UVI Falcon - hybrid instrument - version 3.01 released - rumors, ads, praise, mud wrestling and off-topic inside!

[Sampleconstruct]

Is Falcon more advanced in the granular synthesis than Motu MachFive or is it the same?

I am so close to buying Falcon after I listened to Simon Stockhausens beautiful patches, but I am also interested in Steinberg Halion 5 ( Halion 6 soon? ) or Padshop Pro for granular synthesis.

Which is the best sounding granular engine right now for pad sounds?

With Falcon a new multi-granular engine was introduced, it now plays up to 8 grain streams like HALion and Padshop do and there are numerous controls for shaping the grains, also those streams can be spread out up to 15 second (up to 100% in H5/PSP), Where HALion/PSP are still superior is, that they can randomize grain position over the entire sample whereas Falcon only does up to 500 ms, and they have a few more grain shapes available as a selectable preset and you can set different quality modes for sample interpolation to avoid aliasing when extremly transposing samples (especially down), Falcon only has a high interpolation mode for normal sampling. Then HALion can do crossfade looping for granular samples, actually the only granulator which does this, Falcon loops forward or alternate back and forth without crossfading.
But Falcon is almost up to par now with the Steinbergs concerning granular synthesis.

EDIT: and Falcon/HALion are of course far superior to Padshop Pro, as they can granulate multi-sampled instruments with hundreds of keygroups/zones, PSP can only use 2 samples per patch and doesn't have a mapping function (in PSP you can only fade out samples towards one end of the register by assigning key follow to volume, so fake splits are sort of possible).

EDIT 2: and HALion/PSP have grain lengths up to 1 second, Falcon up to 500 ms (crusherX up to 1 minute).

[Sampleconstruct]

Oh, found first bug (v106, VST, Win7)
In IRCAM Stretch, all settings by default.
Load sample, and perform next action: set these knobs to minimum - Speed (0,0), Tempo Factor (0,25), and Tempo Fine knob (-50%), and Sample Strart knob to 50% for example, and trigg any note - sound is will not played, and if you wait about 10-15 seconds, the system will completely hang (i make reboot twice).
Perhaps, the problem exactly in Tempo Fine knob work (but i am not sure).
Check it please.

[ADDED]
No, just now IRCAM Stretch make system freeze again but just with Speed and Tempo Factor knobs at minimum, I also changed some other setting in ircam stretch but without Tempo Fine. Damn its sad.

Doesnt cause anything fatal on my system though it does cause the note on to stay on longer which is visible in Bitwig and my system was very sluggish.

At slower Speed settings it takes longer for the sample to actually start playing after being triggered.

I only used a short drum sample.

Looking at Task Manager Falcon is was using a whopping 600mb for that little sample, so theres definitely something buggy there

Not sure if this related but I found that with multi granular when I down pitch a sample the cpu use heavily increases until I pitch up the sample. This happens for me with samples of any length. It will use all the available cpu down pitching just one sample.

I am not seeing this here at all.

[tonkatodd]

Oh, found first bug (v106, VST, Win7)
In IRCAM Stretch, all settings by default.
Load sample, and perform next action: set these knobs to minimum - Speed (0,0), Tempo Factor (0,25), and Tempo Fine knob (-50%), and Sample Strart knob to 50% for example, and trigg any note - sound is will not played, and if you wait about 10-15 seconds, the system will completely hang (i make reboot twice).
Perhaps, the problem exactly in Tempo Fine knob work (but i am not sure).
Check it please.

[ADDED]
No, just now IRCAM Stretch make system freeze again but just with Speed and Tempo Factor knobs at minimum, I also changed some other setting in ircam stretch but without Tempo Fine. Damn its sad.

Doesnt cause anything fatal on my system though it does cause the note on to stay on longer which is visible in Bitwig and my system was very sluggish.

At slower Speed settings it takes longer for the sample to actually start playing after being triggered.

I only used a short drum sample.

Looking at Task Manager Falcon is was using a whopping 600mb for that little sample, so theres definitely something buggy there

Not sure if this related but I found that with multi granular when I down pitch a sample the cpu use heavily increases until I pitch up the sample. This happens for me with samples of any length. It will use all the available cpu down pitching just one sample.

