Tone2 Electra3 - Synthesizer Workstation

[Markus Krause]

Keyboard input is not supported with the library that we use. Maybe I can find a way some day to work around this.
Apart from this there are also several DAWs that do not forward all keypresses to the plugins properly.

[nusound mind]

Can you keep Electra 2 as it's own synth alongside 3.0 if I upgrade?

I'm taking it this is not possible, based on recent posts? ...

[AxlMaldini]

Can you keep Electra 2 as it's own synth alongside 3.0 if I upgrade?

I'm taking it this is not possible, based on recent posts? ...

YES! you can, when you install version 3 put it in another VST folder, when you open the DAW you will have v2 and v3 to open independently.

[bmanic]

Why on earth do Tone2 synths skimp on this when they are so capable synths otherwise? Some of the competition has literally unlimited amount of mod slots.

Probably because most people don’t use more than 10 and the more possibility of modulation means the higher your CPU use has to be. I admit I’d like there to be more, but I usually can make do with 10.

My main issue is that using "just the basics" eats up a minimum of 5 slots instantly. Modwheel to cutoff and env decay, aftertouch to usually 1 or 2 targets and pitchbend to filter. 5 slots used just for the basics.

.. then if you ever want velocity to respond to any basic stuff like envelope decay that's another slot used.

Basically it seems like nobody is actually "playing" the sounds and using controls to get variance. Guess most people are just plopping down midi notes in a piano roll.

I like to assign basic playability stuff first before getting on with any actual synthesis and by that point I have extremely few modulation slots available.. and 10 is just ridiculously little in 2023. Most synths with mod matrices or flexible modulation have either no limitations at all or so many that it feels "unlimited". It's just a very weird design decision in my opinion. So many targets to choose, so few slots.

[bmanic]

Electra3 does have 40 mod slots per patch (4 Synth layers, each with 10 slots).
Icarus2 has 18 mod slots + many additional knobs with fixed modulation routing of LFOs or envelopes.
Nemesis and Gladiator have 12 slots + additional knobs with fixed modulation routing of envelopes.
Saurus and RayBlaster have 15 slots + additional knobs with fixed modulation routing of envelopes.
Gladiator has 12 slots + many additional knobs with fixed routing for assigning envelopes and Morph LFOs.

There is also a reason to limit the number of slots. Each slot needs CPU and clutters the interface.
And some sound-designers have a tendency for a 'messy' sound design. They weirdly route stuff and end up with lots of slots that don't really do anything. Then it's not really clear what the patch really does and CPU is wasted. In the worst case this even can have a negative impact on sound-quality or patches that don't work properly.
Limiting here forces them to think what they really want to achieve and to do thorough sound-design.

Could there be an option where basic modulation controls like aftertouch, velocity and modwheel don't take up any slots and have their own matrix?? This is my main concern. You end up with an otherwise awesome synth that "feels sterile" to play if there is very little stuff routed through velocity for instance.

[zerocrossing]

Electra3 does have 40 mod slots per patch (4 Synth layers, each with 10 slots).
Icarus2 has 18 mod slots + many additional knobs with fixed modulation routing of LFOs or envelopes.
Nemesis and Gladiator have 12 slots + additional knobs with fixed modulation routing of envelopes.
Saurus and RayBlaster have 15 slots + additional knobs with fixed modulation routing of envelopes.
Gladiator has 12 slots + many additional knobs with fixed routing for assigning envelopes and Morph LFOs.

There is also a reason to limit the number of slots. Each slot needs CPU and clutters the interface.
And some sound-designers have a tendency for a 'messy' sound design. They weirdly route stuff and end up with lots of slots that don't really do anything. Then it's not really clear what the patch really does and CPU is wasted. In the worst case this even can have a negative impact on sound-quality or patches that don't work properly.
Limiting here forces them to think what they really want to achieve and to do thorough sound-design.

I’m not advocating putting in a hundred mod slots, but I’m for at least 20, and if you really want to make my day, add a second modifier slot in the mix, so you can do things like increase the LFO amount on a parameter with expression. Saves a slot and keeps things tidy.

[Markus Krause]

I checked out the factory patches. Only a hand full of them make use of all slots per layer. So the current number of 40 slots (4*10 per layer) is definitely sufficient for more than 99% of the patches.

I have already noted your requests for more matrix slots. It is already planed for a future update. There is no need to spam the same things over and over again.

Also, keep in mind that the demands of sound-designers (mostly here on kvr) are different from that of the end-users.
The sound-designer wants a product that 'can do everything' and that makes sound design for them easy and cheap.
The end-user wants a straightforward, simple and stable product with low CPU and great sound.

[Chipi]

This is just a test with the Electra3 sounds that I programmed using Electra version 2.9. The new version 3 is very unstable in many of them, notes going out of pitch, notes being held for no reason. I have noticed that the original 'fat' sound of version 2 has become more pronounced in version 3 at mid frequencies that are not to my liking. On some sounds the new 'Transient + Bass' mode works well but not on all, it has an Icarus flavor....sometimes. The new reverbs have a great sound and a more even tail decay but it is very subtle. I haven't tried the new oscillators. In summary the sound of version 3 has gained in clarity but lost character compared to v2, I don't know if it's because the internal wiring is now 64bit and the process is a bit more complicated. In the next video I will show you the same presets but from v2, compare, thanks Markus for Electra!

***UPDATE COMMENT: The new version 3 analog oscillators 'Saw Invert' and the 'Sine Flip' oscillator have a phenomenal quality, I have programmed some sounds today using them and the warmth, frequency and balance are incredible, I would say that the 'Update' to v.3 is worth only for those two oscillators!

