I am going to give myself a synth for Christmas and am trying to decide between the three, Cameleon, Tera or CS-80V. I have a returning customer discount for Cameleon which is nice. However, the huge amount of talk before release has faded to almost nothing. This worries me. Does it meet expectations to those who have made the purchase? If I get Tera it will be a process of picking vs. one up and then upgrading. It offers a variety of synth techniques but I am not sure I need all that it offers. Z3ta and FM7 handle subtractive and FM synthesis very well. If I get Tera it would be fore the additive and formant sounds. CS-80V is what I am leaning towards just for the vintage sound. That may be something that is not already covered in my system. Again, after initial release it has gotten very quiet and I don’t know if people who bought it are really using it long term.

Before anyone suggest z3ta, Rhino, VAZ, Tassman, Reaktor, ABSynth or Albino … too late. I have those already. Now I am looking for an alternative to those sounds. Any suggestions about the three mentioned above?

Robert

Every synth you mentioned above had a demo version as far as i know.

I would suggest to try all of them and judge yourself.

Tough call between Tera and Cameleon.

I have them both and they are both excellent - however push comes to shove I would chose the Cameleon - also, with the discount you will get it is good value.

I don't think too many people were that impressed with the presets that came with the Cameleon demo. However, if you ask anybody who has bought the full version what it is like and you find it hard to find a bad word said against it. Also, the fact that some people are saying that it cannot produce warm sounds is a nonsense. The resynthesis is also very good - the best I have come across so far.

Personally, I would probably pick CS-80V... or maybe Tera. not Cameleon though.

If between those 3, go with Cameleon.

The CamelAudio forum has a "convince me" discussion right now that you might find interesting. There are also some songs posted. I'll bet Cameleon would do a pretty good job of resynthesizing some CS-80 sounds, too.

Here are some points in favour of Cameleon:

1) Make your own sounds by importing samples.
2) Very wide range of sounds possible.
3) Sound morphing.

Just for the record, though, I have very little experience with the other two synths. I'm sulking about the CS-80V because I wanted them to make the Oberheim synth - I want to be able to play "Jump" with the right sound, dammit!

Rabid wrote:

CS-80V is what I am leaning towards just for the vintage sound. That may be something that is not already covered in my system.

Says it all.

Rabid wrote:

[...]However, the huge amount of talk before release has faded to almost nothing. This worries me.[...]Again, after initial release it has gotten very quiet [...]

Isn't that the case with most synths? A lot of hype, ecpectations, roumors, hopes, excitement before the release. Then some praise for the first two or three weeks, then quiet - except for a synth being full of bugs, not meeting expectations or leaving a lot of room for updates.

Rabid wrote:

z3ta, Rhino, VAZ, Tassman, Reaktor, ABSynth or Albino … too late. I have those already.

My personal choice here would be CS80V, too.

Hi Rabid,

Quote:

However, the huge amount of talk before release has faded to almost nothing.

There is quite a bit of traffic in the Camel Audio forum http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=32 . Also, I hope that Baggio and Smarts emails have reassured you a bit.

Also, expect to see a really good review in one of the big magazines coming out in January (I'm not sure if I'm allowed to give more details or not).

BTW. Baggio has just given me a really nice asian drum'n'bass demo. Its all Cameleons apart from the drums - and all presets. Its a wicked tune
www.camelaudio.com/sounds/IndianAdventure-by-ElBaggio.mp3

As Baggio says, perhaps we could improve the presets further (though there are 500 top quality sounds, including lots of great acoustic sounds), and indeed that's just what we are doing. I'm commisioning some more sound design, focusing on more basses, more harder edged leads, more rythmic patches, and more patches taking advantage of the advanced features of Cameleon like the morph timeline and modulating the formant filter frequency and so on. These will be provided free to all existing users. There are also some feature improvements planned for the next update.

