Where are all the Blue II banks?

[aMUSEd]

It's been well over a year since Blue II was released and it's rather odd that there are still no banks released specifically for version 2 (with one partial exception but that doesn't make much use of the new performance features). imho it's the best sounding FM synth currently available and deserves more attention. I wonder if the number of presets it ships with puts people off? The problem is 90% of those are old presets from version 1, only a couple of the new banks fully make use of the XY and performance features, and even less of the vector synth functionality (only a handful of presets seem to use that). There's a huge gap in the market here.

[yemski]

Having programmed a few patches for myself, the main problem would be that it's quite time consuming to actually put the synth to full use. It's more time consuming than Dune 2, itself a complex synth to program well, which is saying a lot. In the time it took me to program one patch I could probably program about ten in Hive. In terms of remuneration, sound design often isn't the best paying gig. So from the point of view of work put in, Blue II can look like a big investment for not a lot. Along with the fact that Blue II ships with a lot of patches already, this can act as a disincentive. I've done two banks for Rob Papen synths before and the sales weren't great. Both sets were good quality and got quite good coverage. The fact they didn't perform well was probably attributable, in part, because of the fact that Rob's synths ship with a great deal of patches already. This is my reason for not acting on this, maybe other sound designers feel differently. I suspect though, that these two main reasons, (complex and time consuming and already covered by having lots of included content),probably play into their calculations as well.

That being said, I still want to make a bank for Blue II, mainly because it's a great synth, it's just not on my list of priorities. I could be wrong here. I'll probably review the situation at some point, so this assessment could change.

[Markku]

I'm not sure if I have more banks installed than the factory version has, but I have more than 30. That's quite large amount. To have a marketable new set, it should be distinguish itself with new directions and good quality. Otherwise it just sinks in the mass.

Best way to market a good quality sound set for a synth which comes with large set of usable sounds in factory configuration is to make a really good demo and docs/descriptions. Often it is not possible to decide the quality of the sound set because the set maker doesn't put much effort in marketing material.

You must make your set sound like it's needed, preferably needed in a production which is under work NOW...

[UncleAge]

I think its mainly what yemski posted in addition to the fact that most of us, sound designers included, don't really have an idea of how many sales have occured for any given synth. And maybe that's a good thing, but I'm sure sound designers want to get a decent return on their investment of time to program whatever banks. Not knowing would make me a bit cautious...

[aMUSEd]

The fact they didn't perform well was probably attributable, in part, because of the fact that Rob's synths ship with a great deal of patches already.

Yeah I thought this might be an issue, which is a pity because it leaves Blue II without a lot of patches that really make full use of the version 2 features, which in turn also creates a disincentive to get into it for some. I mean really out of the many thousands of patches there are only the newer Jomol patches (which are great) and the also great Navi Retlav patches, plus some of the Raven, B Roy and Oddiction patches (who seems to be the only one really to go to town on the vector synth features) that are fully Blue II patches.

[Daags]

is Blue II due on sale anytime soon ? (going by previous trends etc)

[Ridan]

Saw this a couple of weeks ago. http://www.kvraudio.com/news/wagsrfm-re ... e-ii-30171

[yemski]

Saw this a couple of weeks ago. http://www.kvraudio.com/news/wagsrfm-re ... e-ii-30171

Cool. I'll check this out. I like this guy's work. Checking out his patches for Hive gave me a few ideas for my own stuff and like me he's a a Triple M, (that's a Modulation Matrix Maximalist in case you were wondering). He works the mod matrix in a number of different ways to mine, so looking at his method was a real pedagogical moment.