Tone2 Electra 2 (DOWNLOAD)

General

In the rich world of software synthesis, the Electra 2 might actually be the tastiest, full-fat treat going. Up to it's virtual ears in sonic potential, this synth comes with some highly unique options. Tone2 have endowed their softsynth with the power to wield everything from simple bass lines, to complex pads and leads, backed up a huge, mouth-watering palette of sounds. The Electra 2 is so accomplished, it might comfortably outshine any softsynth you already have.

The Core of the Tone2 Electra 2 Virtual Synthesizer

It doesn't start with a standard one, or even two - it starts with fourteen sound generators including virtual analogue FM, phase distortion, wavetable, wave-shaping, physical modeling, and Fractal synthesis (exclusive to the Tone2). While the stack of available sounds is already immense, it can be expanded even further by loading in your own custom samples, and using the 37 filters on offer, you can fully warp and re-sculpt the frequency character of any sound before warming it up with one of the virtual Moog filters (among other things). Then, why not add the necessary fluff and edge by diving into the solid variety pack of distortions provided, including tube pre-amps, fuzz boxes, and wave-shapers

Even More Potential

In terms of effects, Tone2 have been just as generous. 32 effects have been neatly crammed into this soft-synth, so you can play with toys like reverb, chorus, a vocoder, flanger, phaser, delay, equalizer, and compressor. An infinite reverb has also been thrown in and does everything that you'd expect it to. A surprisingly extensive arpeggiator is even present and uses 'smart algorithms' to spit out passages that are actually harmonic and totally usable and as if that wasn't enough, there's the modulation matrix for controlling specific parameters like LFO. The LFOs can also be synced up with your project to ensure sharp, tight groove shaping.

The Cherry On Top of the Chocolate Sprinkles, On Top of the Cream

Using the multi-layer function, up to four Electra-2 sounds can be stacked for an extremely complex, full-on, fat sound. This might sound a little over-complicated for both the user and your CPU, but this detail has by no means been overlooked since the operation has been smoothly simplified to completely ease the CPU load. A large number of factory presets have also been thrown in so you can immediately start diving into the bevy of treats this synth has to offer.