Any opinions on this software? Worth looking into?

rbaulbin wrote:

Any opinions on this software? Worth looking into?

Yes and yes-try the demo and decide for yourself.

Looks better on paper than it sounds in real life. I don't have it but a friend does and nothing I heard him do impressed me. Could be good but all the physical modeling stuff sounds like a toy. Reminds me of the Unity Session thing too. None of it compares to what Yamaha did with PM.

Dune727 wrote:

Looks better on paper than it sounds in real life.

I bought it and having a hard time with it. The presets that come with it are mixed quality, and I haven't been able to use many. It's a total CPU hog. And making new ensembles yourself if pretty tough. I really need to sit down with it for extended time, because so far I have not been able to come up with anything usable.

Try the demo. Really.

But some big names (including on this forum) swear by it.

Victor.

...for the money, I'd look at Reaktor

I just got it with the Reaktor crossgrade for 199 bucks, plus they have a xmas special on, find someone who owns it, send their serial number with your order and you get it half price or something along those lines, I deleted the email I got from them. The downloadable version doesnt come with many patches though, unless theyre hidden somewhere

CreepJoint wrote:

plus they have a xmas special on, find someone who owns it,

I'd be happy to help someone out with this. PM is your friend.

V.

rbaulbin wrote:

Any opinions on this software? Worth looking into?

Sounds awsome, shite user interface. Building your own patches is a chore. My biggest dislike of the program is once a a patch is all wired up you cant tell from the synth pannel were everything is routed. If i load a preset patch i would like to know what is plumbed into the modulation inputs on the filter without having to look at the builder. A simple popup tooltip when you hold the mouse over the modulation knob would be a big help.

It is just a typical tecky geek design, sounds good ans loads a realy cool features but absolutly no thought put into ease of use or accesability. And anyone who disagrees is bloody geeky tosspot who spends more time fidling with wires and buttons than they do making music.

Its not that its realy hard to work out how to use, it is just so bloody long winded getting things done.

Actualy a much bigger problem is the lack of dynamic cpu allocation. Voices use cpu even when they are not playing.

So if you want a modular that sounds great, dont mind spending hours up to your neck in virtual cables and unlabeled knobs and buttons, and mabey have a spare computer to dedicate to just Tassman, then its perfect.

chris

HI

i am using tassman and it has one of the best analog basses around. I havent tested tassman 2, but I like it.

I rad future music one and they said this was one of the best around but people think tassman is like a synth edit type of program ,but it isn't. So that scares people away,. you know? I love tassman.

Give it a try

I also think it is great, but i did get it with a reason crossgrade for $199

It is well worth a look , especially if you can get a discount on it

Cheers
Paul

CreepJoint wrote:

I just got it with the Reaktor crossgrade for 199 bucks, plus they have a xmas special on, find someone who owns it, send their serial number with your order and you get it half price or something along those lines, I deleted the email I got from them. The downloadable version doesnt come with many patches though, unless theyre hidden somewhere

The full version has approx. 50 instruments and 1000 presets.

I don't really care for it so far (on the whole), especially in comparison to the Yamaha VL-70m I used to own. I'm sure a genius could figure it out and make some great instruments, but judging from the very short list of user instruments on the AAS site there aren't too many geniuses using it. The bowed beams are cool, though. Get Reaktor instead, and you'll be buying into a very generous community of developers who regularly publish free ensembles.

I think people are right about the CPU usage. It's a bit high in comparison to what you get. I hate to rag on it because I cannot even imagine all the work involved in building such a program, but if you're more of a composer than programmer, I can't really recommend Tassman at this time. However, if you have plenty of money, it's not a worthless VST at all, just not as compelling as Reaktor in my opinion.

-Shane

it does has the GUI and CPU limitations mentioned, but
I got some great unique sounds from it,

faster to build ensemble than Reaktor, less flexible though, but if you like its sounds you have quick fun

Shane Sanders wrote:

I'm sure a genius could figure it out and make some great instruments, but judging from the very short list of user instruments on the AAS site there aren't too many geniuses using it. -Shane

Yeah the user library has been a bit of a disappontment. Ive not contributed myself coz Im def not a Tassman genius. I was really hoping Scott Solida would get some of his stuff up there, the odd MP3 ive heard of him using Tassman is really good.

I dont really use Tassman for its physical modelling ie to create a perfect piano patch but when you combine modules you can get some really wierd sounding stuff and thats what I love about Tassman.

Does anyone know what happened to the demo songs by Deadbeat, et al, that were on the Applied-Acoustics site? That was great stuff, the sounds used didn't sound like real instruments but they definitely had a realistic, almost physical quality to them that I've never heard from Reaktor's instruments (which have always sounded plastic & fake to me). My opinion only.

It really looks better then it sounds

In my opinion the resonance is a big problem in the system, it just makes prrrrrrriiiet, like a dying bird, not even cool.

What 'resonance' are you talking about?

whyterabbyt wrote:

What 'resonance' are you talking about?

Just try the reso/peak or whatever you/they call it from the integrated synths like moog, syrinx...
Ah, well, yes we know you are 'building' modules and maybe you have 'created' a better sounding reso/peak ->´So if you have a module I should listen to, pls share.

Well, I havent owned one, but Scot Solida, who knows a thing or two hundred about analogue gear, has always rated Tassman's Minimoog emulation very highly.

I dont spend any time on emulating analogue synths in Tassman, or anything else, myself. But since Tassman's VA-type stuff is a tiny fraction of its capabilities it seems very narrow-minded to dismiss it entirely because of one aspect of one group of its supplied presets.

Yeah, the analog emulations can be very good on Tassman, if that's want you want to use it for. However, there is actually a problem with higher resonance settings on some of the synths. This is because the older Tassman versions had no 24 dB filters, and many of the emulations used two 12 dB filters in serial. This combination had some rather nasty side effects, including blasting out a high-pitched stuck note if the resonance settings were messed with. The 4 pole filter introduced later on eliminated this problem...

Well I don't know even half a thing about analogs or any other logs, (and I got rid of the "demo" version during my moral period), but among the useless and interestingly weird Tassmachines, the Minimoog machine in Tassman 2 was really something special. Warm, musical and lovely to the point that I couldn't care less whether it sounded like a moog or not. There were other machines that had interesting acoustosynthetic (tm!) timbres, and that kind of sound is where Tassman is better than the rest.

If I had way too much cash, I'd get the Tassman 3, spend too many nights studying it and end up with perhaps a handful of useful, but CPU-hungry machines... which could in the best case justify it's cost. Then I'd stumble upon something like IK's panflute or xoxox's models, and start to wonder if I should have bought Virsyn Tera 2 instead. Or C5000 which has a lot of acoustosynthetic potential.

It's nice to have € up here as well, I can now make clicheed references to cents instead of pennies.

Ah so it was a problem with the now-completely-defunct never-to-be-supported-again you-cant-even-register-it please-dont-install-this only-£30-from-Turnkey version
2?

I don't know if those filters have been replaced, but the synths built with the new 4-pole filter shouldn't cause any trouble...

Uncle E wrote:

Does anyone know what happened to the demo songs by Deadbeat, et al, that were on the Applied-Acoustics site? That was great stuff, the sounds used didn't sound like real instruments but they definitely had a realistic, almost physical quality to them that I've never heard from Reaktor's instruments (which have always sounded plastic & fake to me). My opinion only.

Hello Uncle E,

I will check if I can find it...