vsti like Ensoniq Fizmo ?

[farlukar]

I wonder what happened to the Betabugs Fizmo that was once “almost ready”…

[stimresp]

It's probably already been mentioned, but COFX Kubik is an approximation that presents a massive sonic playground. Well worth spending some time fiddling with.

[cornutt]

The ensoniqs don't have the computational ressources for doing such complex decisions and corrections in realtime. They barely manage to "synthesize loop" some seconds of audio within five minutes, and this task is easy in comparison to detect zeros, decide which of them are important, change loop points, smoothing artifacts and adjust playback to keep pitch in realtime. Indeed the zere crossings are usefull when looking for initial loop points, but this is offline processing.

I agree with you that there's no way the CPUs in any of the Ensoniqs could have done all that math in a reasonable amount of time; Ensoniq must have calculated the loop points offline (probably using a VAX or something of its ilk) and then loaded a table of them into the synth along with the Transwave tables. However, these days, it would not be too challenging for a desktop or laptop to do -- perform a Fourier transform to determine the fundemental frequency, and then the "significant" zero crossings are pretty obvious. (Of course, if you only have single-cycle waveforms, this isn't very useful, but then if that's all you have, you're going to have to come up with a splice smoothing algorithm anyway.)

[zerocrossing]

Dune2 let you import wavetables, you can create them with audio-term

You can? I couldn't find anything about this in the manual or any "import" or "load" button on the UI. Do you just plop them in a folder?

Dune2 is exactly a 8 part fizmo with 2 oscs each. So, you could have 16 oscs running at one time doing different wavetables.
so, i will call Dune2 a fizmo on steroid, don't forget the zero delay feedback filter, two awesome FX bus, the arp with a step sequencer or midi import and 4 mseg !
i can't believe you can't do fizmoesque sound with Dune2[/quote]

I'd love to be proven wrong. I'll give it another look, but unfortunately I'm going to be away from my studio for a few weeks. I'll try it then.

[carrieres]

Dune2 let you import wavetables, you can create them with audio-term

You can? I couldn't find anything about this in the manual or any "import" or "load" button on the UI. Do you just plop them in a folder?

yes

[blacktomcat666]

You can? I couldn't find anything about this in the manual or any "import" or "load" button on the UI. Do you just plop them in a folder?

Here arer some older Dune2 user wavetables, made with Audio-Term.

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/w0qe5q5r175elc ... tables.zip

Put them into "..\Synapse Audio\DUNE 2\Wavetables\".

If you're using Audio-Term, you can also redirect AT's output folder directly into Dune's wavetable directory using the UTILITY -> PATHS page: Move the line cursor down to "09 KTERM - Wavetables (Dune2, WT) ", hit set and select Dune's wavetable folder.

[zerocrossing]

Thanks for the information! I'll try it when I'm settled in my new pad. Most work, including my wife's place of business, is on the other side of the bay so we're moving.

[zerocrossing]

It's probably already been mentioned, but COFX Kubik is an approximation that presents a massive sonic playground. Well worth spending some time fiddling with.

Yeah, Kubik looks very cool, and it pretty cheap. I think demoed it a long time ago but didn't buy it for some reason... but Fizmo? I don't see it. Not any more than any other good wavetable synth is. I'm curious to play with it's resynthesis functions though.

[Sendy]

If you want to make your own Transwaves try this app out.
It's called Tranzilon and you can get it here.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~avg/tranzilon/info.html

Such kind of transformation of two waves could be done with KV331 Audio Synthmaster 2 when only two waves are used by the wavetable OSC but in Synthmaster 2 you could use up to 16 waves. This produces 128 new waves which could be seleceted manually or by modulation. The factory library contains a huge amount of single cycle waves for this.

With the upcoming version 2.5 you'll get a huge amount of filters, more FX (includeing the vocoder), a new mod matrix and new skins.
Besides the wavetables you could also use "basic" waves which now are expanded with a menu for all factory single cycle waves. Also additive OSCs could be used which could also do a supersaw with the right detune settings (when all harmonics are identical).

Just reading up on what that program does, and it seems to be exactly how Zebra handles wavetables in Geomorph mode. Rather than crossfading between a series of similar waveforms, you set certain "key" waves, a bit like in animation, and then the points that create the geometry can be morphed and modulated over time or other factors.

Then, you can add additional complexity by transforming those morphing waveforms with spectral and geometric processing, and modulate those parameters too. When it's programmed well, it can blow traditional wavetable synthesis out of the water - and everything is customizable from scratch.

[zerocrossing]

One might instead use a granular synth to achieve the kind of "wave scanning" we're after. No?

