Tone2 Audio has announced the release of RayBlaster2, an updated version of the synthesizer plugin for Windows and Mac.
RayBlaster2 utilizes Impulse Modeling Synthesis (IMS), an entirely new and radically different approach to sound generation. It creates its distinctive sound by combining many short bursts of energy to form a complex sound.
RayBlaster2 comes with a large amount of new features, an enhanced sound engine, a reworked user interface, over 500 additional patches, a patch browser, drag & drop modulation and many enhancements.
Tone2 says: “We did not change the look and replace the GUI skin to make it look more ‘new’. Instead of this we decided to invest our time into what’s really important: The sound, the content and the workflow.”
RayBlaster2 is 100% downward compatible with all previous versions. All existing song projects and patches can be loaded without any further steps necessary. They will benefit from the enhanced sound quality.
Changes in RayBlaster2
- New features:
- Over 500 new patches by professional designers, the total number of patches has increased to 1076.
- Added a comfortable patch browser.
- Drag & Drop modulation: Drag an envelope or lfo and drop it to a knob to modulate it.
- Midi learn support: Right-click on a knob to assign a CC.
- The new synth engine is now able to create bass sounds and more realistic lowpass filter sweeps.
- Hovering the mouse over a knob shows a box with information.
- 39 DC waveform types have been added, which are suitable for bass and filter.
- Right-click on a knob opens a menu where you can assign a massive amount of modulation sources.
- Modulation depth control on top left of a knob if a source is assigned.
- Sectors on knobs show the modulation amount.
- A red sector is shown when clipping of modulation occurs.
- Added a random patch generator: Edit->’Create random patch’.
- Hovering the mouse over a knob shows the current parameter value and the modulation source.
- 134 new impulse responses in wav format.
- 10 additional high quality Reverb effects.
- 5 additional delay effects.
- 2 additional phaser effects.
- 2 additional flanger effects.
- 2 additional vibrato effects.
- 1 additional chorus effect.
- 1 additional tremolo effect.
- 1 additional autopan effect.
- Added ‘Psychoacoustic+’, a new psychoacoustic mode with more’ presence’.
- The patches can be ranked by clicking on the stars in the patch browser.
- Patch rankings are stored as .rnk files within RayBaster_sounds.
- Information tags (like legato, unison, etc) for every patch are shown in ‘info’ tab of the patch browser.
- File->’Quick save patch’ overwrites a patch with the new settings.
- Additonal osc window functions ‘Triangle’,’Hard square’,’Harder square’, ‘Taper’, ‘Sine’, ‘Fish’, ‘Add square’, ‘Lips’.
- Responsive and smart GUI with tooltips.
- Parameters can be reset to the default value with right-click->reset.
- Switching the effect type now selects good default paramter values.
- 4 additional sound categories ‘Wobble’, ‘Pluck’, ‘Pad 2’ and ‘Sequence’.
- Edit->’Clean matrix’ cleans up the mod matrix and resets unused slots.
- Edit->’Reset midi learn’ removes all midi CC assignments.
- Added a ‘Hypersaw’ effect, which sounds like many detuned oscillators.
- 32 bit wav file format support.
- Support for exotic wav file headers (Logic X).
- Help->’Show version info’.
- Help->’Download updates’.
- Edit->’Init gate: Ramp up / down / up & down / down & up / random’ initializes varius shapes for the step sequencer.
- Enhancements:
- The synthesis engine has been reworked.
- More detailed overall sound.
- Extended sonic range with more ‘low-end’.
- Reworked user interface.
- More soft parameter smoothing.
- It’s more easy to get good results when building own sounds.
- More linear frequency response, especially for high frequencies.
- Enhanced sound of the effects by adding oversampling.
- The resynthesis is able to import larger samples.
- Higher precision for high freqeuncies when using the resythesis.
- Reworked many existing factory sounds.
- New knobs with enhanced performance.
- Enhanced sound of unison.
- Enhanced Init patch settings.
- File, Edit & Help menues now pop up from beneath.
- Updated and extended demo version.
- Better performance.
- More robustness and stability.
- Better compatibility with older hosts.
- Support for exotic mouse drivers.
- Better workflow.
- Higher quality waveform playback.
- Parameters are more easy to adjust.
- Clicking on ‘Next Bank’ now rotates to the first entry if the last one has been reached.
- Slighly enhanced gui skin and colors.
- Legato is more easy to setup.
- Many other small enhancements for the user interface.
- 2x and 4x stereo unison is more easy to setup.
- Category is rotating for a more comfortable patch browsing.
- More precise coordinates for the layout.
- Enhanced sound of ‘Delay’ effect by adding spline interpolation.
- Enhanced sound of ‘PingPong’ effect by adding spline interpolation.
- Enhanced sound of ‘Multitap’ effect by adding a lowcut filter.
- Better sound quality by adding a high-end resampling algorithm.
- More smart mousewheel support.
- More chaotic behavour of the random lfo types in free mode.
- Enhanced performance.
- Higher quality waveform resampling.
- Extended range of synced LFO phase.
- Workaround for buggy hosts, which forget noteOff commands. The Arp does not longer produce a hanging note.
- Changes:
- Matrix source ‘Env1’ has been renamed to ‘Aux Env1’.
- ‘Gate’ has been renamed to ‘Step’.
- Moved some sounds to a different category.
- ‘Off’ window function has been renamed to ‘Off/Square’.
- ‘CLIP!’ is not longer displayed.
RayBlaster2 for Windows and Mac (VST/AU) is available for purchase for 149 EUR/$169 USD. RayBlaster1 users are eligible for a 60% discount, with an upgrade price of 59 EUR. The upgrade is free for users who purchased RayBlaster in 2016 or 2017.
More information: Tone2 Audiosoftware / RayBlaster2
