Available now: Tone2 Icarus2.5 - Wavetable Workstation

[metaside]

The MPE is needed even to play monophonically with pitch slides...

Nope. I'm playing it right now lol.

If I slide up a 5th... then play another note... that notes starts up a 5th and then immediately jumps down to the actual note.

Not sure about this tbh - I guess it might be related to glide settings in the synth or some LinnStrument setting I'm not familiar with. It works for me as far as I can say with Icarus in Ableton rn.

[JunSev]

How many mod matrix slots does Icarus 2 have? I still find the amount of slots in most Tone2 synths extremely limiting and down right frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I love my Electra X but I very quickly run out of modulation slots when trying to build nuanced patches that have small variations in sound and playing from a keyboard. A simple velocity to mod slot that modulates another mod slot scenario very quickly eats up all the slots.

I would like to have more matrix slots than what Icarus 1.6 has right now too, macro knobs, and the possibility to add more effects than just 3; in this regard almost all wavetables synths in the market have more capacity, but there is not mention of any of this in the first page of this thread for Icarus 2, hope Markus have this planned and is on it.

Otherwise I don't know if I will upgrade in the official release. I like the rework of the gui and the new MSEGs but still (at least for me), it doesn't looks that great in terms of capacity to be a paid upgrade yet if these aspects has been not addressed.

[pdxindy]

The MPE is needed even to play monophonically with pitch slides...

Nope. I'm playing it right now lol.

If I slide up a 5th... then play another note... that notes starts up a 5th and then immediately jumps down to the actual note.

Not sure about this tbh - I guess it might be related to glide settings in the synth or some LinnStrument setting I'm not familiar with. It works for me as far as I can say with Icarus in Ableton rn.

I just tried it and it works okay in Icarus. I was remembering Massive X which doesn't handle the pitch slides well at all for mono playing. It could be better in Icarus with MPE and mono playing, but it is useable.

[pdxindy]

How many mod matrix slots does Icarus 2 have? I still find the amount of slots in most Tone2 synths extremely limiting and down right frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I love my Electra X but I very quickly run out of modulation slots when trying to build nuanced patches that have small variations in sound and playing from a keyboard. A simple velocity to mod slot that modulates another mod slot scenario very quickly eats up all the slots.

I would like to have more matrix slots than what Icarus 1.6 has right now too, macro knobs, and the possibility to add more effects than just 3; in this regard almost all wavetables synths in the market have more capacity, but there is not mention of any of this in the first page of this thread for Icarus 2, hope Markus have this planned and is on it.

Otherwise I don't know if I will upgrade in the official release. I like the rework of the gui and the new MSEGs but still (at least for me), it doesn't looks that great in terms of capacity to be a paid upgrade yet if these aspects has been not addressed.

There are 18 Matrix slots in Icarus as is. Plus there are a number of hardwired modulations which don't need the Maxtrix. I wouldn't call that extremely limiting. Of course I'm not against more, but most of the time that is enough for me. My main complaint is having 3 tabs for the Matrix.

It would also be sweet to have a 'via' option... which would make the existing number of slots go farther.

[Stefken]

My main complaint is having 3 tabs for the Matrix.

I read in the first post: All matrix parameters are accessible within a single tab.

Personally, towards a major version, I'm mainly interested in the part: a lot more.

As much as I appreciate a rework of the UI, a major version should involve more than that.
I won't project possible price points, as Markus clearly set the price is not set.
Let's just say that I wasn't that keen on the upgrade price from Dune 2 to Dune3.
In that scenario, exisiting customers would pay about double of what new customers pay.

[Markus Krause]

Several users have requested MPE support. Today i ordered a MPE-controller and will start working on implementing support for MPE this week. So most likely Icarus2 will support it.

I got mixed feelings about the MPE specification. My opinion is that it is not very well-designed and looks more like a dirty hack. Why?
- It only supports 16 voices properly
- It opens the door for bugs
- I can create incompatibilities between manufacturers
- It breaks the midi specification
- If a midi device is disconnected and re-connected it will play wrong notes, because the midi-in device can't know that MPE mode is connected
- Why do they not use NRPNs?

[TIMT]

How many mod matrix slots does Icarus 2 have? I still find the amount of slots in most Tone2 synths extremely limiting and down right frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I love my Electra X but I very quickly run out of modulation slots when trying to build nuanced patches that have small variations in sound and playing from a keyboard. A simple velocity to mod slot that modulates another mod slot scenario very quickly eats up all the slots.

I would like to have more matrix slots than what Icarus 1.6 has right now too, macro knobs, and the possibility to add more effects than just 3; in this regard almost all wavetables synths in the market have more capacity, but there is not mention of any of this in the first page of this thread for Icarus 2, hope Markus have this planned and is on it.

Otherwise I don't know if I will upgrade in the official release. I like the rework of the gui and the new MSEGs but still (at least for me), it doesn't looks that great in terms of capacity to be a paid upgrade yet if these aspects has been not addressed.

