Tone2 Update Icarus 3

Tone2 have updated Icarus 3, currently available for $169.00, (usually $199.00).

What’s new in version 3.2:

New filters:

• LP Ladder 6dB: This is a 6dB lowpass Ladder filter with self-oscillation. It sounds analog and uses 0-delay technology.
• LP Ladder 12dB: This is a 12 dB lowpass Ladder filter with self-oscillation. It sounds analog and uses 0-delay technology.
• BP Ladder: This is a bandpass Ladder filter with self-oscillation. It sounds analog and uses 0-delay technology.
• BP MS-20 12dB: A bandpas filter with self-oscillation. It sounds analog and uses 0-delay technology.
• HP Digital 24dB: This is very a precise digital highpass filter.
• HP MS-20 12dB: A highphass filter with self-oscillation. It sounds analog and uses 0-delay technology.
• Phaser 3x +: Analog 6-stage phaser with positive feedback.
• Phaser 5x +: Analog 10-stage phaser with positive feedback.
• Phaser 2x -: Analog 4-stage phaser with negative feedback.
• Phaser 4x -: Analog 8-stage phaser with negative feedback.
• Formant 1x: Analog formant filter with soft saturation.
• Formant 2x: Analog formant filter with two peaks and soft saturation.
• Formant 3x: Analog formant filter with three peaks and soft saturation.
• Formant 4x: Analog formant filter with four peaks and soft saturation.

New effects:

• Ring Modulation: You can find this new effect under the ‘Frequency shifting’ menu. It comes with a Damp control for a warmer sound.
• Amplitude Modulation: You can find this new effect under the ‘Frequency shifting’ menu. It has a more extreme sound than Ring Modulation. It works best for effects, percussive sounds and drums.
• Weaver Shifter: You can find this new effect under the ‘Frequency shifting’ menu. It works best for effects, percussive sounds and drums.

New additive synthesis modes:

• Add Disharm 4: Plays 4 oscillators with a disharmonic relationship. You can use the ‘spread’ knob to control the type and level of detuning.
• Add Disharm 8: Plays 8 oscillators with a disharmonic relationship. You can use the ‘spread’ knob to control the type and level of detuning.
• Add Disharm 16: Plays 16 oscillators with a disharmonic relationship. You can use the ‘spread’ knob to control the type and level of detuning.
• Add St Dish 4: Plays 4 stereo oscillators with a disharmonic relationship. You can use the ‘spread’ knob to control the type and level of detuning.
• Add St Dish 8: Plays 8 stereo oscillators with a disharmonic relationship. You can use the ‘spread’ knob to control the type and level of detuning.
• Add St Dish 16: Plays 16 stereo oscillators with a disharmonic relationship. You can use the ‘spread’ knob to control the type and level of detuning.

New features – GUI:

• An XY crosshair is shown when you click with your mouse inside the EQ display.
• An XY crosshair is shown when you click with your mouse inside the filter display.
• New “Metal opaque” skin for the user interface.
• It is now possible to record filter cutoff and resonace with the filter XY-pad.

New feature – XY-pad for the waveform display:

• The XY-pad controls are available when you click and move your mouse within the wavefrom display. They add a new dimention of dynamic expression as you can now manipulate 2 parameters at the same time.
• Context-sensitive help appears as soon as you move your mouse.
• In wavetable mode the X-axis is assigned to the to the morph parameter. The Y-axis is assigned to the wavetable position.
• In granular mode the X-axis is assigned to start position. The Y-axis is assigned to the grain size.
• In sample mode the X-axis is assigned to start position.
• If you play back a single waveform the X-axis is assigned to the to the morph parameter.

