KVR Audio

ariston · Post by **ariston** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 7:43 pm

Acrobat wrote: Needless to say, "element of surprise" is the name of another VA!

Oh, excuuuuse me. I'll rename the track in true Autechre fashion. It shall henceforth be called "0x%tr--bleep". I'm sure that name isn't taken. Feel free to google it.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 7:47 pm

ariston wrote:
Acrobat wrote: Needless to say, "element of surprise" is the name of another VA!

Oh, excuuuuse me. I'll rename the track in true Autechre fashion. It shall henceforth be called "0x%tr--bleep". I'm sure that name isn't taken. Feel free to google it.

http://www.gardyloocomics.com/comics/20 ... rprise.jpg

Ingo

jalcide · Post by **jalcide** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:56 pm

ariston wrote: http://soundcloud.com/ariston/element-of-surprise

Great stuff! I enjoyed it, muchly. Thanks for posting it.

ariston wrote:...how much can possibly be said about a fairly limited VA. How many more examples of smooth pads, blazing lead lines, phatt basses and vintage brass do we really need?

Good question. I know you know the anwser to this, and have pretty much answered it already, but allow me to add my take on it: "Much more." Because it's a very short list of soft-synths that are only just starting to sound like actual analog synths. And because there is room for improvment and also room for more of them -- each with (hopefully) its own tone and character, just like hardware synths have.

To me, the list is: Diva, Saurus, Synth Squad bundle, Xils-labs offerings, LuSH-101, Arturia V Collection, impOSCar 2, Phoscyon (albeit limited to mostly a 303) and Element (Retrologue, too, but I'm not a big fan of it for some reason). I know there are a few more, but those are the top ones that I own and can speak for. They're all great, but it hasn't stopped me from reaching for my Korg Radias keyboard, at times.

So, that's a pretty short list (plus or minus a few more) for the whole universe of soft synths -- that nail, to a good degree, true analog character and musical imperfections -- in 2013. If there were only that many actual hardware synths in the world from the 70s-90s, you can bet there would have been a lot of startup companies flooding to fill the void (like there was).

ariston wrote:
- Aliasing. This synth can't handle audio rate modulation, and that's kind of a poor showing in 2013. Thankfully, the EQ has a LPF/HPF - the LPF is in constant use over here!
- Detailed unison features.
- Revise that bitcrusher effect - it's the most unconvincing bitcrusher I have ever heard. Given that, it's not even a good distortion, it just sounds yucky.
- Distortion only really sounds good when placed before the filter.
- Some degree of tweaking to chorus and reverb would be nice.
- I can't really place it, but the cutoff and resonance behave rather strangely. It's almost like there's some kind of "intelligent" algorithm in the background that enhances certain areas while leaving others untouched.
- The envelopes are nice, but again, they sometimes behave rather strangely. And sometimes, using the "punch" button on the VCA env distorts the sound (!). I'm pretty sure that's a bug, not a feature.
- More mod slots! Seriously, 6 are kind of ridiculous.
- More options for the arpeggiator/sequencer: something like "tie" and "repeat" would make it very powerful.

Great list. Agree on all these. With a slight exception/jury's out on the "aliasing / audio-rate modulation". I'm not sure we know, 100%, that oversampling is not happening (low latency clues, not withstanding). I'm still not really hearing any aliasing. Though, the patches I'm working on may be avoiding it. "Audio-rate" modulation: I'm not sure we know this isn't happening. Also, it's different than, but related to, aliasing, of course. Even if oversampling is not being employed, there still might be audio-rate modulation going on. I'm hearing an awful lot of punch and detail in the trasients/attacks for there not being audio-rate modulation under-the-hood. Similar, in this regard, to Saurus -- which does indeed have audio-rate modulation. Also similar to Sylenth, which may or may not (I suspect it does). I'd love to get official word from Waves on these two specs.

Don't care so much about the Reverb and Delay as those are so easily supplemented.

Sidebar: [The SynthMaster synth actually has great reverb on it! I was shocked. It's the only soft-synth I own, I've allowed its reverb section to be used. Very smooth, almost Lexicon-ish at times.]

Also, to add to your list: Noise toggle. Or, an explaination from Waves why this would harm the perfection of the modelling in a way more than a simple layer of linear, additive noise. Like, does the noise feed into the circuit in an interesting/complex way, or even arise as a natural part of the circuit.

(either/both would be awesome.)

Cheers.

ariston · Post by **ariston** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 9:05 am

@jalcide: thanks for the feedback! I'm working on another demo track that's more in the ambient area - Element doesn't lend itself to that easily, but that's a fun challenge.

Yeah, my comment about the sound examples was ironic - but not completely. I'm not an emulation fanatic, I really don't care whether softsynth x is a perfect model of vintage synth y. Therefore, I can't see the point in trying to recreate patches of yore - unless it's an exercise in sound design. I can understand why some people like that, though, it's just not my thing.

