Old Free VSTi Gems From The Past

[DrewDale]

ok here's that Poly800 plugin. couldn't find the zip it came in,
just the dll, so it is lablled 'repack', and hopefully someone will
recognise it (apolz to author, is a temporary reup) looks like
i downloaded it in 2012.

Thank you

[BlackWinny]

ok here's that Poly800 plugin. couldn't find the zip it came in,
just the dll, so it is lablled 'repack', and hopefully someone will
recognise it (apolz to author, is a temporary reup) looks like
i downloaded it in 2012.

Poly 800 VST
https://app.box.com/s/2lot6t6zykppmeqq8ppy

Even without Korg filters, it is always interesting to explore this little plugin to hit upon nice sounds with it.

Thank you Dom !

[BlackWinny]

ffs... should have been a pm. DON'T quote it.

hehe i'll quote you then. come on, bob, you know the one...oh alright then...
oh no, that's going to take hours, isn't it..i think it's just called poly800

there's a shareware from synapse called poly 850...back a bit later with a dl.

Only available for mac.

tchaaaa ... synthedit, bro. and the other one is from makers of Orion. PeeCee.

A SEM file is nothing else than a dll file containing code to be executed by the main dll which is the VST. Simply these SEM files have the extension SEM instead of dll because that way it avoids the DAWs to reference them as "wrong" (and sometimes with a crash) when they scan the directory where are the VST plugins.

But it implies the occurrence of an anomaly by the antivirus applications when they use their heuristic algorithm of scan. Because they detect a file which is a dll file... but which seems hidden behind an suspect extension which is not known by the antivirus softwares to be among the regular dll files. Result: the antivirus considers already the file as "suspect" and will alert the user if the rest of the scan within this file finds I/O actions to the memory or the disk. But an alert doesn't happen for all these SEM files because many things are evaluated in an heuristic analysis. And the SEM file is declared as suspect if its "heuristic score" goes beyond a rate which is defined by the settings of the antivirus. The more the file contains code related to the Input/output in memory or to the hard disk, the more the score will climb. Therefore almost all the SEM files don't reach the limit beyond which the file is openly declared as suspect by the antivirus at the user screen. It is only when it reaches this limit that the antivirus alerts the user... and if the antivirus is set to not let the decision to the user it refuses categorically the file and deletes it as if it was a file really infected by a virus!

But many persons don't read the exact content of the alert messages of their antivirus and really believe that they have downloaded an infected file (while, as I said, it is simply the heuristic algorithm which is let badly set) and worse... some users even believe that their computer has been really infected !... while the antivirus although says something in the kind "by security I have deleted the file".

First, it is important to set correctly the antivirus. All the antivirus have a whitelist of websites that everyone can fill. But most of all... all the antivirus give the ability to the user to NOT scan some files regarding to their extension. It is then very easy to say to the antivirus to NOT scan the files having the extension SEM and the extension SEP. It is by that way that someone is correctly protected AND can avoid all these false positives by the SynthEdit plugins. And of course, the professional antivirus softwares, like mine, gives the possibility to create different settings regarding the use we want to make, for example with mine I have a usual setting which avoids it to scan the SEM and SEP files when I do a simple download as everybody, but I have also a special setting which takes account of ALL the files (therefore with nothing in the whitelist) when I make a check on a server. But even the all freeware antivirus softwares have the ability to tweak correctly this whitelist for the common use as I said above.

For an antivirus, it is strange to encounter a file which is a DLL but has a totally different extension which is not a regular extension for a DLL. So in its heuristic algorithm this file starts the scan already as "suspect" and if the file makes many I/O actions to the memory and much more if it makes I/O actions to the disk, it is much more suspect and the limit to the alert is very quickly reached. Therefore it is important to ask the antivirus to never scan the files having extensions SEM and SEP. That's what must be known by all the persons who download SynthEdit plugins. That's all.

[mztk]

filter. 1. the 6 voices go through a single filter in the poly800.
still nice though. different sound to roland.

[mztk]

yeah, nice explanation of that. Avast still reports DH modules as virii/suspect
sometimes - quarantined some modules i was using *during* an SE project just the
other day. in fact i've lost at least 1 from my regular modules menu - which i have
backed up, fortunately. made me overwrite another, or something, when i restored
the files from quarantine.

[RunBeerRun]

There have been other Synthedit module false virus hits, Dover's, some Xoxos, not sure if the DAV ones did at all.

[BlackWinny]

There have been other Synthedit module false virus hits, Dover's, some Xoxos, not sure if the DAV ones did at all.