Also, if anyone else fancies writing a demo tune, the best tunes will certainly get an airing at NAMM - so you never know who'll hear it

Thanks
Ben

I have stateside Santa calling up audiomidi every few days to see if the Tera boxes have made it through customs yet. As of last Friday they hadn't.

trying the demo is the way to go. even with weak presets I think there are ways to tell the important things about a soft synth: what the osc and filters sound like. then there's what somebody who is motivated and knows what they're doing can manage with the feature set and the basic sound.

and how that will all work with what's already cooking in your DAW. I like Tera because of the sound (mixes well with rhino and albino, unfortunately doesn't rhyme) and generally low/reasonable cpu usage and I 'need' an all-purpose, general synth with lots of synthesis models.

but it was the free micro Tera and 1.3 Tera demo that convinced me. I don't get the whole cameleon concept or sound, but obviously that's just me. And as much as I liked some of Vangelis' work (esp. Antarctica), I don't have a deep longing for another Yamaha emulation. I was always more an Oberheim fan back then. so tastes vary significantly

CA5000 all the way! The resynthesis alone is worth the price and you can make it sound like any synth you like.

baggio wrote:

I don't think too many people were that impressed with the presets that came with the Cameleon demo.

I think Ben will release many new and amazing presets by Christmas.
Oops, don't know if I could 'leak' this info.

CA5000 is a synth that invites you to delve in deeper than just using the presets though : import your own samples for resynthesis, change the harmonic content of a wave, morph your favourite sounds,...

Peter.

Quote:

I don't get the whole cameleon concept or sound, but obviously that's just me.

Not just you, I didn't like the Cameleon demo at all really

I compared it with Vertigo and frankly, Vertigo came out on top in almost everything I could think of. Particularly the resynthesis -- though some difficult test samples could not be handled by either.

Anyway, my choice among these three would definitely be Tera.

For me it would be pretty easy:

If I'd like virtual wooden side panels, I'd take the CS80V; if I'd like to program my own sounds I'd take the Tera and if I had a 8 GHz PC I'd take the CA5000

I know the above post was tongue in cheek but Cameleon is surprisingly light on the PC. I have pentium 2.0 and the highest I have had for one patch is 20% - the majority are around 5-10%.

Tera cost a bit more, but well worth it. Tera 2 is absolutely amazing.

baggio wrote:

I know the above post was tongue in cheek but Cameleon is surprisingly light on the PC.

Please don't take that too serious, Baggio. I hope it was obvious that I referred to my personal taste.
In fact one can't help to decide between these three because the basic sound charcter is very different.
The only recommendation I can give is to test, try out and listen carefully to find out which sound character matches the own taste.

Dewaine wrote:

Tera 2 is absolutely amazing.

I agree, but if you look at this list :

Rabid wrote:

z3ta, Rhino, VAZ, Tassman, Reaktor, ABSynth or Albino

Only things missing seem to be Additive and Resynthesis.

Peter.

Wow. Thanks for the feedback everyone. A quick question on all three. How is assignable MIDI control handled on these three synths? Is is simple "right click on the screen then move a knob on the controller" or do they have less friendly assignment routines. Or, the horror, are CC's pre-assigned like some other synths?

Robert

I think most modern softsynths feature midi control assignment.

To use it on CA5000, you have to press a 'Learn'-button first. In addition there are also lots of modulation sources and destinations!

Peter.

just skimmed the thread so it might have been mentioned already ...

but vertigo (discoDSP) would surely be in the frame for you here too ???

slainte rob

pschelfh wrote:

CA5000 all the way! The resynthesis alone is worth the price and you can make it sound like any synth you like. baggio wrote: I don't think too many people were that impressed with the presets that came with the Cameleon demo. I think Ben will release many new and amazing presets by Christmas. Oops, don't know if I could 'leak' this info. CA5000 is a synth that invites you to delve in deeper than just using the presets though : import your own samples for resynthesis, change the harmonic content of a wave, morph your favourite sounds,... Peter.

And it's pretty easy to make your own patches too once you got the .wav files ready to go. The results were pretty damn good! I tried resynthesizing the guitar patch from Steampipe, and it came out amazingly well. I read the manual straight through once, and was able to accomplish this, if that says anything for the quality of the manual itself. The preset took all of about 5 minutes to create, if that, and that was 8 samples loaded in, in 4 zones, and 2 velocity layers.

