TC Plex presets here. Was: Any PLEX users here?

[gmstudio]

I'm a delay-guy, too, so I look forward to working with these later this evening.

Thanks!

[vista]

here they are:
http://tamw.atari-users.net/TC_Plex_1.rar

i'm VERY impressed by this
VERY unique synth.

it's tweakable deeper than the pessimistic crowd expects !

tc, thank you very much for
the presets, will try them soon.

regards

[x_bruce]

Nice patches Tim. I've always loved how Plex worked and sounded but found it annoying that Steinberg never supported it, or Xphraze which is a terific synth as well and just couldn't compete with Virtual Kazoo or whatever else they were pushing at Steinberg.

I like the sound of it, always have. For awhile I was a very lonely person having to defend Plex to die-hard haters. Never understood why...probably because it was too simple and couldn't be any good; and it wasn't a Virus.

[bluedad]

but found it annoying that Steinberg never supported .. Xphraze which is a terific synth as well and just couldn't compete with Virtual Kazoo or whatever else they were pushing at Steinberg.

[x_bruce]

Plex says
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

Xphraze says
if there's a chance for me, it's with Mike K you see

[tconrardy]

Nice patches Tim. I've always loved how Plex worked and sounded but found it annoying that Steinberg never supported it, or Xphraze which is a terific synth as well and just couldn't compete with Virtual Kazoo or whatever else they were pushing at Steinberg.

I like the sound of it, always have. For awhile I was a very lonely person having to defend Plex to die-hard haters. Never understood why...probably because it was too simple and couldn't be any good; and it wasn't a Virus.

yeah...its so simple to patch things up and get nice results. Guess its the underDog. But thats why I like it as well. But you can get pretty deep as well, with all the mod possabilities. You can make it sound like a Wusik station

I wonder if T Dream used it because the sound is very famailiar such as their mars CD they did, and they used all VST on that one.

TC

[gravehill]

I'm a big fan of Plex, too. I just wish they would develop the concept a bit further. I would KILL someone to be able to use my own sounds in Plex. A built-in compressor and a modulation matrix would be cool.

I've been working on my own soundbank for Plex for a while now but maybe I'll just be satisfied with the 4 presets (preset banks - 4 x 64 sounds) I have and upload them to PA in near future. I can always fill the whole bank later...

To me it seems that PA has got a lot more inactive after their "face lift", though.

TD have some kind of deal with Steinberg and they have pretty much everything Steinberg has released so in newer albums you hear a lot of Plex and Xphraze.

[tconrardy]

I'm a big fan of Plex, too. I just wish they would develop the concept a bit further. I would KILL someone to be able to use my own sounds in Plex. A built-in compressor and a modulation matrix would be cool.

I've been working on my own soundbank for Plex for a while now but maybe I'll just be satisfied with the 4 presets (preset banks - 4 x 64 sounds) I have and upload them to PA in near future. I can always fill the whole bank later...

To me it seems that PA has got a lot more inactive after their "face lift", though.

TD have some kind of deal with Steinberg and they have pretty much everything Steinberg has released so in newer albums you hear a lot of Plex and Xphraze.

Yes...please upload to PA, as there are so few patch banks for this. The only other one is Top Flame's ( but are there any more???)

I also plan to keep on working on my bank. But for now its the one preset with A and B tabs for 32 sounds. I am also glad I figures out to use only one sound set(sample set) for each Tab, so loading time is kept to a real minimin. For 16 patches you can come up with a large number of combinations in the one sample set.

TC

[vista]

For awhile I was a very lonely person having to defend Plex to die-hard haters.

thanks x_bruce !

YOU encouraged me to try PLEX.

[vista]

TD have some kind of deal with Steinberg and they have pretty much everything Steinberg has released so in newer albums you hear a lot of Plex and Xphraze.

TD = Tangerine Dream ?

...still an existing band ?

[gmstudio]

I went through the patches last night and I really like them, especially w/ all the delay.

[tconrardy]

I went through the patches last night and I really like them, especially w/ all the delay.

whew..glad you like 'em with the delay. On a lot of the patches, as with most of my pads..you have to hold a chord for a bit to hear the full evolution of the sounds. The bank B ones I liked a lot as I was getting further into the synthisis of Plex.

TC

[x_bruce]

x_bruce's theory on why Plex didn't sell well.

1. sample library was small
2. no 3rd party or even Steinberg/Wizoo samples were made avaiable - huge mistake
3. Plex was before it's time and too simple to be appreciated for what it was

I think people started respecting sample manipulation when additive synthesis came along, particularly Cameleon which made the manipulation of sampling fairly accurate adn easy to "grok".

Even additives like Cube were of the 'alien' style of synthesis that people committed to because of good results. When Cube became a resampler it went a different direction from Cameleon, more interpretive sound of the sample rather than faithful interpretation found in Cameleon.

Either could change radically with the stroke of a mouse on the partials which was the stronger area in additives like Cube.

So there were styles of additive which did similar things to Plex but did so using a style of synthesis considered very appealing. Plex was far from any synthesis tradition. When you played all three partials the samples were fairly boring and far from ideal for use as a sample.

So, although additive was much harder to understand and master it was a known commodity and was accepted. It certainly didn't hurt that there was an additive in all price ranges and Cameleon in particular that could function almost like a sampler, even though it was one partial away from sounding like a Plex partial.

Even though Plex was a brilliant design by Wolfgang Palm it didn't stand a chance when it didn't sell a lot of copies after Steinberg milked the press with Plex's incredible design and Wolfgang Palm's pedegree as a "serious" synth developer.

But in Steinberg's typical, 'oops, we did it again' policy of cutting the synth from any further publicity where they shifted to VirSyn to make them a synth people would use, a cut down version of TERA.

Had users understood that TERA had almost the same configuration as D'Cota, it's Steinberg product, it was missing "Spectral" synthesis which was almost like a stepping stone to additive. I don't remember if additive was part of the original TERA but no matter, it's beginnings were, and TERA got great reviews.

Instead of showing a bit of courage in Plex's winning design, such as advanced tutorials and the like, not that it was needed, all that was needed was for good programmers to put on their thinking caps. But Plex was bad, D'Cota was a hit and TERA made D'Cota a joke for the $40 - $60 extra it cost and the major leaps in synth technology.

But those were hard to learn and validated by hardware. Plex wasn't and as a result, a very good synth never got past it's initial release. What a shame. It was literally too easy for people to grasp. The sample library sucked, according to a lot of analog phreaks. It couldn't do a good mini moog or TB303. I know people that still won't check out Plex due to previous bias and ignorance...which of course is bliss).

To bad for poor little Plex. Only a few people "got it". I honestly believe this would have been the start of revolutionary ideas of what is a synth, but that's not a Ronald JV5080 or MMV, so who cares?

Oh well...thankfully another talented programmer found out hoe cool Cube was, and how capable. That is Plex's legacy once it slips into collectors status.

[gmstudio]

This thread is inspiring. Already I'm itching to get back to my home studio and work on a few strict "Plex-only" tracks.

[tconrardy]

Thanks for the history X-Bruce. I never really knew that Plex was so put down. When Totz had it up for sale, I grabbed it thinking a new kind of synthisis to learn. I was right of course. and to be honest, I don't see anything wrong with the sample set it has in it. Still lots of potential, as with any "rompler" the samples are really only a starting point. The meat is in the tools to shape it.

But of course..it would be nice to create your own sample set...is there a way to do it?

TC