Enhanced sound quality:

• Significantly enhanced sound quality in 44 kHz. Reduced aliasing in resampling up to 24 dB.
• Drastically enhanced sound quality in 88 kHz samplerate. Reduced aliasing in resampling up to 40 dB.
• Crossfades in the wavetable engine have more clarity and crispiness.
• Significantly enhanced sound quality of the synthesis mode ‘Harmonic Shift’. It is the new default mode for new patches.
• Enhanced sound of the Reverb Medium. It has better default parameters, a smoother rolloff, less phasing, more detail and more depth.
• Enhanced sound of the Reverb Swirl. It has better default parameters, a smoother rolloff, less phasing, more detail and more depth.
• Enhanced sound of the Reverb Infinite. It has a smoother rolloff, less phasing, more detail and more depth.
• Enhanced sound of the Reverb Plate. It has a smoother rolloff, less phasing, more detail and more depth.
• Enhanced sound of the Reverb Big. It has a smoother rolloff, less phasing, more detail and more depth.
• Enhanced sound of the Reverb Glass. It has a smoother rolloff, less phasing, more detail and more depth.
• Major chords soun better with the microtuning mode ‘dynamic silky’.
• Slightly enhanced sound quality of the equalizer.
• More linear freuency response for filter ‘LP MS-20 12dB’ with high cutoffs.
• Slightly enhanced sound quality and stabiliy of the filters ‘LP Digital 24dB’, ‘LP Digital 12dB’, ‘LP Elliptic’, ‘LP Octave’, ‘HP Digital 12dB’, ‘BP Digital 24dB’, ‘BP Digital 12dB’, ‘EQ Notch’, ‘EQ Peak Tight’, ‘EQ Peak Medium’, ‘EQ Peak Wide’, ‘EQ Shelf Tight’, ‘EQ Shelf Wide’ and ‘EQ Bandlimit’.

Further enhancements:

• Reworked the default skin.
• Reworked the skins “Metal Fire”, “Metal Aqua”, “Metal Monochorome”, “Metal Pink”, “Metal Yellow”, “Metal Red”.
• Better default parameters for the delay effects.
• More contrast for the tap selector buttons.
• Reworked EQ settigs and parameters of the init-patch. It sits better in the mix and has longer release times.
• Setup always selects full installation as a default.
• Updated the texts of some dialog boxes with warnings.
• Slightly enhanced colors and transparency values for the patch browser.
• The filters are switched to ON automatically if the ‘filt env’ or ‘lfo3’ knob is tweaked.
• Many further small enhancements.

Fixes:

• If the mousewheel was used to cycle through wavetables it falsely incremented 2 units instead of 1.
• The diodes sometimes did show wrong values on the Mac.
• Enhanced stablility of some physical modeling, phaser and formant filters.

Icarus is an epic synthesizer and a must-have for producers and sound designers. This award-winning workstation is one of the most versatile and powerful synthesizers ever created. Icarus offers a huge sonic range and is capable of producing all the classic synthesizer sounds as well as a wide range of fresh sounds not possible with other products.

The audio engine offers many exciting features like 62 (!) different synthesis methods, a drum sequencer, a vocoder, 65 (!) filter types, a glitch sequencer, a wavetable editor, an extremely powerful oscillator section, MSEGs, …

A reliable re-synthesis can recreate any sound with a single mouse click!

Yet the synth remains very easy to use. A comfortable interface gives you instant visual feedback, immediate acoustic results and context-sensitive help.

The synthesizer delivers true high-end sound quality with low CPU usage and ships with over 2000 inspiring, production-ready sounds from professional designers.

Icarus ships with a huge and inspiring collection of over 2000 (!) hand-picked sounds. The production-ready patches were created by professional designers. Each sound has been meticulously crafted with love and attention to detail. The patches are easy to mix because they’re already EQed and pre-mastered. They run in perfect sync with the tempo of your DAW. All the sounds are properly programmed – they are not sampled. This gives you the full dynamic range, much more musical expression and the highest possible sound quality. It also saves disk space.

The patch browser gives you instant access to a large and inspiring library. The patches are organized into categories to help you find the right sound quickly and easily. You can tag your favorites with a ranking system. An on-screen keyboard lets you audition the sounds.

Icarus offers a huge sonic range, is extremely versatile, yet remains easy to use. Animated displays give you visual feedback. You can instantly see and hear the results of your actions. Context-sensitive tooltips explain the function of the control you’re tweaking. The user-friendly and accessible interface makes tweaking easy for anyone, regardless of skill level or experience.