Devon

Rabid wrote:

Before anyone suggest z3ta, Rhino, VAZ, Tassman, Reaktor, ABSynth or Albino … too late. I have those already. Now I am looking for an alternative to those sounds. Any suggestions about the three mentioned above?

For what it's worth, there's a post in Big Tick's forum, apparently Rhino supports resynthesis in its additive handler (I say apparently because I haven't even tried that part of Rhino yet. I suspect it's not quite as full-featured as Cameleon or Vertigo. No idea on the morphing).

Doug

pschelfh wrote:

Only things missing seem to be Additive and Resynthesis.

Well, it's possible to use additve spectres as custom waveforms...

...Summa

dougsyo wrote:

For what it's worth, there's a post in Big Tick's forum, apparently Rhino supports resynthesis in its additive handler (I say apparently because I haven't even tried that part of Rhino yet. I suspect it's not quite as full-featured as Cameleon or Vertigo. No idea on the morphing).

Yes. You can resynthesize up to 6 single-cycle slices of a sample and morph through them using the envelopes. It's definitely not in the same league as true resynthesis engines.
'Tick

Simple choice for me...
1. Tera 2 is too expensive
2. CS80-V is another VA and nothing new - just vintage synth recreation (nothing bad in that per se, just that I can't get the kind of sound I need out of them)
3. CA5000 all the way - not too expensive, something fresh, plenty of potential for generation of new sounds, exciting, wonderful sounding and looking.
In fact, I am going to order this as my Xmas present this year while the price is reduced.

I wouldn't bother with the cs80, but I only tried the demo and it dind't sound different enough to warrent a new purchase.

Now the CA5000 on the other hand is very different. In a mix it is the bomb! I don't know why but it cuts through like crazy, and that is the best part about it's sound to me. It doesn't have a VA sound to me, but something new and fresh.

The way you program with the breakpoints (better explained in the manual) is incredible, you can do alot with it.

I happen to love the ambient pads.

I've never tried tera2 so I can't comment.

you should try out the demo and play around with the harmonize settings Chang them from 1 to even to fifths to octave. Set each of these to a break point and listen to your sound transform during time. Pretty impressive.

dw

dw

Guess I'll get in here as well for the Cameleon. Nice sounds, comes with a fairly large library of sounds to start with. Excellent user support. It sounds different, so your mix will stand out. Plenty of potential to create your own sounds as well. You can even do VA type sounds as it does have 3 filters, including a cool format filter, the CamelPhat distortion technology, and plenty of envelope tweaking! However if you just want to play presets, plenty there with lots more to come from the User base.

If you really need Analog type sounds, there are plenty of freeware stuff that fits the bill nicely: Synth1, SuperWave8, Crystal, ect. But to stand out in the crowd: get a Cameleon and you can take any shape you want

Hi,

Thanks for all the kind words about Cameleon

Rabid - please do check out the demo. Regardless of whether you think it's good/bad, I'd love to hear what you think. Also, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask. You can either post in the Camel Audio forum here, or drop me an email at ben<at>camelaudio<dot>com .

Thanks
Ben

my personal pick between those threee is tera2, quite a significant upgrade..that's only my personal oopinion, i love cam5000 too, but i am rather familiar with tera, having usit it since virsyn 1 days (even before the tera 1 update)

oh, my spelling above, LOLLOLLOL

i'm ina funny mood

I ended up ordering Tera today so I can buy version 1 and upgrade to vs. 2. The day after Christmas I will grab Cameleon while the discount is still good. It was just too hard to turn either one down. I think developers need to stop putting out so many good products.

Robert

Rabid,

I think you made the right choice , when in doubt buy both that what I did

You won't regret it as they are both top quality synths in different ways.

Alternatively, you can check www.ohmforce.com next monday - just to backup you won't have any regret...

Is it November 41st already?

Don't force me to explain the joke!
www.melohman.com
Check first news if you want to be sure

hi

ok, the thread is quite old and Rabid decided his Tera.

The CS80 Sound is old as well but who cares,
when you prefer that kind of sound?

So what? -...
People do not listen anymore to Yamaha sounds?

by the way: the difference between these two new synths and the Yamaha is by far too great to make a good & clear decision

it's like comparing an old darkgreen
Jaguar E-Type with a new Multi-TruckVan with SleepingBags inside


bye

brause wrote:

So what? -... People do not listen anymore to Yamaha sounds?

