I've uploaded the second User Bank of patches for Crystal. Go to http://www.greenoak.com/crystal and click on the "Patches" button.

This has a mixture of conventional-type sounds along with plenty of the usual Crystal craziness. I'd be very interested in learning what kinds of patches people find most interesting/useful so that I can tailor future patch banks accordingly. So, let me know what you think.

Also, if you have any patches you'd like to contribute to the next user bank, send them along and I'll make sure they get included and that you get your name in lights on the Crystal web site.

- Glenn

Wow, cool Glenn0. Thanks again for such a great instrument and all the work you put into it.

Sorry to be dim, but in Fruity Loops I can't see any way to load the extra user banks. Is this something to do with the Fruity Wrapper? Is there any way round it?

I'm new, by the way - hi everyone.

press the down arrow (in vst container)->import fxb/fxp

Thanks very much Glenn!
bluedad

Glenn, man, you are as fuck.

Glad you like the patches. Be sure to let me know which are your favorites. I've included more big/fat sounds this time in addition to the usual complex patches, so there should be plenty of variety for everyone.

- Glenn

Cheers geoslake - sorry to be so dim!!!



And thanks for the patches Glen, they're excellent

My instant favorite was Patch #79. Now, why the hell I can remember the patch number and not the name is beyond me, but there you go...I think it started with an "H" or something...anyway, #79 was my favorite...noodled out a rough track the moment I clicked to it!

Thanks for this tremendous synth, Glenn. I'm a self-admitted preset junky...I've never had the time that I would like to sit and really learn how to deeply program synths, so I love large banks of tasty presets that I can slightly tweak.

Paul

If anyone hasn't heard Ned's demo track yet, check it out at
http://www.nedfx.com/CrystalvsStylus.mp3

He says he used these Crystal patches:

1. Index Madness
2. Bass: Crystal Lead 1
3. (modified) Hiccup
4. (modified) Shiny Analog Shard
5. Twisted Mind

Thank you Glen, I am not normally into presets as I prefer to create my own but this second bank has inspired me.

Neds demo Crystal/Stylus is also very good and demonstrates Crystals cababilities very well.

Wait till you here the V2 sounds

...and no, i cant tell you ANYTHING, my lips are sealed (till next month)

Hi Glen!

And thank you very much for all your work on Crystal.

I just ran through the new patches - excellent! One thing I noticed, though, is I get lots of Overs (i.e. cpu goes into the red, audio drops out) on the cpu meter in Cubase SX with Crystal 1.5. I didn't get this with Crystal 1.3, as far as I can remember. Why is this?

My system is a PIII 1 GHz, 756 mb ram, separate audio hard drive, Echo Mia running latest wdm drivers, win xp home tweaked to heart's content, cubase sx 1.03. I multi boot, and have nothing but music apps on my music c partition. The system doesn't often return Overs like this on other vstis.

Again, many thanks for all you do.

All the best,

Magnus

got it..thx Glenn and the soundprogrammers!

peace, moritz

Magnus wrote:

My system is a PIII 1 GHz, 756 mb ram, separate audio hard drive, Echo Mia running latest wdm drivers, win xp home tweaked to heart's content, cubase sx 1.03. I multi boot, and have nothing but music apps on my music c partition. The system doesn't often return Overs like this on other vstis.

Check to make sure you're using version 1.5.1 (right click->properties on the Crystal.dll file, check the version tab). There was a denormal problem in 1.5.0. My PIII 800MHz hits at most 25% cpu with the patches in user bank 2 (Organic is about the most cpu-hungry patch in that bank).

Well, the ones I liked the most (in order of appearance) are:

Oyster Shells
K3
AnotherSquelchyLFO
VoxEnsemble
Banshee in the Attick (!)
Rock Me Sideways
DC Stalk
Enhanced FM Bass

In some cases I changed the Filter type, though, and in some cases I put on a bit of FreeverbToo15 reverb.

I would love to see a few more 'melodic' sweeps or ambient patches, by the way - slower, sweeter ones if you like.

GlennO wrote:

[Check to make sure you're using version 1.5.1 (right click->properties on the Crystal.dll file, check the version tab). There was a denormal problem in 1.5.0. My PIII 800MHz hits at most 25% cpu with the patches in user bank 2 (Organic is about the most cpu-hungry patch in that bank).

Hi Glenn!

