Icarus feature requests

[Markus Krause]

We had left-right arrows in an earlier version of electra . People did complain because they were irritated, because the list than opens when you click on the name is from top to bottom.

[AnalogSignal]

Here are my requests:

1. I would like the dedicated LFO1 and LFO2 controls within the oscillator section to animate their respective modulation targets.  Currently I use the mod matrix instead of these controls because it gives clearer visual feedback.

2. Please allow longer audio clips for beat slicing.

3. Please update the manual to explain the difference between Arp\LFO hard trig and soft trig.

Thanks.

[JOP]

We had left-right arrows in an earlier version of electra . People did complain because they were irritated, because the list than opens when you click on the name is from top to bottom.

Banks (one column): up/down Bankpresets (various columns):up/down + left/right.
Most of the u-he synths go this way, i never heard someone complaining about this solution. In Icarus i would like the change of a preset when you click on a preset, not when you adress a different bank.     
   

[davew1]

This may already be planned for Icarus 2, but I wanted to suggest it anyway:

A phase knob on the MSEGs, identical to those on the LFOs, would be useful. After creating a pattern, it's nice to experiment with shifting it left or right to create a different rhythmic feel.

Or, if there's an easy way to select all the points at once and move them left/right, that could help with this.

Thanks for your consideration!

[Markus Krause]

Hello,

I already included such a control. In Icarus2 is called 'Start'.

I also considered 'selecting and moving groups of points'. It is possible from the technical side and chances are good that i will implement it.

Best Regards,
Markus

[davew1]

Hello,

I already included such a control. In Icarus2 is called 'Start'.

I also considered 'selecting and moving groups of points'. It is possible from the technical side and chances are good that i will implement it.

Best Regards,
Markus

Cool, thanks for the info!

[bmanic]

Hi Markus,

First off, a HUGE thank you for creating this amazing new version of the synthesizer (I'm completely new to Icarus!). This must have been a massive task and as far as I can tell, the update has been superb! Well done mate!

Feature requests

Would love to see more modulation destinations:

- OSCILLATOR wavetable 'fade' knobs! Very confused this wasn't a modulation target. Can't modulate between smooth wavetable motion or "choppy" motion. Very strange omission in my opinion. Even if this is a monophonic target (pre calculated) it would be awesome to be able to modulate it.

- Glide knob (why can't this be modulated? Would be awesome to control it with keyboard follow on solo sounds). Yes, even though it is a monophonic target it could simply use the basic re-trigger/legato rule from the setup section.

- LFO Shape knob

- Step LFO 'smooth' knob

- Filter 'Keyfollow' knob (yes I know you can use up two mod matrix slots to do the same thing but because there are so few mod matrix slots, every time you save one slot would help!)

- Filter Volume knobs (.. and I'd love for the Volume knob of Filter 1 to actually be available when they are in series! This way one could use volume knob of filter 1 to drive filter 2.. right now the volume knob of filter 1 is only available when in parallel)

- FX Duck parameters! Why are these not mod destinations?`

- All of the FX feedback parameters! Especially the low cut and high cut.

- DRAG AND DROP modulation capability to the FX page, all of the FX sliders. I know they are already destinations in the mod matrix but drag and drop is not supported for these controls.


.. and finally, the thing I always ask for: MORE MATRIX SLOTS! It's so weird that you give only 18 slots for such a complex beast. Simply assigning slightly more complex mod wheel and aftertouch parameters to a synth sound easily eats up half the modulation matrix. Again, this is due to the inefficient way your matrix works. Very simple things need to be done with multiple mod matrix routings. Any kind of shaping of the "curve" of the modulation requires multiple mod matrix slots to do.. whereas other synths just have a shaping parameter per matrix slot.

Same problem with some basic parameters like Filter key tracking and envelope amount not being direct modulation parameters. It is quite inefficient design. Example:

Common things like Keyboard tracking modulating Filter Velocity will take up two matrix slots instead of only one if Filter Velocity knob was a mod target. Same for Filter Keyboard tracking. Want to modulate keyboard tracking with aftertouch or velocity, or even a mod wheel? Two slots taken by matrix instead of only one if Filter Keyboard Tracking knob was a target.

Anyhow, even with these omissions Icarus is a joy to work with! Such a complex and beautiful sounding synthesizer. Many of the built in wavetables and also the filters sound amazing!

Cheers!
bM

[davew1]

Having enjoyed Icarus 1 for a few years now, I recently downloaded the rc1 demo of Icarus 2 to check it out. Nice work, and congratulations! I wanted to point out a few potential bugs I observed on a Windows 10 system in standalone mode:

-Step LFO visual phase indicator doesn't shift properly as phase is adjusted.

