Available now: Tone2 Icarus2.5 - Wavetable Workstation

[tristan-]

As an Icarus user since a few years, I find it enough for my needs, the upgrades, in the current upgrade cost is pretty much ridiculous.
The actual sound difference is pretty much negligible and while the workstation features are nice to have, those are hardly requirements from a synth as far as I'm concerned, to each his own ofcourse, I understand that.
At EUR 39 or $49 this would've been more sensible but hardly.

I have Nemesis and Icarus, but I won't buy any more Tone2 products due to out of range upgrade prices.

I can't even sell this now as its not worth it due to fees and its becoming NFR (probably on purpose to limit commerce) as I already find it redundant within the myriad of synths I already have.
That's why I'll keep it and use them here and there. Wish I could upgrade but it just leaves a sour taste.

Don't bother criticizing this as its purely my opinion, also no need for you to say that you think it worths it because of the time taken into programming, or to justify the fact that you jumped the wagon and upgraded. Just my 2c, wanted to put my mild frustration out there.

[Markus Krause]

Please don't forget to post your feature-requests in our forum here:
https://www.tone2.org/forum/index.php?topic=2387.0
Before every update i go though everything and check out what can be implemented. If you post it on kvr it might get lost.

I also consider Pre/Post filter distortion suggestion a good idea but would prioritize the addition of Electra2 recent waveshaping options over that personally (they sound so good )

Doing a pre-filter distortion is already possible with Icarus/Electra these settings:
- Set Filter1 type to LP digital 12db. Cutoff 22050 Hz, reso 0. (Filter is completely open and bypasses the signal)
- Set serial routing (parallel diode is off)
- Select your desired distortion for filter1
- Selected the desired filtertype for filter2

How long will the introductory price be?

Till the end of January.

If I choose "bandlimited noise" as LFO waveform, I will get a triangle waveform

The triangular shape is because it is a linear-interpolated noise-type that uses a couple of programming tricks. If you take a look at it with a spectograph you'll notice that it is bandlimited.

I would like to have a noise kind of LFO, and in which I can change a "filter" on it, from LP to BP to HP, with shape knob. Or if it was bandlimited, maybe the frequency of it, and bandwidth with the phase knob

Select 'bandlimited noise' then change the lfo frequency.

Markus has said there are not going to be new synths, just updates. it'd be nice if he could go one step further and say what would be realistic to expect from tone2 in the future

We got 5 synthesizer products that cover all kind of synthesis methods. It does not make sense to add another products here, since it would compete with the existing products.
I never said that we will go out of business. Just that Icarus2 will be the final Tone2 synth and that if will focus on free updates for the existing products. These free updates will keep me busy enough.
If you take a look at the details in our free updates that we did during the last years you will notice that we really care about our customers and products:
https://www.tone2.com/download.html

[Caine123]

really hope icarus2 is and will be succesfull for you also financially! i still didnt update (waiting on money ;D) but so far tone2 helped asap with problems and i still use the plugins very often, fast, no complicated cp etc. wish Avenger would be from you guys ;D

[enCiphered]

really hope icarus2 is and will be succesfull for you also financially! i still didnt update (waiting on money ;D) but so far tone2 helped asap with problems and i still use the plugins very often, fast, no complicated cp etc. wish Avenger would be from you guys ;D

+1

[enCiphered]

We got 5 synthesizer products that cover all kind of synthesis methods. It does not make sense to add another products here, since it would compete with the existing products.
I never said that we will go out of business. Just that Icarus2 will be the final Tone2 synth and that if will focus on free updates for the existing products. These free updates will keep me busy enough.

I still miss a dedicated granular intrument from such experienced synthesis devs from Tone2 or u-he.
A full featured granular workshorse synth with a corresponding fx-version.
THAT would be mind-blowing and for sure a huge sales factor for your company.
Just imagine how beautiful a Tone2 granular synth would sound with all those amazing filters and morph options of Icarus...
Someone please wake me up..

[TheNeverScene]

Hi, I'm having an issue with slow load times. Single instances of Icarus2 is taking over 10 seconds to initiate and if multiple instances are used, reloading a project takes forever. Tried clean installs, etc. Using Reaper 64-bit (but did the same in Bitwig demo), Windows 7, Xeon 3.5, 24 gbytes ecc ram. It's a great synth, so hope I can get this sorted. Not sure what's going on.

