Tone2 Audio updates Icarus synth plugin to v1.6

Tone2 Audio has announced version 1.6 of Icarus, a wavetable synthesizer instrument for Windows and Mac.

The update includes new resynthesis modes, additional effects, a better user interface, enhanced sound and a large number of new features.

Icarus 1.6 is 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 Icarus v1.6

New features:
- IMPORT SAMPLE->’Resynthesis smart pitch snap’ drastically enhances the sound quality of the resynthesis function. You can select a wav file and it automatically creates a synthesizer patch which syncs to BPM.
- IMPORT SAMPLE->’Resynthesis of melody’ is a groundbreaking feature. It can import complete phrases or melodies in wav format. It automaticaly programs a patch that sounds very similar to the original. It reprograms the melody in the arpeggiator. Futhermore it creates a wavetable with the harmonic content of the patch. The patches can further be tweaked, time streched or modified.
- IMPORT SAMPLE->’Resynthesis with dynamic pitch’ can import a wave. It automatically creates a patch which sounds similar to the original one. This mode does aly analyse the pitch information of the patch and programs the STEP lfo with a pitch envelope.
- IMPORT SAMPLE->’Beat slice drumlop’ cuts a sample into 16 or 32 waveforms and creates a patch with plays a BPM synced loop.
- New effect: ‘Reverb Gated’ which syncs to the BPM rate. It works best for drum sounds or arpeggiators.
- New effect: ‘Reverb Gated Echo’ is Gated Reverb with a delay which syncs to BPM.
- new effect: ‘Reverb Reverse’ which syncs to the BPM rate.
- new effect: ‘Reverb Decay’ which syncs to the BPM rate.
- The patch browser shows a scrollbar if more than 26 categories exist.
- ‘Shift notes up’ shifts the notes in the arpeggiator one halftone up.
- ‘Shift notes down’ shifts the notes in the arpeggiator one halftone down.
- ‘rotate 1 slot left’ rotates the notes in the arpeggiator.
- ‘rotate 1 slot right’ rotates the notes in the arpeggiator.
- The morph kob now shows the number of quantized steps.
- The wavetable editor shows a large slider with a grid if modifiers with ‘value’ are edited.
- Osc->Tool ‘Resynthesis smart snap’.
- Wavetable editor->Spectrum->’Sort by brightness’ sorts waveforms by their harmonic content. It can be used to create wobbles.
- Wavetable editor->Resynthesis->’Resynthesis smart snap’.
- Wavetable editor->Mix->’Fade in’.
- Wavetable editor->Mix->’Fade out’.
- Wabetable editor->Phase->’Rotate’ shifts the phase of all selected waveforms.
- Added some tooltips to the wavetable editor.
- Create a random arpeggiator pattern with TOOL->’Init random octaves’.
- Create a random arpeggiator pattern with fifths with TOOL->’Init random fifths’.
- Create a random arpeggiator pattern with a random interval with TOOL->’Init random interval’.
- 52 additional patches.
Enhancements:
- Slightly enhanced sound quality of ‘Import Sample’->’Create patch: Resynthesis…’
- More smart path selection on PC for loading/saving.
- Enhanced performance of some knobs, especially the LFO sends.
- The knobs MORPH, FADE, WAVE, PHASE do not longer switch the LFO.
- A hand symbol is shown for text-style parameters which can be altered with the mouse.
- Enhanced sound of ‘Reverb Medium’, ‘Reverb Real’, ‘Reverb Trance’ especially for for small sizes.
- Enhanced sound of ‘Formant Cross’ morphmode.
- Enhanced sound of ‘Vocoder’ morphmode.
- Slightly enhanced sound of ‘Reverb Big’ and ‘Reverb Infinity’ with reduced low frequency rumble.
- Wavetable editor is more easy and comfortable to use.
- Undo function now also works with arpeggiator, fx tool, matrix tool, eq tool and filter tool menu.
- Reduced a click when routing a saw lfo to WAVE.
- Better default effect settings for Ensemble, Reverb Dark, Delay Fat, Delay Pingpong, Delay Diffuse, Delay Band.
- ‘Create random patch’ gives better results.
Bug fixes:
- Modulation depth of knobs could have been incorrect if matrix target was switched.
- Removed wrong up/down arrows in the STEP LFO.
- Fixed a compatibility problem with recording automation in some hosts.