Available soon: Tone2 ElectraX

[Teksonik]

I'll be throwing all perspective away when I get around to Poly-Ana 2.x. I've never heard anybody complain about LACK of perspective in an interface design, so I've learned my lesson and I figure now that's the way to go.

Yes, it surely is - don't go away too far from the hardware paradigm though or else it'll be loathed about as much as your current GUI... e.g. I'm sure Kubik would sell much much better if its GUI (which personally I find great) would be more conventional.

Well, Poly-Ana's GUI is VERY polarizing. People seem to either love it or hate it. Unfortunately, most of the praise comes to me in email, and most of the loathing happens here in public, so it can seem a lot more universally reviled than it really is.

Whatever I do, I will certainly be keeping the hardware paradigm. It's important to me that the look of the product evoke a sense of the kinds of sounds I designed it to create. I set out to make the ultimate imaginary dream-synth from 1977, so the "made in someone's garage" look was quite intentional. 2.x might have some more "industrial design", but it'll still look like something that would be possible to achieve with hardware from the classic period.

Not to hijack but it looks like that's already happened..............

I own PolyAna and if someone offered a straight on GUI I'd snap it up in a minute.......However I've found that by using the "Mod Sources as Drop Down List" option and using the Retro 80's style skin by Scott Kane I've actually grown to accept and even feel comfortable with PolyAna's GUI.............I'd still love to try a non-tilt version though AQ..............

By the way I've also fallen in love with using Nomad Factories BT Analog Chorus and BT Tempo Delay with PolyAna...........They just fit that retro feel so well. I know it goes against AQ's "no effects" philosophy but they just bring PolyAna to life in my opinion...........

[Teksonik]

Sorry to go off topic but i never seen this Poly-Ana before till now..
Now that's a proper synth..

Rob

Dude you have to try PolyAna................like you said a 'proper' analog synth...........

Ok sorry back to ElectraX now............

[AdmiralQuality]

I know it goes against AQ's "no effects" philosophy but they just bring PolyAna to life in my opinion...........

It's not that I have a "no effects" philosophy, I just don't usually like effects that are "welded" to an instrument.

However... when I do Poly-Ana 2.x I'm going to add an effects section. Why the change of heart? Because I realized that the effects can be processed in the same oversampled domain as Poly's voice, so there's actually a reason to "weld" them to this particular instument.

OK, enough Poly-Ana talk (or feel free to start another thread). Topic is ElectraX.

[Teksonik]

I know it goes against AQ's "no effects" philosophy but they just bring PolyAna to life in my opinion...........

It's not that I have a "no effects" philosophy, I just don't usually like effects that are "welded" to an instrument.

However... when I do Poly-Ana 2.x I'm going to add an effects section. Why the change of heart? Because I realized that the effects can be processed in the same oversampled domain as Poly's voice, so there's actually a reason to "weld" them to this particular instument.

OK, enough Poly-Ana talk (or feel free to start another thread). Topic is ElectraX.

Sounds cool looking forward to 2.x................

(if you have them try the Nomand plugins.......)


Tone 2 seems to have abandoned this thread so a hijack isn't that evil...........

Ok back to ElectraX but a new thread discussing the future of PolyAna would be of great interest to me at least............

[pdxindy]

I know it goes against AQ's "no effects" philosophy but they just bring PolyAna to life in my opinion...........

It's not that I have a "no effects" philosophy, I just don't usually like effects that are "welded" to an instrument.

However... when I do Poly-Ana 2.x I'm going to add an effects section. Why the change of heart? Because I realized that the effects can be processed in the same oversampled domain as Poly's voice, so there's actually a reason to "weld" them to this particular instument.

OK, enough Poly-Ana talk (or feel free to start another thread). Topic is ElectraX.

With effects and a non 3d gui... you got me interested!!

and there is not much to say about ElectraX cause the beta testers are not allowed to talk about specific features or post audio...

[MaxSynths]

and there is not much to say about ElectraX cause the beta testers are not allowed to talk about specific features or post audio...

We can talk about ElectraX features

[xybre]

@ Echoes...... I agree with you. don't announce it unless you are sure you can do it... hence my earlier comment in my first post on the topic "2) Will this feature be available from version 1, and I think you know why I ask "

It already does the sample and wavecycle loading, or at least it did when I used it

Wonder when a demo will be available for mac osx though.

OSX is being developed in tandem, I didn't get to test that version though, so I can't say if it's as complete as the windows version (it may well be though, I just have no direct experience).

1.) Audio demos, audio demos, audio demos. What sounds can you produce with this synth that will separate it from the crowd (the 1000's of other vsti's)?

I wish I could show you, but I'm not allowed to yet. I will say that I really liked the sounds I made with it and programming is really nice.

2.) Will ExtraX be like Gladiator 2, where features in Gladiator 2 are 'unlocked' when you buy additional sound sets?

I don't see an expansion button on it, so I can't really say. I theorize (with no support from Tone2) that they probably will not take that route. But thats just my opinion.

3.) I don't see HCM on the list of synthesis techniques for ExtraX. Does HCM's absence mean anything; i.e., is ExtraX *not* an update to Gladiator 2 (different featureset)?

ElektraX is very different from Gladiator.

Again I'm not the authority, but I think Gladiator will probably see a couple more releases. Keep in mind what I think is based on heresay, and plans change.

4.) CPU load? I use a Q6600 for audio; will I need a faster computer to run ExtraX?

I didn't notice any performance hit on my main audio laptop, but it has a 3.02Ghz proc in it, which takes a few ACEs to even notice.