But: I do like to explore the characteristics of different synths, and I appreciate differences in timbre. Which is why I got Element despite my reservations - I really like the vibe in the low to midrange. I do hope they'll update it, though, some of it feels kind of rushed or not really well implemented.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 9:26 am

jalcide wrote:Though, the patches I'm working on may be avoiding it. "Audio-rate" modulation: I'm not sure we know this isn't happening. Also, it's different than, but related to, aliasing, of course. Even if oversampling is not being employed, there still might be audio-rate modulation going on. I'm hearing an awful lot of punch and detail in the trasients/attacks for there not being audio-rate modulation under-the-hood. Similar, in this regard, to Saurus -- which does indeed have audio-rate modulation. Also similar to Sylenth, which may or may not (I suspect it does). I'd love to get official word from Waves on these two specs.

Maybe there is a bit of confusion about the term "audio rate modulation" or i just misunderstood your post. I apologize if this is the case. Found this about audio rate modulation:
http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/fm/fm.htm

Element got two ways for doing FM. First the "Sine Mod" which does FM of OSC1 with another sine wave oscillator and second the FM in OSC2 which uses OSC1 as a modulator. Maybe i'm wrong but isn't this called "audio rate modulation" too?
Everything that is in the audible range (Around 20 - 20000 Hz) should correspond to that description. In Saurus the LFOs go up to 440 Hz (same in Rayblaster) so they allow audio rate modulations too but not as high as usual FM. Additionally to the "usual" FM the LFOs of Element (based on the manual) go up to 100 Hz which is in the audible range too so they could offer a limited range of audio rate modulations too.

Anyway FM sounds in Element seem to sound quite good for my taste. One of the audio demos i posted here uses FM, Phase modulation and LFO modulation of the FM amount. There are also lot of factory sounds that involve FM somehow.

Ingo

jalcide · Post by **jalcide** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 6:45 pm

ariston wrote:...working on another demo track that's more in the ambient area...

Nice. Looking forward to it!

As for the recreation of synths, I'm a sucker for that, for sure. That said, just good analog characteristics is what's most important to me. Also, the tone, like you said in low/low-mids. I think they're really punchy and "enhanced sounding," somehow. In a way that's different than simple eq or even multi-band compression. Me like it.

jalcide · Post by **jalcide** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:00 pm

Ingonator wrote:Found this about audio rate modulation:
http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/fm/fm.htm

Element got two ways for doing FM. First the "Sine Mod" which does FM of OSC1 with another sine wave oscillator and second the FM in OSC2 which uses OSC1 as a modulator. Maybe i'm wrong but isn't this called "audio rate modulation" too?
Everything that is in the audible range (Around 20 - 20000 Hz) should correspond to that description. In Saurus the LFOs go up to 440 Hz (same in Rayblaster) so they allow audio rate modulations too but not as high as usual FM. Additionally to the "usual" FM the LFOs of Element (based on the manual) go up to 100 Hz which is in the audible range too so they could offer a limited range of audio rate modulations too.

Interesting. I'm not sure, I was just using it in the more informal way that Tone2 uses it on their website for describing Saurus's strengths:

"The LFOs, modulation and envelopes are very fast - they can run at audio-rate."

So, in your opinion, is it as simple as that? Or, did they put forth a slightly misleading notion/definition of "audio-rate"?

To me, they're simply implying that Saurus can produce very snappy and detailed transients, ADSR envelopes and really well-defined lfo effects. I think they even allude to this in the marketing video by playing back a really fast-rate "juicy" lfo effect.

I think maybe this is a separate thing from how fast (the freq.) an lfo actually oscillates; that it has to do with the "internal resolution." (?) So, even a slower LFO is being "applied" at audio-rates. That is, 44100 times a second (at 44.1) a slice of the envelope (an arbitrary value) can affect its sample's counterpart at that exact slice in time.

This is all pure speculation on my part.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 9:57 pm

jalcide wrote:
Ingonator wrote:Found this about audio rate modulation:
http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/fm/fm.htm

Element got two ways for doing FM. First the "Sine Mod" which does FM of OSC1 with another sine wave oscillator and second the FM in OSC2 which uses OSC1 as a modulator. Maybe i'm wrong but isn't this called "audio rate modulation" too?
Everything that is in the audible range (Around 20 - 20000 Hz) should correspond to that description. In Saurus the LFOs go up to 440 Hz (same in Rayblaster) so they allow audio rate modulations too but not as high as usual FM. Additionally to the "usual" FM the LFOs of Element (based on the manual) go up to 100 Hz which is in the audible range too so they could offer a limited range of audio rate modulations too.
Interesting. I'm not sure, I was just using it in the more informal way that Tone2 uses it on their website for describing Saurus's strengths:

"The LFOs, modulation and envelopes are very fast - they can run at audio-rate."

So, in your opinion, is it as simple as that? Or, did they put forth a slightly misleading notion/definition of "audio-rate"?

To me, they're simply implying that Saurus can produce very snappy and detailed transients, ADSR envelopes and really well-defined lfo effects. I think they even allude to this in the marketing video by playing back a really fast-rate "juicy" lfo effect.

I think maybe this is a separate thing from how fast (the freq.) an lfo actually oscillates; that it has to do with the "internal resolution." (?) So, even a slower LFO is being "applied" at audio-rates. That is, 44100 times a second (at 44.1) a slice of the envelope (an arbitrary value) can affect its sample's counterpart at that exact slice in time.

This is all pure speculation on my part.

The first two point about Saurus seem to be OK but i don't see how "audio rate" is related to the envelopes. I guess they wanted to say the envelopes are quite fast or "snappy". Maybe it was just no good idea to mention the envelopes in the same sentence.

"Audio rate modulation" to my knowledge does not mean anything else that for modulation a frequency in the audible range (20 Hz up to 20000 Hz) is used.
LFOs usually run below 20 Hz which results in "vibrato" when assigned to oscillator pitch.
If a frequency higher then 20 Hz is used to modulate an oscillator we usually speak about "frequency modulation" (= FM).

The Saurus LFOs could go up to 440 Hz so they could do FM. Anyway usual FM could go far beyond 440 so the way implemented in Saurus is limited.

So there is no "magic" or "internal resolution" involved with that. Basically it's all about FM, either of one oscialltor with another (= "modulator" and "carrier"), one osciallator with an LFO (which is identical if the LFO runs at audio rate) or FM of the filter using an oscillator (= "filter FM").

As already mentioned the "Sine Mod" feature in Element uses another Sine osc for doing FM with OSC 1 and the Sine Mod knob controls the FM amount.
The LFOs in Element could go up to 100 Hz which is in the audible range. This means they could go beyond usual "vibrato" (below 20 Hz) and go into frequency modulation (FM).

Ingo

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 10:25 pm

Saurus also has filter FM which is pretty well implimented. I think you can get it to alias, but you have to go much higher and push harder than Element, which to my ears seemed to alias in the top portion of the keyboard as soon as FM/PM is present.

Saurus' LFOs also go into audio territory but as Ingo mentioned, they don't go very far into it, so for that and other reasons getting the LFO to track the keyboard for "musical" FM is all but out of the question in Saurus.

Tone2's claim that Saurus can do audio rate modulation seems fair enough to me.

Note that envelopes can also cause audio rate modulation but only a transient effect. If the volume or pitch of a waveform changes quickly enough it'll change the shape of a wavecycle or six, creating extra harmonics which could on a good day be heard as extra "punch". I'm not so sure which synths are best for this on a technical level, so I just use my ears and hunches

DuX · Post by **DuX** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 11:08 pm

It sounds better than Steinberg Neon or Model-E, for that matter... I give it that.

On the other hand, it's very easy to sound better than any Steinberg VSTi cause all they really know how to program really good is MIDI editing [and that's NOT bad]. The best shizz comes with Sonar and Samplitude. If not the only good shizz. However, the bugs and the banana-code work against them... oops a bit OT.

That's a very nice sig, Sendy.

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 11:27 pm

DuX wrote:It sounds better than Steinberg Neon or Model-E, for that matter... I give it that.

@midnight · Post by **@midnight** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 11:36 pm

audio-rate modulation is not an "digital artifact" it's a synthesis function, a very desirable one if well implemented (Synth Squad)

EnGee · Post by **EnGee** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:50 am

DuX wrote:It sounds better than Steinberg Neon or Model-E, for that matter... I give it that. On the other hand, it's very easy to sound better than any Steinberg VSTi cause all they really know how to program really good is MIDI editing [and that's NOT bad]. The best shizz comes with Sonar and Samplitude. If not the only good shizz. However, the bugs and the banana-code work against them... oops a bit OT.

That's a very nice sig, Sendy.

I felt deja vu like I read this 10 years ago

jalcide · Post by **jalcide** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 3:52 am

Thanks, Ingo. Helpful stuff that is prompting me to do some more research/study/homework.

But for tonight, I put the science aside, and work on WIP 2 of my little Element demo song -- as promised.

Actually, there is both art and science in almost everything cool, now.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 8:46 am

Sendy wrote:Saurus also has filter FM which is pretty well implemented.

Indeed. I forgot to mention that.

In Element for filter FM OSC1 is used as a modulator.
For very slight FM you could also use LFO 1 or 2 which go up to 100 Hz.

For "usual" FM in Element you more or less got 3 operators as the Sine Mod feature uses another Sine oscillator to modulate OSC1. The ratio could be adjusted with the octave selector and the other tuning controls in OSC1. The result of that could then be used for doing FM with OSC2 (FM knob).

Another interesting feature in Element is that you could modulate e.g. the Sine Mod and/or FM values in OSC1 + 2 by e.g. a LFO and/or envelope.

I had used that for this example (in this case LFO modulation of the FM amount) which i already posted:

Element - FM Mod Pad 1

Ingo

Oh boy, another VA synth. This time from Waves!