Has anyone played with the demo version of the LUXONIX ravity yet?

All that NAVI™, HLMS™ and FOEM™ pseudo proprietary technology shit is a bit ridiculous (like TAE™, CMT™, etc.), but from the screenshots and from the specs it looks like a serious and professional product.





As there is a Mac version announced as well, I'd be interested in reading some comments about sound and usability.

No, not yet.
Thanks for bringing it to our attention since Devon B brought it up a week ago and I listened to the audio demos but the download demo wasn't ready yet.


Stay tuned I'm sure Devon will be around soon to discuss this because I know he is quite interested in this PCM VSTi.

Might head over there and dl it myself.
Thanks for the link Doc.

JUST d/l'ed it! Now let's see if my lil boy will let me play here. He's fussin' a bit.

Devon

Great. Looking forward to your comments!

Judging from the (mp3) demos I think it's quite clever to aim this at the "dance" market in the first place, so hopefully we won't see too many threads about it with the words "Hypersonic" and "SampleTank" in it. I fear some threads about it with the word "Vanguard" in it though...

dr.wackler wrote:

As there is a Mac version announced as well

i thought this woz definitely going to be pc only but you're right, i found it in the faq's that a mac version is being developed. Thanks for alterting me

seems pretty nice but definetly not working very fast and lightly around here.

Holy fucking shit! What Hypersonic and Sonic Synth couldn't do with hundreds of megs, this SURPASSES in 32 megs! It SOUNDS like a hardware synth! I got to flip through a good 100 or so presets in all the catagories. THIS is impressive in that 'pcm' synth sort of way. It's the the 'magic' that the other 'workstation' synths have missed the mark. Now if it's priced right, like somewhere between $100-$200, I know who's going to rule the bread and butter synth market now. Yes, it does have a bit of the 'cheese' sound to it, but it's GOOD cheese, not lackluster cheese.

Hey Squids, I hope Sonik Synth 2 keeps up with this bad boy, because as far as I'm concerned, they got it right.

Devon

DevonB wrote:

Holy fucking shit! What Hypersonic and Sonic Synth couldn't do with hundreds of megs, this SURPASSES in 32 megs! It SOUNDS like a hardware synth! I got to flip through a good 100 or so presets in all the catagories. THIS is impressive in that 'pcm' synth sort of way. It's the the 'magic' that the other 'workstation' synths have missed the mark. Now if it's priced right, like somewhere between $100-$200, I know who's going to rule the bread and butter synth market now. Yes, it does have a bit of the 'cheese' sound to it, but it's GOOD cheese, not lackluster cheese. Hey Squids, I hope Sonik Synth 2 keeps up with this bad boy, because as far as I'm concerned, they got it right. Devon

WOW! I think you are pretty excited.
Bit of a large file for me to dl now with my dial-up but will check it out soon.

I have been checking out some of the Sonic Synth 2 audio demo's and I really think these are going to be quite different.

Hey, at that price we can get both.

DevonB wrote:

Holy fucking shit! What Hypersonic and Sonic Synth couldn't do with hundreds of megs, this SURPASSES in 32 megs! It SOUNDS like a hardware synth! I got to flip through a good 100 or so presets in all the catagories. THIS is impressive in that 'pcm' synth sort of way. It's the the 'magic' that the other 'workstation' synths have missed the mark. Now if it's priced right, like somewhere between $100-$200, I know who's going to rule the bread and butter synth market now. Yes, it does have a bit of the 'cheese' sound to it, but it's GOOD cheese, not lackluster cheese. Hey Squids, I hope Sonik Synth 2 keeps up with this bad boy, because as far as I'm concerned, they got it right. Devon

Wow.

Wow, $219 US! Or $299 for CrippleSonic... no brainer.

Devon

dr.wackler, just out of curiosity, why is it that when I play great dance oriented synths I hear for the most part really good overall synths?

I'm not starting shit, I'm just curious why dance oriented players get so hyped up about certain synths and feel others miss the mark. I'm trying to understand.

I will admit I'm at the point of being nearly hostile to 303s, hell, almost any x0x emulations. Can you give me an example of, since we are discussing romplers in this instance, what a couple of good dance romplers are?

For reference, many dance oriented friends wanted to buy my SY85 which I liked as a synth in general. I'm told that the Xtreme lead ROM in my current hardware synth is a great dance kit. To me, I hear classic synths going though some killer filters.

...and I like Vanguard as well.

