How to upgrade from Gladiator 1 to 2?

[dezai]

I absolutely love Gladiator and want to upgrade.  Do I just order one of the expansions (State of Art, Dance Trance, or Electronic)? 

[Markus Krause]

Hello Dezai,

The Gladiator2 expansions contain additional content (features and sounds) for Gladiator2. They are optional and do not contain the basic product.

However we offer an upgrade with discount for Gladiator1 users.

The link for the upgrade from Gladiator1 can be found here:
http://www.shareit.com/product.html?productid=300296089

You can find a detailed list of changes (from v1.x to v2.0) here:
http://www.tone2.com/html/______upgrade.html

In v2.1 we introduced these new features:

Improvements in sound quality:

Drastically improved low notes oscillator sound
Improved reverb sound: Softer and more diffuse reverb tails
Improved psychoacustical processing
Improved spectral slope of low frequencies to reduce gibbs effect for more 'analog' sound
Improved sound quality of intelligent microtuning (IQM): Warmer sound for long release times
Extended dB range of master volume knob
Reworked existing factory presets: Warmer sound
New features:

3 new phase modulators for analog sounding pulsewidth modulation: PWM, PWM alt, phase shift
Added song position sync support for LFO 1/2 ('bpm' has to be set to 'on' and 'retrigger' to 'off')
Added split keyboard support; new modulation sources: Low keys, High keys
Added new 'split' arp mode which applies ARP on high keys only and leaves low keys for basses
18 new factory sounds
Changes, fixes and improvements:

Faster loading time of PC full version
Demo version: Nag Voice only every 9 minutes instead of every minute
Improved host compatibility: Cubase 4 & 5, Orion, Fruity Loops, Logic
Fixed (PC): Wrong version number was displayed in Cubase
Fixed: Microglitch in volume envelope
Fixed (Full version, Mac): 'Demoversion' instead of user name was displayed for 2 seconds after loading
Fixed (PPC Mac): 'Spec format' and 'Spec clean' modifier could output silence
Fixed (FUll version, Mac): 'save all' could crash Gladiator2
Changed (Mac): Focus of mouseover when 'show editor' was set to 'off'

In v2.2 we introduced these new features

New: Midi learn support

PC: Shift + strg/control + left mousebutton on a knob activates Midi learn mode. If Midi learn is activated the next incoming Midi controler command is assigned to the knob. The Midi learn configuration of all controlers is stored in an automatically generated file 'gladiatormidi.cfg' within the vst directory. If 'gladiatormidi.cfg' is deleted it automatically resets to the default assignments.

Mac: Shift + Apple + left mousebutton on a knob activates Midi learn mode. If Midi learn is activated the next incoming Midi controler command is assigned to the knob. The Midi learn configuration of all controlers is stored in an automatically generated file 'Library/Audio/Plugins/gladiatormidi.cfg'. If 'gladiatormidi.cfg' is deleted it automatically resets to the default assignments.

New features, changes, fixes and improvements:

Smoother overall sound with more 'analog hardware-like' feeling
More punchy envelopes
Drastically improved sound of Chorus and Ensemble effect. Replaced them with an 'analog modeled' version.
Additional lowpass filter: LP Superfat
New modifier: 'Time Delay' delays an oscillator spectrum
New modifier: 'Pitch Harmonizer' stacks up to 16 additional harmonics to an osciallator spectrum
New modifier: 'Pitch Octaver' stacks up to 8 oscillators which are tuned in octaves
Improved Moog filter: Analog modelling with self oscillation support for high resonance
Smoother filter sound: Comb+, Double Comb
Improved LP 12dB Analog, BP 12dB Analog, HP 12dB Analog: More silky treble
35 additional sounds
Reworked and resorted factory presets
Slightly improved psychoacoustical processing
Full version: User name is shown above preset browser
Improved robustness against user errors and corrupt installations
A warning is displayed if a user tries to register with the wrong keyfile
Renamed filters: "Comb1"->"Comb+","Comb2"->"Double Comb"
The hotkey 'm' resets the mod matrix (Note: Not all hosts support this)
Gladiator banks (glb files) contain now up to 4096 presets
Fixed (Fullversion on Mac): Username sometimes was not displayed correctly
Fixed a rarely appearing crash that could appear with certain system configurations (PC)
Two spectra were missing because of invalid filenames (Mac)
Fixed a possible crash with Midi CC 121

[dezai]

Thank you, Marcus.  I couldn't find the upgrade link in the online shop and don't really want to purchase presets anyway. 

Can v2.2 load v1 patches?  If so, I'm in.  Gladiator is the best.

[Markus Krause]

Hello Dezai,

Gladiator v2.2 is downward compatible. It can load patches of all previous versions.

Best Regards,
Markus Feil

[dezai]

I love this synth.  Thank you to everyone at Tone2.

[xybre]

I [...] don't really want to purchase presets anyway. 

The expansions are not just presets, they also include expanded effects types, new waveforms, and other additional core synth features to use in your own patches. Check out the expansion pages and look at all the shiny extra features they can get you. Definitely get Gladiator 2.2, then you can always get the expansions later.