Plugin Boutique will release late in July Carbon Electra Synth

[wagtunes]

The more I'm thinking about this synth, the more I'm thinking that the problem isn't the synth itself but that developers are raising the bar as far as what the average consumer can expect to get for $X.

Look at some of the recent synths that have come out and what they are capable of doing and then look at their price tags. If you compare them, feature to feature, this synth just doesn't stack up. Not at this price.

This is yet another Sylenth1 problem, though that's a very popular synth probably because of ease of use and the gazillion patch libraries out there. But for me, Sylenth1 is no $158 synth. It's not even close. But it seems to have a sound that a lot of people want.

So the question will ultimately become, will THIS synth also have a sound that people will want? I'm not hearing it, but I could be wrong.

Like I said, I don't get the Sylenth1 thing at all.

[aciddose]

I've been thinking about doing a basic synthesizer for a long, long time. One of the reasons I haven't been very motivated has been that I doubt it would be much of a commercial success regardless of the quality.

WT, you mention "feature to feature" although what I've wanted to do is actually to cut down on the amount of BS. I'd like to create a simplified synth that does basic sounds, but does them well. It probably isn't going to be anything like this one as it has too many oscillators and just too much going on all over. For example a step envelope is a cool toy, but not exactly simple.

Look at something like a SH-2, these go in the range of $1000 or more. So are you saying if you had a controller combined with software that produced exactly the same sounds, you wouldn't be interested because all the other software already does that?

I get the impression you're a modular wizard type which is sometimes what I am myself. Although very often I also like to sit down with my sh-09 or my own analogs (which I'd probably like to do a software version of) and just jam out without fussing over sounds. I think Shy has said in the past "the cool thing about certain analogs is that no matter where you set the controls, something sounding awesome will come out."

I think there is a market for that, so maybe when we're in our "synthesizer wizard" mode we're just not the market for this kind of thing.

That said... I really can't see anything about this synthesizer based upon the video. So it has four oscillators, a filter, effects and so on. The step envelope looks a bit cool but I don't see anything amazing demonstrated with it.

So what makes it special? Are there any demo tracks or other videos?

When I'm trying to actually use a synthesizer trying to make simple sounds quickly rather than finding the weirdest thing I can do I think I'd really appreciate having something that sounds good and is simple.

So the question is really not "what can it do that nothing else can?" but "how comfortable is it to use, and does it actually sound good?"

[wagtunes]

Look at something like a SH-2, these go in the range of $1000 or more. So are you saying if you had a controller combined with software that produced exactly the same sounds, you wouldn't be interested because all the other software already does that?

I get the impression you're a modular wizard type which is sometimes what I am myself.

Here's the problem with me, and I'll be the first to admit it, which is also why I'm probably not your typical synthesist.

My first synth was a Moog back in 1979. I've been buying synths, both hardware and software ever since. I've forgotten more synths that I've owned than most people have.

Jaded doesn't even come close to describing me when it comes to synths.

My first loves are modulars and even some of them do little for me. If I had any programming skills at all, I'd build my ultimate synth. It probably wouldn't be able to be used on any PC in existence today and even if it could, after one instance your CPU would die a horrible death.

Nobody is going to build the synth I've been looking for for years. I've resigned myself to that fact. So I've learned to settle for "second best."

Second best, for me, are synths like Zebra 2, MUX Modular, KarmaFX Modular, Bazille, Harmor, Cycle, MPowersynth, Omnisphere, Reaktor and XILS 4.

Any other synths I have, outside of the free ones I've downloaded to kill some time, have at least something about their sound that I couldn't find elsewhere. But that has worn off. It is almost impossible for a new synth to impress me just on sound alone if it doesn't have a gazillion modulation routings included.

One synth that I am anxiously waiting for (I'm on the beta testing list) is Flexion. If that thing is stable, it looks absolutely fascinating.

Point is, I'm almost impossible to please when it comes to sinking a lot of money into a synth. Sound alone isn't going to do it for me if it's something too simple and limited in what it can do.

So I'm not the person to ask when it comes to stuff like this.

I've seen too much.

[robotmonkey]

Contrary to wagtunes, I tend to prefer synths that are simple enough and do one thing well. All those complex megasynths just do not get much love from me because I'm just not into fiddling with super complex patches that make no difference in the mix anyway. That's often a problem with complex patches that whoever programs those seems to think that any given sound will be the only one in the mix. I instead prefer to start out with much simpler sounds and then treat them in the context of mix with various processors.
That's why I like simple interface that I can dial parameters in quickly instead of browsing through endless pages of modulation parameters and such.That's why I will take synths like PPG Wave or Virsyn Poseidon or Waves Element or Zebralette any time over the megasynths like Synth Master, Zebra2 or MPowersynth. The latter one is especially horrible IMHO because it's GUI made me feel like was working on my tax return in Excel instead of programming sounds.