I am not seeing this here at all.

I have a pretty fast comp and when I drop the pitch of any sample below 13-14 semitones in multi granular my cpu gets chewed up until I raise the pitch again, This happens with samples of any length. I've played around with the voice count and with the size and it still chews up my cpu.

[Sampleconstruct]

I understood that, I was just saying that I am not seeing this here at all on a 12-core Mac Pro, so it could be OS related (I'm on Yosemite), or buffer size related, or or or or, not weather-related though. As Olivier from UVI hasn't posted in this thread for a while now, maybe it's best to contact UVI support and see if they have an idea what could cause your issue..

[tonkatodd]

I understood that, I was just saying that I am not seeing this here at all on a 12-core Mac Pro, so it could be OS related (I'm on Yosemite), or buffer size related, or or or or, not weather-related though. As Olivier from UVI hasn't posted in this thread for a while now, maybe it's best to contact UVI support and see if they have an idea what could cause your issue..

Thanks for your input. I don't use osx, I use Win 10. I'm using the latest Reaper 5 and my system is well optimized for sound work. I tried the buffer settings when I first noticed this issue and it did make a little bit of difference but it still spiked the cpu. Falcon runs very efficiently on my system except for this problem. I can run multiple Kaleidoscopes and B2's on my system without any issue so I just assume it is a Falcon issue but I'll keep investigating if I am the only one having this problem. This only happens with the pitch control in multi granular . The way I have worked around this issue is to lower the root key of the sample and just modulate the pitch control in positives. One project I have 8 multi granular patches that run very well until I lower the pitch control below those semitones. It's strange.

[c_voltage]

Oh, found first bug (v106, VST, Win7)
In IRCAM Stretch, all settings by default.
Load sample, and perform next action: set these knobs to minimum - Speed (0,0), Tempo Factor (0,25), and Tempo Fine knob (-50%), and Sample Strart knob to 50% for example, and trigg any note - sound is will not played, and if you wait about 10-15 seconds, the system will completely hang (i make reboot twice).
Perhaps, the problem exactly in Tempo Fine knob work (but i am not sure).
Check it please.

[ADDED]
No, just now IRCAM Stretch make system freeze again but just with Speed and Tempo Factor knobs at minimum, I also changed some other setting in ircam stretch but without Tempo Fine. Damn its sad.

Doesnt cause anything fatal on my system though it does cause the note on to stay on longer which is visible in Bitwig and my system was very sluggish.

At slower Speed settings it takes longer for the sample to actually start playing after being triggered.

I only used a short drum sample.

Looking at Task Manager Falcon is was using a whopping 600mb for that little sample, so theres definitely something buggy there

VariKusBrainZ what system you use ? I asked my friend about this issue (he use MAC OS) and he did not confirm this bug. Maybe its for Win only, i dont know.
And for just in case guys - i not meant any increase cpu usage or something problem like that in stretcher, i meant exactly system hang (or freeze, not sure how correctly call this in english ).

Also i clarify a bit - when trigg this bug (after action that i described earlier), then ircam stretcher already unavailable to remove from stack - this is a good sign that bug appeared, and about after 10 seconds the system is freezed. (But can manage to kill the daw process in this moment, if no, then helped reboot only.)

It would be desirable that exactly Windows users checked this.

[c_voltage]

Damn, i just now tried repeat the same ircam stretch trick in MachFive - absolutely the same issue !
Just turn to minimum 3 handles: Speed, Tempo Factor, and Tempo Fine, and tried play notes - the system is freezed.
It turns out that this bug migrated from M3, strange, i did not receive it before, probably because rarely used ircam stretch.

(For just in case - also tested already all other ircam samplers (in Falcon) - not discovered any problem with them yet. So problem only in stretch.)

