Tone2 FireBird 2 Now Available for Free

This one in via FSK1138. Via Tone2:

"After seven years of faithful service, the time has come to set the bird free. Firebird itself has become vintage and even though it's no longer profitable to remain a commercial product, we feel that more people should deserve an opportunity to enjoy this sometimes heavily underestimated synthesizer.
Which is why we decided to release one last update and turn the product into freeware (previuosly $79). We want to say a big THANK YOU to all customers who supported the development of Firebird and other Tone2 products, by purchasing our software.

Unique & innovative

Firebird is not just another subtractive synthesizer, it uses a unique synthesis architecture to deliver next-generation sounds. Its innovative user interface provides you with the tools to create impressive sounds with a minimal amount of effort. Featuring an impressive selection of 437 build-in sounds, representing both highly sought-after VA sounds, as well as sounds more specific to Firebird and characterized by its Harmonic Content Morphing synthesis, breathing both life and dynamics into the sounds.

Harmonic Content Morphing (HCM) synthesis

Harmonic Content Morphing synthesis is based on a large, expandable repertoire of standard waves, like saw, pulse, as well as more complex wave material, like multi-waves, trumpets, organs, pads, pianos and voice samples.
These waves are modified in real-time, by for example transposing the wave by one or two octaves and adding it to the original wave, altering its harmonic structure, syncing, compressing or even expanding the frequency domain of the spectrum. Making the wave for example sound more fat using only one oscillator, transforming each wave into a hyper-wave or selecting some cycles of a sample and moving through them over time (comparable to wavetable synthesis).
Any modification of a wave can be modulated producing lively shimmery sounds (remember: using only one oscillator!) With a total of more than 18,000 different spectra available for combination and modulation, Firebird+ gives an almost unlimited amount of timbres to experiment with.


Features

Very easy to program and easy to use
A unique sounding synthesis: Harmonic content morphing (HCM)
High sound quality: Warm, transparent
437 hand picked presets included, over 1000 sounds available
84 oscillator types containing 18,000 morphable waveforms
38 different filter types
True stereo mode, 4x unison mode, and up to 8 oscillators per voice
Can sound like other synthesis methods - additive, subtractive, AM, FM, phase distortion, supersaw, vocoder, sync
Can sound like natural instruments like piano, brass, organs...
23 spectral manipulations or “modifiers” can be applied to the oscillators
21 arpeggiator types
13 effect types
Skinable user interface

Oscillators
FireBird provides 84 different morphable oscillator types in high sound quality. They sound warm, digital, transparent or completely unique. Additionally 23 spectral manipulations or “modifiers” can be applied to the oscillators. A fat knob doubles or quadruples the number of oscillators giving up to 8 oscillators per voice.

Filters
FireBird comes with 38 different sounding filter types:
Lowpass (6-40dB), Analog, Moog, Vocal, Phaser, Comb, EQ, FM, AM, Resample, Elliptic, ...
FireBird+ provides also more complex characteristics for vocal or M-shape filters. Finally, it gives you ADSR- or LFO-modulated phaser-effects, AM- or FM-modulation.

Effects
FireBird offeres 13 different effect types. The effects section has several reverb and stereo tab delay variations, chorus, ensemble, flanger, and rotary effects as well as combinations.

Firebird comes with an easy-to-use arpeggiator.

Expandability
A huge number of additional sounds from Tone2 and 3rd party sound designers is available for FireBird+.

System requirements
Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8, Processor with more than 400 Mhz"