5.) W/no AD's available for the masses, perhaps 12/10 for release is a little too optimistic?

Seemed pretty stable to me, and Tone2 is very secretive about their products.

Are there separate outs for each layer?

No, but I think it would be a cool feature

I agree, that would be pretty awesome

The feature set suggests it's aimed right at Camel Audio Alchemy. Which is my fav synth of the moment.
I wonder how they'll compare.

I thought they might have some overlap, but it really doesn't feel like a sample mangler. On the other hand, I bet you could do some really sick stuff with it that Markus didn't even think of.

---

Now I have to agree, perspective on the GUI is weird, I couldn't put my finger on it before someone mentioned the knobs, and its not severe, but its obviously for conservation of loading size, its probably using the same images for each knob, just using different transparencies. Markus did listen to the Beta team's suggestions in a lot of places, and the GUI improved quite a bit. I do think the "glowy flash wow" thing is exactly what they thought would impress the most people. And it *is* shiny and attractive, additionally there are different skins for it also, so you will have some latitude to choose.

To all the people who think this is similar to Gladiator, or has all the "missing" features. Know that it's very different, and while it does use some suggestions that people have made for Tone2's other products like Firebird, Gladiator, and Filterbank; its important to know that these features were a big deal, and from what I understand it would have been structurally difficult to integrate those features with their given products at the time. This might (in theory) allow some features to be ported from ElectraX to other products like Gladiator, but being a developer myself, sometimes you need to just work on a new codebase sometimes or you'll go insane.

FYI people have been able to make custom HCM oscillators for Gladiator for a long time, there's some posted here on KVR (or some other forum, don't hang me if I'm wrong about which), using a utility that existed before Tone2 released theirs.

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My overall review is that it sounds really good with just a single oscillator (of any type) and a single filter (with selectable overdrive!). I worked my way up from there, building patches from scratch and it was really enjoyable to program.

The different oscillators are really great, the variety is very expansive, it also includes a bunch of samples and single cycle waveforms with it.

The fractal oscillator creates "random" fractal sounds which are not repetitious like standard waveforms, but also not so chaotic so as to be a noise generator.

I'm sorry kids, but it is not "supersaw free" and it is fantastic for non-trancy sounds, it also includes a "multisquare" that I'd like to play with more.

Another good thing is that it fits perfectly on my laptop screen, since the synth has a widescreen layout.

I love being able to choose the filter overdrive type, that's really awesome (I think I have one other synth that does that, maybe Alchemy, more synths should have that feature).

Also it has multiple filters (unlike Gladiator) and 3 Effects for a single audio path.

Something that no one has mentioned is that there is a global effect on everything, I agree some more cross modulation would be nice between layers imho, but it might be very difficult to make that work in the GUI. (making usable GUIs is very hard in my experience)

bottom line, I'd buy it. But for me. Not that you should based on that, but you should probably spend 10 minutes and make a patch or two with the demo when it comes out, just to be sure.

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These are all my personal opinions, blah blah, disclaimer. Tone2 doesn't support or condone anything I say, features may change without notice, etc and so forth. They might even completely disagree, and I could be totally wrong. So.. yeah..

[xx JPRacer xx]

Something that no one has mentioned is that there is a global effect on everything...

no. 3 osc's (multiple synthesis) per layer, 2 filters per layer, one insert fx slot with multiple fx algorithms per layer, 4 completeley independant layers. all that goes into one master insert fx slot with multiple fx algorithms. and the main analog modelled filters are completeley new, iirc the are nowhere else to be found in other tone2 products.

[pdxindy]

and there is not much to say about ElectraX cause the beta testers are not allowed to talk about specific features or post audio...

We can talk about ElectraX features

cool... quite a few questions have not been answered so I assumed there was some sort of NDA gag order in effect...

Can you import specific layers from a preset? So for example, I am working on a patch and I think, oh I would like to import layer 3 from another preset, can I do that?

[Teksonik]

cool... quite a few questions have not been answered so I assumed there was some sort of NDA gag order in effect...

It appears that Tone 2 will use KVR to advertise their synth but will not discuss it here (answer questions)at least not yet and the Beta testers are somewhat gagged by their NDA so really there's not much we can do but wait for the Demo.............I'm not interested in audio demos I just want to try the synth and by the looks of the specs it will come down to price whether this will be a must buy or not......for me anyway.

[Happy Frog]

Would it be alright to speculate on price, I guess $149 with an introduction of $129.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I'm guessing the same as gladiator, $199...

I hope it's cheaper though.

[Kriminal]

worst GUI ever, apart from Poly of course.

[MaxSynths]

Can you import specific layers from a preset? So for example, I am working on a patch and I think, oh I would like to import layer 3 from another preset, can I do that?

Yes you can. Suppose you are working an a bass line and you want to import a kick drum layer from another patch:

1. Save your current patch.
2. Load the "source patch" for the layer you want to import, select the kick drum layer and choose COPY--->Layer.
3. Reload the bass line patch, choose a new layer and select PASTE--->Layer.
4. Done

The copy function allow this options: copy patch, layer, osc1, osc 2, osc3. So you have a lot of possibilities to recall some "parts" of a previously designed patch.

Hope this help



Cheers,
Max

[MaxSynths]

worst GUI ever, apart from Poly of course.

You have 4 skins to choose from. I think at least one of them will fit your needs. For example I prefer dark skins when I'm sitting in front of a monitor, so I'm using that one.

Concerning the style it's clear that tastes change from person to person. BTW a serious musician/producer usually focus his attention more on the sound and features of an instrument. The GUI is an important aspect but not so important if your goal is to produce some music and not satisfy some fetish