I am interested in additive synthesis and I have found two options which hopefully some of you are familiar with, those being Virsyn Cube and DiscoDSP Vertigo. I have not tried the demo of either, but I will very soon. Before I do that I'm curious what other people think of each. Even if you haven't used both Cube and Vertigo, what do you think? What are your favorite features? What do you NOT like? Are they stable and efficient? Btw, the reply that is to such an effect: "try both and make up your own damn mind" is a good and decent way to reply to this type of question, but I'm more interested in what YOU think, your opinions and such.

Archetypo wrote:

I am interested in additive synthesis and I have found two options which hopefully some of you are familiar with, those being Virsyn Cube and DiscoDSP Vertigo.

I've tried the Vertigo demo (version 1.0). I understand that version 1.5 is better. It sounds good to me, but I was since asked to help beta test ConcreteFX Adder. Once I see how Adder pans out, I may find it has a non-overlapping feature set and consider both.

On the PC, Cube requires an SSE-capable processor - my Celeron laptop won't run it, but my desktop machine will. For this reason, I didn't try Cube. Cube *will* run on a Mac (neither Vertigo nor Adder will).

If you're not set on any one product yet, you may want to wait to see how Adder and CA5000 (Cameleon) come out. The latter will run on Windows or OSX.

For Windows-only "additive light" (ie one component of a more complex synth), there's also Ethereal and Rhino (I have both), but they don't do morphing the way Cube, Vertigo, and Cameleon do.

Doug

I've tried the Vertigo demo and it is *very* impressive. I love the resynthesis feature and the sounds it makes are unusual, but useful.

Downsides are

(1) Mega CPU intensive. Make sure your host has a freeze feature.

(2) If you're not just using it for resynthesis, the programming learning curve and the sheer effort involved in programming are high.

That said, the demo only comes with about 12 presets. Maybe the full version preset library would provide all the sounds you need.

I own both. I find they both have their plus points;

Cube: Number of morph targets and graphical morph display.

Vertigo: Sample re-synthesis.

Both are pretty CPU intensive. Cube is certainly quicker to 'drive'. It GUI allows broad changes to the additive synthesis to be made quickly. Vertigo allows finer control but it can take a long time to develop patches from scratch.

Hi,

I have to declare an interest here - I'm the author of another additive called Cameleon. I hope this isn't out-of-line, but it does seem relevant to Archetypo's question.

Quote:

Cube: Number of morph targets and graphical morph display. Vertigo: Sample re-synthesis.

Cameleon can match cubes number of morph targets, and also has a graphical morph display (see http://www.camelaudio.com/images/Cameleon5000MorphPage.jpg). It can also re-synthesise. It can also do some other stuff like multi-sampling. Admittedly it isn't out yet, but will be soon. If you're interested, you can check out the screenshots and demos here:
http://www.camelaudio.com/productsCA5000.htm

Here's a demo of a Banjo morphing into a Marimba http://www.camelaudio.com/sounds/BanjoToMarimba.mp3. Here's an ambient demo tune featuring only Chameleon sounds http://www.camelaudio.com/sounds/DeepForest.mp3. Here's a piano, then a flute, and then a hybrid 'Fluiano' formed by doing a morph half way between the two. http://www.camelaudio.com/sounds/PianoHarmonicsFluteAmplitude.mp3

Feel free to ask questions - perhaps its best in the Camel Audio forum at http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=32.

Thanks
Ben

scuzzphut wrote:

(1) Mega CPU intensive. Make sure your host has a freeze feature.

This is not true, by using 64 operators and low polyphony you will be able to play chords even in some old 800 mhz machine.

The advantage, like no other additive synthesizers can, is it can go up to 256 operators, which is a must for some kind of sounds when resynthesizing.

I'd also like to comment, Vertigo price is promotional right now (80€ which is a bargain), and release price will be set once new version arrives.

Oh yes, sorry I forgot to mention that Vertigo is a real bargain at its current price. Much cheaper than Cube.

Ben, any news on when Chameleon will be released?

George R. Reales wrote:

scuzzphut wrote: (1) Mega CPU intensive. Make sure your host has a freeze feature. This is not true, by using 64 operators and low polyphony you will be able to play chords even in some old 800 mhz machine.

This is true - I can even get sounds out of my Athlon 500 if I reduce the number of operators. Enough to whet my appetite.

However...

George R. Reales wrote:

[The advantage, like no other additive synthesizers can, is it can go up to 256 operators, which is a must for some kind of sounds when resynthesizing.

Hence, if you really want to get the best out of it it IS CPU inteensive. I find for example that if I import a Piano wave sample and resynthsise it I can get a decent sound down to about 120 odd operators but after that it starts to sound synthetic and mushy. And if I wanted to do any decent morphing I suspect that would be well out of the range of a low spec machine like mine and the higher the spec the better obviously. So while you can go down to 64 operators there is a big trade off in terms of sound quality ands musical usefulness.