And to claim that there is some ultimate supersynth still missing in the market is just plain strange. Then you must have some really really special needs. There's plenty of those complex synths out there that can do anything. Things like Tera, Ace, Zebra2, Synth Master and so on. If you have not found a synths that fully satisfies your needs for now then it is not going to happen ever. Though I just can't imagine what those needs could be that none of the synths currently available do not meet.

The problem with making a simple synth these days is that there is just so many VA type synths out there already, including the ones that sound very good and have nice clean interface. So I just can't see any point in making more of those if they do not have any special qualities. And this is the case with this new Electra.

[Numanoid]

All those complex megasynths just do not get much love from me because I'm just not into fiddling with super complex patches

+1 Amen to that

[Sim.Sky]

sorry if some of this has already been posted earlier, haven't gotten round to read through it all... my main problem with the synth is - as many people have said - the price tag in regard to the list of features. i mean, you get 5 or six filter types, with really nothing new or spectacular. in fact, you cannot even control the slope - so there's the most basic filter setup i've seen on a soft synth in quite a while.
then there's the step envelope, which is a pretty cheeky rip off from massive (which, by the way, you can get for the same price as carbon electra during one of the many 50% sales). you only get the most basic waveforms, both in the oscillator and the lfo section. same with the effects section - nothing new or distinctively well thought out here. honestly, even if i were just starting out with getting into soft synths and so on, this would be not a very thankful investment. as i said (and many of you before) for the same amount of money you can get real powerhorses of synths.

i'm really, really wondering what might have driven the folks at pb to go for this thing. the only (and not quite positive) explanation i could think of would be, trying to market it as "the perfect newbie synth" and rely on the fact that those people don't know what they're missing out, what (better) competition there is, and what many features they will soon come to realize are fundamental, but not there. i'm not saying that this is a bad piece of software. i'm just saying its redundant. heck, you can even get a number of synths for FREE that would hold up to this one. and finally, the name... this is just - dare i say? - pathetic. if they can't manage to come up with an original name, that sums up pretty much everything i wrote above

[Sim.Sky]

As this being released by PluginBoutique, I guess it would be the same devs doing Carbon Electra as did Virtual CZ ?

In case of that this new synth most def would be worth a look when it appears.

Not necessarily, Big Kick was done by another developer: http://www.credland.net

AFAIK virtual cz was developed solely by oli larkin, and since david carbon states in the video that "he is the lead designer (of carbon electroI) and has been working on it for about three years" its pretty likely that this as well is a one-man-show, which is just distributed by pb

[VariKusBrainZ]

Im releasing the following synth:

Dark Diggler, for massive throbbing penetrative bass

[KingTuck]

I've been thinking about doing a basic synthesizer for a long, long time. One of the reasons I haven't been very motivated has been that I doubt it would be much of a commercial success regardless of the quality.

WT, you mention "feature to feature" although what I've wanted to do is actually to cut down on the amount of BS. I'd like to create a simplified synth that does basic sounds, but does them well. It probably isn't going to be anything like this one as it has too many oscillators and just too much going on all over. For example a step envelope is a cool toy, but not exactly simple.

Look at something like a SH-2, these go in the range of $1000 or more. So are you saying if you had a controller combined with software that produced exactly the same sounds, you wouldn't be interested because all the other software already does that?

I get the impression you're a modular wizard type which is sometimes what I am myself. Although very often I also like to sit down with my sh-09 or my own analogs (which I'd probably like to do a software version of) and just jam out without fussing over sounds. I think Shy has said in the past "the cool thing about certain analogs is that no matter where you set the controls, something sounding awesome will come out."

I think there is a market for that, so maybe when we're in our "synthesizer wizard" mode we're just not the market for this kind of thing.

That said... I really can't see anything about this synthesizer based upon the video. So it has four oscillators, a filter, effects and so on. The step envelope looks a bit cool but I don't see anything amazing demonstrated with it.

So what makes it special? Are there any demo tracks or other videos?

When I'm trying to actually use a synthesizer trying to make simple sounds quickly rather than finding the weirdest thing I can do I think I'd really appreciate having something that sounds good and is simple.

So the question is really not "what can it do that nothing else can?" but "how comfortable is it to use, and does it actually sound good?"

