KVR Audio

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Sun Apr 26, 2015 11:09 pm

Here's my take on Tone 2 stuff based off of just 2 synths that I own (Rayblaster and Electra 2) as to why people may or may not like the synth. This is just my personal observations and are neither right or wrong.

1) The synths have what I call that "plastic" sound. I'm not saying this is either good or bad but people seem to either love it or hate it. I'm indifferent to the sound in general but do love what I can do once I dive under the hood. For me, it's fun to program these synths and I feel I can get things out of them that I can't get from other synths.

2) The GUI reminds me of something from a sci fi movie. Very futuristic. Personally, I'd prefer a more traditional GUI but it doesn't stop me from making music with these synths. They are certainly clear enough to read and while maybe the layouts can be a little confusing at first (lots of stuff on a single screen) after a while I find they're easy to get used to.

As for the demo restrictions, never tried them long enough to notice. I either bought or didn't pretty quickly.

Other than those items, there's really nothing remarkable about the synth that I can see that would either make somebody go hog wild crazy over it or hate it. You either like the tone (no pun intended) or you don't.

I do. But I also don't feel the need to get more than the two synths that I have because, IMO, there is a definite sameness between the synths. That's probably because the underlying sound engine is the same for all of them, just like a lot of other brands.

Apostate · Post by **Apostate** » Sun Apr 26, 2015 11:40 pm

Love my Tone 2 synths, owned them for over a year and I'm pretty darn hogwild over all of them. Guess I'm like a mutant then.

I think the sameness heard is simply the more digital sound that all those synths share, and to me that's exactly why you buy their synths: for that uniquely digital sound. Other than that Gladiator, Nemesis, and Elektra sound quite different overall to my ears. If one isn't looking for a mostly digital sound, there are tons of other options available; if one does want that, you can't find too many better sounding synths in that regard, at least in my opinion. Plus, not all synths have the kind of reverb Tone 2 does, said reverb is a wonderful, huge thing for my ears and even better, sits quite well in the mixes I do.

But that's just me.

KingTuck · Post by **KingTuck** » Mon Apr 27, 2015 12:29 am

People dislike them because they're a weird non-transparent company with longlasting accusations made against them in like 2007 by a cracker group called AiR. Combined with their psychoacousting EQ stuff, they have a reputation for being bad products for audiophiles. Those who don't want things to just sound loud. They also use absurd marketing buzzwords and coin TM terms that are laughably silly. They're manuals typically keep up that façade and typically stick to buzzwords and vague descriptions instead of helpful info. RayBlaster describes its new synthesis techniques as "using short bursts of energy" to create sounds. What a silly way to describe something haha!

It's fairly unreasonable criticisms though. Psychoacoustic stuff is weird, but it can be disabled. The old accusations don't have much weight anymore. Their CP isn't too outlandish and even if it is paranoid stuff (sorry, it is), it isn't really a problem for legit users.

They're a good company. I'm very fond of my synths from them. Markus is a thoughtful designer. They aren't perfect but they don't deserve outlandish hate at all. I'll openly recommend many of their products.

Apostate · Post by **Apostate** » Mon Apr 27, 2015 12:34 am

KingTuck wrote:People dislike them because they're a weird non-transparent company with longlasting accusations made against them in like 2007 by a cracker group called AiR. Combined with their psychoacousting EQ stuff, they have a reputation for being bad products for audiophiles. Those who don't want things to just sound loud. They also use absurd marketing buzzwords and coin TM terms that are laughably silly. They're manuals typically keep up that façade and typically stick to buzzwords and vague descriptions instead of helpful info. RayBlaster describes its new synthesis techniques as "using short bursts of energy" to create sounds. What a silly way to describe something haha!

It's fairly unreasonable criticisms though. Psychoacoustic stuff is weird, but it can be disabled. The old accusations don't have much weight anymore. Their CP isn't too outlandish and even if it is paranoid stuff (sorry, it is), it isn't really a problem for legit users.

They're a good company. I'm very fond of my synths from them. Markus is a thoughtful designer. They aren't perfect but they don't deserve outlandish hate at all. I'll openly recommend many of their products.

+1 The manuals do get pretty weird, and that short bursts of energy quote is hysterical!

I might have to tone down my love for Tone 2 in case people think I work for them, I'm already getting complaints

mhog · Post by **mhog** » Mon Apr 27, 2015 2:59 am

Well, if this "Tone2 Markus" whatever is the man behind Vanguard, he deserves

Tone2 synths are all high-level. The "firebird" tiny gem alone (now freeware) would be enough to say "wow".

Of course one has to trust in trance and the like

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 10:02 am

Electra has been updated to v2.6. It is a major update, which is available for free for all Electra2 users.

