Tone2 Saurus is a new software synthesizer for Mac & Windows, that its creators say is ‘not just another synthesizer with character, but one that truly represents the analog sound.’
Does Saurus sound as great as the gratuitously sexy 3D rendering, above, suggests?
Tom Shear at Waveformless has an early review of the new synth, and he came away pleasantly impressed:
Saurus is proof that your first impressions aren’t always correct. The abundance of modern sounding presets Saurus ships with mislead me to think this was just another bog standard virtual analog. If you know what you’re doing, though, you’ll find there are lots of convincing analog tones in here waiting to be discovered.
So how does it compare to other contenders, such as Strobe or DIVA? I’d say it’s not quite at the level of those two, but it’s damn good, cheaper than either of those, and less of a hit to the CPU.
See Sheer’s full review for the details and the Tone2 site for audio examples or to download the demo version.
saurus has some interesting options, but diva > *
diva is great but it still maxes my computer and barely makes it into the same league as my analog gear.
Just curious, but is that Assemblage 23 Tom Shear, or a different guy?
Saurus for me is VST of the year. In 2011 it was Madrona Labs Aalto – I bought it 8 months ago and use all the time, I think it will be the same with Saurus. It is the first vst that I really enjoy tweaking in real-time – as far as plug-ins go, I think it comes most close to that feeling you have while messing with one knob per function vintage synths. I could hardly think of another non-hardware synth that is so great–if at all could be used–for improvised music – turning a few knobs changes sound dramatically, great for drones.
I also noticed that amount of modulation in modmatrix for all 15 parameters could be automated – assign 8 of them to nanokontrol sliders and you have even more control. Make some of these parameters affect each other to have results it is hard to predict.
From my experience, Saurus is one of those rare plug-ins that don’t get lost in a mix. It is quite amazing – the other day I arranged a track with two drum loops layered and then sent to a feedback loop (which makes it like, two times louder), Aalto bass sequence (a patch, once again, with lots of feedback–delay feedback), and adding a Saurus lead I wasn’t even expecting it to remain clearly audible through this wall of noise, but it cut through a mix like a knife through a butter.
Given it’s got some unique waveforms (as for quasi-analogue oscillator), I would find it tremendously sick if it had FM, but even as is this synth is self-consistent chunk of software, very inspiring to play and program, and equally good for keyboard shredding or sonic experiments. And, if programmed right, unison pads really sound HUGE. Of course you could buy yourself poly evolver and have 10 times better sound, but when you recall that it is just a VST… Really, it is impressive for what it is!
Musor – Yep, that’s me.
I am still awaiting to try this sick analog puppy 😛
@Tom
I’m a big fan, cool to see you post stuff on sites like this. I’m not familiar with this company, are their other products pretty good?
This is a pretty good synth. but not as good as diva or sylenth or something (and I dont even like sylenth1) the only reason, From my experience, the filters had a very strong “HISS” to them and that bug the hell out of me. Gladiator in my opinion is the BEST they’re offering (and is currently one of my top/favorite vst)
The best analog synth emulation out there. It’s a must have.
I tested it some years ago, but today, I was cleaning my “ZZUnknown” folder, where all the demos, new and weird plugins stands. I’ve found this one a bit straight focused to make one kind of sounds. The filters sound distorted, the 2 Suboscillators are linked to the main oscilator tune 2 octaves down and the second oscilator sounds always detuned. It’s not flexible and not analog sounding.
It has a good sound, of course, but with this rigid behavior.
In my opinion, Tone2 has made and make better sounding plugins than this, and of course, it has nothing to do with Diva or Sylenth1… that’s just my opinion.