DevonB wrote:

Holy fucking shit! What Hypersonic and Sonic Synth couldn't do with hundreds of megs, this SURPASSES in 32 megs! It SOUNDS like a hardware synth! I got to flip through a good 100 or so presets in all the catagories. THIS is impressive in that 'pcm' synth sort of way. It's the the 'magic' that the other 'workstation' synths have missed the mark. Now if it's priced right, like somewhere between $100-$200, I know who's going to rule the bread and butter synth market now. Yes, it does have a bit of the 'cheese' sound to it, but it's GOOD cheese, not lackluster cheese. Hey Squids, I hope Sonik Synth 2 keeps up with this bad boy, because as far as I'm concerned, they got it right. Devon

WTF!?? i got so excited when i read your post i had to go and light a cigarette

seriously that good huh. and just 32 meg? what megs were the roland boards i wonder. mind you they did sound good. do you know who the sound designer is for this baby's patches? Oh and, how come you call sonik synth cripplesonik? just curious. did you ever actually use sonik synth? not that i'm a *huge* fan but i like it overall. how's the cpu usage of ravity?

DevonB wrote:

Wow, $219 US! Or $299 for CrippleSonic... no brainer.

Working on a sunday over there in Korea.... like 20 minutes ago it still said "Price not decided yet". Maybe they were just waiting for your quick review!

Impressive for a 32mb ROM VSTi. Alot of usefull sounds in there, and some not so usefull (how come french horns ALWAYS sounds like crap in every PCM synth out...). I could hear alot of artifacts in some of the sounds, probably becouse of bad compression on the samples?

The drums are lacking a bit, it´s the typical old Sound Blaster 512kb ROM highhats and cymbals in there...

Besides the bread and butter stuff, it has some very good and usefull synth patches, unlike some other software romplers i´ve heard.

It loaded the sounds very fast, but most importantly, it did´nt kill my computer.

Sounds great to me and is something I'm thinking of purchasing. My only two niggles:

1. Doesn't seem like there are too many FX type sounds or ethnic sounds - I think this is all that's needed to round out the set. Some more vocal type sounds too? Maybe they will be future add-ons..

2. Chorus has some clicks in it (there's a couple patches you can hear it on).

Otherwise, it sounds pretty much like what I would expect a hardware rompler to sound like and is something that's been missing from the VSTi world.

Some nice and interesting sounds I haven't heard elsewhere, mixed with some astonishingly cheap sounding ones

I love the preset interface and the multimode UI overall. And the CPU load was just about nonexistent.

hmm. ive searched their site over and over and cant find anywhere that mentions the number of sounds you actually get.

i'd also like to know if this is "expandable" i.e. whether they have plans to introduce extra sounds

nice synth sounds.
I'm not impressed with the acoustic pianos at all, but for the file size...

I didn't count, but I'm guessing the demo comes with about 250 sounds (about half sampled and half synth).

One thing I forgot to mention, it seemed a bit quiet to me, even with the volume maxed out.

ttoz wrote:

WTF!?? i got so excited when i read your post i had to go and light a cigarette seriously that good huh. and just 32 meg? what megs were the roland boards i wonder. mind you they did sound good. do you know who the sound designer is for this baby's patches? Oh and, how come you call sonik synth cripplesonik? just curious. did you ever actually use sonik synth? not that i'm a *huge* fan but i like it overall. how's the cpu usage of ravity?

Yes, that good, for what it is, and what they have. Roland's were 32 and 64 megs I believe?

Hypersonic = Cripplesonic. And yes I have played the real deal, not just audio demos. Underwhelmed.

I own Sonic Synth. I bought it a year ago. I never have used it once in a song, and probably never will.

CPU? With my arm laid across the keyboard, I never could hit more than 12% cpu or so. Not bad.

ravity, I could EASILY write whole songs with those patches in a heartbeat. They NAILED the synth stuff pretty well. Is it Tera 2, Vanguard, Reaktor synths? Nope. Just well implimented combis that sound GOOD. I love my combis!

Devon

can you browse presets with simple up and down buttons?

x_bruce wrote:

dr.wackler, just out of curiosity, why is it that when I play great dance oriented synths I hear for the most part really good overall synths? I'm not starting shit, I'm just curious why dance oriented players get so hyped up about certain synths and feel others miss the mark. I'm trying to understand. I will admit I'm at the point of being nearly hostile to 303s, hell, almost any x0x emulations. Can you give me an example of, since we are discussing romplers in this instance, what a couple of good dance romplers are? For reference, many dance oriented friends wanted to buy my SY85 which I liked as a synth in general. I'm told that the Xtreme lead ROM in my current hardware synth is a great dance kit. To me, I hear classic synths going though some killer filters. ...and I like Vanguard as well.

I'm not sure if I understood correctly what you are on about (due to my English language barrier)....

I'm not an dance-, trance-, techno-music expert myself, but I like many of the synths that are speciifically designed for that market.
I guess the main reason is, that the design of those synths invests a lot in good filters and there are often nice playing tools like arpeggiators.

For why "dance freaks" go after certain Romplers, I guess the main reason might be the integrated effects And then there's also the standard for a certain kind of sounds that was set by the musicians that started the main dance genres in the early 90's, when the market was ruled by Romplers, and later on preset instruments like the MC-303 and MC-505 brought that to a wide user base.

bluedad wrote:

nice synth sounds. I'm not impressed with the acoustic pianos at all, but for the file size...