[VariKusBrainZ]

Oh, found first bug (v106, VST, Win7)
In IRCAM Stretch, all settings by default.
Load sample, and perform next action: set these knobs to minimum - Speed (0,0), Tempo Factor (0,25), and Tempo Fine knob (-50%), and Sample Strart knob to 50% for example, and trigg any note - sound is will not played, and if you wait about 10-15 seconds, the system will completely hang (i make reboot twice).
Perhaps, the problem exactly in Tempo Fine knob work (but i am not sure).
Check it please.

[ADDED]
No, just now IRCAM Stretch make system freeze again but just with Speed and Tempo Factor knobs at minimum, I also changed some other setting in ircam stretch but without Tempo Fine. Damn its sad.

Doesnt cause anything fatal on my system though it does cause the note on to stay on longer which is visible in Bitwig and my system was very sluggish.

At slower Speed settings it takes longer for the sample to actually start playing after being triggered.

I only used a short drum sample.

Looking at Task Manager Falcon is was using a whopping 600mb for that little sample, so theres definitely something buggy there

VariKusBrainZ what system you use ? I asked my friend about this issue (he use MAC OS) and he did not confirm this bug. Maybe its for Win only, i dont know.
And for just in case guys - i not meant any increase cpu usage or something problem like that in stretcher, i meant exactly system hang (or freeze, not sure how correctly call this in english ).

Also i clarify a bit - when trigg this bug (after action that i described earlier), then ircam stretcher already unavailable to remove from stack - this is a good sign that bug appeared, and about after 10 seconds the system is freezed. (But can manage to kill the daw process in this moment, if no, then helped reboot only.)

It would be desirable that exactly Windows users checked this.

Win 8.1 64 bit
2.8Ghz i7
4 Gb Ram

[VariKusBrainZ]

Damn, i just now tried repeat the same ircam stretch trick in MachFive - absolutely the same issue !
Just turn to minimum 3 handles: Speed, Tempo Factor, and Tempo Fine, and tried play notes - the system is freezed.
It turns out that this bug migrated from M3, strange, i did not receive it before, probably because rarely used ircam stretch.

(For just in case - also tested already all other ircam samplers (in Falcon) - not discovered any problem with them yet. So problem only in stretch.)

Obviously an Ircam bug

Even after I'd deleted the Stretch oscillator Falcon continued to hog memory.
Ill just avoid using a short time setting, at 0 theres no movement anyway

[c_voltage]

Win 8.1 64 bit
2.8Ghz i7
4 Gb Ram

Oh ok, im on Win7 (maybe this behavior freezes seven only).

Ill just avoid using a short time setting, at 0 theres no movement anyway

Yes, at least by such way yet. Although i afraid now to trying stretch with any settings
Still i hope that uvi confirm and will fix it.

[ErikH]

Win7Pro here, i7 3400GHz

I tried with both Complex and High Quality Ircam Stretch with Speed, Tempo Factor, and Tempo Fine set to minimum. it took a moment before I got sound but I did not experience any freezing . cpu load 10% with an Oud sample by Simon and up to nearly 40 with a bowed cymbal when I up padding to 8.

I do have to up the buffer though as with overlapping at 8 it is Craclin' Rosie time.

[Sampleconstruct]

I actually only use IRCAM Stretch for offline processing, as it can sound so good with extreme time-stretching, but it's just not made for live usage, even on my new ashtray Mac Pro - it wasn't usable for tracking/live playing in MachFive and didn't improve much CPU-wise in Falcon.

[Numanoid]

I thought Falcon would be a definite 10 out of 10 in Computer Music, but they give it "only" 9 out 10, the main criticism being that the included soundbank is too small, and also that it is expensive

As CM regulary gives SampleLogic libs 9 out of 10 ratings, I find it rather weird that they use price against Falcon

[Daags]

it's about value for money, I am sure.


by the way, I recall asking but forget the answer ... how does Falcon appear on a 1366 x 768 resolution (win7) monitor ?

is the GUI clipped in any way ?

cheers

[VariKusBrainZ]

Its true that the basic content is pretty minimal.
However the $100 voucher makes up for this.
I bought Falcon with Digital Synsations included and chose PX Apollo and Energy with the voucher.

But then I didnt buy it for the inlcuded content