Nope!

The transwaves are actually very basic things architecturally, and that is their strength as well as their weakness. Not really much weakness though. They are what they are.

There is not any VST that does this, nor does it look like any VST ever will. Buy a used Fizmo, after checking it works. Sample it to heaven and back. Enjoy. Move on.


I've gone into this quite deep and it is just not possible. My SD-1 was a generation or two before the Fizmo. It can not be emulated in any way by anything. You need to set up complex chains and even then it defeats the whole point coz it takes ages where as the original SD-1 takes seconds. Less than that! The SQ8L is the closest any one has come. Couple that with some nice FX chains and then again, well, maybe...

The Fizmo had a very discrete set of components that provided a certain kind of synergy. Without everything in exactly the same place, it is always going to be close but no Fizmo!

I'd love to be proved wrong.

I'd love a TS-10. My SD-1 is on loan and it took me a long time to track down and find one in practically mint condition. I still owe the money for it too. But I have hundreds of songs recorded on its sequencer. All on floppy disk which mostly work.

I would say, if you want a Fizmo and can't get one - get a TS-10, if you can't get a TS-10, then buy an SD-1 or VFX - it sounds as if you are going as much for the sound as the sequencer.

I'm sorry if I got it wrong and you are a connoisseur.

How many people have compared the SD-1 and TS-10 and Fizmo together? I haven't. But I would listen intently to someone who had.

This shit is worth the hassle coz you can't get that sound any other way. Nothing to do with analog/digital bollox. It is just a very well built up synergy, like I said. It's on tap at the flick of a switch. Hardware is still good for some things.

I do not buy this. I can't for the life of me imagine that Ensoniq had some magic that couldn't be emulated quite well in a VSTi. Sure, we can nit pick about "Well part of the sound was the DACs" but I'm not interested in that level of accuracy either. From everything I've seen, the Fizmo isn't some magic advanced instrument we'll never see again, but a clever take on wavetables with a healthy amount of power to get 8 oscs running together and a kick ass effect section. Hell, that actually sounds like more than I really would need. Give me a two osc set up with two layers and I'll be satisfied. I actually think we could do better with the advances we've made in in software filters. ...and by "we" I mean, smarter people than me. I guess "close but no Fizmo" is enough for me.

I think the real reason we're not seeing a true Fizmo emulation is because of two facts. First, lack of real interest. Aside from a few geeks like us, there really aren't enough people to really make a Fizmo emulation commercially viable or Creative Labs would be licensing their tech out to a third party developer. Second, there are some kick ass wavetable based synths out there that in some ways exceed the Fizmo. Have you tried Diversion? Fantastic synth. If only it did multicycle waveforms for it's wavetables...

I had a TS-10. Nice synth for sure, though it's filter was lackluster. While it was my only synth for years, I can't see me dedicating the space in my studio just to have "that" sound. I also decided to do a "studio lockdown" recently because I was spending too much time thinking about what gear I should own and it was killing my creative process. So, they'll be no TS-10 or Fizmo in my future.

I'm actually leaning toward a method that involves taking the Waveframe samples, stitching them together and messing with them in Poseidon and/or Cube 2 or even Padshop pro. I know, not really a Fizmo, but perhaps enough of that flavor plus some different stuff to play with.

I'll give Dune 2 a try as well. Seems like a good little synth anyway. I wonder why the manual has no mention of using your own wavetables...

Here's a question... are the Puremagnetik samples actually from a Fizmo? They sure sound like it but I've read that Creative Labs has buried everything Ensoniq and isn't interested in licensing it to anyone for some reason.

[carrieres]

I'll give Dune 2 a try as well. Seems like a good little synth anyway. I wonder why the manual has no mention of using your own wavetables...

because the first tool was for the beta team and not released but Audio-term from blacktomcat has been updated to be compatible with Dune2

[robotmonkey]

I think the real reason we're not seeing a true Fizmo emulation is because of two facts. First, lack of real interest. Aside from a few geeks like us, there really aren't enough people to really make a Fizmo emulation commercially viable or Creative Labs would be licensing their tech out to a third party developer. Second, there are some kick ass wavetable based synths out there that in some ways exceed the Fizmo.

The reason we are not seeing true Fizmo emulation is that Creative has killed off both E-MU and Ensoniq and all the people who knew that tech have left. Both E-MU and Ensoniq were made great companies because of the talented people working there. Well, sure some third party developer could pull it off but I doubt Creative is interested in anything that has to do with musical instruments.