The piano tuner doesn't like the pianos? To be expected. They're ok. It's not the Steinway D or something, that's for sure. They're usable at least. It sounds like a hardware workstation though either way.

Devon

ttoz wrote:

can you browse presets with simple up and down buttons?

Left and right good enough? Easy browsing system too.

Devon

DevonB wrote:

Roland's were 32 and 64 megs I believe?

fucked if i know. do you eman including expansion slots?

Quote:

Hypersonic = Cripplesonic. And yes I have played the real deal, not just audio demos. Underwhelmed.

oh ok, my bad. sorry sonic synth

Quote:

I own Sonic Synth. I bought it a year ago. I never have used it once in a song, and probably never will.

actually, come to think of it, I haven't used one sound from it either!

Quote:

CPU? With my arm laid across the keyboard, I never could hit more than 12% cpu or so. Not bad.

sounds even more efficient than Eve. excellent.

DevonB wrote:

ttoz wrote: can you browse presets with simple up and down buttons? Left and right good enough? Easy browsing system too. Devon

yeah i think i can manage with left and right

LUXONIX - GET CRACKING ON THE MAC VERSION

dr.wackler wrote:

DevonB wrote: Wow, $219 US! Or $299 for CrippleSonic... no brainer. Working on a sunday over there in Korea.... like 20 minutes ago it still said "Price not decided yet". Maybe they were just waiting for your quick review!

I was wondering! That was weird...

Devon

DevonB wrote:

I was wondering! That was weird...

And it's past midnight there, too!

Sounds ok, didnt blow me away tho. Not the sort of synth i'd use personally.

Kriminal wrote:

Sounds ok, didnt blow me away tho. Not the sort of synth i'd use personally.

I'd be blown away if it was your thingy, Krimmy!

Devon

just interested, dr.wackler.

I have a Yamaha RM1x, the sound is mostly cheese but the sequencer is one of the smartest designs I've seen. It used to be priced in between the MC303 and MC505. Better sounds than the MC303, not as good as the MC505 but almost half the cost and a much better design imo.

Since a couple people mentioned it, why don't you use Sonic Synth, do you think it's the sounds or Sampletank 1? It's pretty damn awesome in the ST2 engine.

Have to say thoroughly unimpressed - if Roland/Korg Hardware Workstations are your kind of thing then maybe its for you but I think I will pass especially for the money they are asking.

Btw, Mr. and Mrs. Lightsound, in case you are monitoring this here:

How about an OS9 version as well?

dr.wackler wrote:

DevonB wrote: I was wondering! That was weird... And it's past midnight there, too!

Thank you for trying demo.

It's midnight here
but we're working now for the forthcoming ravity.

Dr.wackler, our webmaster has been shamed 'cause your detection.

Thanks.

yeap wrote:

but we're working now for the forthcoming ravity. Thanks.

you mean the forthcoming MAC versions right?

ttoz wrote:

yeap wrote: but we're working now for the forthcoming ravity. Thanks. you mean the forthcoming MAC versions right?

VERY SORRY but not in right, maybe takes some months.
And only for OSX, not OS9 I think.

x_bruce wrote:

Since a couple people mentioned it, why don't you use Sonic Synth, do you think it's the sounds or Sampletank 1? It's pretty damn awesome in the ST2 engine.

The sounds are very plain and very bandwidth limited. I don't need stripped down bandwidth in order to mix a song right either. The effects weren't all that in ST1 on top of it, which certainly didn't help at all. I got it to replace my JV-2080, and patch for patch, the JV2080 sounded better. I need to play with ravity a LOT more still, but it might actually convince me to sell the 2080 finally. I could hope.

Devon

yeap wrote:

..., not OS9 I think.

Never mind, in a few months even I will be running OSX as my main system...

More important:

Welcome to KvR!
...and a nice Welcome to your webmaster as well!

dr.wackler wrote:

Welcome to KvR! ...and a nice Welcome to your webmaster as well!

Oh, Yes, we are new to KvR~ hehe;
Thank you and our webmaster let me to tell you thanks.

x_bruce wrote:

Since a couple people mentioned it, why don't you use Sonic Synth, do you think it's the sounds or Sampletank 1? It's pretty damn awesome in the ST2 engine.

I've actually never even tried SonicSynth (is there a demo at all?), but I could tell you what for me personally is an important point (besides the sound):

Most of the so far available software sample-players rely on the paradigm of samplers rather than what we call romplers, where the big difference is that in a rompler the core samples are just like basic oscillator waveforms that could be dialed up, tried out and be replaced within a patch very quickly. With samplers it's just not possible to conveniently work in that way.

