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ANA 2
ANA 2 by Sonic Academy is a Virtual Instrument Audio Plugin for macOS and Windows. It functions as a VST Plugin, an Audio Units Plugin, a VST 3 Plugin and an AAX Plugin.
Product
Version
2.5.4
VST, AAX - 32/64-bit
Minimum Spec - Windows 7 +, Intel Core Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2, 512 MB RAM
Product
Version
2.5.4
VST, AAX & AU 32/64-bit
Minimum Spec - Mac OS X 10.8 or later (32/64-bit), Intel Core Duo, 512 MB RAM (No PPC)
Instrument
Formats
Copy Protection
Key File
My KVR - Groups, Versions, & More
214 KVR members have added ANA 2 to 117 My KVR groups 277 times.
Not In Your MY KVR Groups
(or group limitation prevents versioning)
+117 in private groups

KVR Rank

Overall: 467   363   463

30-Day: 579; 7-Day: 542; Yesterday: 574

Import & Use 3D Wavetables:

  • 3 Wavetable Oscillators
  • Custom Wavetables

v2.5 Now Features MULTISAMPLING:

  • 3 Multisampling sections.
  • Velocity Layer control.

Instant Chord Progressions with CMD:

  • Built in Chords - playable with a single key
  • Combine with the ARP for more movement

Polyphonic Step Arpeggiator:

  • 64 note polyphonic step arpeggiator.
  • Control velocity.
  • Assign to any modulation destination.

26 Built in FX Units:

  • 26 Effects - 5 Insert Slots
  • 2 Send and Return slots
  • Available as a modulation destination.
  • Macro Control.

Modulation Matrix & Macro Control:

  • Mod Matrix
  • Custom Macros

46 High Quality Filters:

  • 46 Filters
  • Classic ANA 1 filters
  • Analog models

Big Screen Graphical Envelopes + More:

  • 2 Graphical Envelopes.
  • Pitch Drift.
  • Features 500 presets, with 4 macros intelligently mapped.

{See video at top of page}

Latest User Reviews

Average user rating of 4.50 from 4 reviews
ANA 2

Reviewed By digitalboytn [all]
May 22nd, 2021
Version reviewed: 2.5.0 on Windows

ANA 2 is getting a whole lotta love in my world and it has been an indispensable workhorse for a few years now...

It's easy to tweak, sits well in the mix and sounds really, really good...

Powerful oscillators with numerous tone shaping and modulation options and a killer arpeggiator and effects section...

The guys who did the the DSP coding are no clowns and they've created a seriously good synth that is a programmer's delight...

Anybody who can't make great sounding tracks of any genre with this synth should be looking in the user error department...

ANA 2 is one of the two synthesizers that I would take with me to the proverbial desert island...

I love using this synth and it's a 5 star winner in my world....

Read Review
ANA 2

Reviewed By pvallejosb [all]
April 12th, 2021
Version reviewed: 2 on Windows

To be honest, I wanted to give it a 4,5 rating.

It is an amazing synth, with top sound quality and awesome features. It also has one of the best arpeggiators I've ever played with.

The only downside is that we have better wavetable synths today, even some of them are free (Vital). That's the only downside. Everything else is just amazing.

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ANA 2

Reviewed By replicant X [all]
September 3rd, 2019
Version reviewed: 2.0.92 on Windows

The flavor of Juno, JP, Mini, MS, OB and etc.
ANA2 condense the essence of these greatest synthesizers and it even brings new sounds with 3D Wavetable and G-Env.

You can use it as a instant synthwave machine with those 80's vintage sounds but it can be a growl machine for dubstep.
And the FM section have charactor of TX81Z, so It's very suitable for bass sounds of house music or EBM.
And the Hyper saw is indistinguishable from Virus.

FX section have not only basic FXs, but also Ensamble, Tape simu, Multi Lim, Multi Comp, Sidekick, and etc.
And the preset browser is very easy to use with tags, ratings and a search function.

