KVR Audio

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 9:58 am

Today Amazona.de publiished a review about Tone2 Saurus, like always only in German:

http://www.amazona.de/index.php?page=26 ... le_id=4130

There are some points points where i have a few problems to agree:

1.) "Saurus includes no Noise source":

there are two ways of using a noise source in Saurus. First using the knob in the Osc section and second using the Noise source amount in the mod matrix.
They could have mentioned that using the noise source in the mod matrix is not the best way but telling there is none is just wrong.

2.) "The strengths of Saurus are in modern, digital like sounds".

Saurus could also do some digital sounds but the strangths are for sure in old school analog sounds.
Maybe the testers at Amazona should also try to do their own sounds and not just step through the presets which i agree don't really show what the synth is capable of.
Hopefully the upcoming official expansion and the bank of Himalaya will show this better.

3.) "U-He ACE offers more for less money"

I could not really see how those two could be compared, both in terms of features and CPU use.

4.) A comparison with a Moog MG-1. The "Moog" MG-1 was not even published officially under the brand "Moog" but made for the company "Realistic" or Radio Shack and it included digital parts like the noise source. The synth did not even include a full envelope, just something like a "AR" envelope. I'm not sure how this comparison is proper in any way as the filters in Saurus are no models of a specific synth except that the 12dB LPF seems to be close to a MS-20 maybe. this could only serve to check if Saurus could sound "analog" or not like i have done myself with comparing a Moog Slim Phatty. My own conclusion was that Saurus is not too far from the sound of the Phatty, at least for that specific example.

Markus already mentioned that the filters are based on "Butterworth" filer models and that the "Moog" in the name of the 24db filter is wrong and will be changed in the next update.

UPDATE (7.6.2012):

About "audio rate modulation" in Saurus:

Someone in this thread mentioned that Saurus is not capoable of audio rate modulations like in e.g. U-He ACE which is not really correct.
The LFOs in Saurus have rates from 0,06 Hz up to 440,12 Hz (middle position of the rate knob around 5,29 Hz) so you could use those LFOs for audio rate modulations too. This is mentioned in the "Features" list here:
http://www.tone2.com/html/saurus_synthe ... st_au.html

Ingo

_leras · Post by **_leras** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 12:57 pm

Not sure why you are complaining so much, it seemed like a perfectly well reasoned and balanced review.

I think ACE does offer more, and certainly at a better price point... so... there we go.

.

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:08 pm

and i personally agree it sounds digital too. So....

i am gong to translate the review with google and see if it makes enough sense to read

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:12 pm

ok it made enough sense. I agree with it. good review.

xamido · Post by **xamido** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:15 pm

I don't even care about what people say about saurus, i like it and that's it. And yes i do agree with others, it's a well written review.

_leras · Post by **_leras** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:36 pm

xamido wrote:I don't even care about what people say about saurus, i like it and that's it. And yes i do agree with others, it's a well written review.

wtf.... I got the impression that the reviewer liked it too... hence why the complaints about a fair review...?

.

mcnoone · Post by **mcnoone** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:40 pm

Ingonator wrote:Saurus could also do some digital sounds but the strangths are for sure in old school analog sounds.
Maybe the testers at Amazona should also try to do their own sounds and not just step through the presets which i agree don't really show what the synth is capable of.
Hopefully the upcoming official expansion and the bank of Himalaya will show this better.

Yep, those demo tracks sounded really good.
I do feel the included presets didn't sound anything like what Himalaya's recent tracks sound like. Maybe time constraints, to get things done quickly, didn't help with that. The presets sounded rushed.
Given some more time and effort to create sounds with it, I imagine the synths sweet spots do eventually show. As do most synths.
It's a decent synth, that seems to have the ability to do a wide variety of sounds.

xamido · Post by **xamido** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:11 pm

_leras wrote:
xamido wrote:I don't even care about what people say about saurus, i like it and that's it. And yes i do agree with others, it's a well written review.
wtf.... I got the impression that the reviewer liked it too... hence why the complaints about a fair review...?

.

Cause i kinda have an idea of where this thread will go.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:27 pm

_leras wrote:Not sure why you are complaining so much, it seemed like a perfectly well reasoned and balanced review.

I think ACE does offer more, and certainly at a better price point... so... there we go.

.

Like mostly people are misunderstanding me.

I did not say the whole article is crap but i said that few points were not really correct based on my own opinion. Those points i mentioned in my post.

As i am a native German speaker i also had no problems understanding the details of that review.

Ingo

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:29 pm

xamido wrote:I don't even care about what people say about saurus, i like it and that's it. And yes i do agree with others, it's a well written review.

Basically i have the same opinion and no review will change my own thoughts about Saurus but i wanted to add a few of my own thoughts about that review which should be allowed.

Ingo

mr president · Post by **mr president** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:31 pm

Always good to get a second opinion me thinks:

http://www.musicradar.com/gear/all/comp ... 8/review/2

Bon appetit

mr president · Post by **mr president** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:35 pm

And a third, here described as "the synth of the year" so good reading, always two sides to the story
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2012/ ... er-review/

I have neither but have played on the demos of the said synths mentioned in the forums and enjoy them for what they are.. Not for what they are not.
(This is not flame bait merely quick observations from the sideline.)
Good reading

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:36 pm

mr president wrote:Always good to get a second opinion me thinks:

http://www.musicradar.com/gear/all/comp ... 8/review/2

Thanks for the link to that review. Nothing really serious to really complain about that one from my side.

Ingo

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:40 pm

mr president wrote:And a third, here described as "the synth of the year" so good reading, always two sides to the story
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2012/ ... er-review/

I have neither but have played on the demos of the said synths mentioned in the forums and enjoy them for what they are.. Not for what they are not.
(This is not flame bait merely quick observations from the sideline.)
Good reading

I found the full review here:
http://waveformless.blogspot.de/2012/04 ... aurus.html

No real complaints from me about that one too, at least at the first view.
Looks like that reviewer had a deeper look into Saurus than just browsing through the presets. Just based on the presets it would maybe not really have been my favorite synth too even if there were some really nice ones from Himalya for example. Luckily i know a bit about doing my own presets.

Ingo

mr president · Post by **mr president** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:42 pm

Yea, i was thinking that, it is not as "digitally sterile as everyone makes it out to be" and i seem not to be the only one that thinks that. It seems tone 2 sacrificed a little quality in order to provide a more cpu efficient synth with a tad more variety. Im also sure that if tone 2 wanted they could probably code their own analog monster synth that would really give the competition a run for their money, but i do believe they were trying to do something a little different than everybody else and so get a stake in the market. Seeing these forums around says to me they did that quite well

Saurus review at Amazona.de