Ana (アナ, Ana?) is a character that appears in Sonic Unleashed. She is a human resident of Mazuri and the daughter of Kwami. 1 History 1.1 Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 1.2 Wii/PlayStation 2 2 Personality 3 Missions 3.1 Ana's Dream 1 3.2 Ana's Dream 2 3.3 Soul Mates 3.4 Heir Wanted 3.5 Elder's Call 3.6 Final Exam 4 Gallery 4.1 Concept artwork 4.2 Sprites 4.3 Screenshots While living in Mazuri, Ana. This week for ANA comes Volume 2 of our Preset Packs. With 65 new basses, 6. ANA 2 Presets Vol 13 - Retro & Famous is the latest electrifying selection of retro and famous preset patches from Sonic Academy. Featuring expertly recreated sound design techniques from artists such as Depeche Mode, Donna Summer, New Order. Sonic Academy Ana 2 Mac Crack Features: ANA 2 has 24 built-in world-class effects that can be use in 5 insertion locations or in the sending and return locations. Each effect has full control over input, output and dry / wet – as well as all effect parameters available as modulation target or macro to get crazy effects.
When it first appeared the ANA synth was a favorite of EDM producers. Now that ANA 2 is on the scene, it’s become an even bigger favorite, and not just with the EDM contingent.
by Rob Mitchell, Mar. 2018
The original version of ANA was my first review for SoundBytes Magazine. Ever since Sonic Academy released it there have been other publications that have written rave reviews for it, and a few awards from various magazines were given out along the way. One of those awards was in the category of Top 10 Synths for 2013. It is a synth plugin with some features that make it stand out from the usual supersaw-synth crowd. EDM producers had their favorites up until that point in time, but when ANA came along it proved that it truly was a serious competitor. Fast forward to the present, and now ANA 2 is on the scene.
Sonic Academy Ana Presets
So what is ANA 2? You might think it gets its name from “ANAlog”, but actually it is an abbreviation of Analog, Noise and Attack. ANA 2 is slightly different from the original version as it has more features and a higher quality sound. The first three oscillators use wavetables. You can load either single-cycle waveforms or wavetables with multiple frames. You’re also able to load wavetables of your own. FM is available between the first three oscillators. The next three oscillators use samples, and you’re able to load your own if you’d like. It also has two filters with 46 filter types, and they can be configured in serial or parallel modes. A 64-step polyphonic arpeggiator, 500+ presets, 24 effects and multiple display sizes round out the features of this powerful synth plugin.
ANA 2 uses a license key for authorization. After you login to your account, you can download it from the Sonic Academy website. For the PC, the minimum specifications are Windows 7+, Intel Core Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2, and 512 MB RAM. VST and AAX 32/64-bit are available. For the Mac you’ll need OS X 10.8+, Intel Core Duo, and 512 MB RAM (no PPC). VST, AAX and AU 32/64-bit are available.
The browser is a good place to start with this plugin. I usually like to hear some presets with any new synth I am checking out in a review. You can skim through presets using the left/right arrows at the top of the display. If you click on the down-arrow to the left of the preset name, a dropdown menu will appear, letting you choose a category and the presets that will appear next to it. Many of the presets are very good and make good use of the many features within ANA 2. To get to the full browser, you just click on the preset name. Narrowing your search for presets is easy since there are columns with category, sub-category and genre to filter the results. The presets can also be tagged by the user. The column headers for the sub-category, genre and user tags can be switched to other types if you’d like, such as Bank or Author. A search field is provided in the lower-right so you can find presets by its name (or part of a name). Once I’ve auditioned some of the presets in a plugin, I like to initialize the settings and go from there. At the top of the display they’ve placed a handy INT button in plain sight.
The Oscillators
In the upper-left is the display for the first three wavetable oscillators. They aren’t all visible at once, you must click on their corresponding buttons (labelled 1 – 3) in the corner of the oscillator area to see each of them and edit their settings. Clicking on the waveform name opens the wavetable browser. It is divided into 3D Wavetables, ANA Legacy, Analog and Digital waveshapes. There is a large selection of each type to choose from. One nice touch in this browser is that you can load in the waveforms for all three oscillators from this one display, and even the samples for the sampler oscillators can be loaded as well. A display shows the shape of the wavetable (or single-cycle waveform) you’ve loaded in the oscillator section. Making adjustments for the oscillator is easy with the many controls that are available.