Actually, I am using 1.5.0 - I checked this during yesterday's session. I wasn't aware of a 1.5.1 Crystal update, nor did I know that denormal graced the venerable piiis.

I will immediately download 1.5.1.

All the best and thanks for the help,

Magnus

Hi,

i made a small snippet using the following, slightly modified presets ( plus some drum samples) / done with Buzz

cymcrash (soundbank2)
pongping (sb1)
swishhit (sb2)
strange cries (sb2)
atmoEpiano (sb1)
crazy tortoise (sb2)
around the bend (sb2)

http://tho.ke.bei.t-online.de/Crystal3.mp3

Thanks again to Glenn and all preset contributors

Magnus wrote:

Actually, I am using 1.5.0 - I checked this during yesterday's session. I wasn't aware of a 1.5.1 Crystal update, nor did I know that denormal graced the venerable piiis.

That's a good point. When I posted the message about the update, I mentioned it was to fix a denormal problem. I hope nobody assumed that meant it was strictly a P4 problem. This problem affects PIII's as well.

In short, everyone should be using 1.5.1. Right click->properties on the Crystal.dll file and choose the Version tab (or on the mac, select the Crystal file and choose File->GetInfo in the Finder). If it shows 1.5.0 (or 1.5 on the mac) instead of 1.5.1, visit the Crystal web site ( http://www.greenoak.com/crystal ) and re-download 1.5. Sorry if that caused any confusion.

- Glenn

Hi again Glenn!

I've now replaced 1.5.0 with 1.5.1. However, I still get the Overs and audio dropouts on patches like Another Squelchy LFO, or whatever it's called. No joy there...

I just decided to defragment my c drive, which I haven't done for quite a while. Perhaps this will help, perhaps not (I regularly defragment my audio drive, on the other hand).

System specs again: PIII 1 GHz, 756 mb ram, Echo Mia, xp home, Cubase SX 1.03.

BTW: I too get around 25% cpu usage as max. The Overs occur very suddenly and disappear just as quickly, leaving me with an audio dropout.

All the best,

Magnus

That doesn't sound like anything I've heard before. E-mail me a copy of the Cubase song offline at glenn@greenoak.com and I'll see if we can figure it out.

- Glenn

No secrets to give away, but be prepared to drool when you hear V2 .
It will be THE ULTIMATE in synths if you like weird. (Reaktor - bah!). I actually cannot think of any synth on the market that will do what Crystal2 can do - and that includes hardware synths: If it was in a metal case with a keyboard and a few knobs on it, it would sell for serious money. Now softsynths can really say they they have overtaken hardware.

Take a bow Glenn!

Reminds me of what I used to hear when I was young and stupid and took acid...he he he. (Now I'm old and stupid)

I was actually getting back to making music (as in tracks) - now Glenn's put paid to that - too busy doing my head in with funny sounds!

Quote:

One thing I noticed, though, is I get lots of Overs (i.e. cpu goes into the red, audio drops out) on the cpu meter in Cubase SX with Crystal 1.5. I didn't get this with Crystal 1.3, as far as I can remember.

Happening here too, strange audio spikes even playing single notes in some patches, Cubase SX 1.03 and Cubase 5.1 R2 PB2. And this is strange, because I'm on an Athlon 1200, 512 RAM, ATA 100 drives, and it didn't happen with Crystal 1.3, it's new since v1.5.

Sahul

Note cutoffs in mono mode are a bit smoother in 1.5 than they were in 1.3. Maybe that makes a difference to some sound cards? I'll look into that. The problem went away for Magnus when he raised the buffer size for his soundcard to 256 samples, so you might try that.

Hi Glenn,

I'll try increasing latency when I arrive home. I usually work at 6ms latency (256 samples) with my RME Digi 96/8 PST. Anyway, Crystal 1.5 is the only plugin that behaves this way, maybe some of my SynthEdit's synths shows something similar when playing chords, but not so badly.

Sahul

The problem seems to be solved now. I noticed I had v1.5.0.0 installed, so I downloaded v1.51 and the situation has improved a lot. Now there aren't red spikes anymore, I can't reproduce them, just some little CPU meter movements from 20% to 60-70% in some patches, specially, "Ghost in the synth" and "Southern extreme" from Bank 2, and "The water is fine" and "Fatness" from Bank 1, but just when playing chords with 3 notes at the same time.

Anyway, my machine is not the latest in the market, so I think it's normal having that CPU issues. The synth is now usable for me, so thanks again for such a great piece of software.

Sahul