The GUI can be displayed in 26 different sizes and five scales. It’s also possible to hide parts of the interface, such as the keyboard, when you don’t need them. Icarus offers native support for WQHD, 4K, 5K and 8K UHD displays. The GUI comes with HiDpi and native Retina Display support for ultra-sharp graphics. The customizable interface lets you choose your favorite color from 37 schemes.

The included arpeggiator instantly creates inspiring and beautiful melodies. Working with the powerful arpeggiator is easy: Just type the notes you want into the Note Sequencer. The Arpeggiator supports many advanced features such as Glides, Swing & Shuffle, Split, Smart Note Sorting, Matrix Integration, and gives you precise control over play direction and velocity. Comfortable playing aids, such as Auto Chord, speed up the production process and are there to help you whenever you need them. You don’t want to program your own patterns? Just load one of the many ready-made pattern templates.

Icarus2 has been extended with a drum sequencer. It is an easy to use but powerful X0X style sequencer module. It comes with a wide variety of drum sounds, noises and waveforms. A large collection of 100 drum patterns created by professional designers is included. The drum sequencer supports many advanced features like swing, shuffle, loop length, effect send, key split, roll, stereo samples, looped samples and looped waveforms. You can also import your own samples and save your own templates. WAV files containing drum loops can be stretched to automatically match the BPM-rate of your DAW. Add punch to your tracks with the help of ultra-fast envelopes. With Icarus you can create impressive ‘gated drums’ easily. The Drum Sequencer is not just limited to playing drum sounds. It is also a small multi-timbral synthesizer that can play looped samples or waveforms with or without pitch tracking. It comes with an intelligent auto accompaniment that automatically resolves the chord you are playing and plays a bass line that ‘fits’.

Icarus is the most powerful synthesizer on the market. The award-winning audio engine offers a huge sonic range, true high-end sound quality, and the ability to create sounds that are impossible with other synths. The exceptionally versatile audio engine is capable of creating all important synthesizer sounds in high-end quality. Icarus is capable of 54 (!) different synthesis methods, which can be combined:

• 3D wavetables & classic wavetables (known from the Waldorf Microwave)
• Analog & subtractive synthesis
• FM with up to 6 operators
• Hypersaw / Supersaw (known from the Access Virus and JP8000)
• Classic sample playback
• Additive synthesis (known from the Kawai K1)
• Granular synthesis
• Phase-Distortion (known from the Casio CZ)
• Formant-Synthesis (known from the Yamaha FS1R)
• PWM (unlike conventional synths Icarus can do PWM with any Waveform, not just Squarewaves)
• Resynthesis of samples and waveforms
• Vocoder
• Waveshaping (known from the Korg 01/W)
• Ring-Modulation & Amplitude-Modulation
• Oscillator sync
• Resonance (exclusive to Tone2 synths)
• Noise & Lofi
• Physical-modeling
• Many other innovative synthesis-modes, exclusive to Icarus

Icarus3 comes with the most powerful filter section on the market. Our flagship synthesizer offers 65 fascinating filter types. It’s a best-of selection of over 300 filter algorithms developed by Dipl. Inf. Univ. M. Krause during the last 15 years. Many filter types are exclusive and not available from other companies, resulting in a wide range of unique sounds that cannot be produced by other synthesizers. All filters are musically useful and have very different sonic characteristics.
Two modular filter blocks are available. Each features true stereo architecture, flexible routing, and multi-mode filters. Two stereo distortion sections, each with 15 different modes, allow you to further shape the sound. An animated display shows the frequency response and gives you instant visual feedback. This makes it very easy to tweak sounds.