If you’ve loaded in a wavetable, there will be a morph control below its display. Adjusting the morph amount will cycle through the many frames of the wavetable. If you’ve loaded a single-cycle waveform instead, the morph control is replaced with a phase control. A pulse-width control is available to make adjustments to the wavetables or waveforms, and you’re able to adjust the sync amount. ANA 2 is self-syncing, so an extra oscillator isn’t needed. Tuning is available in octave, semitones and fine settings. The velocity settings can also be adjusted to affect the volume (VEL) and morph control setting (MVEL). The KEY control sets the amount of pitch tracking. A sub-osc is also provided for each oscillator with three different waveforms to choose from. It is always one octave below the pitch of its parent oscillator. FM is also available between the oscillators. Depending on which oscillator is selected, you’ll see the choices that you can pick from under the label Source. For instance, if you’re working with oscillator one at the moment, you’ll have choices of either Osc 2 or Osc 3 to use as a modulator for it.
The unison in ANA 2 can use up to nine voices with each oscillator. The Detune control is for the detune amount between the unison voices, Width adjusts the stereo panorama of the voices, and the Shape control will gradually change the pitch spread setting from linear to logarithmic. Basically what happens is that the detuned voices spread is increased towards the left and right sides when Shape is increased. If it is decreased, then the detuned voices are more confined and you get more of a solid type of sound. The last few controls in this section of the synth are for the sub-oscillator level, panning, filter send setting (filter 1, 2 or both) and oscillator volume.
Over to the right is the section reserved for the three Sampler oscillators. The waveforms for each of these can be loaded in the same way as the first three oscillators. If you’d like to import your own, just click the down-arrow in the upper right. You may also drag and drop the files from your computer into the oscillator. The samples you load can be reversed, loop start/end points and crossfade can be easily set. “Retrigger” will restart the sample from the beginning each time, and if retrigger is off, the sample will play back from a random point. Copying and pasting samples and their settings between the three oscs is easy to do. The tuning is the same as the three main oscillators: octave, semitone and fine settings. The sampler oscillators can also be sent to either filter (or both).
Filters
Cutoff and resonance controls are here for both filters, as well as both filter envelope and drive (analog modeled) amount controls. Key tracking and velocity settings for the filter cutoff are also available. The two filters can be configured in series or parallel modes. “Series” means the filters follow each other (one filter after the other). “Parallel” means you will have two separate filters, as one doesn’t affect the other. As mentioned earlier, there are 46 filter types on board. Combined with the many wavetables and samples ANA 2 has, this gives you a large tonal palette to work with. The filter types are in three categories: Analog, Vowel and Other. The Analog category has several types that are modelled from some famous analog synths. Some of their names may give you a clue as to which ones they imitate: Mogy (LP/HP/BP), Corgy, EMS, Ober … anyway, you get the idea. There are also five different vowel choices, and they each emulate vocal sounds when you increase the resonance setting and change the cutoff. Under the Other category there are many varied types such as Phase, 2-pole, 2-pole w/saturation, 4-pole, 4-pole Vintage, Comb, four formant types and several others. The Cutoff 1/2 control adjusts the cutoff on both of the filters at the same time. The Resonance control right below it is linked to the two filters resonance settings.
Envelopes, LFOs and EQ
In the middle of the display are the ADSR sliders for the Filter, Amplitude and Modulation envelopes. On the right side of the Modulation envelope there are some buttons to switch between the four mod envelopes. These mod envelopes can be assigned to nearly anything you’d like. There are four different settings in the dropdown menus for every envelope: ANA1, ANA2, Analog and ANA1 Analog. The difference between the four settings is the speed/shape in the stages of the envelopes. For example, one might be a bit more plucky than the others, and another may have slightly relaxed attack and release curves. There is an adjustable level of envelope variation in the ANA 2 settings (use the “gear” icon at the top of the screen to get there) that you can use to add more of an analog characteristic to their sound. Below the ADSR sliders are the Curve and Velocity controls. Curve will adjust it from a linear type of setting to more of a curved shape, and Velocity adjusts the velocity amount for the envelope. The mod envelope also includes a depth control.