219 dollars for a 32mb romplar seems a bit steep to me.
I was hoping that it would weigh in at the 100 dollar mark.

yeap wrote:

ttoz wrote: yeap wrote: but we're working now for the forthcoming ravity. Thanks. you mean the forthcoming MAC versions right? VERY SORRY but not in right, maybe takes some months. And only for OSX, not OS9 I think.

osx only is fine.

but, SOME MONTHS?

hey ttoz, go ahead and buy now.. I will take good care of it for the some months it takes them to code the OSX version

VitaminD wrote:

hey ttoz, go ahead and buy now.. I will take good care of it for the some months it takes them to code the OSX version

ok, deal

Very good ROMpler considering 32B. I especially like the woodwind, saxophone section and the basses (among others).

The accoustic pianos? I didn't expect much from them which appeared to be justified. Perhaps when 32MB were assigned to pianos only I would be impressed.

Ravity isn't perfect but it IS very good. Overall I think Ravity sets a new product standard.

Tim

cyberheater wrote:

219 dollars for a 32mb romplar seems a bit steep to me. I was hoping that it would weigh in at the 100 dollar mark.

I think I paid $1349 for my Roland ROMpler (JV2080) that had 32 megs as well. I paid $549 for my Korg ROMpler, and that only had 12 megs. I'm sure x_bruce could name off some prices for ROMplers he's paid for as well. I stopped caring about size though, only sound quality.

Devon

Well I just tried the freshly released LUXONIX ravity demo. The other week I had been quite ironic about it on the only faith of the demos mp3s, and I must say I'm quite surprised. It's a much better synth than what the mp3 demos would let you think at first.

The presets are various enough to spend first a couple of hours on them, organised in banks in a very efficient GUI, but then the best is the editing of the presets or the creation of new ones is really easy and fast. The wide range of basic wavetables makes it a good tool for ppl willing to individualise their sounds or create the ones they have in mind. Specally the 4 layers capacity allows to create complex evolving pads, customised pianos, leads, etc. The effect section is efficient but above all complete enough to oversome to the eventual sound's limitation : compression, amp distortion, overdrive, auto wah, LP background noise, for example are precious in many cases (3 fx/layer + 3 fx for master on each preset)

There's also a second plugin dedicated to drums&perc sounds which work in the same way. Both GUI reminded me of Roland hardware grooveboxes design, very clear and functional, and on the whole it's a bit like such an engine : a generalist easy to use synth.

The sounding is generally warm and round, the wavetables seems all to be "plain" indeed, and even if some presets and banks are really weak (organs f.e.), as I said the fx sections help a lot to make sthg out of this however.

The cpu load is not as low as you could expect, specially if you use multiple instances with complex patches on each (I didn't found if it was multitimbral, but didn't investigated neither - but the drums&perc plugin is at least multichannel which is convenient), but it's nothing you can't handle with a modern pc.

This for the good news, now let's see the limitations : it's a generalist synth, so it won't do anything extremely well, but some extremely bad as usual in such cases. It may be a good tool for a beginners and also a very good tool for ppl on the road with a little laptop willing to spend as less as possible room in it for the vsts, as it has a really wide sound range. It may also be a interesting tool for ppl searching for lots of sounds quickly with the ability to create easily their own patches. After all, the warm sounding + the cheesy soundingt of some patches does it also a vintage sounds source, surprisingly.

It's only 40mb once installed and for what it does that represents surely a fair amount of technology, but I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to make it 5 times bigger (the wavetables) with more sounds and more quality on the weaker parts (organs, brass, woodwinds, pianos maybe), considering its price is not as low as that, and also considering that many ppl have broadband nowadays and could handle a 150mb installer easily for online shopping.

The way I see it. Now ppl what's your opinion on that freshly released LUXONIX ravity?

Just tried it. Quite nice on the cpu and the sounds and effects are above average.

I'm not really convinced its better than hypersonic though. Hypersonic has some GREAT combi pads/patches as well as acoustic stuff close to ravity's quality.

At $100-150 this would probably be an instant purchase for me. At $219 its something I'll have to think about for awhile. And the comparison to hardware prices is pointless - this isn't hardware, nor is it even boxed software (its a download, right?). The costs are much lower.

lol I just realise I'm late, the topic has 4 pages already...

floyd wrote:

I'm not really convinced its better than hypersonic though. Hypersonic has some GREAT combi pads/patches as well as acoustic stuff close to ravity's quality.

We'll agree to disagree on this one, but Hypersonic sounded so 'flat' in comparison. The synthesis was HORRIBLE on Hypersonic, and that's where ravity seems to shine. The natural sounds on both are not bad, some better than others...

Devon

DevonB wrote:

We'll agree to disagree on this one, but Hypersonic sounded so 'flat' in comparison. The synthesis was HORRIBLE on Hypersonic, and that's where ravity seems to shine. The natural sounds on both are not bad, some better than others... Devon

hmm, ahm, he he, xcuse me Mr. DevonB but may I ask you which style of music you produce? May I ask for some examples of mp3?