In addition, the CMD can be secret weapon if you know how to use it.

The specification is.

3 WaveTable OSCs - Including vintage analog waveforms and 3D morphable waveforms.

Each OSC have SubOSC, Phase / Morph, Sync, FM, Voices (up to 9 unison), Detune, Shape, Pan, Filter routing, Volume.

3 Sample OSCs - can load wave file with Drag and Drop.

2 Filters - 46 filter type including vintage analog emulations.

6 ENVs - 1 FilterENV, 1 Amp ENV, 4 Mod ENV. You can chose the charactor from very snappy ENV to more analog ENV.

3 G-ENVs - Graphical, sketchable ENV. It can be used as LFO and syncable to host BPM.

3 LFOs - It can be "one shot" like ENV, of corse syncable.

4 Macros Controls.

1 EQ.

FX - 5 slots, 24 FXs.

Mod Matrix - 16 Mod matrix slots, 16 Macro matrix slots.

ARP - Polyphonic Arpeggiator.

CMD - Chord Memory Device.

what more can i ask for?

Absolutely 5 Stars.

Read Review
ANA 2

Reviewed By moonchunk [all]
January 4th, 2018
Version reviewed: 2.0.3 on Windows

This is a first impression review. If you're here because you watched Plugin Guru's video on ANA 2, that's how I learned about it as well (Its a good overview if not). I just purchased this a day ago, so I reserve the right to adjust the review in the near future. Okay, this is a decent synth that may be well, well worth your money. From what I can tell its a really good synth, particularly appealing to me in 5 particular aspects:

1) The features of the synth are particularly well thought out, kind of based on Omnisphere (in terms of mod matrix layout and combination of wave file (in the sampler) with wavetable sound source) meets Serum (the importable wave tables), meets Spire, meets a Kirnu Cream-style pair of arp and chord memory sections (with the Kirnu Cream functionality I think making a number of people's heads turn, especially since not everyone has understood or mastered Kirnu Cream in the first place, and it has both a single-note-to-chord-memory module, and a basket arp memory (which has three 6-basket octave positions, which is a bit wider than Kirnu's).

2) Extensive modulation capability. And I mean extensive.

3) A Three wavetable Osc section and also a three Sampler Osc section - each of which may be loaded with user tables or samples.

4) Feature 3 plus the modulation features and the G-envelope, and a number of other other features, make this a very good synth to design unique and rich sounds in.

5) Overall this is one of the most easy to learn synths I have seen - or it could just be me, but I mean, the layout is really just left to right, down, left to right, down, and so on, and each part of the flow makes a lot of sense to an uninformed synth user like myself.

I saw one user complain that he didn't understand the Arp section, which is understandable.

As a result of this complaint, if others express the same one, then my advice to Sonic Academy would be to add a traditional arp and step sequencer to the list of features because that certainly wouldn't hurt. And getting your head around the new manner of thinking provided by Kirnu is a little bit of an undertaking.

The way it works, AFAIK, is that baskets are available in memory, that receive a set of incoming MIDI Note On's (such as if you hold down a chord with several notes). A graphic display lets a user choose which basket to play the note from, while the "arp/sequence" is running. (Unfortunately from what I can tell here, in this synth, (not in Kirnu) it isn't simple to impact the note velocity coming back out. One could design a G-envelope pattern and do it that way, but to have control of the velocity of each note in the arp on a second screen, as Kirnu does, would be helpful.

But that brings up a drawback of Kirnu not present in this synth. I've always felt it was extremely liberating to have step sequencers built into synths as opposed to VST arp players (or Ableton's Note FX) that route MIDI into a soundsource. This is because the inherent modulation chain of the synth can involve kinds of "retrigger", or not involve them, whereas with MIDI you pretty much have the retrigger (or it would take a very sophisticated programmer to purposefully artfully ignore them in some particular set of rules). So if you play a note and your synth has a step sequencer, the amplitude envelope will not necessarily be a factor in the sound of each note - a much more glissando effect. So it is an advantage to have under your control a development team that is in the process of redefining these functions - there are a great many possibilities.