The G-Env is a graphical envelope which lets you design multi-segment shapes. There are three of these envelopes, and you can switch between them using the buttons labeled 1/2/3. The display can be enlarged for easy editing, and once it is opened up, it takes up nearly half of the ANA 2 display. Of course you can design your own envelope, but it also has some handy presets you can choose from to get you started. The envelopes can be assigned to any of the modulation targets using the Mod Destination menu in lower-left. The envelope can be set to a loop mode (similar to an LFO), retrigger can be enabled, and it can be synced to the host tempo. Also included are rate, depth and phase controls. If you click-and-drag with the mouse between the points you’ve added, it will add an adjustable curve to the segment that’s between the points. Using the included Step mode it will add points to the envelope you’re designing by snapping to the background grid in the G-Env display. The grid settings can be adjusted in the lower-right.
The settings for the three LFOs are on the right side of the display. Twelve different wave shapes are available from which to choose, and there are two targets you can select for each of the LFOs. The list of targets for modulation is huge, and nearly anything can be set as a destination. Each LFO can be looped, retriggered (starts from the beginning of the shape each time), and synced to the host tempo. Other controls include Delay, Depth, Rate (up to 200 Hz) and Phase.
On the left side of the ANA 2 display are the Macro and EQ sections. The macro knobs can be assigned to almost any part of the synth using the Modulation Matrix (more on that shortly). Like most other controls of this synth plugin, MIDI learn is available with a right-click to assign them to your MIDI controller. Up to seventeen targets can be assigned to one macro control.
The EQ section has “quick controls” on the front panel which let you change the levels for the separate bands of EQ. This is good for those times when you don’t really need to fine tune the settings. When you need to roll-up your sleeves and make some more intricate changes, just click on the “Edit” button and a nice display appears. Each of the four bands has frequency, gain and Q controls. These can be adjusted with the settings at the bottom of the EQ display, or by selecting the individual nodes and dragging them around on the screen. Like most other parts of the synth, the EQ settings can be set as targets for modulation.
Sonic Academy Ana 1
Arpeggiator and CMD
The arpeggiator is really a step sequencer and arp in one. You can add notes one at a time in a grid and build chords as well. Using the octave buttons on the right side you can build a bass line (after clicking the “Oct -1” button), on the next octave (click “Oct 0”) you may want to add some chords, and then add some type of lead in the upper octave (“Oct +1”). When you click on any those octave buttons, they will each have their own display to add the notes or chords you’d like to use. Below the Octave buttons are two Mod buttons. When you select one of those, it switches to a display that uses vertical bars to set the amounts for the modulation target(s) that you choose. The last button here is for Velocity, and it works basically the same as the two Mod buttons, but it just affects the velocity levels. Up to 64 steps can be used (sixteen are visible at a time), and there four different note orders to choose from. Rate, swing amount, and gate controls are also on board. On top of all this, you can sync to the host, retrigger can be enabled (starts at the beginning of the pattern with each new note), and the Hold button will keep playing the arp without you having to keep your hands on the keyboard.
In addition to this powerful arp/step sequencer is the CMD, which stands for “Chord Memory Device”. Chords can be built and saved, enabling you to play a chord by playing just one note. Several of these can be configured, so for example you could have a whole chord progression that uses a different chord on pre-defined keys that you assign ahead of time. Many presets are on hand for you to use, and you can save your own. On the right side of the display are the Strum controls. When you switch this feature on, it will “strum” the chords you’re using, much like strumming of the strings on a guitar. Selections for the strum pattern are up, down, down and then up, up and then down. This strum function will be enabled when you use the mod wheel, so the strumming is basically on demand. With the click of a button, the display for the CMD and the arpeggiator can both be on the display at the same time when needed.
Modulation Matrix and Effects
The Modulation Matrix is used to configure sources and targets for modulation. If you’ve already right-clicked on a control and to set it up earlier, it will show here as well. On the left side is the Macros section, and you can use the macros, arp, mod and pitch wheel as sources for the modulation. The right side is reserved for any other modulation settings you’d like to add. As mentioned previously, there is a huge amount of targets from which to choose. An amount slider lets you set the depth of the modulation, and there is an invert function to switch from a positive to a negative setting. For now, there is no drag-and-drop functionality for modulation. Personally I can get along without it, but it seems to be a hot trend these days in the plugin world. Maybe that feature will be added in a future update.
