Tone2 Audiosoftware

5 *****.

i let you know: you can buy this plugin. it has fantastic sound and the synth get SUPPORT until today.
you can trust the tone2 team.

As dated as Gladiator my seem to some, this little warrior can still hold his own in the arena. I like synths with their own character, and this one des that well. I have and have tried many of them out there believe me. Firstly, the ocillators, mods, and how one moves through them are unique to this synth alone. The filters sound fab. Albeit the mod matrix and effects sections aren't as robust as other Tone 2 products, there is enough there to take you to uncharted territory. Sure, there are plenty of what some may argue are more modern, feature ladened, and even free ones out there in this day and age. But to me...Gladiator just has a certain character all it's own that stands out, compared to all other synths that basically to me all do the same thing. I love Waldorf Largo for the same reason, those old PPG and Waldorf Q wavetables just have a certain sound that seemed very well thought out and give it a unique sound. I will take simplicity and character over a million features any old day. Not to mention I can run many instances of these older gem plugins without hardly any strain on 15 yr old PC. I Also have Icarus, Electra and Saurus. All of which are not the CPU hogs like the more modern synths of today, but all VERY capable of holding their own weight all these years later. The new Icarus 3 is a beast by the way. But that is just my opinion. You do you!!.

Still a VERY capable and inspirational synth in 2025. I also own Icarus, Saurus, and Gladiator. Tone2 fanboy? Maybe. But the incredibly low CPU usage, GREAT sound, straight forward architecture, and knowing you are supporting a small company that can rival the big boys makes it all worth it IMHO. Only gripe is I wish it had individual outputs for each layer like Waldorf Largo. Of which i also own. That and the one effect per layer is why i only give it a 4...yet a very strong 4 nonetheless. 4.8.2 perhaps.

Crazy underated synth as part of the Tone2 collection. I feel like ElectraX and Gladiator get all of the attention but this little guy is a powerful workhorse with over 2,000 presets! And they're some of the best presets I've heard.

There is much said... I would like just to say that synth is great sounding, it has randomization option which randomize all parameters (it would be nice to be able to select /deselect some). Only downside for me are some minor visual elements...which seems little outdated.. For visual guys. But overall I love it.. Ultra fast sound creation.

Icarus is one of the most versatile, impressive-sounding synths we've heard since... well, Xfer Records Serum, whose wavetable crown it clearly has its sights set on. The Wavetable Editor is particularly worthy of singling out for praise, as it makes the potentially daunting job of messing with waveforms supremely easy and rewarding.

It doesn't hurt that the whole GUI looks great, either, with its beautiful animated waveform display - including a rolling 3D view of the wavetable as it's scanned - classy font and switchable colour scheme. An epic synth in every sense.

Sonically and functionally, Icarus stands up well to Xfer's mighty rival, despite sounding very different to it. Icarus definitely has that characteristic larger-than-life Tone2 vibe - right from the raw oscillator level upwards, it's a shouter, designed to sound big, bold and glossy at all times, which may not be to every producer's taste.

It would be unfair to call that a 'criticism', though, and ultimately there's no denying that Icarus is Tone2's finest achievement yet. Epic in every sense. Well done Tone2.

Reinstalled my three purchases last night on a brand new laptop and the company won't let me use Icarus as it saying I haven't activated it correctly of which is an out and out lie and this software warlock is spitting out intermittent noises in standalone mode when it should be actually playing music and there's definitely a mismatch but there's nothing wrong with my laptop it's an i9 32 core 64 gig RAM 4TB SSD.

It's not Firebird.

It's the same shell, but different engine.

More powerful and modern.

Analog filters are better than hardware.

Incredible sound.