Also the omission of all filter types other than lp12 and lp24 seems quite glaring in a product of this price and type.

Just gave Ravity a quick go and I'm very impressed.Reminds me of my U220 with updated waves.One thing I like is the abilty to use the arpeggiator on only one layer in a preset.I wish more synths would allow this.Makes for some very interesting motion pads.Also the latch on the Arp is a nice feature.The last thing I need is another synth on my wish list but it seems Ravity has just joined the top 5.Going to go try the Drums mod now.

Ravity looks and sounds great! I'll wait until it's $149 which will inevitably occur as an introductory special, KvR appreciation discount, or something similar.

As a new developer, their coding abilities, copy protection, support policies, and a host of other things are untried and unproven, so the only way I will eat that risk is with a low price. If it was rgcAudio or one of the established companies, I'd probably be more inclined to buy sooner.

Nice bit of luck when trying the demo: While the demo claims the "saving of user-presets has been disabled," it actually works from your VST host.

-Brian

It's got those Roland-esque Pianos; those really bright, thin ones that sound cheap when compared to an acoustic grand, but work really well in dance and ambient tunes when drenched with effects.

Bit of a mixed bag, errr, all sounds a bit 80's though Be ok for when I do me Spandau Ballet tribute musical I guess though.

I hate every single instrument in this plug...
I don't know anything concerning synth/pad/electronic sound etc...
I'm talking about real instrument patches... They are all awfull...

For what kind of music is it ?

e-modic wrote:

DevonB wrote: We'll agree to disagree on this one, but Hypersonic sounded so 'flat' in comparison. The synthesis was HORRIBLE on Hypersonic, and that's where ravity seems to shine. The natural sounds on both are not bad, some better than others... Devon hmm, ahm, he he, xcuse me Mr. DevonB but may I ask you which style of music you produce? May I ask for some examples of mp3?

Go find it yourself. You've proven yourself to be so 'smart' in the past.

Devon

Ixox wrote:

I hate every single instrument in this plug... I don't know anything concerning synth/pad/electronic sound etc... I'm talking about real instrument patches... They are all awfull... For what kind of music is it ?

I was wondering if you'd like it or not. I'd say 80's/90's kinda sound. Really bright sound. Either ya love it or hate it, it seems reading the thread. Try it in the back of a mix that's not working for you and see if you like it with the soft synths.

Devon

Oh definitely, it looks like our numerous prayers at end will have a response!

Nice try! But not yet we have arrived, there is something in the sound that does not results, something cheap, nothing really impressive.

Acoustic sounds are poor in general, a little detail and definition.

No, Roland, Korg, Yamaha have worked at this during many years, it is not easy to arrive where they have arrived with 32 rom's mb.

This synthesizer capable to supplant to a JV2080? its a joke, right?

In any case, its a good work, follow the development, its a very correct road. But for 218$?, Im sorry but not for me, maybe with a more detailed library... hey, ram today is cheap!

Saludos.

Just my comment as a musician now, since I'm no longer a developer.

I don't get those companies doing ROMplers instead of a synth that takes ANY sample.

EG: What would be if this product could read SF2, Akai, MPC, etc... ?

For this price, couldn't you just get a very complex VST sampler and good samples? Wouldn't that do better?

Just wondering, since now I will be doing anything else but programing, and I DO want to go back to making music. But I can't find anything good to use so far.

This week I will download and take a test. But just for a start I must say that the price is insane, not to mention ugly, why not 199U$?!

Wk

This doesn't impress me at all for the price.

Mind you, I think a lot of software synths are over-priced. Especially compared to something like reaktor session which give more synth + FXs, at a high quality.

krraqk wrote:

This synthesizer capable to supplant to a JV2080? its a joke, right?

Probably other developers would wish it was a joke, but it's not. After playing through the majority of this synth, it holds up quite nicely next to hardware. God, that feels good to say for a change. Just like hardware, in some things, it shines (combi's, keys), and others are ok (organs). Yes, there are things that are better than this, but looking at it as a whole, and if you had NOTHING to start with, this would be the product I'd recommend to a newbie, especially at its price point.

Devon

krraqk wrote:

Oh definitely, it looks like our numerous prayers at end will have a response! Nice try! But not yet we have arrived, there is something in the sound that does not results, something cheap, nothing really impressive. Acoustic sounds are poor in general, a little detail and definition. No, Roland, Korg, Yamaha have worked at this during many years, it is not easy to arrive where they have arrived with 32 rom's mb.

Funny you should mention Yamaha as a some of the raw waveforms in Ravity seem to have come from the Yamaha SY77. I think this is probably why everyone keeps saying that it sounds so much like a HW synth. I have a TG77 and recognized the sound Styroll, and a few others, in the FX section. I bought the TG77, years ago, in order to get a nice FM synth and quite frankly thought the sampled waveform part of it was thin and crappy sounding. I did kind of like some of the FX oriented samples though for sound design type stuff.

krraqk wrote:

This synthesizer capable to supplant to a JV2080? its a joke, right? In any case, its a good work, follow the development, its a very correct road. But for 218$?, Im sorry but not for me, maybe with a more detailed library... hey, ram today is cheap! Saludos.