This

Was playing round with Electra X/2 the other day and came to the same conclusion whilst making a pseudo piano patch(articulation rather than going for outright simulation).why such a miniscule amount of mod slots.i think am just too used to Z3ta and Dune to be honest.more mod slots across the whole range of the Tone2 stuff would be nice,it's largely prevented me from buying most of them apart from Electra X/2 which sounded too good to pass up after some of those weird sound engine quirks that your earlier synths exhibited got ironed out

[fmr]

We have drastically improved our update-policy completely since two years.
We released a large number of free updates and even free upgrades (Gladiator3) with a massive number of new features. You can validate this for yourself if you visit this website and click on 'what's new'.
https://www.tone2.com/download.html

This is true. I was somehow pissed with the update policy of Tone 2 until the last couple of years, but they certainly improved in customer support and free upgrades/updates recently.

That said, I also think that a price of $50 is more in line to what has been seen in the market than a price of $70 or more. This may seem like peanuts, but sometimes is a frotier between having a successful upgrade or not.

[fmr]

It would also be sweet to have a 'via' option... which would make the existing number of slots go farther.

^^^ THIS ^^^

[Markus Krause]

It would also be sweet to have a 'via' option... which would make the existing number of slots go farther.

^^^ THIS ^^^

Can you please explain your request more detailed?
Do you mean this: Every matrix slot has an additional 'depth-modulator' which controls the amount of modulation for this slot

[fmr]

It would also be sweet to have a 'via' option... which would make the existing number of slots go farther.

^^^ THIS ^^^

Can you please explain your request more detailed?
Do you mean this: Every matrix slot has an additional 'depth-modulator' which controls the amount of modulation for this slot

Yes, that's pretty much it. For example, Envelope controls filter cutoff "VIA" velocity, which means that when more velocity is applied the amount of modulation applied by the envelope raises.

[enCiphered]

@Markus:
I know you have your own forum place where people can post their feature requests but its really great to have you here as well! Reading all the amazing stuff you already announced for Icarus 2 and the great communication in this thread so far makes me really feel excited about the update.
Thank you very much for this, Icarus has always been a beloved and well appreciated instrument for many different tasks in my work, especially for designing atmospheric and ambient music.

[bmanic]

How many mod matrix slots does Icarus 2 have? I still find the amount of slots in most Tone2 synths extremely limiting and down right frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I love my Electra X but I very quickly run out of modulation slots when trying to build nuanced patches that have small variations in sound and playing from a keyboard. A simple velocity to mod slot that modulates another mod slot scenario very quickly eats up all the slots.

I would like to have more matrix slots than what Icarus 1.6 has right now too, macro knobs, and the possibility to add more effects than just 3; in this regard almost all wavetables synths in the market have more capacity, but there is not mention of any of this in the first page of this thread for Icarus 2, hope Markus have this planned and is on it.

Otherwise I don't know if I will upgrade in the official release. I like the rework of the gui and the new MSEGs but still (at least for me), it doesn't looks that great in terms of capacity to be a paid upgrade yet if these aspects has been not addressed.

There are 18 Matrix slots in Icarus as is. Plus there are a number of hardwired modulations which don't need the Maxtrix. I wouldn't call that extremely limiting. Of course I'm not against more, but most of the time that is enough for me. My main complaint is having 3 tabs for the Matrix.

It would also be sweet to have a 'via' option... which would make the existing number of slots go farther.

18 matrix slots is a lot better than the 10 we have for Electra X.. still, 18 is not what I'd call "a lot". The thing is, as soon as you want to make sounds a lot more nuanced and truly play as you want them to play across the keyboard range, you very quickly run out of slots. Like I said, a few basic velocity + aftertouch + keyboard tracking assignments and you already use up 10. That would leave 8 for other stuff. Then if you want one LFO to modulate the amount of another.. boom, eats up 2 slots. Want to add velocity sensitivity to that amount modulation? Boom another one. Thing is, these things are easily eaten for breakfast as soon as you want a bit more dynamics/nuance to your sounds.

But yeah, I could live with 18 slots I think. 10 for Electra X is definitely frustrating (it seems to have the least slots of all Tone 2 synths, unfortunately).

[pdxindy]

It would also be sweet to have a 'via' option... which would make the existing number of slots go farther.

^^^ THIS ^^^

Can you please explain your request more detailed?
Do you mean this: Every matrix slot has an additional 'depth-modulator' which controls the amount of modulation for this slot

Yes, that's pretty much it. For example, Envelope controls filter cutoff "VIA" velocity, which means that when more velocity is applied the amount of modulation applied by the envelope raises.

Yeah... currently it takes 2 slots in Icarus to do this.

[nordickvr]

...
Yes, that's pretty much it. For example, Envelope controls filter cutoff "VIA" velocity, which means that when more velocity is applied the amount of modulation applied by the envelope raises.

+1 Indeed.
Added to some more modulation slots would be pretty much appreciated!