Revived Ensoniq/E-MU emulations would have ton of potential as they would be unique. Maybe less so if they were one to one emulations (as they would be a bit nineties'ish) but more like true to life recreations with some modern touch and upgraded features. For example, Fizmo had a plenty of hidden parameters (like multi-stages envelopes) that were not even properly implemented in its OS. Even an improved Fizmo would be a killer as there just isn't anything like that out there. I'm sure there would be enough market for Ensoniq/E-MU stuff if it would revived in a way like Korg has done.

[zerocrossing]

I think the real reason we're not seeing a true Fizmo emulation is because of two facts. First, lack of real interest. Aside from a few geeks like us, there really aren't enough people to really make a Fizmo emulation commercially viable or Creative Labs would be licensing their tech out to a third party developer. Second, there are some kick ass wavetable based synths out there that in some ways exceed the Fizmo.

The reason we are not seeing true Fizmo emulation is that Creative has killed off both E-MU and Ensoniq and all the people who knew that tech have left. Both E-MU and Ensoniq were made great companies because of the talented people working there. Well, sure some third party developer could pull it off but I doubt Creative is interested in anything that has to do with musical instruments.

Sure, that's the mechanics of it, but I still think the underlying reason is based on financial reasons. What's super hot now is entry level analogs. If the next big trend is hardware wavetable synths, you'll see people coming out of the woodwork to cash in and maybe some of those people will be ex Ensoniq engineers and perhaps even Creative might be persuaded to license old tech. Why not? Everyone likes money.

Revived Ensoniq/E-MU emulations would have ton of potential as they would be unique. Maybe less so if they were one to one emulations (as they would be a bit nineties'ish) but more like true to life recreations with some modern touch and upgraded features. For example, Fizmo had a plenty of hidden parameters (like multi-stages envelopes) that were not even properly implemented in its OS. Even an improved Fizmo would be a killer as there just isn't anything like that out there. I'm sure there would be enough market for Ensoniq/E-MU stuff if it would revived in a way like Korg has done.

I'm still trying to figure out how "unique" they were. I've been doing a lot of digging and from what I can tell about the Fizmo is...

It used Transwaves baked into a ROM. Not upgradable. Who would stand for that in 2014?

Transwaves are basically wavetables with double the amount of waves per table (compared to the more standard Waldorf style 64) and waves that weren't limited to a symmetric waveforms or single waveforms. Today a synth like the Blofeld/Largo do this easily. I'm also wondering if there is a difference between a large amount of waves in a wave table and the ability to morph waves ala Zebra's Geo or Spectra morph modes... anyone? Buler?

Fizmo's Transwaves are cool sounding... unless you don't like them and think they sound cold and fizzy. (I like them) Why can't I just buy these somewhere?

The Fizmo had 2 oscs per layer and 4 layers. Dune 2 evidently has this too, as does Discovery Pro... I hadn't thought of Discovery Pro before, but... I will. Lacks effects but I could bare with that and do them post.

The Fizmo had a ton of modulation options like many modern instruments.

Fizmo had great effects for it's day and the ability to put a different insert effect on each voice as well as a global reverb. I don't think attaining that level of quality in 2014 is much of an issue, but I'll concede that getting 4 studio quality digital effects going at the same time plus a good reverb might be really taxing.

The Fizmo had knobs for realtime manipulation. I'll settle for using a good midi controller or a bank of xy controllers like Zebra's or Alchemy's.

The Fizmo had a digital filter with self oscillation. I've never heard anyone say, "Man that Fizmo filter!" I didn't think my TS-10's filters are all that. I can say with reasonable certainty that there are many software instruments with better filters. No magic here.

The Fizmo was purple. I think a software version should be skinnable for the modern trends. It should definitely have a pict of wood on the graphic.

Am I missing anything? Am I oversimplifying things? It just seems like when I break things down I'm just not seeing anything that's out of the realm of modern software and I'm thinking that perhaps it really was the included Transwaves themselves with the high quality effects that "made the magic." It seems attainable.

[robotmonkey]

Like I said, I've yet to hear anything that sounds close to Fizmo. Having similar specs on paper does not mean anything sound-wise. All the Ensoniq synthesizers had a very distinct sound to them that is still mostly uncovered.

Also the real Fizmos go on ebay for 1500-2000 bucks so there's certainly is something about it.

[pdxindy]

Am I missing anything? Am I oversimplifying things? It just seems like when I break things down I'm just not seeing anything that's out of the realm of modern software and I'm thinking that perhaps it really was the included Transwaves themselves with the high quality effects that "made the magic." It seems attainable.

I listened to a few videos of the Fizmo... yeah, it has its own sonic character, but one can come close enough with a variety of software synths that I would be satisfied.