Yeah the synth engine is really lacking too. It needs at least 1 more Envelope and another LFO plus better routing options. Maybe I'm missing something but the FX sections seems like it needs better mixing options also. Other than that, it is a nicely laid out and effecient Synth/ROMpler.

Well, well, well.....Looks like mixed reviews on this thing guess it depends on the type of music/sound you're into.

Let me just say that it was very heartening indeed to see a PCM type synth like this coming out. I was just on a rant a few days ago about the synths of the 80s-90s being under-represented in the VSTi world. (see- VSTi's A Big Gaping Hole http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42114) This was the wondeful time of the "Hybrid" synth, before sampling took off, when synth manufacturers where adding PCM/Wavetable to their OSC/source sections to get a more realistic sound.

I personally love this type of synthesis - not quite samples, more realistic than analog, a hybrid of the two forms. So I'll definately be checking this out.

Initially have to agree with comments on using a bigger PCM database - the 32MB restriction was basically a memory limit with the hardware romplers. Doesn't make sense to try to copy that aspect??? Also agree with the price being a bit high (thinking mid/low $100 range), especially considering that last year I bought a Proteus 2000 for $175, which kicks this things ass clear down the sidewalk

Still, it's wonderful to see developers finally filling in that "Big Gaping Hole." I'll likely purchase it, if not just to support future development of this synthesis type.

mmm, after some thinking and only going by the mp3's, the price IS a little steep. more of a $149 synth perhaps.

EarthTones wrote:

Well, well, well.....Looks like mixed reviews on this thing guess it depends on the type of music/sound you're into. Let me just say that it was very heartening indeed to see a PCM type synth like this coming out. I was just on a rant a few days ago about the synths of the 80s-90s being under-represented in the VSTi world. (see- VSTi's A Big Gaping Hole http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42114) This was the wondeful time of the "Hybrid" synth, before sampling took off, when synth manufacturers where adding PCM/Wavetable to their OSC/source sections to get a more realistic sound. I personally love this type of synthesis - not quite samples, more realistic than analog, a hybrid of the two forms. So I'll definately be checking this out. Initially have to agree with comments on using a bigger PCM database - the 32MB restriction was basically a memory limit with the hardware romplers. Doesn't make sense to try to copy that aspect??? Also agree with the price being a bit high (thinking mid/low $100 range), especially considering that last year I bought a Proteus 2000 for $175, which kicks this things ass clear down the sidewalk Still, it's wonderful to see developers finally filling in that "Big Gaping Hole." I'll likely purchase it, if not just to support future development of this synthesis type.

I would proberly also buy this nice VSTi to support the developement of this types of VSTi's. Since I have Hypersonic, it will proberly not replace it at all. This kind of reminds me of the late 80's synths/keyboards like Korg M1, Roland D-50, Kawai K1/K4 etc...........

Hypersonic certainly seems to be the competition - it's along the lines of GM , but a bit better .
I was very impressed at the sounds from this thing considering the size of the download. A decent set of sounds without a huge sample library clogging up the HDD. Of course, nothing sounds realistic - if you want real, get a sample library - but it's a decent collection of synth sounds and with a much broader palette that a VA or FM synth .

New DEMO SONG
http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=509706#509706

Let me first off start by saying that I really hated DevonB for his playa hatin against SampleTank 2 & Sonik Synth

But suprisingly, I find myself in total agreement this time in reguards to his review of Ravity . It really does have that 90's roland synth hardware sound . I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's the synthesis or the Filters but whatever the case, this puppy comes off very warm sounding. The Strings - are flat out incredible. Percussion comes off as clean and snappy. The Kick and snare drum sounds kicked my ass several times over.

I still can't believe this thing is taking less than 50mb of my hard drive space.

This will be the one to pick up for sure. I can see myself using this alongside Hypersonic and Sampletank 2/sonic synth for some phat Soul, R&B and Hip Hop arrangements.

- Juanito

juanito wrote:

Let me first off start by saying that I really hated DevonB for his playa hatin against SampleTank 2 & Sonik Synth

juanito wrote:

But suprisingly, I find myself in total agreement this time in reguards to his review of Ravity . It really does have that 90's roland synth hardware sound . I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's the synthesis or the Filters but whatever the case, this puppy comes off very warm sounding. The Strings - are flat out incredible. Percussion comes off as clean and snappy. The Kick and snare drum sounds kicked my ass several times over. I still can't believe this thing is taking less than 50mb of my hard drive space. This will be the one to pick up for sure. I can see myself using this alongside Hypersonic and Sampletank 2/sonic synth for some phat Soul, R&B and Hip Hop arrangements. - Juanito

That's all I've ever wanted in the other products, that bit of 'magic' and 'charm' that comes in this type of synth. It doesn't have to be the 'best', it just needs that bit of 'polish'.