As far as the Sampler Osc section, my first experience with it was an extremely good one. It is very well laid out, with an intuitively understandable set of controls. It was easy to create non-clicking loops, and there is a built in high pass filter at the front of the chain, for those times when you want to add a vibe without overwhelming your mix.

The reason I only gave this synth a 7 is because I feel that the amount of work that went into the programming/sound algorithm design is limited relative to a synth such as Spire, and the 500 plus factory presets have some goodies, but do not cover the breadth of the Spire factory sounds. Of course, this is about a third less expensive than Spire (Edit, spire is now 30% off, at about $130, so strike that for now), and with Spire one also gets addicted and wants to load up on 3rd party sounds, which is even more money. Personally right now I'm not tempted to buy the ANA 2 Sounds. Yet. Until I do a bunch of sound design stuff with its Sampler Oscs.

But Spire kills as far as sound quality. Full disclosure: VPS Vengeance, and Falcon, two other synths I have the fortune of owning, also manage to demonstrate some power for the bucks in terms of presets and sound quality that will hopefully come with time for this baby. Omnisphere 2 is a powerhouse for cinematic sounds, but also has a very good sounding synth engine. Falcon kind of covers a bit of the territory in their macro aspect that Omnisphere 2 doesn't. Although I think Spire, Vengeance, and Falcon each have unique appeal that extends into territory that none of the others cover, the EDM genre is a particular field with particular needs. I haven't explored Dune 2 long enough to judge where it sits, and as of yet I haven't owned Sylenth, nor have I gotten any of the products of u-he, although I keep telling myself that is the next step. In fact, that was where the money was slated for that I used to pay for ANA 2. Or maybe Tera by VirSyn because I demo'd that and loved its sound. But clearly I'm a sucker for the arps/chord memory stuff since I'm not a good keyboardist and not getting much better as time goes on either. Thus far no one has reproduced the Omnisphere Live mode functions, which are equally helpful (it lets you play slightly ahead and locks your rhythm in - ANA 2, are you listening?

As far as the sound algorithm design, I think the guys at Sound Academy are probably on the right track but need to tinker a bit. They seem to have a pretty good, maybe great, Virus reproduction. Maybe they just have some work to do to create a bit more magic with some of the other sounds in terms of their approaches - or its the FM side of things that's turning me off, that's making their preset library suffer. And I think putting together a great sounding FM Synth is incredibly hard. And it could be a matter of filters as well, although there are a great many in here, I'm no expert on their quality.

Overall though, with features such as up to 9 unison layers per wavetable OSC, and some very powerful modulators, along with 3 Sample Oscs that are available for user sounds, there is enormous potential here. The deep level of experience when it comes to things like FM synthesis is beyond my pay grade, as are topics like what makes a hardware synth sound (in a positive way) the particular way it does.

But I predict you will get a lot of mileage out of this, and if you are a non-keyboard player, and have something like Ableton or Bitwig, it will be much easier to work out progressions, even impossible to play ones, using a single chord memory preset (CMD preset) and the arp functions in ANA 2 (stored as separate presets), than writing MIDI into a clip by hand. Its a creativity-inspiring feature to be sure. Basically if you own Spire, Cthulhu, and Kirnu Cream, you are exceeding this functionality pretty much, but I defy you to do it at this price.

If I clear the wax out of my ears (they are clean as far as I can tell - but hey, do you have a flashlight, maybe you can check for me) I may raise this 7 star review up a point. But I'm happy I made the purchase and am looking forward to watching the further development.

Read Review

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Comments & Discussion for Sonic Academy ANA 2

Discussion
Discussion: Active
ogunremix
ogunremix
17 February 2018 at 10:08am

I owned Ana1 and upgraded to Ana2 - Ana2 is miles better, just as Kick2 is superior to kick1.