The Effects section features five effect inserts, two sends, and a choice of 24 different effects that you can load into any of the available slots. The inserts can be dragged into any order you’d like, and each of them has an on/off button along the bottom. Any of the inserts can be set to a Pre or Post setting. Post means that it will be placed after all the other effect inserts and sends. The effects include many types reverb and delay, several distortion types, chorus, phaser, ensemble, many dynamic processors and more. As stated earlier, nearly everything in the effects can modulated.
Conclusion
ANA 2 is a top-notch synth with a great sound, loads of outstanding presets and a huge number of useful filter types. I love the layout, the CMD and arpeggiator are awesome, and the G-Env is one of my favorite parts of this synth. Now if I were to ask for anything to be added, I’d like to see some basic granular functionality for the sample oscillators, a larger window for the samples when editing (similar to the expanded G-Env window), and drag-and-drop for the modulation. I guess that I could get along without that wish list, but those improvements would still be nice to have.
ANA 2 retails for $195.50 USD, but at the time of this review it was on sale for $136.85. There is also an upgrade path from the original ANA. You can get more info and download a demo version here:
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We take an up-close look at the ANA software synth and see how it uses Analog, Noise and Attack to accomplish its purpose.
by Rob Mitchell, May 2013
The software synthesizer market is vast, filled with all types of useful plugins. Not all of those are top notch; some are mediocre at best, while others become legendary over time. With so many synths already available, new synth plugins have to stand out from the crowd.
Recently I checked out Sonic Academy’s ANA 1.5 (Fig. 1), which is named using an acronym for Analog, Noise, and Attack. That name is derived from the structure of ANA itself. It has a total of 6 oscillators. The first 3 are of the analog type. The fourth and fifth are noise oriented, and the sixth one is for the attack section.
Oscillators and Filters
In the Virtual Analog section, you can choose from over 60 different waveforms for each of the 3 oscillators (Fig. 2). There is a great variety of sounds to choose from. Some of the ones included are pulse waveforms, sine, saw, triangle, comb filtered, and many digital types. There are up to 8 voices per oscillator, and they have detune and width controls, among others. One of those controls is called Filter Out, and is used to send the signal to either of the 2 filters, or to both of them. Turned all the way left sends it to Filter1, and to the right, Filter2. If it’s in the middle, it will be sent to both.
There are 38 different waveforms for each of the 2 oscillators in the Noise section. This part of the synth has many useful sounds, not just the usual pink or white noise types, though they are included as well. There are choir sounds, bells, chords, and many more to choose from.
In the attack section, you can pick from a whole different set of 31 waveforms. These are great for the “attack” part of the sound, where you might want to beef up the sound a bit. For instance, you can use the “Kick Click” to give a kick drum sound you’re designing a bit more punch. Or add a guitar sound to the beginning section of your preset’s design. There are many other useful ones included: a few of them are strings, bass, bell, EP, and a pizzicato (plucked-string) sound.
ANA 1.5 has 23 different filter types (Fig. 3), including 2 and 4-pole (plus HP and BP versions), and 4 different Formant filter types, just to name a few. For the filter called LP + Dist, there is a distortion built-in to it, and it uses the Res knob to control the amount that is added. The filters can be run in series or parallel.
Each envelope section has standard ADSR controls, and there are 3 selectable envelope curves for the Filter, Amp and Mod Envelopes.
Modulation, FX and More
The G-Env is an envelope you can edit and assign to the Osc attributes, LFOs, EQ, Filters, and even the FX. You just right-click on the envelope to create a new point and then drag that point where you want. You can add up to 16 points. It’s great for getting even more control over the sound than you would using the ADSR envelopes alone.
With the 2 LFOs, you can assign them the same way as the G-Env, but they each have 2 targets available, versus the one target of the G-Env. The LFOs have 14 shapes available. There are Monopolar and Bipolar versions of Sine, Triangle, Saw Up, Saw Down, Pulse, Random, and Sample and Hold.
