Talk-Zone #35 Interview with Tone2 about Icarus

Icarus is a 3D-wavetable synthesizer. The wavetables can be morphed into several dimensions. It offers powerful and flexible sound engine with true stereo architecture. Icarus offers high-end sound quality with low CPU requirement. The easy-to-use interface with direct visual feedback makes tweaking accessible to everyone. The synth has a huge sonic range and an unique signature sound. It comes with a huge library of over 1000 sounds. We developed a new resynthesis method, which is easy to use and quickly gives good results. There is also a modular effect section with 53 effects and a high quality vocoder.

Icarus can do sounds, which are not possible with the other synthesizers. The innovative resynthesis function in Icarus allows you to rebuild nearly any sound with a single mouse-click: Simply click on the resynthesis button and select a wav file. Like ‘magic’, Icarus will automatically assemble a patch, which sounds very close to the original sound. Our new algorithm gives better results and is easier to use than traditional methods.
Furthermore Icarus can do speech (re)synthesis and has a vocoder. This is is not possible with the other products. 
Nemesis is a FM synthesizer. Saurus is a substractive synth. It is an emulation of vintage hardware. I don’t think that they really can be compared to Icarus.

In wavetable synthesis you can crossblend waveforms. In 3D wavetable synthesis can be crossblended and morphed in several dimensions. This gives more dynamic expression and offers a huge, new area for sounddesign.
FM synthesis means to modulate the frequency of an oscillator with another oscillator.
Substractive means that filters remove a part of the spectrum.
In additive synthesis you add a large number of sines to assemble a sound.
Icarus can do all these synthesis methods, but the main focus is wavetables.

The synth covers a huge sonic range. It is suitable for all musical genres, but especially modern ones. The synth has a very unique signature sound. Some people say, that it can sound like polished plastic, but warm and in a very pleasant way. It’s possible that it inspires musicians so much that it helps to arise even new musical genres – at least i hope so. What’s really new and unique is that speech and synthesizer sound can melt into somthing like ‘singing robot choirs’.

It took several years to develop Icarus.
The motivation behind that is quite egoistic: I did build this synth mainly for myself. I wanted a replacement for my Virus TI, my Microwave, my Alpha Juno, my Casio CZ, Alchemy and my Blowfeld. I really like wavetables, but i don’t like the sharp sound that the conventional wavetable synths have. So i experimented how wavetables can be enhanced to sound more warm.

This depends on your personal needs and the musical style that you do. It does the job for the EDM tracks that i do quite well. I’d say: If you like the sound of vocoders, it can replace the singer.

Definitely yes. The possbilities for sound design are huge. So far we it sems that we still haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s possible.

PC and Mac only.

More information: Tone2 – Icarus