Devon

I absolutely love this synth. Many possibilities and combinations for creating patches.

The synth engine sounds great and has nice warmth to it.You can get this thing screaming in no time. 32 meg or 32 gig doesn't matter as long as it sounds good. My korg x5 has 8 meg and sounds great also.

I was surprized with this synth.

Excellent work!!


Mush

Okay, I'm officially on the bandwagon!

I played with this synth for about two hours last night. Each patch made me eager to try the next patch. I have Sampletank with the Sonic Synth package and I was much more inspired by the Ravity sounds. Maybe some of us are just to used to the PCM based sample sound. Now someone mentioned that some of the waveforms sound like those of the Yamaha SY-77, great! Let's expand the waveforms to at least 64MB and have a virtual Motif! Give it sample playback capability, Ala the Ex5, SY-99 and I'm happy. Anyway didn't mean to become a pitchman for Yamaha. I think this synth is great!! Definitely reminds me of the Korg, Roland and Yamaha romplers I've owned over the years. I'll argue for lower price also, but only because i'm cheap.

Sielsynth wrote:

Maybe some of us are just to used to the PCM based sample sound.

By the way, and just for the record: Nearly all samples or audiofiles you use are PCM encoded. There are other methods like mu-Law, IMA, MACE-6, etc. - but the "common" audio files in AIFF, WAV or SDII format are mostly PCM files.

Not trying to be a smartass but the Roland JV-1080/2080/1010 generation of ROMplers have 8 MB compressed = 16 MB expanded ROM. the later XV-series have 32 MB ROM.

Just to say that 8 MB of ROM is plenty of your have got a good synth engine to put the waves through. I'm still using my JV-1080 on a daily basis just because the sounds it makes is useful and fits well with other sounds. I have Gigabytes of samples for the real instruments but for synth type of sounds few things can match the Roland series of ROMplers.

invitia wrote:

Not trying to be a smartass but the Roland JV-1080/2080/1010 generation of ROMplers have 8 MB compressed = 16 MB expanded ROM. the later XV-series have 32 MB ROM. Just to say that 8 MB of ROM is plenty of your have got a good synth engine to put the waves through. I'm still using my JV-1080 on a daily basis just because the sounds it makes is useful and fits well with other sounds. I have Gigabytes of samples for the real instruments but for synth type of sounds few things can match the Roland series of ROMplers.

Damn, you're right.

http://www.planet-groove.com/roland/jv-2080.html

I kept thinking it was expandable to 288 megs inside with all the expansion boards for some reason, which is where I came up with 32 megs. Thanks for setting the record straight.

Devon

I have downloaded the demo and I love it.It does have that certain something that a rompler often has sonically that hasn't really happened in software yet.The realistic stuff is awful,inferior in my opinion to the current Roland and Yamaha products in that regard.But the point is that it's a synth,and I love the rompler convenience and the transparent,simple but effective architecture.
Playing around,I noticed that when I substituted "real instrument" waves for synth waves in the explicitly synthy patches,the sound took on an added depth and richness.I would certainly use it in a JV/XV-Proteus context,and save the realism for my samplers.
Upside:easy to use,light on memory and cpu,classic rompler synthy sound,good punchy drums,basic effects squarely on the better side of decent and a good selection of these.
Downside:Not enough samples for the money or to fully exploit the potential of the engine.Not that the instrument needs to be a million gigs like everything else today,but doubling the rom would have provided room for more percussion, some vintage sounds,hip hop sounds and special fx.This is,to an extent,a VFM issue for me,I must say.I'd feel much more comfortable at $150,tops,about what a maxed-out EVE would be.
The simplicity of the synth architecture is both a strength and a weakness however.The synth is easy to navigate and tweak the key parameters to fit your track.And there is something to say for plug and play virtue,to spend less time programming and more playing.On the other hand,I was disappointed that Ravity only has a low pass filter,and not a stellar one,at that.The basic oscilator-filter-amp-effects approach is essentially Korg,but the multiple layers are more Proteus,or even VFX.I do still wish for a VSTi that lets me import soundfonts into something modeled on Roland's structures,for more variety in signal flow pathways.Then again,I have VSampler for serious deep sound design and high quality sample playback,as well as Crystal for the abstract stuff,etc,etc,etc.All Ravity does is sound good,and that's good enough for me.