Well, I still love my FS1R

sorry

Right now I am on the verge of ordering Cameleon. Yes! I have figured out how to use it. Cameleon's Resynthesis thingy is amazing and even I can get fresh sound sounds out of it. But I do want to know how the new Ohmforce synth compares. Is there anyone who had an advanced look at Melohman and who can comment on how it compares to the Cameleon?

Gordon

Beardedone wrote:

Right now I am on the verge of ordering Cameleon. Yes! I have figured out how to use it. Cameleon's Resynthesis thingy is amazing and even I can get fresh sound sounds out of it. But I do want to know how the new Ohmforce synth compares. Is there anyone who had an advanced look at Melohman and who can comment on how it compares to the Cameleon? Gordon

DO IT
best synth in my arsenal
and as for cpu worries last tune i had 8 runnin about 35% on a 2gig P4

and vurt in another thread you were noting 3 instances of MicroTera were eating a lot of cpu?

cpu report usage varies almost too much to be useful. didn't i read on here that cameleon was cpu hungry?

and i've been pleasantly surprised how low MicroTera's been. I've had 3 instances running with 2 rhinos, albino and Reaktor Carbon with FLS playing drums as a vst in P-5 -- no problem until I tried to throw Slayer 2 in the mix. went from 70 - 80% to overload -- interesting effect if you like sudden tempo slowing to crawl and audio breakup

mileage varies significantly -- maybe it has to do with specific presets, delay drawed out processing and such. I just don't get it sometimes.

we really need some sort of benchmark for comparison, but I don't know how that would be possible. maybe average cpu rating of three voice chord over 32 presets selected at random from factory preset.

compared to the cameleon yes it was eating a lot of cpu
i was hitting the 50 or so mark with 3 microterras,altho i wouldnt call this major the fact i would then maybe like to add some stuff

whereas with the 8 cameleons runnin at about 35 ish and if i do decide to add a drum track it will just be a simple hand drums track so no worrys

altho wasnt dissin the micro terra either love its sound(bit bloody big on my screen mind you)and will be using it in the future

all this said tho i do agree,its hard to jusdge when people talk about cpu issues as you say due to complexity of different patches and so on


but either way cameleon is a great synth
as is microterra altho a completely different kettle of fish


sorry bout this im noodled

Thanks Vurt!

No cpu worries here. My 2.4 GHz P4is very comfortable with multiple instances of Cameleon. I do at least want to try the ohmforce synth. Cameleon still is a very steep learning curve for me. I have relied on presets so long and I'm not very confident in my ability to generate my own presets. Though I think I got a good one on Cameleon last night. For me tha's a breakthrough. See I have only managed to make one useful synth preset on my many VSTis in the last two years. And that was a modified preset in DELTAIII.

So it looks like Cameleon will be good for me. So after I give Melohman a try....

Cheers,
Gordon

hey gordon believe me im no synth expert,all mine is guess work and random playing about but cameleon is honestly easy to pick up
ive been knockin sounds up usin samples made in coagulite(something similar is about to be implemented within cameleon )and it takes a few minutes to learn and your away

and even if you cant make your own sounds there are some great sound designers already workin on banks(tim is one)so its a good investment there

wrench45us wrote:

didn't i read on here that cameleon was cpu hungry?

No, not really. I get about 5% cpu per instance on most patches on my Intel 2.53ghz. There are a couple that really ate my CPU for lunch, but it's far from the majority.

Devon

Beardedone wrote:

Cameleon still is a very steep learning curve for me. I have relied on presets so long and I'm not very confident in my ability to generate my own presets. Though I think I got a good one on Cameleon last night.

Hey Gordon, did you give the manual a good read through? Me, the notorious preset junkie, got good results out of it with one read, and following their directions to the tee. Came out beautifully. When I was trying to play with it WITHOUT following directions, the results were horrible. Just make sure they are normalized, 44.1k sample rate, no effects, and mono, and it came out REALLY nice. The manual itself inspries a lot of confidence to try this baby out.

Devon