New features:

New synthesis mode: Analog oscillators (Saw, Square, Triangle, Sine, Half Sine, Comb, Pulse 25%)
New synthesis mode: Soft sync (is active if the target oscillator is analog; works well with triangle)
New synthesis mode: Analog pulsewidth modulation (select Analog->'Pulse PW'; PW knob controls the pulsewidth)

New effect: 'Gated Reverb' which syncs to the BPM rate
New effect: 'Gated Reverb Echo' is Gated Reverb with a delay which syncs to BPM
new effect: 'Reverse Reverb' which syncs to the BPM rate
New effect: 'Stereo Width' allows to spread the panorama from mono to surround
New effect: 'Laser Punch' adds additional punch. Use it with a sawtooth to gereate a zzapping 'Rubber Bass' sound
New effect: 'Stereo flanger'
New effect: 'Surround pan' with dolby prologic compatible surround encoding

New filter: 'LP Butter' is an analog modeled butterworth filter with 24dB. The analog knob controls the noisyness
New filter: 'LP Tone2' is an analog modeled leapfrog filter with 24dB. The analog knob controls non-linearity
New filter: 'LP Elliptic' is a digital filter with 40dB slope

The patch browser shows a scrollbar if more than 26 categories exist
Doubleclick on a knob resets it to the default value
Custom Wave->'Load wave' now shows a popup menu with all available waveforms in ElectraX_wavetables
Custom waveforms can quickly be selected with the mouswheel
Custom Wave->'Random wave' generates a random waveform
'Save Wave' exports a wav file with the oscillator's waveform
New Sample effect: 'Phase shifter' creates a very similar sounding sample. It can be used for 'sample clearing', since it is difficult to proove the origin of the sample.
New halftone mode for the arpeggiator: 3/4 selects a minor or major third which depends on the root key
'Natural scrolling' support for the mousewheel on Mac
List selectors now have checkmarks
40 additional patches

exmatproton · Post by **exmatproton** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 10:05 am

Examigan wrote:Electra has been updated to v2.6. It is a major update, which is available for free for all Electra2 users.

Can't seem to find it. The beta2 is still up, a.f.a.i.k.

Touch The Universe · Post by **Touch The Universe** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 10:09 am

Ah, this is finally out in the open. Excellent!

Lots and lots of really cool features guys!

*Edit* Errr

Seems like its still in beta

Worth checking out anyway though. I've been waiting til this goes public though so I can update my soundset with the new features.

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 10:55 am

exmatproton wrote:
Examigan wrote:Electra has been updated to v2.6. It is a major update, which is available for free for all Electra2 users.
Can't seem to find it. The beta2 is still up, a.f.a.i.k.

https://www.tone2.com/download.html

starflakeprj · Post by **starflakeprj** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 11:55 am

The full version is exactly the same as beta 2, but this seems to be the usual for Tone2, they don't repack the last beta before "releasing" the final version.

exmatproton · Post by **exmatproton** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 12:04 pm

Examigan wrote:
exmatproton wrote:
Examigan wrote:Electra has been updated to v2.6. It is a major update, which is available for free for all Electra2 users.
Can't seem to find it. The beta2 is still up, a.f.a.i.k.
https://www.tone2.com/download.html

Ah..was looking in the forum. Silent release it is

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Sat Mar 31, 2018 1:54 pm

exmatproton wrote:
Examigan wrote:
exmatproton wrote:
Examigan wrote:Electra has been updated to v2.6. It is a major update, which is available for free for all Electra2 users.
Can't seem to find it. The beta2 is still up, a.f.a.i.k.
https://www.tone2.com/download.html
Ah..was looking in the forum. Silent release it is

I received an email about it, so that’s the first I heard of this.

tasty tatsyn · Post by **tasty tatsyn** » Fri Apr 05, 2019 5:22 pm

Electra 2.7 update

https://www.tone2.com/electra-update.html

SLiC · Post by **SLiC** » Fri Apr 05, 2019 5:54 pm

Another great free update- Tone 2 are doing great work and moving up the list of my top developers. Now- Icarus 2 guys

Echoes in the Attic · Post by **Echoes in the Attic** » Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:06 pm

As cool as Electra is, it seems to me that Icarus has pretty much made it redundant no? I've recently been demoing Icarus and watching some videos and I'm pretty blown away by how powerful it is. It even does fm between oscs now, does the regular sampling and has most, of not all, of the filter algorithms like the physical modeling etc. Electra might be a little more straight forward, and has a simple sync/fm per osc, and that cool fractal osc, but it seems just just about everything possible with Electra is doable with Icarus. Am I missing something? Or what does Electra offer that Icarus doesn't?

Tone2 Electra 2