[Markus Krause]

Here are my measurements. I can not reproduce this on my test-systems:

Core I7 950 3Ghz (an 7 yeard old Desktop PC with SSD), Windows 7: 3 seconds for the first instance, 2 seconds for every further one

Ryzen5 2500 U (a newer midclass Laptop) with SSD, Windows 10: 2-4 seconds

Intel Core2 Duo 2.13 Ghz (a 10 year old low-end Laptop with a cheap SSD), Windows 10: 6 seconds

Ryzen 3000 (a new Desktop with SSD), Windows 10: 1-2 seconds

Core I7 4790K 4 Ghz (a 4 years old Desktop with SSD), Windows 10: 1-2 seconds

Mac Mini 2019: 3 seconds


What can slow down loading times of software?

- Other software which accesses the harddisc is running in the background
- Slow harddiscs. Instead consider buying a SSD
- Fragmented harddiscs. Run a defragmentation in Windows
- A Windows-update is running in the background
- A virus scanner is running in the background
- A weak CPU
- Slow RAM
- Bad settings in the Bios
- Missing or bad Windows-drivers for the Mainboard

What can additionally slow down loading times in Icarus?

- You placed a massive number of .wav files to the Icarus_wavetables directory
- You did not enable Multicore / Multiprocessor support in the host

[Markus Krause]

Further measurements of the loading-time:

3 year old Laptop from HP (AMD dual core, low-end, with a slow harddisc): 3 seconds

[mladi]

As an Icarus user since a few years, I find it enough for my needs, the upgrades, in the current upgrade cost is pretty much ridiculous.
The actual sound difference is pretty much negligible and while the workstation features are nice to have, those are hardly requirements from a synth as far as I'm concerned, to each his own ofcourse, I understand that.
At EUR 39 or $49 this would've been more sensible but hardly.

I have Nemesis and Icarus, but I won't buy any more Tone2 products due to out of range upgrade prices.

I can't even sell this now as its not worth it due to fees and its becoming NFR (probably on purpose to limit commerce) as I already find it redundant within the myriad of synths I already have.
That's why I'll keep it and use them here and there. Wish I could upgrade but it just leaves a sour taste.

Don't bother criticizing this as its purely my opinion, also no need for you to say that you think it worths it because of the time taken into programming, or to justify the fact that you jumped the wagon and upgraded. Just my 2c, wanted to put my mild frustration out there.

When this is out of range what about 99 Upgrade price otherr devs ask actually for less..

[Caine123]

As an Icarus user since a few years, I find it enough for my needs, the upgrades, in the current upgrade cost is pretty much ridiculous.
The actual sound difference is pretty much negligible and while the workstation features are nice to have, those are hardly requirements from a synth as far as I'm concerned, to each his own ofcourse, I understand that.
At EUR 39 or $49 this would've been more sensible but hardly.

I have Nemesis and Icarus, but I won't buy any more Tone2 products due to out of range upgrade prices.

I can't even sell this now as its not worth it due to fees and its becoming NFR (probably on purpose to limit commerce) as I already find it redundant within the myriad of synths I already have.
That's why I'll keep it and use them here and there. Wish I could upgrade but it just leaves a sour taste.

Don't bother criticizing this as its purely my opinion, also no need for you to say that you think it worths it because of the time taken into programming, or to justify the fact that you jumped the wagon and upgraded. Just my 2c, wanted to put my mild frustration out there.

When this is out of range what about 99 Upgrade price otherr devs ask actually for less..

Nexus 3 which isnt even a synth

[perfumer]

What can slow down loading times of software?

- Other software which accesses the harddisc is running in the background
- Slow harddiscs. Instead consider buying a SSD
- Fragmented harddiscs. Run a defragmentation in Windows
- A Windows-update is running in the background
- A virus scanner is running in the background
- A weak CPU
- Slow RAM
- Bad settings in the Bios
- Missing or bad Windows-drivers for the Mainboard

What can additionally slow down loading times in Icarus?

- You placed a massive number of .wav files to the Icarus_wavetables directory
- You did not enable Multicore / Multiprocessor support in the host

Phoning home to see if license is legit, getting blocked by a firewall, then trying again and again, then saying: 'Oh, it seems there's no Internet connection. I'll have to load after all.'
I have also experienced slow DAW/project shut-down times with my 100% legal licences of Nemesis and Icarus 1. Have never experienced anything similar with anything else. That's why I suppose it's phoning home. Also, this doesn't happen every time - which is more reason to suspect this.

Oh, and I don't have any of the possible causes you listed.