-Arp "glide x halftones" up often doesn't register on the first pass through the arp pattern. It begins to register on the second pass through, though. This occurred with the /3 and /4 settings, in both the LFO/Arp hard and classic trigger settings, when I was holding down a 3 note chord. (No drums or glitch playing at the time, just tinkering with an initialized 1 osc patch.) **See update below.**

-I had one crash after removing an LFO 1 modulation from the semitone pitch parameter of OSC 1 (by right clicking and using the pop-up menu), and then assigning the Step LFO to that same parameter via drag and drop. I couldn't replicate it, but wanted to report because Icarus crashes in the past have been very rare.

Also, more of an observation than a bug: A few recent descriptions of Icarus 2 I've seen mention filter panning, but it looks like that feature was either removed or delayed. (Unless I'm overlooking it somewhere.)

**Update to arp note above: Following a bit more experimenting, it appears that the inconsistent behavior may have been due to my pressing the keys in a slightly different order each time. When I tried to replicate the issue with pre-recorded chords in a DAW, it didn't occur. Icarus' ARP, by the way, remains my favorite! Tinkering with it inspires a lot of "happy accidents," and I really appreciate the thought you put into the musicality of it.**

Hope this is helpful!

Dave W.

[Deepbass]

On another forum you mentioned to add several additional morph modes to the distortion section. Since it didn´t make it into the initial release I hope it isn´t forgotten. Having 2 morph modes for an osc would be a great feature which isn´t often seen in other wavetable synths.

[Junior S]

Having 2 morph modes for an osc would be a great feature which I isn´t often seen in other wavetable synths.

That indeed would be really cool if possible. 

[Jurek]

Thanks for the great v2 update. It is a really nice synth, and I especially love that it runs very stable and smooth, which isn't usual nowadays anymore. A real hardcore coder here

Since Icarus 2 is so great, I think it naturally rises wishes for even more (If the synth was not good at all, nobody would care).

So here is a little list with things I found, which I might know from other synths and so am missing these a bit. Feel free to be inspired or not, as you like:

1. A pre/post filter switch, so you do not have to sacrifice a whole filter only to have the distortion pre-filter. The filters are sounding very good, and it is a pity to loose one here. I also think this is very common in synths, e.g. Korg Radias, Synthmaster, Avenger and so on. I know this might "ruin" your very nice weighted layout at first thought, but maybe there is a simple solution for that. Or even if it was available under "Options" tab only, it  would already be great.

2. Second step LFO, there also is space

3a. A tilt filter mode around 1khz for the filters, e.g. like the "tone" parameter in the distortion device of Renoise, it actually is a nice mixing filter.

3b. fold distortion, pre/post filter, which gives a lot of soundshaping possibilities, also nice to add high frequency harmonics.
http://tstlab.virtualcreations.de/renoise_forum/distortion-device.png
Modulated fold distortion on pink noise, and a bit of tilt modulation:
http://tstlab.virtualcreations.de/renoise_forum/mare.m4a

4. Being able to modulate the "shape" amount of an ENV. Not sure if this is technically possible, due preprocessing or so.

5. The most OSC morph modes can be controlled in tone, but not always in mix-in-amount. I would like to suggest then to move the LFO 2 OSC knob to the matrix and instead place here an "morph mix", which mixes in the unprocessed signal.

OSC LFO1 also could be moved to matrix, e.g. for an unison spread curve knob, which makes different spreading curves possible, from logarithmic to linear to cubic/exp. As it is also common in lot of synths, e.g. Radias, Dune, Synthmaster, Melda MPowersynth

6. OSC->Tools: Render current settings a) without filter to new waveform, b) with filter to new waveform c) with filter and fx to new waveform


I get you might want to separate features into your different products, but also I would think that not a lot people will buy the other synth only because it has the one missing feature. I guess most people would like to have a most possible flexible workstation.

Thanks for consideration!

[davew1]

I'm very glad I finally upgraded one of my old 20 inch monitors to a 24 inch HD so I could enjoy your latest masterpiece. Just bought the update!

I'd love to see a control for adding a slight amount of randomness or humanization to the arpeggiator timing. Alongside the swing/shuffle, that would help to create even more organic sounding sequences. (You could probably recycle this feature on the drum module.) Thanks for your consideration!

[Markus Krause]

Thank you for your suggestions. Before every update we go through all requests and we discuss about it, which ones will be implemented

Markus

[Deepbass]

It would be nice to have a second FX tab which could be used for the drum sequencer. At the moment I have to sacrifice 1 FX out of 3 for the drum sequencer. Furthermore a second tab could also have the option to use it as a second pair of FX for the osc section (so FX I could go into FX II for a longer chain).

[Heath]

would love the ability for Icarus 2 to have multiple outputs, as in 1 or more for drums and 1 for main output as it already is.  simply allowing 2 mixer tracks to be used with 1 for the drums.  not sure if that is possible knowing of the auto-premix features and the glitch and effect routing.  but if some way to seperate the drums to a different output, could be very useful.   If that were possible, it might also solve the request of another user just prior to this - where can then use outside effect processing on the drums individually from the rest.