It is a bargain - I just wish I had a better computer. Roll on Xmas

Vertigo does sound good - but whatever you do don’t make a fuss over updates or they will ban you – see my review for more details links to the remaining threads in the main forum can be provided if requested. This required me to transfer my copy to someone else as version 1 was buggy. I still have not had an apology for the way they treated a paying customer.

Regards,

Spe3d

Spe3D, we were kind enough to allow license reselling (even when saying you were gotta take legal actions), because we didn't really like you in our customer base. Unfortunately you are the only and a quite noisy one.

Version 1.0 had some minor bugs, which were fixed, and I'd say the new license owner can be quite happy about it right now.

However, your intentions to keep trashing a great product like Vertigo is, remains without any aparent reason.

About the review, it looks more than a product bashing because you were impatient for updates than a in-depth analisys about its sound, synthesis capabilities, user interface, etc. IMHO It does deserve to be deleted.

George R. Reales wrote:

Spe3D, we were kind enough to allow license reselling (even when saying you were gotta take legal actions), because we didn't really like you in our customer base. Unfortunately you are the only and a quite noisy one. Version 1.0 had some minor bugs, which were fixed, and I'd say the new license owner can be quite happy about it right now. However, your intentions to keep trashing a great product like Vertigo is, remains without any aparent reason. About the review, it looks more than a product bashing because you were impatient for updates than a in-depth analisys about its sound, synthesis capabilities, user interface, etc. IMHO It does deserve to be deleted.

Wrong – Your attitude alienated quite a few people – I am noisy about it and until such a time I feel confident it wont happen to anyone else – starting with an apology, I will make sure others know of what happened.

You may delete the evidence in your forum – but you cannot delete me

Regards,

Spe3d

....AND THEY'RE OFF!

What now Kriminal? Closing the thread due lack of sense?

Anyway I think customer support issues are relevant to this thread – after all this is a possible customer of an additive synth. How past coustomers where treated plays a part in the decision process – at the end of the day its up to the customer to make up his or her mind based on all the information they can get.

Camel Audio has good past customer relations and I would suggest waiting to hear the new synth they are creating – rather than gamble money on a product that future updates depends on weather it likes you or not.

I can tell you I am on a number of developer’s customer databases here and DiscoDSP had been exceptionally bad in how they treated their customers – I just like to voice my opinion especially when things don’t tally up, as they should.

Regards,

Spe3d

Spe3D wrote:

You may delete the evidence in your forum – but you cannot delete me

In fact I will, I'm not bothering to waste my time anymore to reply to you. Happy now?

Spe3d man,

Come on buddy, enough is enough. You have your review up there, and you've made your point on the forums enough times. Be a good sport eh?

smart wrote:

Spe3d man, Come on buddy, enough is enough. You have your review up there, and you've made your point on the forums enough times. Be a good sport eh?

For you Smart I will give it up, I have had my say and the review is there you are right.

Best Regards,

Spe3d

George R. Reales wrote:

What now Kriminal? Closing the thread due lack of sense?

i forgot the i was being sarcastic.

I cant close any threads BTW, im just a punter, same as the rest

Just in case, we do value all of our customers (okey, there is a 0.001% exception), and I think this whole thing had blown up out of porportion.

We knew about the bugs and the reason we didn't release an update was because we were rewriting the entire vertigo engine for v1.5, and that took a little longer than expected.

You know, the hard thing is to be sarcastic or make jokes on a forum because you only have text, not an actual voice and facial expressions to let the other guy know you're joking.

Some of our comments we meant in a jokingly manner and other people took them the wrong way. Keep in mind that English is not our native language too.

I think we keep having problems communicating with each other, and I really would like to be able to avoid this as much as possible.

George R. Reales wrote:

Just in case, we do value all of our customers (okey, there is a 0.001% exception), and I think this whole thing had blown up out of porportion. We knew about the bugs and the reason we didn't release an update was because we were rewriting the entire vertigo engine for v1.5, and that took a little longer than expected. You know, the hard thing is to be sarcastic or make jokes on a forum because you only have text, not an actual voice and facial expressions to let the other guy know you're joking. Some of our comments we meant in a jokingly manner and other people took them the wrong way. Keep in mind that English is not our native language too. I think we keep having problems communicating with each other, and I really would like to be able to avoid this as much as possible.

Yes! Its blown out of perspective, and I got riled up about it. And I think the language aspect could well have something to do with it.

My native tongue is English – no doubt if I was trying to communicate with you in Spanish I would come across as not how I intended.

I agree that communication in a text form is very difficult and takes time to master even in our own language – let alone anyone else’s.

For me when I first started out in the internet I found it very difficult to communicate via text – after all most of what I had done up to that point required me to listen and look at the body language of the person/s I was communicating with – very often language is spoken by facial expression all on its own – so see your point there.

Anyhow, I wont go on about it anymore.

Regards,

Spe3d

Frankenstein vs. Dracula, now that was a classic battle.