simply amazing. I would honestly recommend it to anyone that loves programming synths from scratch. Browsing the presets does not do this thing justice, gotta dive in and tweak the hell out of it to find the heart and soul of this wavetable monster!

My toughts/feeling also. i always did some form of sound design in small scale just for my own music but in most synths that was mostyl picking up a preset and tweaking it to exaustion when it becomes a whole diferent thing, sometimes small tweaks, and every now and then a preset from scratch

Without getting into subjective evaluations or responding to the people who create accounts to come talk weird stuff about their synths in every single topic

**quoting again because it's exactly my feeling**

I always loved programming synths, but this makes it both so easy and fun to me that it is one of my favourite synths of all time.

...
but that's really a question that will remain for me, what they are doing to make it sound so different is something I don't know, but I love it.

same with me, every synth has it's own flavour and particularities, it's a matter if you thick with it and if it thicks with you.... as simple as that

that's probably what made access virus what it is.... it's functionaly, "personality", quirks and limitations that still allow sonic expansiveness, in the end, the sounds and the process/fun sounds were created with and provide is what matters...

but i have weird tastes and still think p: ex: absynth is one of the best synths out there; among many others..... Icarus still stands out for me and probably will for many, many years to come

[Robmobius]

Icarus is right up there in my top ten. I've no idea why it's never really talked about.

Great sound and highly versatile.

[chk071]

Icarus is right up there in my top ten. I've no idea why it's never really talked about.

Great sound and highly versatile.

There are many plugins which are not talked about much on KVR, but which are highly popular actually. Or of very high quality. Exponential Audio's plugins for example. No talk at all here, but, some of the finest reverbs which are around.

[Orbit-50]

I can not stand the skins on Tone2 synths. Markus should really consider farming that part of the development out to someone else. Having said that, I think that they really sound great. Mind you, not every single preset, but there are a decent amount that are really outstanding and was taken aback by how good they sounded compared to other VSTi. I would really like to try Icarus, but just couldn't get past the GUI, but I can say with certainty, that I'm probably missing out on some good stuff in there.

[JunSev]

I can not stand the skins on Tone2 synths. Markus should really consider farming that part of the development out to someone else. Having said that, I think that they really sound great. Mind you, not every single preset, but there are a decent amount that are really outstanding and was taken aback by how good they sounded compared to other VSTi. I would really like to try Icarus, but just couldn't get past the GUI, but I can say with certainty, that I'm probably missing out on some good stuff in there.

For me sometimes presets doesn't satisfies my need for some particular sound I want to achieve, it could give me an idea but then I realized that nothing feels better than create my own and when I learned to use Icarus it becomes quite easy to create it; as easy to scroll through the filter, effects, unison modes, morph modes and wavetables. Also the drag and drop modulation makes everything straightforward.

It has been the same for me with other synths, maybe with 50 keys, 40 plucks and 20 pads; and sometimes between those I only like some 10 keys, maybe 5 plucks, and maybe 5 pads. Perhaps has to do with tastes and because only we know what is the best sound for our mixes.

[tasty tatsyn]

I can not stand the skins on Tone2 synths. Markus should really consider farming that part of the development out to someone else. Having said that, I think that they really sound great. Mind you, not every single preset, but there are a decent amount that are really outstanding and was taken aback by how good they sounded compared to other VSTi. I would really like to try Icarus, but just couldn't get past the GUI, but I can say with certainty, that I'm probably missing out on some good stuff in there.

Not sure if this helps but..... i'm trying....
Work in progress!!!!!!!!!!!.........


upload img

I'll try to make a few skins sometime soon and make them available in tone 2 forum and yes, i agree
much of the "plastic soudns" for me come from the visuals honestly and synesthesy.

Some old skins to me looked better then new ones but people complained that they were too plastic (looking/sounding) so tone2 team decided to change them and fade things, i think they need some more love

but what matter the most (not all) to me is sound...a suggestion to some people..
Try putting Icarus side by side with other VSt's, turn on the keyboard, close your eyes and play....

[Stefken]

I would really like to try Icarus, but just couldn't get past the GUI, but I can say with certainty, that I'm probably missing out on some good stuff in there.

No one can accuse me of not being interested in the gui part of things but yeah you're missing out on some good stuff imo.

The gui has some odd choices but it's certainly workable; a small price to pay for some sound candy.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Good sound but there's more tabs than there needs to be. So much space used by graphics that are unnecessary or too big, like for envelope, lfo, osc and filter shapes.

[Orbit-50]

Thanks for the directional push guys. I might break down and try it out.

@tasty - It's funny that you said "try putting Icarus side by side with other VSt's, turn on the keyboard, close your eyes and play...."
That's exactly what I did with ElectraX and that's when I realized how good it actually was compared to other VSTi. I gained a little bit more respect for Tone2 after that.

[JunSev]

Good sound but there's more tabs than there needs to be. So much space used by graphics that are unnecessary or too big, like for envelope, lfo, osc and filter shapes.

Sorry but that doesn't makes like a lot of sense, everything is right there in one screen, you want to change oscillators or fx, or filters? is just right there. Now compare and see the same in others synths where the mod matrix, the fx section and more options are subdivided; that's really different. And even for what Icarus offers, versatility and complexity wise, for everything what it does is tremendously straightforward compared to a lot of synths.

It would be different if you say that you don't like the main gui (to be honest a the beginning I didn't liked that much), but there are more option and colors in the setup, more customization options would be better, but is at least something.

[SoundPorn]

Well they clearly were inspired by Serumes GUI which you could say the same exact thing about but people love.

Good sound but there's more tabs than there needs to be. So much space used by graphics that are unnecessary or too big, like for envelope, lfo, osc and filter shapes.

[pdxindy]

Good sound but there's more tabs than there needs to be. So much space used by graphics that are unnecessary or too big, like for envelope, lfo, osc and filter shapes.

Yeah... way too many tabs... there is like 20 of them. The Mod Matrix is split into 3 pages. It is not a favorite of mine GUI wise...

but the functionality is excellent and it has a great sound vs cpu ratio. The resynthesis is excellent. Works quite well for vocal sounds, words etc. And with the Formant morph modes, you can tweak it and get a solid keyboard range sounding good.

[exmatproton]

Good sound but there's more tabs than there needs to be. So much space used by graphics that are unnecessary or too big, like for envelope, lfo, osc and filter shapes.

Yeah... way too many tabs... there is like 20 of them. The Mod Matrix is split into 3 pages. It is not a favorite of mine GUI wise...

but the functionality is excellent and it has a great sound vs cpu ratio. The resynthesis is excellent. Works quite well for vocal sounds, words etc. And with the Formant morph modes, you can tweak it and get a solid keyboard range sounding good.

Yeah, some things a tabbed, some things are way too small (arp), some knobs are bigger then necesssary, other are too small...some weird choices on this synth UI-wise. And it is SO SMALL on 1440P...I would love if Tone2 would give us 3 sizes of their synths. 100, 150 and 200 % would be a NICE start...

I believe they're working on bigger/scalable UI's. So hopefully that would 'solve' the small ui problem

[ATS]

I think everyone is going to have bigger gui options or people will stop using them for the most part.