Tone 2 Audiosoftware Delivers Icarus Synthesizer V.1.5 With Many New Features & Improvements

The German developer Tone2 Audiosoftware released today a massive update for their flagship wavetable Synthesizer Icarus for PC and Mac. The new version features many new interesting synthesis modes, an improved and better to use interface as well as many other new features, improvements and bug fixes. An excellent free update that brings a lot of new features and opens new sound design possibilities.

The award winning Icarus is an exceptionally powerful, new synth with ‘3D wavetable synthesis’. It offers a unique and futuristic sound. The innovative resynthesis can rebuild sounds with a single mouse-click. A massive quantity of inspiring factory sounds allow you to create fantastic tracks easily and rapidly.

New in Icarus v.1.5

Excellent new interface and sound features

The engine is now able to do FM synthesis (PM) between oscillators. Select ‘FM< -Osc1′ as synthesis/morph mode to modulate Osc2 with Osc1.
The synth does now offer classic sample playback. Set the OSC synthesis/morph mode to ‘Sample’ or ‘Sample Loop’. The usual wavetable controls do have no effect in this mode.
Classic samples can now also easily be imported with IMPORT SAMPLE->’Load a wav sample…’. The sample can be automatically tuned on import.
The engine is now able to do amplitude modulation between oscillators. Select ‘AM< -Osc1′ as morph mode to modulate Osc2 with Osc1.
The engine is now able to do Waveshaping between oscillators. Select ‘Shape< -Osc1′ as synthesis/morph mode to shape Osc1 with the wavform of Osc2.
New effect: ‘Delay Wide’ is a broad sounding delay with Hi Damp and Low Damp filters.
New effect: ‘Stereo Width’ allows to spread the panorama from mono to surround.
New exclusive effect: ‘Laser Punch’ adds additional punch. Use it with a sawtooth to create a zapping ‘Rubber Bass’ sound.
Icarus_wavetables now contains subdirectories for categories which contain the wavetables.
Submenus provide a more logic structure and better overview.
Tooltips with info are shown when the mouse is hovered over a button or control.
Additional buttons: Previous and next Lfo waveform.
Pitchwheel and Modwheel in the patchbrowser is now animated.
Wavetable position in the wavetable editor is animated if you click on the left keyboard.
The patch browser list shows a checkmark for the currently loaded patch.
In the waveform display the mousewheel can be used to pick a wave.
Mousewheel support for the filter frequency display.
Mousewheel support for the patch selector.
A double click to a knob or slider resets it to the default value.
Added an undo button which restores the recent parameter changes.
43 additional wavetables with over 1000 new waveforms.
‘Natural scrolling’ support for mousewheel on 64 bit Mac.

New enhancements

Enhanced sound of Reverb Medium, Reverb Big, Reverb Plate, Reverb Glass, Reverb Infinite, Reverb Trance: Less detuned sound, smoother tail and more punchy early reflections.
Enhanced GUI skin.
Larger text for the menus on PC.
FILE->’Create random patch’ gives better results.

Important bugs have been fixed

The 32bit Mac version did not show a line when drag & drop modulation was used.
Fixed a possible crash, when the down arrow is pressed within the patch browser.
The text label for ‘HP Analog 12/24 dB’ was swapped.
Fixed a crash that could happen if the synth was flooded with midi program change messages.
Fixed a possible crash on opening the GUI.
Knobs did jump if cirular mode was forced by the host.
Fixed a crash that happened if ‘Create random wavtetable/patch’ was pressed when no wavetables were installed.
Fixed a crash of the previous beta where pressing the arrow keys could crash the plugin.
If OSC volume was set to 0 there was still a very low volume sound emitted.

Other changes