E-Phonic Invader 2 v1.0.11 (WIN / OSX)

[farfromsleep]

Just wanted to bump this to sing the praises of this wonderful little synth. Honestly the best bang for buck of any instrument I've owned. Incredibly light on resources and it sounds just phenomenal, it immediately became my go-to whenever I need that big analog sound. Kinda feel like this is one of the most underrated synths out there at the moment.

[BONES]

Yeah, it's a real gem and it surprises me how many varied uses we find for it and how well it always performs.

[syntonica]

is this synth still in development or 1.0.10 windows is the final release?
Like it a lot,but could be improved further i guess with more requested functions...

like, turn it into Falcon or Avenger or something?

a few little adjustments and additions maybe, but it's pretty good the way it is. Clean, stable and light on resources. I personally appreciate the limitations.

what would you change or add?

Only thing it needs is a VST2 version. Otherwise, is stunning in it's sound and simplicity.

[sqigls]

hey how goes it?!

[JordiTR]

After a long time with no contact with that synth I was playing with it on a long session and was surprised how warm and analog it sounds, full of character and nuances, it reminds me what I've listened from Elka Synthex demos on Youtube. And the most surprising thing: how low on cpu it is. I felt it is one of the few synths I have that its really good for playing, just playing, assigning velocity to envelopes and enjoying it as an "instrument", no as a "virtual synth".

The only drawback... no midi assignment on the different controls. It would be wonderful to be slightly modifiying the controls while I play on my midi (Nektar) controller.

I don't know if there is a list of internal controls for every parameter elsewhere. If only I could modify a text file to set the internal controls to the midi messages that my keyboard knobs and sliders are sending I could convert playing Invader 2 on a truly experience that's no easy to achive with other VST synths.

[Danilo Villanova]

After a long time with no contact with that synth I was playing with it on a long session and was surprised how warm and analog it sounds, full of character and nuances, it reminds me what I've listened from Elka Synthex demos on Youtube. And the most surprising thing: how low on cpu it is. I felt it is one of the few synths I have that its really good for playing, just playing, assining velocity to envelopes and enjoying it as an "instrument", no as a "virtual synth".

The only drawback... no midi assignment on the different controls. It would be wonderful to be slightly modifiying the controls while I play on my midi (Nektar) controller.

I don't know if there is a list of internal controls for every parameter elsewhere. If only I could modify a text file to set the internat controls to the midi messages that my keyboard knobs and sliders are sending I could convert playing Invader 2 on a truly experience that's no easy to achive with other VST synths.

All parameters are exposed for automation in REAPER and inside the Nektarine plugin here (Win 10).

[JordiTR]

All parameters are exposed for automation in REAPER and inside the Nektarine plugin here (Win 10).

In my DAW (Studio One) all parameters are also exposed for automation. But the interface of the synth itself doesn't allow for assigning midi control to the knobs of my phisical midi controller as it is usual on all the VST plugins I'm using. All the VST synths I have allow me to pair any control to a phisical knob or slider.

So there's no possibility to change parameters on real time, that's why I say it doesn't allow for a complete performance experience. And it's surprising because it's a synth with a sound ideal for live performace.

[GaryG]

All parameters are exposed for automation in REAPER and inside the Nektarine plugin here (Win 10).

In my DAW (Studio One) all parameters are also exposed for automation. But the interface of the synth itself doesn't allow for assigning midi control to the knobs of my phisical midi controller as it is usual on all the VST plugins I'm using. All the VST synths I have allow me to pair any control to a phisical knob or slider.

So there's no possibility to change parameters on real time, that's why I say it doesn't allow for a complete performance experience. And it's surprising because it's a synth with a sound ideal for live performace.

Is that a limitation of Studio One though? In Reaper you can just right click a control and select Learn from the pop up menu to assign any hardware controller, I thought that was a standard kind of thing in DAWs for decades...?

[audiouser720]

WTF... This synth sounds phenomenal. Very well done. BUT WHY NO AAX???