Aren't there tons of simple soft synths? Or are you trying to say super, like super super simple? As it stands many VA emulations out there are near identical in layout and feature set to their analog counterparts with maybe the addition of a delay or chorus or something. You're right in saying that most people wouldn't buy a simple synth that does simple sounds, and does them well. As it stands I really don't see where that need or desire is lacking in the soft synth market. A lot of the appeal of plopping down with some analog synths is the tangibility and hands on approach they take. The lack of conveniences that hardware often has can be appealing/inspiring in the right mood. The seemingly romantic/fetishistic simplicity of hardware will never be articulated in software.

Most any reasonable synthesist ("wizard" or no) should be able to patch up Hive (or something like it) in a moment to function with a similar architecture to many analog synths. Shouldn't that be appropriate for quick, basic high quality sounds? Most sales of soft synths are sales of snake oil. It's the push to get people to believe that the newest synth is so advanced, or so articulate and new with such new technology that it can create new sounds that the thousands of dollars of software you already have just won't cut it in comparison. That (crazy) push is what gets most people jumping on every which new soft synth. What I'm trying to say is, that the commercial success of most synths stems from implications of extreme complexity, and following from that, you are correct in thinking a basic basic simple simple soft synth won't be commercially successful. If you decide to take up development of something like that, you'll be entering into an esoteric market that XILS Lab and TAL spend a lot of time in (making awesome stuff, of course) and isn't the biggest money pot.

But hey, if you cut all the BS, you should be able to keep development time and costs lower than usual, so it wouldn't even matter if it didn't sell tons. Right?

[aciddose]

I don't think development time would be lower but rather just concentrated in a different direction.

No actually, I haven't found that there are a lot of simple plugins available. Rather it seems there is always something strange about them that makes them something different from what I get with the typical monosynth.

I'm not just talking timbre, but the over-all experience.

I'm still aiming to produce a software version of my "x1" analog... sometimes I wonder whether to be entirely authentic it should need to lack presets altogether!

I've found that when introducing people to DAWs and plugins, DSP and so on they very often have trouble just finding the one plugin that can both do the sounds they want and remain simple to allow them to learn how to produce those sounds.

At the same time, I find myself wanting something simple that is more focused on fun rather than being something for everyone or being unique or special in some other way.

Why should we need the "best" of everything, "analog emulation" or "new synthesis method" or so on?

Given what we have available today I'm certain that many would disagree, yet I remain of the opinion that we have a long way to go.

Of course to the ego of the "synth wizard", making all this easy for those new to it may be a bit of a nightmare.

[KingTuck]

I don't think development time would be lower but rather just concentrated in a different direction.

No actually, I haven't found that there are a lot of simple plugins available. Rather it seems there is always something strange about them that makes them something different from what I get with the typical monosynth.

I'm not just talking timbre, but the over-all experience.

I'm still aiming to produce a software version of my "x1" analog... sometimes I wonder whether to be entirely authentic it should need to lack presets altogether!

I've found that when introducing people to DAWs and plugins, DSP and so on they very often have trouble just finding the one plugin that can both do the sounds they want and remain simple to allow them to learn how to produce those sounds.

At the same time, I find myself wanting something simple that is more focused on fun rather than being something for everyone or being unique or special in some other way.

Why should we need the "best" of everything, "analog emulation" or "new synthesis method" or so on?

Given what we have available today I'm certain that many would disagree, yet I remain of the opinion that we have a long way to go.

Of course to the ego of the "synth wizard", making all this easy for those new to it may be a bit of a nightmare.

I can agree with most all of this. I even see the appeal you're saying to not having presets. However at that point it would be necessary to disable host recall too. The kind of thing you're talking about will, in my opinion, almost always be exclusive to hardware. You'll never sell people on the idea that they'll be more satisfied with less. If you decide to go that route, you'll probably be subject to budget pricing or freeware release.

I see the appeal, but it'll be a difficult idea to articulate until it's actually realized. What you're saying is at least partially seen in Basic from Audio Damage.

[Numanoid]

That is a lot of press before even the plug is released

[MFXxx]

Price point is good. Had a quick listen on the youtube vid's not convinced yet...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz_5z7MCMjo

Im not sure about the second review 5/5 hmm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nCcAMdcvdM

[Sim.Sky]

Im not sure about the second review 5/5 hmm

beware of review-wh*res

[db3]

Well it's out now, so we can go check out the demo.
http://www.pluginboutique.com/product/4 ... on-Electra

*edit*
Love the GUI, and I really wanted to like it...but not feeling it.

It does have a clean sound and I like the immediacy of everything. Need to play with it some more, particularly the step envelope. Really needs to offer something new at the pricepoint.