[Markus Krause]

You created really great sounds!

So far we haven't received any reports from other users that it would go out of tune. Make sure that you did not accidently send some midi-pitchbend signal to the synth or enable MPE in your DAW. It could also be a hardware issue with your controller.
You can send the according patches to me then I'll examine if I can reproduce it. If there should be a bug it will of course be fixed.

The microtuning depth of 'Fat Mode 1' will be reduced for v3.1. I have already taken care of this.

'Transient + Bass' is a dynamic equalizer. It is based on psychoacoustics. It is useful for punchy and modern sounds.

[Markus Krause]

I noticed that hypernoise 9x and hypersaw vir 9x oscillators seem to be buggy with the phase. They suddenly go from nicely out of phase into flangy nasty territory really easily. The 7x oscillators do not have this problem.

The 'Electra 3 Hypersaw' preset demonstrates this bug very well. Just play a few notes and at some point you will have a few random really nasty flanging notes. That's when the free phase suddenly hits the 80 to 99 area, where in manual phase mode you get these same problems. Just change the 9x hypersaws to 7x and problem goes instantly away.

I have been running several tests and do not confirm this. Apart from this we did not receive any bug report about this. I'll have to investigate this further.

However I can confirm that I did make a mistake (or call this creative freedom) with the sound-design of the patch 'Electra3 Hypersaw' that becomes audible when you use headphones. The patch routes 'Hypernoise 9x' to the left side and 'Hypersaw Vir 9x' to the right side. Osc1 and Osc2 are panned to left and right while using different waveforms.
Solution: Select the same waveform for Osc1 and Osc2 then save the patch.

Please do also note that the phases of the hypersaws are only re-calculated when you press a new key to keep CPU performance low.

[bmanic]

I noticed that hypernoise 9x and hypersaw vir 9x oscillators seem to be buggy with the phase. They suddenly go from nicely out of phase into flangy nasty territory really easily. The 7x oscillators do not have this problem.

The 'Electra 3 Hypersaw' preset demonstrates this bug very well. Just play a few notes and at some point you will have a few random really nasty flanging notes. That's when the free phase suddenly hits the 80 to 99 area, where in manual phase mode you get these same problems. Just change the 9x hypersaws to 7x and problem goes instantly away.

I have been running several tests and do not confirm this. Apart from this we did not receive any bug report about this.

However I can confirm that I did make a mistake (or call this creative freedom) with the sound-design of the patch 'Electra3 Hypersaw' that becomes audible when you use headphones. The patch routes 'Hypernoise 9x' to the left side and 'Hypersaw Vir 9x' to the right side. Osc1 and Osc2 are panned to left and right while using different waveforms.
Solution: Select the same waveform for Osc1 and Osc2 then save the patch.

Please do also note that the phases of the hypersaws are only re-calculated when you press a new key to keep CPU performance low.

The synthesis engine of Electra3 runs as expected.

Ok maybe it's not a bug. It just sounds really bad in 'Free' phase mode as it sometimes means it goes into the 70 to 99 phase offset range where it's phasing/flanging like crazy. It's quite easy to avoid it though by setting a manual offset and perhaps modulating that with random note-on within a good range (but that's yet another thing that uses up a modulation matrix slot for no good reason ).

Here is a quick sound example of just hypersaw 9x on an init patch. Free phase offset selected. Yeah.. not pretty, hear those sudden jumps in volume and bad sounding phasing? That happens very often.. way too often for the 'free' phase mode to be of any use.

Audio example of the issue (Google Drive, mp3)

[Markus Krause]

I did run many tests. The issue is happens very rarely, is very difficult to reproduce and only appears under very specific conditions which all must happening at the same time:

- I does not happen on PC, only Mac (in my case M1)
- I does only happen with a specific waveform (Hypersaw Vir 9x). It does not happen with other waveforms.
- I does only happen when phase is set to 'free'

Then it can occasionally happen that phasing is audible.

Workaround1 : Use a different wavform
Workaround2: Set phase to a different value than 'free'

Thanks for reporting it. It will be fixed with the next update which will of course be free

[Chipi]

You created really great sounds!

So far we haven't received any reports from other users that it would go out of tune. Make sure that you did not accidently send some midi-pitchbend signal to the synth or enable MPE in your DAW. It could also be a hardware issue with your controller.
You can send the according patches to me then I'll examine if I can reproduce it. If there should be a bug it will of course be fixed.

The microtuning depth of 'Fat Mode 1' will be reduced for v3.1. I have already taken care of this.

'Transient + Bass' is a dynamic equalizer. It is based on psychoacoustics. It is useful for punchy and modern sounds.

The new oscilators 'n v.3, such as the 'Saw Invert' and the 'Sine Flip' oscillator have a phenomenal quality, I have programmed some sounds today using them and the warmth, frequency and balance are incredible, I would say that the 'Update' to v.3 is worth only for those two oscillators, hopefully you will add more in the next ones! Thanks for your support Markus.

[simmo75]

I just bought Electra3, I really like the sound.

I cannot seem to be able to save my user created patches to the User folder in the browser, I’m on mac.

Also can’t find how to turn on MPE (or… find the manual…haha)?

[Markus Krause]

Hello Simmo,

thanks for supporting our small company.

MPE is currently not supported. It might be added in a future update.

To open the manual click HELP->Online manual.
To open the video tutorials click HELP->Online video tutorial.

To save a patch to the User folder click FILE->Save patch as...
Then save it to the "Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/ElectraX_sounds/User" directory.