Hi,

LUXONIX ravity demo-version has updated to 1.01.
Some presets were added, and some bugs were fixed.
http://luxonix.com/home/downloads/ravity/ravity_demo_win.exe


New demo-songs are available now.
<Synth>
http://luxonix.com/home/downloads/ravity/ravity_Piano_patch.mp3
http://luxonix.com/home/downloads/ravity/ravity_SlowSynth_patch.mp3
http://luxonix.com/home/downloads/ravity/ravity_Organ_patch.mp3
http://luxonix.com/home/downloads/ravity/ravity_FastSynth_patch.mp3
http://luxonix.com/home/downloads/ravity/ravity_LeadSynth_patch.mp3
http://luxonix.com/home/downloads/ravity/ravity_BassSynth_patch.mp3
<Rhythm>
http://luxonix.com/home/downloads/ravity/ravity_ACgroove_patch.mp3


And, ravity has the HPF.
LPF and HPF are perellel connected, and can be balanced by MIX knob.

Thanks.

This synth is very VERY GOOD!!!

It has what other sample based instruments lack.

Inspirational sounds.

It's straight forward. You can write a whole song with it inside your sequencer, and as for the weaker acoustic sounds you can always replace them with your favorite samples latter on. Right?

I think the VST market has been bogged down for a long time with exceptionally detailled synths that just don't inspire you unless you are willing to have a 2hour patch making session before you actually get down to writing.

I love the interface, so clear and streamlined, oh and you can assign controllers really easily.

The price isn't bad considering the competition.

But...I think this type of instrument should definetly be multi-timbral.

Lights.

No comment - didn't like it - but WTF!

Don't know what all the fuss is about. I get way better results using multiple sfz instances and my collection of soundfonts - all free!

Weak, pissy little sounds that remind me of my Korg M1 from 13 years ago. Man you guys must have a retro thing going here. And over US$200? LOL!

And as far as I can tell, the damn thing is not even multi-timbral! (Someone please enlighten me - but to do a comparison remix I had to run 8x instances of Ravity to get unique patches on each track).

I *do* like the six separate outs in the Rhythm mode though, makes it easy to fatten up a snare or get a longer tail in the reverb etc.

But overall .... <yawn>

EDIT: OK, I take some of my comments back - I've played with ravity some more and I am warming to it I'm often quick to pass judgement and to be honest I did not give this synth enough time to "grow" on me. It really is quite remarkable what they have squeezed into such a small footprint. I only have a few beefs though:

1. No multi-timbral: this means multiple memory hogging instances of ravity. The upside is that at least I get unique outs with each instance for additional eq, compression or other FX (ouch! Devon just hit me over the head for that comment!)

I will need to do some memory usage tests to see how much overhead each instance takes. To be honest, running 8 instances inside Cubase SX wasn't really taxing the CPU very much.

2. Would like to see a "fatter" version of this with more than 32MB of base samples. I mean, I have 1024MB of RAM on my PC; what's a few megabytes between friends? This is something that the devs probably have plans for in the future.

3. The price is too high. This is $80-100 territory

I want Spectrasonics to bring out a $150 version of Atmosphere (LE?) using a compressed 64MB core library, hehe! Now THAT would be the bee's dick!

Koorby wrote:

1. No multi-timbral: this means multiple memory hogging instances of ravity. The upside is that at least I get unique outs with each instance for additional eq, compression or other FX (ouch! Devon just hit me over the head for that comment!) I will need to do some memory usage tests to see how much overhead each instance takes. To be honest, running 8 instances inside Cubase SX wasn't really taxing the CPU very much.

Usually a well coded VSTi shares its processing over multiple instances, and samplers usually also share the samples over multiple instances. The only thing that would use more CPU and memory would be the graphics, if you have multiple windows of the VSTi open. So in that respect there shouldn't be a big difference to a multitimbral version.

Koorby wrote:

The upside is that at least I get unique outs with each instance for additional eq, compression or other FX (ouch! Devon just hit me over the head for that comment!)

Me? Hardly. I already plan on shutting off the reverb on the patches and using my own instead. I think Dreamverb on the UAD-1 will sound a bit better. Then again, I expect this out of most synths, especially since most good reverbs cost more than this whole synth alone!

Quote:

2. Would like to see a "fatter" version of this with more than 32MB of base samples. I mean, I have 1024MB of RAM on my PC; what's a few megabytes between friends? This is something that the devs probably have plans for in the future.

Me too, but considering this sounds better with less, I can't complain.

Quote:

3. The price is too high. This is $80-100 territory

Too high? For expert programming of quality sounds? I've heard much less programming going for much more dough, I can hardly say this is too high. It's certainly cheaper than its competition. Ya, you can site sfz with the free sound fonts, but how many of those sound sets are actually legal to use in commercial uses too? I'm not willing to take the chance. I'm also not willing to take the time to sift through hundreds of soundfonts to maybe find something I like. ravity you load, and boom, the patches sound good! Inspirational sounds are good at any price.

Devon

ok ok i'm a 100% sold. just bring out the mac version

I wasn't impressed by the synth sounds, but the drums were really good IMHO

Hi,
Ravity is available with CD on Demand option now.
CDoD option costs just 9.95 USD/EUR, no more shipping charge.

Thanks.