Image Line Toxic Biohazard

Toxic Biohazard is the 4^th generation of Toxic synths from Image Line. The marketing speak: Optimized engine. Improved the sound quality, with even more accurate wave shapes, and quicker rendering times.

"Physical" envelopes (amplitude and filter); physical modelling of how sounds in real world decay & resonate, for example, the sound of a water drop. Further, physical envelopes are rendered real-time without any interpolation, avoiding noise artefacts and allowing Toxic Bio to deliver fast, accurate envelope times. Pack of new effects: phaser, reverb... Toxic Biohazard features a hybrid synthesis engine, combining the best of FM and Subtractive synthesis. With the addition of a warm, analog-modeled filter and set of built-in effects, the Toxic concept remains one of convenience, simplicity, and superb sound quality.

The FM technology

One of the ‘warmest’, crisp, and clear Frequency Modulation engines in the world, owes its sound to the precise calculation of the digital signal. Due to high-resolution DSP processing, it produces sound with an extremely low noise threshold; something that most FM engines cannot offer. The Toxic Biohazard sound was built from the ground up, via our own unique mathematical calculations and analog-modeling techniques.   The

Oscillators

Completely alias-free, and well tuned for all sampling rates, they produce a rich, "fat" sound all across the spectrum. Due to the high quality of the anti-aliasing process, users will not encounter the shredding noise on high frequencies that has plagued FM synthesis in the past. Furthermore, the oscillators are calculated at extremely high speeds, keeping your CPU usage to a minimum. Toxic’s low CPU consumption affords the user plenty of room for external processing and running multiple instances. The oscillators also come equipped with Maxx Claster’s own powerful spectrum analysis technology. This allows the user to create his or her own waveforms, via the simple process of loading a WAV or AIFF format sound file. All of these features make the oscillators very flexible, and allow for the use of both synthetic and acoustic waveforms within Toxic. Each oscillator also comes with 32 built in ‘classic’ waveforms, each shown to be the most useful in FM synthesis.

The Effects

Made to assure high quality and flexibility is built into the synthesizer its self, Toxic Biohazard aims to reduce the need for external processing altogether! The effect modules are designed to give the user access to several types of effects, from aggressive, tube-like distortion, to warm stereo delay, reverb, flanger, and phaser effects. With our own pro-quality tape delay emulation, based on non-fixed delay buffer sizes, instead of the usual methods incorporated within digital delays, our delay lines give you warm sound, with ”true“ feedback and modulation. Lastly, the signal chain features an analog-modeled, parametric equalizer to further shape your sound. The EQ provides access to crisp, clear high-end definition, creamy mid ranges and earth-shaking low-end frequencies. The Toxic Biohazard effect modules expands its palette of sound to include everything from dark, atmospheric textures to razor sharp leads, fit to slice easily through any mix.

The Filter

Maxx Claster's own analog-modeled, multimode filter is reminiscent of a certain silver box of old. Garnishing a warm, resonant Low-Pass mode, a smooth Band-Pass setting, and a creamy High-Pass mode, Toxic Biohazard gives a wealth of control over tone. The filter is further enhanced by modulation via a dedicated envelope generator and low frequency oscillator, as well as responding to velocity information and keyboard tracking. These features allow for extreme sound shaping, as well as subtle nuances attributed to dynamic playing.

The Sequencer

Powerful, yet simple, the sequencer offers a total of 64 steps, which can be divided into two independent, 32 step modules to allow double-polyphonic patterns. Using our own "Smart Sequencer" technology, when a chord is played, the module defines that chord, and tunes the pattern accordingly. The sequencer also allows for pure playback of the programmed sequence from single notes. Simply holding one chord can virtually create an arrangement for you!  


Review:

Testing conducted on a Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz with 2 gigs of ram.
Host sequencer: Cubase SX 3.  

The overview for Toxic Biohazard makes for some interesting reading but what sticks out for me, as a sound designer, is its synthesis engine and modulation matrix and how well they are featured and the fluency of delivery.

Described as having a hybrid synthesis engine, combining the best of FM and Subtractive synthesis Toxic Biohazard boasts a pretty impressive list of features.
But does it deliver?

The strength in any vsti lies within its synthesis engine, filters and the modulation matrix. Of course, the GUI plays a big part in workflow and in this department Toxic Biohazard is simply laid out with a sensible hierarchy and component flow;

Configuration, which deals with all the usual preset global settings like Transpose, Poly, Unison (I wish more vstis would have this feature) with voice selection, detune and pan, glide mode and time.



Bank, preset and program load and display section.



Master Envelope, which deals with the overall program ADSR shaping, velocity curve etc.

Oscillators followed by LFOs, the Filter section and then Effects.
2 effects engines which are serial and the order can be swapped through the options menu.

