Tone2 updates Electra to 3.5

Tone2 Audio has released an update for their multilayer-synthesizer-workstation Electra. The update to v3.5 is a major update and is free for anyone who bought Electra 3. Owners of older versions can upgrade with a discount.

The update is downward compatible with previous versions. Existing song projects and patches can be loaded without any further steps necessary. They will benefit from the enhanced sound-quality.

New in Electra 3.5

4 additional INSERT FX slots:

  • Each of the 4 layers has an additional insert effect slot. Here you can pick from from 64 different effect types.

20 additional MATRIX slots:

  • Each of the 4 layers now has 5 additional modulation matrix slots. They can be accessed by clicking on the ’11-15′ button.

9 new filter types:

  • LP MS-20: A screaming lowpass filter with self-oscillation. It sounds analog and uses 0-delay technology.
  • Phaser 2x: Analog 4-stage phaser with negative feedback.
  • Phaser 3x: Analog 6-stage phaser with positive feedback.
  • Phaser 4x: Analog 8-stage phaser with negative feedback.
  • Phaser 5x: Analog 10-stage phaser with positive feedback.
  • Formant 1x: Analog formant filter with soft saturation.
  • Formant 2x: Analog formant filter with two peaks and soft saturation.
  • Formant 3x: Analog formant filter with three peaks and soft saturation.
  • Formant 4x: Analog formant filter with four peaks and soft saturation.

Enhanced sound:

  • Major and minor chords sound better with the microtuning mode ‘Fat tune clean’.
  • Enhanced sound of the Reverbs Hall and Room. They have a smoother rolloff, less phasing, more detail and more depth.
  • Enhanced sound of the Reverbs Infinity, Cathedral and Big. They have a smoother rolloff, less phasing, higher precision and more depth.
  • Enhanced sound of the Reverbs Glass, Plate and Cold. They have a smoother rolloff, less phasing, more detail and more depth.
  • Enhanced sound of Delay. It has a nicer stereo field and better default values.
  • Enhanced sound of Delay Band. It has a nicer stereo field.
  • Enhanced sound of Delay Diffuse. It has a nicer stereo field.
  • Psychoacoustic processing is now calculated with 64-bit precision.
  • The equalizer is now calculated with 64-bit precision.
  • The enhanced FFT precision results in more accurate resampling of waveforms.
  • COPY->Stack unison sounds more in-tune.

New features for the GUI:

  • A small target icon is shown next to the ENVELOPE and LFO which can be used for drag & drop.
  • It is now possible to change the LFO speed by clicking on the frequency display.

More easy layering of sounds:

  • It is now possible to copy and paste layers among different synth instances.
  • ‘FILE->Load patch to synth layer’ now opens the patch browser where you can comfortably stack a patch.
  • ‘PASTE->Load a patch to current layer’ opens the patch browser where you can comfortably stack a patch.

Enhancements for the GUI:

  • The skins for the ZOOM levels 66% and 100% are sharper.
  • The animations of displays and other GUI elements are smoother. They are twice as fast.
  • More precise graphics for the box shadows.
  • The BROWSER button is wider and is not longer called BROWS.
  • The menu entries in COPY and PASTE have been reworked to be more straightforward.
  • Initializing a layer or patch sets the current envelope and matrix tab to the first one.
  • Enabling a layer with the ON button automatically selects the layer for editing.
  • When using drag & drop the correctly linked matrix page is always shown automatically.
  • Loop-points are hidden if no sample is used.
  • More detailed descriptions for some tooltips.
  • LFO frequency is shown more precisely.
  • It is not longer possible to freeze the synth by importing gigantic wave files as waveforms.
  • Many small enhancements.

Further enhancements:

  • Workaround for crappy DAWs that return garbage vales as BPM-rate or song-position.
  • Better default values for the ‘init’ patch.

Fixes:

  • Fixed a typo in ‘OSC23 FM’.
  • ‘LP Butter’ and some fractal filters could emit a tiny click under very special conditions.
  • Removed a tiny DC offset that could occur with Delay Wide if LOW CUT is set to exactly 0.

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