Tone2 has announced the first update to its new flagship soft synth, Icarus.
Despite being just a point release there is a huge list of enhancements, fixes and changes, plus a swathe of new features including drag and drop support for modulation sources.
Icarus is quite unlike any other synth out there, says Tone2, as it has a signature sound that's very hard or impossible to create in other instruments. This is down to the additional morphing 'dimension', which works alongside its ability to cross-blend waveforms.
Icarus is available as a 32/64-bit VST/AU plugin and costs £147.22/$199/€149. There's also a demo for you to try before you buy. For more information, check out the Tone2 website.
New features
- Drag&Drop support: Drag LFO/ENV and drop it to a knob to create a matrix entry for modulation.
- Right-click on a knob opens a menu where you can assign modulation sources.
- Modulation depth control on top left of a knob if a source is assigned.
- Sectors on knobs show the modulation amount. Clipping is shown in red.
- Hovering the mouse over a knob shows the current parameter value and modulation source.
- The buttons of OSCs, Filters, LFOs, ENVs, which are inactive are grayed out.
- Responsive GUI with tooltips.
- New waveform display mode 'Hypersaw', which shows the detuning of the oscillators.
- Help->Show version info.
- Mouse cursor changes on editing halftones in arp.
- Right click on a knob->reset initializes to the default value.
- Visual feedback if a button in the wavetable editor is pressed.
- TRIG button for the LFO section.
- New sync mode for LFOs 'Arp/LFO soft trig' which retriggers monophonic LFOs after 1 second of silence.
- New sync mode for LFOs 'Arp/LFO classic trig', which allows to set free mode for every LFO individually.
- SEMI knob for the OSC section.
- New matrix target 'Filter Balance'. It's useful to control the relationship of the filter volumes when two filters are routed in parallel.
Enhancements
- Drawing custom shapes with the STEP LFO is more comfortable.
- Better work-flow.
- Enhanced performance of the knobs.
- Parameters are more easy to adjust.
- Patch rankings are only stored when the user clicks on the stars.
- Display mode is now 'smart' and tries to auto-detect the right one.
- Polished some graphics.
- Reduced RAM requirement. More instances can be loaded in 32-bit.
- Many other small enhancements for the user interface.
- Quick save is more smart.
- Category is rotating for a more comfortable patch browsing.
- Workaround for buggy hosts which submit duplicate noteOn commands. The Arp does not longer produce hanging note.
- Legato is more easy to setup.
- Drag&Drop of a wav sample to the OSC display can now create a new resynthesized patch.
- LFOs are more smart.
- Mousewheel on Arp notes now selects octaves
Changes
- MONO in the LFO section has been replaced with TRIG.
- Enhanced automation parameter naming
- On initializing a new patch the default mode is set to 'Arp/LFO soft trig'.
- OSC Punch and OSC Keyfollow button have been moved to SETUP.
Fixes
- Matrix source 'Filter Env' sometimes didn't work.
- Removed a glitch from 'Alien Spaceship Mac.fxp'
- The browser of the Mac 64 bit version sometimes did display the stars of the first patch incorrectly
- Clicking below Vocoder in the wavetable editor did open an abandoned menu