Finally, a global EQ is provided for some final sonic tweaking.

 

At the centre of all this lies the ‘heart’ of the synth, the Modulation Matrix, which also includes the Midi Modulator (for selecting sources and destinations), and the Sequencer.

This is pretty much how a sensibly designed vsti should look like and behave.
The order of the components is simple to follow and pretty much how a sound is designed when using traditional design techniques.
For me it is as easy as it can get.

In terms of features Toxic Biohazard has a pretty extensive and sensible array of features. I have already mentioned how Unison mode is a feature that many vstis seem to ignore when confronted with sound design projects, so it is good to see this implemented here. However, it doesn’t end there. The effects are in series and the order can be swapped which is useful bearing in mind that the effects on offer are limited in terms of variety, but potent when edited.

Importing cc maps and modulators, along with sequencer data, is also important and highly useful, again, a feature that many seem to overlook.
If I had to have a little complaint then the filter section, which is usually one of my first ‘go to’ sections on any synth, could be a bit more detailed in terms of variety. Offering a basic selection of LP, HP and BP filters can be a little limited as varying pole values could have been even more effective and not hard to implement and code. However, this is a limitation that can be worked around but where my real gripe lies is in the slopes of the filters on offer. HP and BP perform adequately but I would have liked a gentler slope for the LP. Again, I am not picking and the filters, and the ADSR envelope, are more than adequate for most sound design tasks.

The oscillators are both varied and are offered with detailed editing and shaping tools. An oscillator waveform can be selected from a drop down menu and there are many varying shapes on offer. A list of the shapes and their descriptions are omitted from the manual, so you will have to work out what each one is and does. The shape algorithms have been designed from an array of different synthesis formats and the developer has gone to length to make sure that a variety are on offer with different flavours to suit most needs.

The Lfos also offer extensive waveform selection from drop down menus and are some of the most varied I have seen on any vsti. For the Trance and Dance heads some of the Gate waveforms will be right up your street particularly when routed to control an oscillator’s amplitude (standard routing).

The global EQ section is a little bonus and features an 8 band graphic equaliser, much akin to those found on hi-fis. This is a feature that can be useful for final dynamic tweaking, but is not meant to substitute a detailed and fully fledged EQ.

The ‘meat’ of this vsti is in its matrix and the features offered here are extensive and very useful.
The FM Matrix, as Image Line like to call it, is where oscillators are routed to each other and to themselves with controls for Pan (oscillator placement in the stereo field), Level (where the summed output of the oscillators is selected along with single oscillator output selection), Lfos (whereby an Lfo can be routed to control the amplitude of an oscillator) and Master Pitch Modulation which is self explanatory and configurable.

The Midi CC Modulation is a decent and detailed source and destination matrix and covers most of the standard source modulators.

Sequencer/Arpeggiator is very good with all sorts of note and step features, swing functions, split and so on.

Combined, the Matrix covers all sound shaping and expressive tasks more than adequately.

I do not want to go into a detailed ‘manual’ of features and what they offer but to concentrate more on the usability and results attained by this vsti.

To say that using Toxic Biohazard is easy would be the understatement of the year. The GUI is both intuitive and sensible laid out, so there are no excuses for not understanding the hierarchy and how to access different feature sets. In effect, very little is hidden and everything is both visually ‘available’ and a click away.
The 6 oscillators offer some real ‘stacking’ options and the editing allows for some very interesting sonic scapes. Add this to the detailed Lfo waveform selections and you have some great mangling tools at your disposal.

Conclusion:

Ultimately, and as always, choosing a vsti is a personal choice but there are criteria that must be met otherwise a vsti cannot have a sensible comparable.
For my tastes, and the way I conduct my workflow, I really like Toxic Biahazard. It’s detailed feature sets make for designing sounds for most genres although the vsti is clearly aimed at the Dance and current Electro genres. However, do not think that Dance is all that this vsti can handle. I, strangely enough, have used it more for ambient sculptures and Hip Hop simply because it can cope with most extremes.
There will be the invariable comparisons made against other vstis of this ilk in the marketplace but most will be negated simply because of their price. To say that Toxic Biohazard is less than half the price of some of its competitors would not be an inaccurate statement.

I suggest you visit Image Line and add Toxic Biohazard to your list of ‘must haves’.

Eddie Bazil
www.samplecraze.com

Toxic Biohazard is available from http://www.image-line.com/ at a price of $99 and FREE for owners of the original Toxic.

Operating System:
Windows XP/Vista
OSX 10.4 (Tiger)
OSX 10.5 (Leopard)

Format:
FL Plug-in
VSTi 2.4 (Win/OSX)
Audio Unit (OSX)
Standalone (Win/OSX)

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