[dermage]

WTF... This synth sounds phenomenal. Very well done. BUT WHY NO AAX???

probably because it's a small developer and AAX costs a lot of money to develop (need license and contract from Avid)

[audiouser720]

WTF... This synth sounds phenomenal. Very well done. BUT WHY NO AAX???

probably because it's a small developer and AAX costs a lot of money to develop (need license and contract from Avid)

Is it? I have no idea at all. But bloody hell what a great sounding synth. So well done. I was comparing it to Repro and my P5 rev4 and I have to say, though it’s not a P5 emu, it does sound lovely and alive. I don’t know if the aliasing commando has run an investigation yet but everything is 4x oversampled and my ears at least didn’t detect any digital dirt.

Just can’t get over how good this sounds compared to the more popular options

[dermage]

WTF... This synth sounds phenomenal. Very well done. BUT WHY NO AAX???

probably because it's a small developer and AAX costs a lot of money to develop (need license and contract from Avid)

Is it? I have no idea at all. But bloody hell what a great sounding synth. So well done. I was comparing it to Repro and my P5 rev4 and I have to say, though it’s not a P5 emu, it does sound lovely and alive. I don’t know if the aliasing commando has run an investigation yet but everything is 4x oversampled and my ears at least didn’t detect any digital dirt.

Just can’t get over how good this sounds compared to the more popular options

Yeah there are different infos to be found, they changed their dev portal often, so not sure how much it really is. Last I did find was this thread here viewtopic.php?t=479249

anyway, additionally of course AAX takes extra development effort and is only used by a subset of users.

And yes, Invader sounds great, very good (raw) synth and price.

[audiouser720]

WTF... This synth sounds phenomenal. Very well done. BUT WHY NO AAX???

probably because it's a small developer and AAX costs a lot of money to develop (need license and contract from Avid)

Is it? I have no idea at all. But bloody hell what a great sounding synth. So well done. I was comparing it to Repro and my P5 rev4 and I have to say, though it’s not a P5 emu, it does sound lovely and alive. I don’t know if the aliasing commando has run an investigation yet but everything is 4x oversampled and my ears at least didn’t detect any digital dirt.

Just can’t get over how good this sounds compared to the more popular options

Yeah there are different infos to be found, they changed their dev portal often, so not sure how much it really is. Last I did find was this thread here viewtopic.php?t=479249

anyway, additionally of course AAX takes extra development effort and is only used by a subset of users.

And yes, Invader sounds great, very good (raw) synth and price.

Yeah well subset of users is subjective. Pro Tools is quite widely used. But I absolutely agree if there is extra cost involved in AAX development, for small developers, it can be difficult to justify. I was not aware of this though

[dermage]

Yeah well subset of users is subjective. Pro Tools is quite widely used.

I meant like VST is the standard most DAWs support. So there's additionally AU (which also many DAWs support on Mac).

For AAX you have to support Windows + Mac again and possibly an extra implementation for Apple Silicon. And AAX only targets ProTools users, so it's the least used of the 3 formats.
And there are wrappers readily available.

[syntonica]

WTF... This synth sounds phenomenal. Very well done. BUT WHY NO AAX???

probably because it's a small developer and AAX costs a lot of money to develop (need license and contract from Avid)

Is it? I have no idea at all. But bloody hell what a great sounding synth. So well done. I was comparing it to Repro and my P5 rev4 and I have to say, though it’s not a P5 emu, it does sound lovely and alive. I don’t know if the aliasing commando has run an investigation yet but everything is 4x oversampled and my ears at least didn’t detect any digital dirt.

Just can’t get over how good this sounds compared to the more popular options

Yeah there are different infos to be found, they changed their dev portal often, so not sure how much it really is. Last I did find was this thread here viewtopic.php?t=479249

anyway, additionally of course AAX takes extra development effort and is only used by a subset of users.

And yes, Invader sounds great, very good (raw) synth and price.

Yeah well subset of users is subjective. Pro Tools is quite widely used. But I absolutely agree if there is extra cost involved in AAX development, for small developers, it can be difficult to justify. I was not aware of this though

I'm not sure if there is a cost anymore to be an AAX dev. Perhaps somebody else can chime in on this?

If there is no longer a cost, since the dev uses the Iplug2 framework, he can generate an AAX format quite easily just by dropping in the SDK. No additional work should be necessary.

The dev is quite nice and it's well worth dropping him a quick email with this question.