Mod1 and Mod2 can be assigned a source and a target. You can pick (for instance) the Mod Wheel as the source, and have it point to reverb amount as the target, or any other of the same targets that the G-Env and LFOs have access to. In addition, you can assign the G-Env as the source, and give it yet another target. The Mod Env also has the same target choices as the others.
ANA ships with 6 different effects: phaser, chorus, distortion, compressor, delay, and reverb.
These all work well, but I especially liked the improved reverb included in version 1.5.
A nice addition is the option to just have the wet signal of the effect go through. Like I mentioned before, the effects can be modulated from within ANA. I really like this feature, and wish it was implemented in every synth I have.
Sonic Academy Ana 2 Skins
When you want to save a preset, you can make different banks and categories (leads, pads, FX, etc) within those banks. It works great, and helps to keep everything all organized.
Ana 2 Sonic Academy
One more cool feature built in to ANA is the “Chord Hold”. This lets you pick certain notes to make up a chord, and save it to a preset. You just click “Learn”, and then hit the keys you want one after the other. You could also just hit a chord all at once. Then unclick “Learn”, and it will remember that chord you have entered, and save that setting with your preset. It will then play back the chord if you hit a key on the keyboard.
If you want to use a sound in your preset that uses a chord already built-in to it, (the “Noise” section has many of those) you can turn off the Chord Hold feature just for that particular oscillator if you’d like. That way, it’s not playing a different chord on top of the chord you setup, which can get a bit messy sounding. Of course, it depends on the chord you are using. A bit of dissonance can sometimes be useful in a preset.
Settings
In the “Settings” section, you can change the amount of the filter sampling quality. Usually you would probably just leave this on the high setting, unless you’re having some CPU issues, and want to lower the setting to help it out a bit.
ANA has a randomize feature that works pretty well. Just like with any synth with a randomizing button, it might not always get a usable sound. There is a section in “Settings” however, where you can have it keep certain parts of the sound that you don’t want the randomize feature to change. This is very useful if you find you like what is going on with the oscillator section, but then want to change others. Click “Hold OSCs”, and click Randomize again. You can also change the G-Env control in “Settings”, so instead of a right-mouse click to add a point to the envelope, you can set it to double-click or alt-click. This can be helpful, especially if you have a Mac with no right-mouse button.
Conclusion
For now, there is no pulse width modulation, sync, or FM, but I was informed by Sonic Academy that they may add one or more of those in the next major update. It is nice that they included a goodly amount of pulse waveforms of different width settings, since the pulse width can’t be changed. I would like to see an arpeggiator added, but don’t want to be too greedy.
One other item I thought might be handy is a type of “solo” button for the oscillators. It would be nice to have, so you wouldn’t have to turn down the volume on all the others just to hear one you want to fine tune. Maybe a right-click on the “Osc 1” label for instance (up at the very top) would change the color of the label/title for that Osc, and then solo it.
There isn’t too much negative I can say about this synth, except maybe the aforementioned features I’d like.
ANA’s CPU usage wasn’t too bad in my testing. I checked it out on an older dual core PC, and most presets weren’t CPU killers, though some can get a bit high on the CPU usage. That’s basically how it is with many other synths released in the past couple years, so there’s no huge surprise there. You can also use its “Poly” setting, which lets you limit it to say, just 4 notes if needed. That way, if you’re hitting chords over and over that have a bit of a longer release time, the number of voices doesn’t just pile up, and totally take over your machine. The Poly setting can be adjusted from 1 all the way up to 32.
ANA 1.5 ships with over 400 presets, and it costs less than $80.00, which these days is a bargain. It is available in 32/64 bit versions for both PC and Mac OSX (VST and AU).
I really like the structure they designed for this: three main oscillators with the options of two additional noise oscillators, plus attack waveforms that come in handy for adding punch to the sounds front-end. It’s well-rounded for sure. Also, it’s very intuitive; everything is on one screen, so you won’t get lost looking for a certain control.
With its large number of waveforms, excellent modulation, big sound, and great price, I think it will definitely be a hit. ANA easily stands out from the crowd.
Website with more info for ANA: