Psychoacoustic Virtual Synths?

[BBFG#]

"Which virtual synths currently use the term in their specs?"
So far, I've only seen it on:
Rayblaster
Gladiator 2
Omnisphere

Any others?

(The other Tone 2 synths don't list it and I don't remember seeing it on the other Spectrasonics VIs, so I assume they don't.)

[Dasheesh]

Holy crap I was just going over this very same topic just today.

Hamburg Nuklear

I also believe Alchemy does.

[ghettosynth]

"Which virtual synths currently use the term in their specs?"
So far, I've only seen it on:
Rayblaster
Gladiator 2
Omnisphere

Any others?

(The other Tone 2 synths don't list it and I don't remember seeing it on the other Spectrasonics VIs, so I assume they don't.)

Wow, really? In what context do they use the phrase?

[SODDI]

[Ingonator]

"Which virtual synths currently use the term in their specs?"
So far, I've only seen it on:
Rayblaster
Gladiator 2
Omnisphere

Any others?

(The other Tone 2 synths don't list it and I don't remember seeing it on the other Spectrasonics VIs, so I assume they don't.)

Saurus adds psychoacoustic EQ when you switch on the "Boost" button.

Nemesis got it imlemented too in the Boost modes at configuration menu (besides other like "Bass Boost").
ElectraX got it at the "Sound Modes" in the "Settings" tab (besides others like "Linear sound").

In any case the psychoacoutsic feature/FX could be turned off.
It's not something hard-wired into sound generation withou and option to turn it off.

ElectraX also got a "normal" 3 band EQ at the top of the main GUI and Nemesis got an EQ in the FX section (1 or 2 adjustable frequencies + Q value + gain value).

That talk about a "typical" Tone2 sound is stupid anyway. Maybe the FXs are comparable.



Ingo

[BBFG#]

That talk about a "typical" Tone2 sound is stupid anyway. Maybe the FXs are comparable.
Ingo

Thanks for the info. That explains some things in their tone.

I find similarities in their tone, but not in a homogeneous way. Perhaps it is the effects as you say, or at first play, simply the programming, since so much is geared toward that market. I wouldn't call them stupid as much as short-sighted, since their synths would sell more if they had sound designs from a more diverse set of programmers. But that's where the 'typical' sound seems to come from.

[Ingonator]

That talk about a "typical" Tone2 sound is stupid anyway. Maybe the FXs are comparable.
Ingo

Thanks for the info. That explains some things in their tone.

I find similarities in their tone, but not in a homogeneous way. Perhaps it is the effects as you say, or at first play, simply the programming, since so much is geared toward that market. I wouldn't call them stupid as much as short-sighted, since their synths would sell more if they had sound designs from a more diverse set of programmers. But that's where the 'typical' sound seems to come from.

For most of their synths more than thousand patches are available, either at their website or by others (e.g. the Saurus bank by Himalaya or the ElectraX banks by MaxSynths).

If i would start totally new with synth or if i would try to reduce my synths to the minimum the Tone2 would always be there. Each of them got their very unique featues and none of them is really an exact copy of an existing synth or one from another company.
I don't think most peope really understood Rayblaster yet and from my own experience some also don't seem to believe it is able to do what it could do (e.g. recreating certain filters just based omn a single cycle waveform, of course with some limitations).

The sound you could get really depend on programming, not on the synths itself.
Anyway like already mentioned there are tons of sounds for each of their synths and the amount is still growing.

There are even 3 soundsets for Nemesis already and more will come.One was focused on "typical " FM sounds (called "Classic FM") without really an option to create "typical" dance stuff (e.g. Unison was forbidden for that soundset).

FWIW for Saurus and Rayblaster together i am slowly reaching the mark of 500 of my own patches now (less than half was published yet).
Around the same amount (or a bot more ) i currently reached for my Waldorf synths like PPG Wave 3.V, Largo, Blofeld, Pulse 2.

The Tone2 and Waldorf synths so far have been the most "productive" (you could also call it inspiring) one so far while i got a shitload of other plugins too.


Ingo

[BBFG#]

Unfortunately, the plethora of available sounds really could all fit in the one niche.

I happen to like their synths, fun to play and not to bad to program either. But I wouldn't have bought any of them without a no-brainer sale. But I haven't found one sound set/expansion that feels like its worth the money. Not saying they're bad, because they're definitely good for what they are. Just nothing that works in anything I do.

Neither here or there though, since it just takes us off topic.

So what other Virtual Synths use psychoacoustic in their specs?

[Ingonator]

Unfortunately, the plethora of available sounds really could all fit in the one niche.

I happen to like their synths, fun to play and not to bad to program either. But I wouldn't have bought any of them without a no-brainer sale. But I haven't found one sound set/expansion that feels like its worth the money. Not saying they're bad, because they're definitely good for what they are. Just nothing that works in anything I do.

Neither here or there though, since it just takes us off topic.

So what other Virtual Synths use psychoacoustic in their specs?

Unfortunately the official audio demos don't allways represent everything that is inlcuded with the soundsets. I am not really a fan for all of those demos and it is not really my own style mostly but i had posted a bunch of my own demos in the past. which are mostly more in atmospheric and/or Tangerine dream style (or just single sound demos). From my own 500+ patches for Tone2 synths only some are directly related to EDM while generally i really like e.g. Supersaws.
So judging the soundsets only due to the demos is is not really precise.
You could maybe get an idea when you look at the patch names that are shown too at the corresponding soundset pages. The genre descriptions at the soundset websites also seem to be a quite good summary for what it could be used. They are really different for each soundset.


Ingo

[ghettosynth]

Wow, who writes this stuff?

"Psychoacoustic" sampling is a completely new concept that we've been developing at Spectrasonics for a long time. The idea is to use sampling technology to create unique sounds in a totally organic way, instead of the standard approach of using sampling to emulate traditional instruments. Our goal is to capture the "sound within the sound" of an acoustic source by performing and recording it in unique and creative ways - even going as far as building crazy acoustic instruments from scratch! When Psychoacoustic soundsources interact with the powerful STEAM engine, the result is Organic Synthesis!

I think that the result is what we like to call, wait for it, a rompler.

[Ingonator]

Going back on topic i think the question is what a "psychoacoustic synth" actually is.

Is ait a synth that includes additional psychoacoustic processing/FXs that could be switched on/off like with most mostl Tone2 synths or do we speak abou psycoacoustics as part of the synthesis engine (e.g. in the oscillators and/or filter)?

In that matter the way Rayblaster actually works is maybe the only real "psychoacoustic" synth from the Tone2 range. There is a description here:
http://www.tone2.com/html/impulse_model ... is__i.html

While some call this "marketing blah blah" i am quite sure that some of the stuff mentioned there is actually true. The sound indeed has a certain quality that in the same way is difficult to find with other synths, not speaking about the actual sound design capabilities.


One of the most famous examples of psychoacousticts implementation seem to be audio cpmpression like the famous MP3 fprmat. This is also mentioned in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics


Ingo

[Ingonator]

Holy crap I was just going over this very same topic just today.

Hamburg Nuklear

I was one of the Beta testers + factory sound designers for Hamburg-Audio Nuklear.

Somehow forgot that this was marketed with a psychoacoustic approach.
Just had a look at the website and manual and could not really find this.

It is based on pulsar train synthesis which is a special kind of granular synthesis.


Ingo

[ghettosynth]

Going back on topic i think the question is what a "psychoacoustic synth" actually is.

Is ait a synth that includes additional psychoacoustic processing/FXs that could be switched on/off like with most mostl Tone2 synths or do we speak abou psycoacoustics as part of the synthesis engine (e.g. in the oscillators and/or filter)?

In that matter the way Rayblaster actually works is maybe the only real "psychoacoustic" synth from the Tone2 range. There is a description here:
http://www.tone2.com/html/impulse_model ... is__i.html

While some call this "marketing blah blah" i am quite sure that some of the stuff mentioned there is actually true. The sound indeed has a certain quality that in the same way is difficult to find with other synths, not speaking about the actual sound design capabilities.


PS:
Here at KVR serious discussions about the sound and/or specs of Tone2 synths usually are rendered usseless by people that are trolling and or starting flame wars about anything related to it. I would be very surprised if it would end differently in this case.


Ingo

The phrase psychoacoustic, as opposed to acoustic, as far as I understand it, refers to the perception of a sound that isn't present in the mechanical wave. Maxxbass, for example, isolates bass sounds and produces their harmonics. The presence of the harmonics makes us perceive greater bass (at the fundamental) than is actually present. That's a psychoacoustic phenomenon. The perception of continuous rising of Shepard tones is another example.

Since "inpulse modeling synthesis" is itself a buzzword, it's not really clear to me what they're doing. I think that some of the sounds were interesting. If anyone has some insight as to what's actually going on, I'm all ears, heh!

[Ingonator]

Since "inpulse modeling synthesis" is itself a buzzword, it's not really clear to me what they're doing. I think that some of the sounds were interesting. If anyone has some insight as to what's actually going on, I'm all ears, heh!

From the Rayblaster manual:

What is Impulse Modeling Synthesis (IMS)
Conventional synthesizers use a looped waveform as their oscillator source, which is then filtered to create your sound, this is known as substractive synthesis.
RayBlaster uses a completely new approach to sound generation, creating its sound from many short bursts of energy and combining these bursts to form its characterful sound.
This innovative and unique approach to synthesis is very close to what happens within
the human inner ear, sounds more authentic and gives you access to a whole new range of sounds.
Rayblaster can take two cross blend-able samples, loops, waveforms or even an impulse response of any filter, to use as source for its IMS oscillators.
The oscillators play back these short samples in rhythmic or chaotic order to create an
audible sound. Pitch, formant frequency, impulse order, mix, pulse width and the
harmonics of oscillators can be adjusted independently, which allows for a very large
amount of possibilities to morph your sound in real time.
The oscillators have an very wide pitch range, ranging from lower than 0.5 Hz up to 22kHz and are capable of playing at extremely low frequency rates where rhythmical and tonal parts of a sound start to smear.
For rhythmical sounds, Rayblaster can be synchronized to the host's BPM tempo which for example allows you to beat-slice a drum loop accurately. Very low oscillator pitch rates also allow the creation of granular sounds and loops where playback speed and pitch can be controlled independently.

Where's my filter?
IMS works in a way that does not need a separate filter section, its oscillators can
authentically mimic the filter sound of other synthesizers, using one of the factory impulse presets or by simply importing one of your own impulses.
Not only is RayBlaster capable of modeling the sound of existing filters – it's also possible to create completely new artificial 'fantasy' filters exclusive to Rayblaster, making its filter capabilities virtually unlimited. Your own custom Rayblaster filter impulse responses can be created very easily, you'll find a step-by-step description in “Chapter 7 - Create your own custom Rayblaster filter impulse response' of this manual.

More or less the same and some more here:
http://www.tone2.com/html/impulse_model ... is__i.html

In practical use it means the following:

1.) You could import a filter response of an existing synth using a single cycle waveform recorded from thhat synth. Within a limited range this means the "Formant" knob will act like it would do in the original synth, including modulations of it. Same is true if you use a single cycle wave of a resonant sound from that synth.
Within a certain range you could do prper resonant sweeps etc.

To use this properly the sample for the single cycle has to be created at a certain way, not at 100% Cutoff like with usual samples. A usual value is around 30-40% of the Cutoff knob wher 50% is the middle position.

2.) you could use a waveform created from scratch to create a custom filter response

3.) you could use any waveform (from sample or done from scratch) to create a "fantasy filter" which could lead ro several different timbres while turning the "Formant" knob. This more or less correspond to using a formant or Comb filter or seomething in between.

4.) When using a filter response of a certain synth it is usually only necessray to create it from a sawtooth. Rayblaster could creat other shapes like, e.g. Square, Pulse (with PWM) and triangle by a kind of waveshaper called "PW sequence"
This does not exactly mena that it "ovverrides" the waveform by using a factory waveform. The PW/PWM also works for complex waveforms, with interesting results.

5.) further shaping is done by e.g. the "Osc windows" which could also mimic certain filters like e.g. a Comb filter.

6.) you could "zoom" in and out of a bigger waveform/sample (up to several 1000 of samples long...) using the "harmonic" selector in combination with the start phase parameter.
In combination this could be used to slowly scan trough the whole waveform which results in sounds typically know by wavetable synths like the PPG Wave.
I found this kind of use during the beta test. It was not indented while the synth was built. In fact nobody did really know where the IMS syntheis would really lead to...


No other synth could treat single cycle waveforms like Rayblaster could do.

With the built-in resyntheis feature you could also create granular like sounds.
This feature is not identical ti the "usual2 import of waveforms which works like described above.

There is also no "cheating" involved with the way Rayblaster could mimic certain filters based on a single cycle waveform.Some people guessed that Rayblaster has a selection of pre-built filters and selects those based on the waveform. This is BS. First the result for different synths with a techically similar filter (e.g. a 4 pole LPF) sound different and second the behavior with complex waveforms would be hard to explain.


More info also here:
http://www.tone2.org/forum/index.php?topic=1336.0
http://www.tone2.org/forum/index.php?topic=1446.0


Ingo

[Dasheesh]

The guy was just asking what synths used the term in their marketing. I was just thinking yesterday about how it was going to become the "hot" new catch phrase in synth marketing and you would probably start to see it everywhere. I know Nuklear used it because that is what made me try it out. I was like "what the hell does that mean"? So I went and tried it out. It's almost always used in association with some kind of granular effect or synthesis.