KVR Audio

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 7:00 pm

First I just want to put out there that I don't think the Fizmo can ever be cloned using a current software instrument (though I don't see a reason it can't be cloned by a clever coder...). However, I just don't have the room or money for the real deal. That said, I've gotten really good Fizmoseque kinds of sounds using Falcon and MXXX, but the thing that really seems to be missing is those Transwaves. Has anyone ever produced good .wav files or of them? I know transwaves can be more than a single cycle, but it would seem that we could at least make basic wavetables based on the Transwaves.

chroma · Post by **chroma** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 7:16 pm

a transwave _is_ a wavetable, as far as i know - (up to?) 128 waves of 128 samples each, or something like that.

if you want samples of them... not sure how complete it is, but puremagnetik's waveframe is cheap ($15) and has ~1700 samples of cycles from the Fizmo (in wave format - you don't need live to use those).
the live rack is pretty useless, not their fault really... they were trying to use the sample selector to do the transwave thing, but the sample selector only affects the note-on - it doesn't do anything after the note is playing - so the presets are all retriggered arpeggiated things.. works ok for that, but not for e.g. evolving pads . hmm, have to go try some in the live wavetable synth now...

experimental.crow · Post by **experimental.crow** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 11:49 pm

i seem to recall xoxos had a fizmo-like vst some years back ...
' noisemo ' , iirc ...

GaryG · Post by **GaryG** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 11:56 pm

wasnt xoxos take on the fizmo 'steam'...?

experimental.crow · Post by **experimental.crow** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 11:59 pm

GaryG wrote:wasnt xoxos take on the fizmo 'steam'...?

guess I'll go looking ...

experimental.crow · Post by **experimental.crow** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 12:02 am

GaryG wrote:wasnt xoxos take on the fizmo 'steam'...?

you are correct ...

toine6 · Post by **toine6** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 12:08 am

The Steam plugin has a quirky thing you have to do to make it work. I have it saved somewhere in it's fixed form. Anyway, I'm not sure how close it comes to Fizmo, but it does have that sort of flavor. I really liked it, but haven't used it for years. I wish xoxos would do a FIXED version... Steam 2 or something.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 3:10 am

toine6 wrote:The Steam plugin has a quirky thing you have to do to make it work. I have it saved somewhere in it's fixed form. Anyway, I'm not sure how close it comes to Fizmo, but it does have that sort of flavor. I really liked it, but haven't used it for years. I wish xoxos would do a FIXED version... Steam 2 or something.

Yeah, I could never get it working.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 5:00 pm

chroma wrote:a transwave _is_ a wavetable, as far as i know - (up to?) 128 waves of 128 samples each, or something like that.

if you want samples of them... not sure how complete it is, but puremagnetik's waveframe is cheap ($15) and has ~1700 samples of cycles from the Fizmo (in wave format - you don't need live to use those).
the live rack is pretty useless, not their fault really... they were trying to use the sample selector to do the transwave thing, but the sample selector only affects the note-on - it doesn't do anything after the note is playing - so the presets are all retriggered arpeggiated things.. works ok for that, but not for e.g. evolving pads . hmm, have to go try some in the live wavetable synth now...

I do have and use those samples, but they seem to be specifically made for Live's sampler and they're not single cycle waveforms. They're actually really big and it's kind of hard to understand exactly what they are. I have used Serum to make wavetables out of a few of them, but I feel like I have no idea what the end result is actually supposed to sound like, so I'm kind of in the dark.

Vectorman · Post by **Vectorman** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 7:10 pm

Sounds like the kind of thing where someone would have to put a fair bit of work into separating out cycles of each waveform in each table and reconstruct them to work in a modern softsynth that does wavetable scanning (as has been done with wavetables from the PPG and even a few NI Massive tables that I've come across that be imported into Zebra and Dune 2 - I know the Massive ones seem odd since it's already a softsynth, but the tables end up having a somewhat different character within Zebra's engine/architecture).

I get the appeal of the Fizmo. The most intriguingly oddball thing Ensoniq did probably. Someone on GS posted a free pack of Fizmo samples (not isolated waves or anything, just complete sound bites created with the synth). I dropped two or three of them into a track I was working on at the time and they made for unusual and rather compelling little moments of "ear candy." It did make me wish I had the synth itself sitting there to explore.

toine6 · Post by **toine6** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 8:02 pm

I remember testing a new Fizmo in Guitar Center many years ago, I hated it. My synthesis knowledge was not that advanced back then, I'd probably really love it now. I just remember it being totally uncontrollable, and everyone in GC completely ignored it. You'd push a key and nothing would happen, or there'd be a 10 second delay and then weird stuff would start happening for no particular reason. It was not intuitive. Definetely not something you'd want to impulse buy. It was like you couldn't even play it, you just pressed random notes and it did it's own thing. It reminds me a bit of the Korg Karma, even if they are quite different.

I love some of the Youtube video examples of what it can do though. It's not something that should be somebody's first synth, but once you have the other bases covered, it seems to offer unexplored ground. Back when it came out I was shopping for something that would sound like real instruments, piano's, violins or whatever. The Fizmo was anything but that.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 8:12 pm

There is a software (free) from Synthesis Technology called WaveEdit, which is a wavetable builder.

http://synthtech.com/waveedit

They have several wavetables online ready to be loaded in the software, among them the entire PPG Wave collection (32 wavetables), and at least three Ensoniq wavetables, one of them being from Fizmo.

The files are regular WAV format. I didn't try them in any wavetable synth (yet) but they should work in Falcon.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Thu Mar 15, 2018 1:53 am

fmr wrote:There is a software (free) from Synthesis Technology called WaveEdit, which is a wavetable builder.

http://synthtech.com/waveedit

They have several wavetables online ready to be loaded in the software, among them the entire PPG Wave collection (32 wavetables), and at least three Ensoniq wavetables, one of them being from Fizmo.

The files are regular WAV format. I didn't try them in any wavetable synth (yet) but they should work in Falcon.

Oh thanks! I’ll check it out tomorrow.

Today I looked at the “Android” samples from Waveframe. They’re not single cycle and not even the same length. I brought them into Serum (tedious) and... I got something that sounds good, but I really don’t have any idea if I’m on the right track. I just wish I could hear those Transwaves slowly swept.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Thu Mar 15, 2018 8:13 am

There are 65 of those Android samples... I suppose you'd need to trim each of those to single cycle, then merge them to get the original transwave.

andrelafosse · Post by **andrelafosse** » Thu Mar 15, 2018 8:28 pm

The WaveEdit tables can be downloaded in bulk!

https://waveeditonline.com/

Help Me, Fizmo Owners, You're My Only Hope...