Antigone firmware 2.0.1 beta released — major V2 update

A major step forward

Antigone V2 is here. Over a year of DSP work, engine rewrites and new machines — all delivered as a free firmware update for every Antigone in the field.

This is the largest release since launch. Most engines have been rewritten from the ground up, several brand-new machines join the roster, and the modulation system gains depth across the board.

⚠️ Breaking change — V1 presets are not compatible with V2

Instrument and project presets created on firmware 1.x are NOT readable by V2. The internal data formats have been redesigned to support the new engines, machines and modulation system, and we made the deliberate choice to keep V2 clean rather than ship a partial migration that would silently lose modulations or sound different.

Before updating:

• Note down the patches you care about (a quick photo of the screen is fine).
• Keep a microSD copy of your current SD card content. If you ever need to roll back to V1, you can re-flash the V1 firmware and pop that SD back in.
• Plan to recreate your important presets on V2 — most will sound noticeably better with the new engines.

Factory presets shipped on the V2 SD card are designed for V2 and showcase the new machines.

📦 Beta download available now. The 2.0.1 firmware and its companion SD card archive are linked below. New wavetables, drum samples, resonator strikes and factory presets live on the SD card — grab it alongside the firmware. Heads up: this is a beta — please report any glitch you run into.

About the factory presets: the patches shipped on the 2.0.1 beta SD card are placeholder presets for the beta period only. They demonstrate the new machines but do not represent the final factory bank — the V2 stable release will ship with a curated, sound-designed library that fully showcases the new engines.

Audio engine

• Fully optimised audio engine — better performance, more simultaneous modules, improved sound quality.
• Reworked Wavetable engine — lower CPU usage, improved antialiasing, +20 real-time spectral transform modes.
• Fully redesigned FM engine — operator models inspired by legendary FM chips, plus a new lightweight FM 2Op model (one sine modulator + one full-featured carrier — same operator types as the 4-op engine, ~⅓ of the CPU).
• Refined CZ engine.

Algorithm Synth — unified

All synthesis algorithms are now unified inside the Algorithm Synth — including Wavetable, which is no longer a separate machine.

• Run two independent wavetable engines per instrument.
• New Chip algorithm — chiptune textures and emulation of classic console sound chips.
• New FM 2Op algorithm — lightweight 2-operator FM, ideal when you want a simple FM timbre without the full 4-op engine.
• New VOSIM algorithm — vocal / formant oscillator inspired by the 1970s Utrecht technique. Two hard-synced formant peaks multiplied by a carrier envelope produce vowel-like timbres directly at the oscillator stage, no external filter required (controls: F1, F2, Shape).

New machines

• DrumSynth — Bass drum, Snare, Hi-hats, Claps, FM, Noise, Glitch and more.
• Resonator — inspired by the legendary 3 Rings modes and Elements, with 6-voice polyphony, +15 additional modes, custom strikes and sample-based excitation.
• Granular — brand-new granular synthesis / processing engine.
• Simple Osc — pure oscillator covering all algorithms, no filters, maximum quality with oversampling.

Sample player

• Multi-slot support.
• Slice mode.
• Dedicated FX per slot.

Modulations

• 6 modulation slots per instrument (shared or per-voice).
• Wavetable LFO now supports One Shot mode — usable as a complex envelope.
• New MSEG modulation (multi-segment envelope).

NoteFX — per instrument

• Scale
• Chords
• Arp
• Rhythm Generator with multiple algorithms: Euclidean, Binary, Akask, Fibonacci, Golomb, Turing.

Filters

• New OTA filter.
• New Steiner-Parker filter.
• All previous filters have been rewritten and recalibrated.

Mixer & FX bus

Mixer now ships with an integrated FX bus with per-track sends:

• Reverbs: Space, Room, Plate, Shimmer (NEW — octave-up feedback reverb with ethereal pitched tail)
• Delay & tape: Delay, Tape Echo, VHS (NEW — lo-fi tape degradation: Wow · Flutter · Wear · Hiss)
• Modulation FX: Chorus, Flanger, Phaser
• Per-instrument send position is now switchable Pre / Post (Post follows the instrument's Volume, Pre stays independent of the fader).

How to update

1. Back up your V1 projects and instrument presets. They will not be readable by V2 (see the breaking-change notice at the top of this post). Keep a copy of your current microSD content somewhere safe in case you need to roll back to V1.
2. Download the firmware: antigone-v2.0.1-beta.hex (2.8 MB).
3. Download the SD card content archive (2.0.1 beta, 265 MB) and copy it to your microSD card — V2 ships a refreshed library and is required for the new machines (drum samples, resonator strikes, factory presets).
4. Follow the step-by-step procedure in the documentation: How to update the firmware.

Welcome to V2.