Tracktion and The SynthFactory are pleased to announce the soon to be released Horizen 2.6 update, scheduled for this month (December) and a free update to all Horizen 2.x owners.
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Horizen 2.6 is a huge update to an already powerful and award nominated virtual instrument, even better it will be a free upgrade for all 2.x owners. Here’s a rundown on some (not all) of the enhancements coming in Horizen 2.6:
Expansions
Horizen can now display, load and play expansions, so now you can enhance and extend the sound sources available to you. You decide which expansions you want to install and use, on launch we will be providing 3 expansion packs for sale: DeepHorizons(ambient and beautiful) , Tape-Op(Dusty old vibes) and 84 All Year(the 1980s reimagined). Each expansion comes with a range of between 50 and 150 new sound sources and loops to add into the samplers and loop players, and a set of presets that utilise these sounds. We plan to release a lot more expansions in 2025.
Tag Based Browsing
So the addition of expansions means its likely you will end up with many many hundreds of sounds and presets available to you, so you’ll need a fast and easy way to search and retrieve these, so now Horizen uses a tag-based retrieval engine for sounds, loops and presets. Each of these is already tagged with what we think are appropriate key-words, but you can add and remove tags and favourite any that you like.
Scalable Vector Interface
So we wanted you to be able to set the size of the Horizen UI to anything you wanted, and to have it show up as clean and clear at any sizing. So now it does. We also wanted to avoid a characterless “flat” interface too so we worked hard to retain the visual feedback available in previous versions. Whilst we were here we added a truck load of quality of life enhancements like a skin-able interface, and the ability to name each voice, so no longer just sampler 1, synth 4, loop 2 etc. you decide what each voice will be named. We also added zoomable loops, parametric EQs and LFOs, so now you get up to 4x zoom for finer granular control along with LFO animation so now the LFO output scrolls across the screen so you can see the effect of your LFO changes.
All New FX
We added 6 new FX to the FX section - Soft Clipper, Wavefolder, Compressor 2, Twin Chorus, Spectral Tilt EQ and Transient Shaper, we also moved the note effects (like Glide and Note Harmoniser) to their own Note FX panel, as well as adding an octave folder FX and per voice user-drawn velocity mapping, as well as an improved limiter in the global output.
Tempo-Sync Additions
So everywhere you can use a tempo synced value - thats effects, Arps and LFOs we added 5 more slower tempo settings, so now you can go as slow as 2 bar, 3 bar, 4 bar, 6 bar and 8 bar playback for those really long term effects and transitions.
There are literally dozens of other additions and improvements, including channel aftertouch applied to LFO depth which is our sound designers favourite addition, if you own Horizen 2.x or above then these are all free to you.
Look out for walkthru videos covering the new features coming soon.
Here’s a full(er) list of the additions to Horizen 2.6:
Horizen 2.6 is a huge update to an already powerful and award nominated virtual instrument, even better it will be a free upgrade for all 2.x owners. Here’s a rundown on some (not all) of the enhancements coming in Horizen 2.6:
Expansions
Horizen can now display, load and play expansions, so now you can enhance and extend the sound sources available to you. You decide which expansions you want to install and use, on launch we will be providing 3 expansion packs for sale: DeepHorizons(ambient and beautiful) , Tape-Op(Dusty old vibes) and 84 All Year(the 1980s reimagined). Each expansion comes with a range of between 50 and 150 new sound sources and loops to add into the samplers and loop players, and a set of presets that utilise these sounds. We plan to release a lot more expansions in 2025.
Tag Based Browsing
So the addition of expansions means its likely you will end up with many many hundreds of sounds and presets available to you, so you’ll need a fast and easy way to search and retrieve these, so now Horizen uses a tag-based retrieval engine for sounds, loops and presets. Each of these is already tagged with what we think are appropriate key-words, but you can add and remove tags and favourite any that you like.
Scalable Vector Interface
So we wanted you to be able to set the size of the Horizen UI to anything you wanted, and to have it show up as clean and clear at any sizing. So now it does. We also wanted to avoid a characterless “flat” interface too so we worked hard to retain the visual feedback available in previous versions. Whilst we were here we added a truck load of quality of life enhancements like a skin-able interface, and the ability to name each voice, so no longer just sampler 1, synth 4, loop 2 etc. you decide what each voice will be named. We also added zoomable loops, parametric EQs and LFOs, so now you get up to 4x zoom for finer granular control along with LFO animation so now the LFO output scrolls across the screen so you can see the effect of your LFO changes.
All New FX
We added 6 new FX to the FX section - Soft Clipper, Wavefolder, Compressor 2, Twin Chorus, Spectral Tilt EQ and Transient Shaper, we also moved the note effects (like Glide and Note Harmoniser) to their own Note FX panel, as well as adding an octave folder FX and per voice user-drawn velocity mapping, as well as an improved limiter in the global output.
Tempo-Sync Additions
So everywhere you can use a tempo synced value - thats effects, Arps and LFOs we added 5 more slower tempo settings, so now you can go as slow as 2 bar, 3 bar, 4 bar, 6 bar and 8 bar playback for those really long term effects and transitions.
There are literally dozens of other additions and improvements, including channel aftertouch applied to LFO depth which is our sound designers favourite addition, if you own Horizen 2.x or above then these are all free to you.
Look out for walkthru videos covering the new features coming soon.
Here’s a full(er) list of the additions to Horizen 2.6:
- Expansion load and play
- Tag based Sound Browser
- Tag based Presets Browser
- Tag based Loop Browser
- Vector based interface
- User Draggable Plugin UI resizing
- Smart Pattern Generators for the Arps.
- Velocity based depth for Filter LFOs
- Velocity based depth for Filter Envelopes
- Loop Display pop-up window
- Expandable Loop Display Zoom x2 & x4
- Expandable Master EQ Displays x2 & x4
- Expandable LFO Shape Mod Displays x2 & x4
- Expandable Gate Mod Displays x2 & x4
- Loop controls moved to extended display for more clarity
- Selectable CC-based Modulators x 2
- FM LFO Depth increased x12
- LFO Tempo Sync speeds increased (2/1,3/1,4/1,6/1,8/1)
- In Send EQs
- Voice Selector button moves down to show it is selected
- User settable Voice names
- Optional LFO Plot displays
- Soft Clipper FX
- WaveFolder FX
- New Compressor FX
- Spectral Tilt EQ FX
- Transient Manager Send FX
- New NOTE FX sub-tab in the centre FX tab
- CONTROL elements moved to the NOTE FX sub-tab of the FX tab
- Octave Folder FX
- User defined and drawn per Voice Velocity Map
- Realism and Settings panel rationalised, input panel and output panels added.
- Loadable Skins
- Skin selection from list - requires plugin restart.
- Sample start randomisation and depth for samplers
- Synth Dual-Osc Mix modulation
- Sample folder relocation option
- In plugin update
- Voice Keyswitching
- Global LFOs - Depth Modulation by named CC - incl 129=Channel Aftertouch.
- Loop Player random reverse playback
- Removed Old Look Ahead Limiter
- Soft Clip and Transient Manager in Master output
- New Limiter on the Master output
- LFO invert option
Statistics: Posted by Lind0n — Mon Dec 09, 2024 11:38 am — Replies 0 — Views 62