[Markus Krause]

Please stick with the facts. Fact is that you do not own Icarus2 and you're also not the developer. You can't know technical details how the protection works. Please note that i can not discuss this in a public forum. This is one of the most basic rules in security.

These are the facts:

• We never did and also do not collect any private information from our users. We even state this in the EULA.

• Unlike other protection schemes (ilok/pace) we do not make changes to the Windows-system-drivers

• Unlike other protection schemes we do not use a cloud which stores and transmits data from and to the user

• Unlike other protection schemes we do not use a dongle that can break or get stolen

• Unlike other protection schemes we do not install license managers that are running in the background

• Unlike other protection schemes there have been no working cracks during the last years. Just some ideots who purchased the software with stolen credit-cards and who shared they keys on warez pages. All those keys got blacklisted and sooner or later the stolen software has reset to 'unregistered'. I assume this is the real reason why there are so many trolls that rant on us

• Unlike other companies (which will not mentioned here) we do not use tracking-cockies on our website and spy on your shopping behaviour

• If a user looses his key we replace his license for free

• Sadly a protection is necessary. Otherwise a company can not survive on the market

Our protection is very user friendly. It is a good compromise between security and useability. We receive very few complains from legit users.

Because of my bad health situation and the fact that i have to relax at the weekend I'd really appeciate to stay away from initiating rants or discussing this further. If you got questions please send an email to markus[ a t]tone2[d ot]com . I will answer you questions within 48 hours

[Caine123]

What can slow down loading times of software?

- Other software which accesses the harddisc is running in the background
- Slow harddiscs. Instead consider buying a SSD
- Fragmented harddiscs. Run a defragmentation in Windows
- A Windows-update is running in the background
- A virus scanner is running in the background
- A weak CPU
- Slow RAM
- Bad settings in the Bios
- Missing or bad Windows-drivers for the Mainboard

What can additionally slow down loading times in Icarus?

- You placed a massive number of .wav files to the Icarus_wavetables directory
- You did not enable Multicore / Multiprocessor support in the host

Phoning home to see if license is legit, getting blocked by a firewall, then trying again and again, then saying: 'Oh, it seems there's no Internet connection. I'll have to load after all.'
I have also experienced slow DAW/project shut-down times with my 100% legal licences of Nemesis and Icarus 1. Have never experienced anything similar with anything else. That's why I suppose it's phoning home. Also, this doesn't happen every time - which is more reason to suspect this.

Oh, and I don't have any of the possible causes you listed.

Hey if you got proof etc you should back it up. I had some issues with tone2 too and had also shown details but it got sorted out asap. Of course a cp needs to be done sadly thats sadly necessary. I have no understanding for cp which goes beyond and sniffles your system etc. A cp should just protect your product and not sniff around and collect data i guess this would be quite illegal.
Again you should always proof/ Show facts when stating something isnt right....

Tone2 had probs with ilok in the same projects but it was fixed. That project shut down i never had that maybe check other parts like which version, which daw, which antivirus etc etc

Back to enjoy the product i guess!

[] Peter:H []

Icarus2 loads fine - Load time until GUI shows, Win10, i7 4Ghz, 64bit, 32GB Ram, Bitwig 3.1 - about 1 Second.

In Bitwig please use the "Together" mode for hosting plugins (settings page) - it will host all plugins together in one of the background Plugin processes. There are other modes with better "isolation" against plugin crashes, but these modes are more expensive in terms of resource utilization.
And because I have fallen into this trap myself very often one comment - it's often an OSI Layer 8 Problem. I recommend to check your OSI Layer 8!

Have fun making music with Icarus2 - Cool Synth!

BR
] Peter:H [

[Markus Krause]

Icarus2 loads fine - Load time until GUI shows, Win10, i7 4Ghz, 64bit, 32GB Ram, Bitwig 3.1 - about 1 Second.

In Bitwig please use the "Together" mode for hosting plugins (settings page) - it will host all plugins together in one of the background Plugin processes. There are other modes with better "isolation" against plugin crashes, but these modes are more expensive in terms of resource utilization.
And because I have fallen into this trap myself very often one comment - it's often an OSI Layer 8 Problem. I recommend to check your OSI Layer 8!

Have fun making music with Icarus2 - Cool Synth!

BR
] Peter:H [

Thanks Peter. This is an important hint!
If several instances of Icarus or other Tone products are used they share their identical resources (waveforms, wavetables, images etc). Sharing resources reduces the required RAM as well speeds up the loading time.
If the hosts prevents the sharing by isolating the processes it can have a negative effect on the loading time.

Have a nice weekend,
Markus