I've stumbled upon many. For these reasons. And when I saw the headers of the SEM and SEP files... I immediately understood what happened. It's a thing totally common with other IT applications which use the same trick: the use of dll files having different proprietary extensions in their names (in graphism, in video development, in animations, etc.) for internal reasons or by convenience.


Very common. The SEM/SEP files are simply an example among many others with these applications... And the management must be this one to get rid of the problem (which in fact is not one) with the antiviruses.

[mztk]

here's a software page link:
editor for elka synths

http://najomusic.free.fr/jeanmsp.htm

[mztk]

right, nobody's said a word since i posted longshot kick de
buckt dancehall style. well: it *is* the best version. even
if it was offtopic, but it was a horse racing reference.
i never checked that tune properly for what it was about
when i bought the original 12", but this one says it all:

long shot FELL. he was a longshot, you had your money on him,
he was winning, and he fell...aw forget it...

i've got a *great* plugin for y'allz, proper home confection,
but if the response is going to be as tepid as with the last one,
-which was admittedly dull and a mere sf2 loader...- do you want
it or what?

[BlackWinny]

right, nobody's said a word since i posted longshot kick de
buckt dancehall style. well: it *is* the best version. even
if it was offtopic, but it was a horse racing reference.
i never checked that tune properly for what it was about
when i bought the original 12", but this one says it all:

long shot FELL. he was a longshot, you had your money on him,
he was winning, and he fell...aw forget it...

i've got a *great* plugin for y'allz, proper home confection,
but if the response is going to be as tepid as with the last one,
-which was admittedly dull and a mere sf2 loader...- do you want
it or what?

I would have been interested, Dom... but unfortunately I have forgot to buy an Elka synth.

[mztk]

hehe, no was referring to recent plugin. i still have to sort out
one page on current project, keyfollow, parameters and layout,
bt the inspiration failed me today, see what tomorrow yields.

as for the 'other software' page, just something i came across.
i sort of collect synth infos too.. didn't know much about elka
until the other day. the Synthex has a good rep', and it seems
they did some digital FM stuff as well.

[RunBeerRun]

...- do you want
it or what?

sure, do you have to ask? I can say my experience with it. I don't really have a real midi controller, so I basically just hit notes.

[BlackWinny]

hehe, no was referring to recent plugin. i still have to sort out
one page on current project, keyfollow, parameters and layout,
bt the inspiration failed me today, see what tomorrow yields.

as for the 'other software' page, just something i came across.
i sort of collect synth infos too.. didn't know much about elka
until the other day. the Synthex has a good rep', and it seems
they did some digital FM stuff as well.

There is also another Elka synth that I was found of when I was 15-17, which seems to have totally fallen into oblivion and that I never see any evocation today, it is the Elka Rhapsody, which was a marvelous string synth. It's sad because it had wonderful sounds, not a lot of different sounds (only four preset basical timbres, Arf! Arf!) but all very beautiful and used a lot at these years in the English "cosmic rock" and German krautrock (and Jean-Michel Jarre in France). I don't even now any software emulation in the market, payware as freeware...

Even in the Vintage Synth Explorer it is absent of the database.

And it is really a thing that I would like to find again now, in software as well as in hardware, how perfect it is to my music style...

[Aloysius]

^

Elka Rhapsody 490 for Kontakt (costs £6.50):

http://www.forgottenkeys.co.uk/4_er490.php

[BlackWinny]

^

Elka Rhapsody 490 for Kontakt (costs £6.50):

http://www.forgottenkeys.co.uk/4_er490.php

But... hem... Kontakt...


It's a wonderful tool, with awesome soundbanks, but too much expensive for my wallet regarding my very little use of samples.

I use samples sometimes (only for the reproduction of instruments which are very hard or yet impossible to emulate faithfully by physical modelling like the bowed strings, the flutes, the Mellotron...), but for that I have TX16Wx and I have also bought Dimension Pro (at a deal for 15€) and of course for the Mellotron my choice is Redtron (with a GUI I have redrawn in MUX to be clearly used by my own choice of colors).

I have also my problem of eyesight, and with Kontakt the GUIs which are provided with the soundbanks can randomly putting me off... not because of the sounds (always very nice) but because of the unchangeable GUI provided with its related soundbank. All that leads me to many limitations in the choice of soundbanks for Kontakt (hence another reason in addition to the price of Kontakt itself) when with TX16Wx and Dimension Pro I have not the problem of the GUI... it is always the same.