The sound design videos are well worth watching you realise that a lot of thought has gone into this synth. It's quite possible this has the most flexible supersaw parameters of all the VSTs - so you can fine tune that saw sound right at the oscillator stage (instead of trying the get the sound with filters & effects.)

Like you say this has similar features to Kinnu cream& cuthulu built into the synth - and having the mid, high and low arps is really cool, it's easy to fill out the top & bottom of a pattern in stages without messing up the main pattern.

The big question is - can it replace Sylenth or Spire (hybrid3 - can't believe they give it away for $1) ?

they all have A and B layers and Sylenth and Spire have massive soundbanks everywhere, and are still used on most Dance productions. The new synth that is pushing its way to the top is Serum, so can Ana2 compete with serum as well?

the fact that you can load in wavetables should mean Ana2 can do a lot of what Serum does, so in some ways Ana2 could be a good contender as someone's first choice synth to compose and produce with.

A lot of people just want presets and to know that all the producers are using the same banks, so that their track stands the best chance of sounding acceptable and professional.

You are going to have to program your own sounds and be confident that Ana2 sounds good enough to your own ears, because most people are going to play it safe and use Sylenth and save up for Serum (or pay for them monthly, both do payment plans)

lol.

R0bins0n
R0bins0n
27 August 2018 at 12:34pm

I bought Ana 2 a few weeks ago. It is excellent value for money. The Arp/chord memory feature is what makes it stand out from the other synths around $100-180. They can all do wavetables and analogue waves with nice analogue filters, but the Arp on Ana2 is untypical in its depth of features. When combined with the chord memory you can jam with a drum loop for endless fun.

I got it for $115 and its absolutely a steal for that price.

THIS POST HAS BEEN REMOVED

hevok
hevok
23 August 2019 at 2:08pm

I already own too many VST's: Avenger, Serum, Diva, Zebra 2, Hive 2, Synthmaster and Pigments. But I was pleasantly surprised with ANA 2, I really, really dig the sound: full, fat, analog sound (when you want it). Only Diva does it better, but it's way more limited than ANA 2. Setup ANA 2 with the Saw Fat OSC, some SUB, the ROLY filter and some DRIVE and turn the cutoff knob... oh yes.

I prefer synths with one big GUI with all features readily accessible, and ANA 2 just delivers that.

Didn't delve deep into it yet, but I can already tell this one is going to stick (even though Hive/Diva are my cookie cutters).

Compared to...

I saw @moonchunk mention Spire to be even better sound quality wise so I downloaded the demo to compare: I very much prefer ANA 2. We all have our opinions and preferences I guess :).

Diva... well... it's thé analog synth emulation. A class of its own. I love it. But as previously said: ANA 2 is much more versatile.

Serum and Hive are - not surprisingly - much cleaner sounding, I wasn't able to recreate the ANA 2 sound with them. Both can sound fat, but in a clean way, not a dirty one.

Zebra 2 can sound similar in its own (good) way. Pretty crazy for such an old synth really.

Pigments has an analog engine but it can't match the ANA 2 engine in my opinion. I very much like Pigments as a wavetable synth though and the modulation visibility is superb.

I almost never work with Synthmaster (got it on a sale for like 50$) so I didn't do a comparison.

VPS Avenger... I don't know why it gets so much praise. It's one of the first synths I ever bought but I just never liked it: cumbersome layout, boring filters (with a drive sound I don't like), ... No match for any of the synths I have. Sure, it's one of the most versatile synths out there but what do all the bells and whistles matter when you don't like the sound right? ANA 2 is so much more better sounding.

Just my 2 cents.

h0stnik
h0stnik
25 November 2019 at 2:26am

That was super helpful, thank you.

SymCr0
SymCr0
23 March 2020 at 9:48am

Hello everyone. these days I bought some presets for Ana 2 from Vandalism. the problem is that i only have .preset files and i don't know how to add them. could someone help me?

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