Icarus is equipped with the most powerful wavetable editor available on the market. It includes over 100 professional tools for creating and tweaking wavetables or waveforms. You get basic functions such as cutting, mixing, and filtering, as well as advanced tools such as noise reduction, enhancement, re-synthesis, vocoder, spectral modification, and phase manipulation. A random generator allows you to create new and musically useful wavetables with a single mouse click. The spectrum editor turns Icarus into an additive synthesizer. You can also draw your own waveforms with the mouse. The open WAV file format makes it easy for sound designers to create their own soundsets, waveforms and wavetables. It is even possible to import and export wavetables or waveforms from and to other synthesizers. In Icarus, all wavetables are automatically saved within your patches and songs, so you don’t have to worry about managing additional files on your hard drive.

Icarus comes with the most powerful and advanced re-synthesis engine on the market. Unlike competing products, it always delivers good results. With Icarus, anyone can create amazing sounds quickly and easily. Traditional resynthesis methods require in-depth knowledge of sample editing to achieve good results. It requires time-consuming pre-processing with a sample editor and precisely tuned samples. We have eliminated all of these hassles and developed completely new algorithms. Icarus’ innovative wavetable resynthesis can rebuild sounds with a single mouse click! It works with almost any type of audio material and produces high-quality results. Just click the ‘Re-synthesize’ button, select a wav file, and Icarus will automatically create a patch that sounds like the original. Optionally, you can further shape your sound with morphing, BPM synchronization, time-stretching, filters, effects, or any other module. Traditional sample import, auto-tuning, beat-slicing, pitch-shifting, noise reduction and granular playback is also supported. All waveforms, wavetables and samples are automatically saved within your patches or songs. So you don’t have to worry about missing files on your hard drive or broken song projects.

If you listen to popular songs you will notice that nearly all of them use a lot of vocals. We are naturally drawn to those sounds, as they are reflections of the spoken word. However, adding vocals to your tracks is a demanding task: You need a singer, a microphone, a recording studio, a wealth of experience and a lot of patience… Icarus can take care of your work since it can sing chants for you. Simply pick one of the vocoder patches and play a melody. These sounds are not just a bunch of ‘vocal samples’ – this is real speech-synthesis. These vocalic chants are never out-of-tune. Magically they can automatically synchronize to your song’s BPM-rate! With the built-in vocoder you can also create your own phrases. The top quality vocoder module has 1024 bands and is very easy to use: Simply click on ‘Vocoder’ and select a wav file containing speech. Icarus will analyze it and automatically create a patch. Optionally, you can further shape your sound with morphing, the filters, the effects or any other module. Playing the sound forwards, backwards, formant shifting, BPM-sync, time-stretching and looping is also possible.

Icarus comes with a sophisticated and flexible effects section. 57 different effects, feedback and a limiter can be combined in multiple modular slots. This allows you to create new and exciting results, which can also be saved and loaded separately. The innovative Ducking module can make the mix sound more transparent and lush. It dynamically adjusts the volume of the effect mix and prevents delays from clashing with the original signal. An equalizer with a dynamic bass control and psychoacoustic processing gives your mix an extra boost. A real-time frequency response display makes it easy to tweak the EQ.

Add exciting movement to your tracks! Want to use the LFO to wobble your sound? Just drag-and-drop it onto a knob. That’s it! It is possible to modulate almost any parameter at audio speed. Via the matrix, different modulation sources can be precisely linked to any sound parameter: LFOs, multistage envelopes, punchy envelopes, step sequencers, MIDI signals, …

Two MSEGs are available as additional modulation-sources. The MSEGs can be operated as LFO or envelope and allow you to create any shape you can imagine. The MSEGs offer highest precision, support frequencies up into the audio-range and have been designed with the aspect of musical usefulness. Literally anything is possible: The MSEGs can be synced to BPM, sync with the arpeggiator or run freely. Triads or dotted rhythms are also supported. You can define loop-points and start points. You can delay or fade the MSEGs. You can move, add or delete points with your mouse. You can bend lines upwards or downwards to change their shape or even create precise rectangular curves. The MSEGs can be edited completely freely or you can snap points to a grid of a select-able size. It is also possible to draw triangles, bars or ramps.

Icarus 3 is available to PC and Mac users (VST3, AU and standalone).

For more information on Incarus 3, click here:

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