Tone2 will release Icarus - 3D WaveTable Synthesizer

[pdxindy]

The more I play with Icarus, the more I like it. It has a pleasant sound that keeps me playing for hours! I don't feel that fatigue with its sound it seems!

I also agree, it is a very versatile synth and can come with great results fast. The main advantage of it, it sounds clean (in an excellent way!). At first, I thought it is a negative thing, but the more I play, the more I be convinced that I don't have such clean precise sounds which can give a nice feeling about the mix overall.

It has also great filters and oscillators. The ARP could be with a better interface, but it is functional at least.

The end of story, I will get it (but not soon)!

I have to agree on most parts. However, i am not that fond of the filters. They are good and sound lush, but i prefer a more "heavy" sound. Also, i am not that fond of the fx. I don't use them at all. Maybe sometimes a small reverb for a bit of room, but no, they're not what i am looking for. Which is fine really. Where this plugin really shines (for me that is) is at the osc level. I love the tools, the clean sound, the overall possibilities. It is a really nice device.

But like i said, the filters and fx are a bit of a downer (the more i play with it), so i tend to use external filtering and fx.

I quite like the array of filters... I'm not expecting Diva quality modeled filters.

If you are approaching the filters as tools to shape the sound in creative and musical ways they are good for this. There are some very interesting options like the comb, vocal options, ringmod LP etc. etc. And since there are 2 filters, you can do some serious sound shaping.

[Mac of BIOnighT]

If you are approaching the filters as tools to shape the sound in creative and musical ways they are good for this. There are some very interesting options like the comb, vocal options, ringmod LP etc. etc. And since there are 2 filters, you can do some serious sound shaping.

I agree And you can make them "move" in some very interesting ways

[exmatproton]

The more I play with Icarus, the more I like it. It has a pleasant sound that keeps me playing for hours! I don't feel that fatigue with its sound it seems!

I also agree, it is a very versatile synth and can come with great results fast. The main advantage of it, it sounds clean (in an excellent way!). At first, I thought it is a negative thing, but the more I play, the more I be convinced that I don't have such clean precise sounds which can give a nice feeling about the mix overall.

It has also great filters and oscillators. The ARP could be with a better interface, but it is functional at least.

The end of story, I will get it (but not soon)!

I have to agree on most parts. However, i am not that fond of the filters. They are good and sound lush, but i prefer a more "heavy" sound. Also, i am not that fond of the fx. I don't use them at all. Maybe sometimes a small reverb for a bit of room, but no, they're not what i am looking for. Which is fine really. Where this plugin really shines (for me that is) is at the osc level. I love the tools, the clean sound, the overall possibilities. It is a really nice device.

But like i said, the filters and fx are a bit of a downer (the more i play with it), so i tend to use external filtering and fx.

I quite like the array of filters... I'm not expecting Diva quality modeled filters.

If you are approaching the filters as tools to shape the sound in creative and musical ways they are good for this. There are some very interesting options like the comb, vocal options, ringmod LP etc. etc. And since there are 2 filters, you can do some serious sound shaping.

Ow sure, they can be handy, but for some serious filtering i go external.

[Cinebient]

What i really love is that Tone 2 seems to manage to make it very cpu friendly while it sounds great at the same time.
I don´t messure my plug-ins by percent but i judge it simply by how many instances i can run and how complex the sounds are at the same time.
Icarus is one of a few great sounding synths where i really have no trouble to run 8 or more complex patches, each on it´s own midi channel, controlled via a Seaboard with a lot of live modulations on each note/channel.
It let me bring new love into my Seaboard and explore it more too
I used Falcon for some MPE midi experiments but since Falcon has no multi-threading it´s not usable for me that much. Using Icarus in a mono midi mode brings me much further. And there is even room for adding some samples on top in another channel.
I like the little helpful things like the ducking feature in the FX section.
The arp is really great but it is a bit of a pain to edit it without zooming it nearly to full screen.
Would be great if there was an option to open the arp in a big native window (like the wavetable editor).
I think 149€ (in Germany at least) is a good price for it and i would feel guilty to wait for a sale
I´m not interested in their other synths and i demoed a few of it but Icarus goes now straight to my currently Nr.1. It even beats Dune 2 for me. But Dune 2 f.e. is much more advanced when it comes to unison or layering some huge sequences. I also like the Dune 2 filters a bit more and the MSEG´s.
I hope Icarus gets a write to speak option for the vocoder (like Nave) too in a future update.
However, next paycheck i will buy anyway

[pdxindy]

If you are approaching the filters as tools to shape the sound in creative and musical ways they are good for this. There are some very interesting options like the comb, vocal options, ringmod LP etc. etc. And since there are 2 filters, you can do some serious sound shaping.

