Available now: Tone2 Icarus2.5 - Wavetable Workstation

[sacer]

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?

Nice to hear about a MPE implementation.

[sacer]

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.

+1 there have been a lot of free updates with a lot of features and enhanced sound quality. I think also an update price like xils labs or u-he do offer, make a bether costumer loyality. If you compare all the free U-He Updates, for Diva etc and the paid Hive 2 for $20 or Zebra 3 for $30 and the xils lab stuff for $30 ....

So I think a lower update price can reach more in overall

[perfumer]

We offer soundsets and expansions in a price range from €29 to €59. All of them were built by professional designers, contain only hand-picked patches and come with an installer. Please note that most of them contain more patches than conventional sets (100 up to 324 sounds, mostly 200).

I have all but one Nemesis soundsets and frankly am disappointed with the quality of most patches.

Why?

I get the feeling that the designers were not very well familiar with the oscillators and the possibilities they provide, and have compensated by adding effects. Turn those off - especially the reverb wash that's almost in every patch - and what remains is a weak and often irritating oscillator buzz.

Another thing: how many mainstream trance leads do we need, with only minor differences in timbre between this one and that one? Same goes for bass patches that are not even half-way there (yes, it's low frequency, but is it bass?), keys, etc.

Yet another thing - 'realistic', so-called semi-real presets. Organs, trumpets, etc. Those titles are... misleading.

Not enough experimentation, most things are too traditional and well known, already there in the factory bank. Why did I pay to get more of the same?

With that said, Nemesis is my number 1 synth and thank you Markus for making such a gift to us*. Applause!

* Well, I did buy it, but still consider it a gift.

[metaside]

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?

Nice to hear about a MPE implementation.

I wrote some words praising MPE and stuff, but my post vanished when logging in. Not in the mood to write all of it again and no idea how to delete this lol.

Anyways in short: Good news about MPE! And have lots of fun with your new controller!

[Caine123]

We offer soundsets and expansions in a price range from €29 to €59. All of them were built by professional designers, contain only hand-picked patches and come with an installer. Please note that most of them contain more patches than conventional sets (100 up to 324 sounds, mostly 200).

I have all but one Nemesis soundsets and frankly am disappointed with the quality of most patches.

Why?

I get the feeling that the designers were not very well familiar with the oscillators and the possibilities they provide, and have compensated by adding effects. Turn those off - especially the reverb wash that's almost in every patch - and what remains is a weak and often irritating oscillator buzz.

Another thing: how many mainstream trance leads do we need, with only minor differences in timbre between this one and that one? Same goes for bass patches that are not even half-way there (yes, it's low frequency, but is it bass?), keys, etc.

Yet another thing - 'realistic', so-called semi-real presets. Organs, trumpets, etc. Those titles are... misleading. :roll:

Not enough experimentation, most things are too traditional and well known, already there in the factory bank. Why did I pay to get more of the same?

With that said, Nemesis is my number 1 synth and thank you Markus for making such a gift to us*. Applause! :clap: :clap: :clap:

* Well, I did buy it, but still consider it a gift.

Here i totally agree. There is too much of edm leads etc. A vst like icarus should present more crazy and complex patches. E.g. 20% bread and butter and the rest the rest ;)

[Echoes in the Attic]

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?

That's amazing! Icarus 2 is as good as purchased in my mind.

Surprised to hear about your mixed feelings for MPE, and that it breaks midi specification, given that it is now officially part of the midi spec isn't it? If you want to see a great example of mpe implementation look at Roli Equator. Strobe and Cypher are good too but a bit complicated overall, whereas Equator is much more straight forward when it comes to the mpe mapping. I'm not sure if it would be possible in Icarus but the scaling graphs you see in Equator can be very handy, even necessary sometimes for MPE mapping. Would be great to have a few curves in Icarus for scaling, or perhaps there would be a way to have an alternate mode for the multi-stage envelopes function as scaling curves. See pic below:

[pdxindy]

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?

Even if it has some flaws... it still opens a whole world of expressive playing not previously possible.

- that is a good point, but 16 voices is enough for MPE to be useful in almost all situations
- any new feature can create possibility of new bugs
- it does... but there are already incompatibilities between developers
- how does it break the midi specification?
- if I unplug my Linnstrument and plug it back in it does not play wrong notes
- I don't know... but it took a long time to get the current MPE agreed upon. Even if not the best approach, we at least have something that is functional.

Very good news about MPE in Icarus 2! I would have upgraded regardless, but MPE support makes it a must have.

[pdxindy]

I'm not sure if it would be possible in Icarus but the scaling graphs you see in Equator can be very handy, even necessary sometimes for MPE mapping. Would be great to have a few curves in Icarus for scaling, or perhaps there would be a way to have an alternate mode for the multi-stage envelopes function as scaling curves.

I was thinking that maybe there could be another tab in the new layout in the MSEG section that has a simple curve for velocity, aftertouch, timbre and release.

[Markus Krause]

I've gone through the specification. From what i see so far:
MPE could occasionally create trouble, especially when an MPE device shares a midi-stream with an older Midi device which works in a multitimbral mode. The old device is not aware of the MPE mode and can not handle the incoming data properly. To be safe you should connect MPE devices to separate Midi-interfaces.

Problems could (but must not) also occur if MPE-synths are plugged/unplugged while a stream is sent ( especially when an MPE device shares a midi-stream with an older Midi device which works in a multitimbral mode) , because the control signal which initializes MPE-mode is missing.

The way how midi-channels are assigned to the notes makes me also a bit worried, especially when the limit of 16 channels is reached. If the limit is reached and one key uses a per-channel-pitchbend command and another key is assigned to the same channel a glitch will happen, because the old value is overwritten. The problem will happen only rarely unless another midi-device with several channels is sending sharing the same stream.

[starflakeprj]

I can count around 7-10 people continuesly asking for MPE support (same people every time) in all plugins and DAWs in the KVR forum, so I wonder how high the demand really is.

[chk071]

I wonder how high the demand really is.

Well... about 10 people...

[metaside]

I can count around 7-10 people continuesly asking for MPE support (same people every time) in all plugins and DAWs in the KVR forum, so I wonder how high the demand really is.

Not really sure, many people are still on the fence, wait for better deals and options or don't understand the revolutionary benefits, bridging the worlds of digital sound design and traditional expressive instruments.

At the same time, over 2000 LinnStruments have been sold according to the website (http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/linnstrument.html) and I can only imagine that the number is even higher for the cheaper Seaboard blocks and some other controllers. So yes, the market is still small, but it's growing. In my experience, nobody who plays an MPE controller for more than a few minutes wants to go back to simple old-fashioned controllers.

[starflakeprj]

I see a certain similarity with people using Linux wanting all software ported to Linux, when the desktop market of Linux is still around 2%.

[starflakeprj]

I wonder how high the demand really is.

Well... about 10 people...

Ooh..stupid of me

[metaside]

I see a certain similarity with people using Linux wanting all software ported to Linux, when the desktop market of Linux is still around 2%.

Yeah, but can you do anything revolutionary with a Linux port of a Win program that you can't do with the Win version? Investing in MPE is investing in expressiveness in electronic music.