KVR Audio

hifiboom · Post by **hifiboom** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:36 pm

mojogigolo wrote:it was invented by tattoo, the midget off paradise island.
[/i]

this is the guy from the James Bond movie "the man with the golden gun" !
surely.........

I also love Seargent Pepper in this movie!!!! Specially when they chase the other car.....

LOL

meister eder · Post by **meister eder** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 2:01 pm

Barbed Wire Kiss wrote:How close is Filterscape to E-mu's Z-Planes? With the combination of the variable state filter and the morphing EQ this has always appeared the nearest in vst-land.

Just wanted to mention Filterscape as well. Among quite some others available today, this one might come closest technically and even outmatch it in complexity (while emu filters still are one of the most superb sounding). Filterscape's morphing EQ alone could mimic a Z-plane filter, while I am not sure how steep the slope of the filter can be. Z-plane filters can have up to 14 poles, that is -84db.
The advantage of the Z-plane filters might be that they are easier to program, since you get dozens of ready made models, each being modeled to match best filtering of a certain set of samples.
Keep in mind that Z-plane filters were developed some 12 years ago, and they are primarily aimed at filtering samples rather than synth waves - but can be great on the latter as well. After all the Morpheus was meant to be a synthesizer rather than a sample-player.

Music Engineer · Post by **Music Engineer** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 2:36 pm

The Chase wrote:Call me silly, but, erm, what exactly is a Z-Plane filter? And what makes a filter so Z-plane?

Cheers,
Chase

i think, the term "z-plane" filter is just something that should sound cool for marketing reasons. ideed - each and every digital filter is usually described and designed terms of poles and zeros in the z-plane (the z-plane is a plane of complex numbers and the z-transform is a basic representation of digital signals and systems - think of it as a generalization of the fourier-transform). so - for me - this is just a cool new name for something completely common.

meister eder · Post by **meister eder** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 3:55 pm

braindoc wrote:so - for me - this is just a cool new name for something completely common.

Not so common 12 years ago, when the first decent digital filters (e.g. JD-800) were around for not more than 3 years, IMHO.

Kingston · Post by **Kingston** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 4:01 pm

braindoc wrote:the truth

whew. thank god some wrote that. another rather basic concept ruined by marketing and it's obviously confusing people.

Music Engineer · Post by **Music Engineer** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 4:23 pm

meister eder wrote:
braindoc wrote:so - for me - this is just a cool new name for something completely common.
Not so common 12 years ago, when the first decent digital filters (e.g. JD-800) were around for not more than 3 years, IMHO.

the z-transform is known since the 1950's:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-transform

note that i'm not considering, if a particular filter sounds good or not - i just want to state that there is nothing special around the term "z-plane"

....i just designed a digital filter. i think, i will call it - ....mmmhhh.....ahh....how about: "f-axis filter"

meister eder · Post by **meister eder** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 5:22 pm

braindoc wrote: the z-transform is known since the 1950's:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-transform

Yeah, in theory.
Well, this is splitting hairs now...

snooky · Post by **snooky** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 5:42 pm

there is a reaktor ensemble doing this, right?

Barbed Wire Kiss · Post by **Barbed Wire Kiss** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 6:41 pm

snooky wrote:there is a reaktor ensemble doing this, right?

That would be sz0n1ck's own z-plane-ulator ultra

gwill · Post by **gwill** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:40 pm

Is sz0n1ck's "z-plane-ulator ultra Reaktor" ensemble actually available if you donate at the FSR site? It
seems like there is a different z-plane ensemble available, but not that one. Any info on this would be much appreciated. Has any KVRian tried out the z-plane ultra?

FaX · Post by **FaX** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:53 pm

Nothing comes close to the Z-Plane Filter tech used in Emu's Morpheus or Ultraproteus however and the filter spec in those units is vastly different and far more flexible than in any other Emu synth or Sampler with some 200 odd filter types and full X/Y/Z (3d) access morphing with function generators.

djsubject · Post by **djsubject** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:15 pm

i have emulatorX with Z plain filters running on my pc & i am as happy as a pig in shit

oink oink

larm · Post by **larm** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:33 pm

I bought the morpheus solely for the z-plane filters and the function generators. The 19" rack is hard to program and you really need a midi editor to use it. As for the z-plane I was somewhat let-down, you can achive many of the filtered sounds by a smooth morph (interpolation) between two presets on any graphic/parametris eq. If I remember correctly the realtime manipulation of z-plane filters were also limited to note on events so you couldn't travel around in the cube as you wished.

Another bad thing about the morpheus was that you were stuck with the internal waveforms and that you couldn't boost the low volume (esp. prior to the filter).