I agree And you can make them "move" in some very interesting ways

Indeed!

Having the 2 filters makes a big difference... and it is cool to have a filter option with a slope of 48 and so on. It is a very satisfying diversity. And yeah, some of the filters give good movement with little effort.

[bojanboyss]

If a single cycle is 2,048 samples long, and the wavetable has 256 cycles, then I should be able to import a WAV file up to 524,288 samples long. When I try to import a WAV file much smaller than that, Icarus asks me if I'd like to trim it down to 256 cycles. I shouldn't have to. If each cycle is indeed 2,048 sample long, and I have 256 cycles at my disposal, then I should be able to load a WAV file that is 200,000 samples long without having to trim a thing. What's up with that?

Did some tests.
Ok: 5,7 seconds Sample number: 249920. Creates about 250 single cycle waveforms. (980 Kb, 44.1 khz and 16bit wave file-not wavetable)
Everything above that "asked" for trim. For a moment I thought I found "magic" number but... Found another sample, trimmed exactly to the same length and it asked for a trim again. Quick visual look at those waveforms and only difference is that the second one is a lot complex (reese) which lead to conclusion that it makes single cycle waveforms from wave and more complex waveform- more single cycles until it reach its limits. So, I think no magic number for it. I trimmed with audio editor same wave (second one) to 3 seconds (132301 samples) and it loaded ok, made 245 single cycle waveforms.
There is all over the place about 256 cycles with 2048 samples each which logically means 524,288 samples long but it seems thats info for already made waveforms and not for wav samples using resynthesis. I wish though they made it better for wav samples. At least there wouldnt be click when it is applying trim

[db3]

Icarus is now fully released.

[exmatproton]

Icarus is now fully released.

Looks like there is no difference between beta3 and version 1.0, which is fine ofcourse.

Use the update page on Tone2's download page to update from any beta to version 1.0

[recursive one]

Icarus is now fully released.

Still no way to balance the output volume of Filter 1 vs Filter 2?

[flakes2]

Filter volume does not make sense if you run a single filter or if you run them in serial. In parallel mode you can use distortion->Volume

[recursive one]

Filter volume does not make sense if you run a single filter or if you run them in serial. In parallel mode you can use distortion->Volume

Ofc I'm talking about the parallel mode

I know about this "distortion->Volume" workaround, but what if I want to use other distorotion modes for both filters running in parallel?

[flakes2]

The setup you're talking about is quite exotic. The distortion modes are also available as insert FX. Use the insert effects instead of the filter distortions. You could even route to two different insert fx distortions by using the left->fx1 and right->fx2 effect routing. Osc pan then controls the balance.
3 additional distortions per Oszillator is hidden in the wavetable editor

[recursive one]

No, it's not an exotic setup (quite common for "layered" leads or evolving pads when one filter is modulated with an LFO and a signal coming from another filter - static or controlled by slow envelope - is admixed thereto). Also pre-filter and post-filter saturation should sound different.

In any case why such a simple thing as filter balance is omitted from such a complex synth is beyond me.

Well, I guess in this case

You could even route to two different insert fx distortions by using the left->fx1 and right->fx2 effect routing. Osc pan then controls the balance.

i can use "volume" as distortion mode for FX1 and 2 (can I?). But then I'm wasting FX slots for that.

[flakes2]

The osc volume knobs to control the pre filter saturartion. Then there is another large knob for the master volume.
This synth has more features than most other synths i know. But as always it simply can't do everything. At least i do not miss what you requested. It is a wavetable synth and here the sounnd is sculpted mainly with the oscillators. Serum for example only offers a single filter. You could post a feature request to the tone2 forum. I think adding filter volume to the mod matrix target should be possible.
You could also use a modular synth or program an own synth

[Ingonator]

Icarus is now fully released.

Looks like there is no difference between beta3 and version 1.0, which is fine ofcourse.

Use the update page on Tone2's download page to update from any beta to version 1.0

The final version indeed seems to similar to the Public Beta 3 (of course there were more Beta versions than this in the closed Beta...).

I also try to use the remaining ones of my submitted patches that are not included in the factory content of the final version as a basis for my own soundset that should include around 200 patches and that should be published at the Tone2 shop when finished (which could still take a while from now on...).

After working a while on other stuff (besides patches for Icarus) i finally go back to focus on Icarus again, now using the final version.