UltraAnalog seems underrated

[S0lo]

I personally think that almost all AAS stuff is more or less underrated. And this is not just an in the moment opinion. For years they tried desperately to have steep sales and pushed so many preset banks. They sound authentic and well done IMO. Yet I hear almost no noise from the community. I just can't understand it

And suddenly when intellijel decided to put SOME of AAS tech into a Euro module (Plonk). People seam to be all over it, and waw, wow that sounds amazing. Well, hello.... it's been there in chromaphone for years.

Sorry if I sounded a bit sarcastic, but that just blurted out.

[twisted-space]

Try changing/modulating the filter envelope mod depth while playing a note.

[elassi]

Being a true member of the KVR-community I have this synth but never use it.

Since jumping on the AKAI VIP boat this may change because now I can scroll thru all my purchases and find sounds I've never heard before.

[ghettosynth]

I personally think that almost all AAS stuff is more or less underrated. And this is not just an in the moment opinion. For years they tried desperately to have steep sales and pushed so many preset banks. They sound authentic and well done IMO. Yet I hear almost no noise from the community. I just can't understand it

And suddenly when intellijel decided to put SOME of AAS tech into a Euro module (Plonk). People seam to be all over it, and waw, wow that sounds amazing. Well, hello.... it's been there in chromaphone for years.

That's because Plonk uses resonators, that is what AAS's claim to fame was all about. I'm not dissing all their work, I just don't think that they've innovated for a long time and VA stuff has come a long way in the last ten years or so. They've been left behind because of their unwillingness to innovate.

Chromaphone sounds good. But UltraAnalog is meh.

So, sure, people want their resonator models in a eurorack, that's somewhat unique and they were on the cutting edge of that tech in the past. I doubt anyone is getting all excited about a VA eurorack module from them.

Why you hear no noise from the community is that they haven't been innovating. They had to drop Tassman because of their lack of proper maintenance on the codebase.

[Examigan]

As much as I like the sound there is a very big problem with the synth.

Modulation. It doesn't save with the patch.

Assign mod wheel to cutoff. Close up the VST and DAW and reload. The mod assignment doesn't stick. You have to reassign the mod wheel to the cutoff to get it to work upon reload.

You can imagine what a nightmare this is if you've got a session with 15 instances of UA 2 and have to go back into each one and reassign everything. I even had to post a warning on my library page that mod settings don't save. And yet, sales were very good. So I guess sound won out. But still, HUGE oversight and poor implementation.

Wow that’s crazy... But what about the presets that it ships with? Don’t they all have modulation settings that are different for each of them?

As I make my own sounds, I have no idea. I don't use the presets. All I know is I assign mod wheel to filter and the next time I pull it up, the assignment is gone. You have to reassign.

Ridiculous.

I downloaded the 15-day trial version, changed one of the presets around to what I wanted, mapped the mod wheel on my controller to filter cutoff, saved the project, closed it, reopened it, and it still works for me. The mod wheel is mapped to the cutoff just like I had it before. Then I rebooted to see if that might change anything, tried it again and it still works.

Maybe they updated it since the last time you used it?

[chk071]

Never tried UltraAnalog, but, in my experience, underrated usually equals unpopular for a reason. But, hey, when you get some (for you) pleasing sounds out of it, then i wouldn't care about underrated, overrated or anything else.

E.g., there doesn't seem to be much rave about Largo around here, and, for me, it's one of the top 5 soft synths, for sure, and right up there with the best sounding hardware VA's as well. Ok, rather opposite of what i wrote above, but, exceptions confirm the rule.

[poleda]

Never tried UltraAnalog, but, in my experience, underrated usually equals unpopular for a reason. But, hey, when you get some (for you) pleasing sounds out of it, then i wouldn't care about underrated, overrated or anything else.

E.g., there doesn't seem to be much rave about Largo around here, and, for me, it's one of the top 5 soft synths, for sure, and right up there with the best sounding hardware VA's as well.

Expert advice from a nonuser seems legit.

[Dasheesh]

Have only one question: Can it sound like 16 detuned chainsaws?

[Robmobius]

It's a decent enough synth... But it's showing its age and there are a lot better vsts around atm (imo).

[S0lo]

That's because Plonk uses resonators, that is what AAS's claim to fame was all about. I'm not dissing all their work, I just don't think that they've innovated for a long time and VA stuff has come a long way in the last ten years or so. They've been left behind because of their unwillingness to innovate.

To me a musical instrument never ages. Be it software or hardware. For the same reason that a guitar, violin or an analog vintage synth never ages. When a manufacturer "inovates" and brings a new guitar, Thats not usually a better guitar. It's a different flavor with a different sound of a guitar.

If I like a sound now for a certain context, I don't see a reason why I should hate the same sound 10 years latter for the same context. Otherwise I would be just following whats fashionable today. Which is usually driven by who and what wins the market.

[yellowmix]

It's nice enough, you can get excellent sounds out of it, but the competition is fierce and it just doesn't rank with them. Open up the factory presets for "Juno" (in Bass and Polysynth) and "Moog" and it's just... no. And neither does it have much of its own character. And it's a shame because it has a nice architecture, effects, arp, all these things that holistically make a useful synth if you happen to have it, but the sounds are ultimately average.

If you're in the market there's too much else out there now, and at $199 it makes no sense. I only got it because I wanted everything else in the modelling collection.

[Michael L]

I think UA can produce a wider variety of sounds that most other synths because it has so many ways to change the sound of its (only two) VCOs. UA is certainly not the best at Moog or Juno emulation, but I think it is the best for sheer variety and also fits my musical taste more than other 'analog models.'

Once Upon a Time all the AAS synths saved a midi map with each patch, and sound designers (e.g. himalaya) included midi mapping with all their patches. Then AAS dropped that great feature when they "updated" to 64-bit. Tassman is their only 32-bit synth left, and hopefully AAS can afford to update it before Apple drops 32-bit.

[BlackWinny]

I don't play music only with synths, but also with pianos (some are recent, some are old), with organs (some are recent, some are old), with flutes, with a guitar, with wood sticks on drums but also on billy cans... and even with stones.

So for me as for other persons here, there isn't any reason to consider an instrument as aged. An instrument will fit for the musics played by someone and won't for the musics played by someone else. That's all.

If a synth can be considered as aged, what about the instruments of a symphonic orchestra or simply a jazz band or a blues man ?

Is an electric guitar an instrument which is aged ?
Is an acoustic guitar an instrument which is aged ?
Is a piano an instrument which is aged ?
Is a drum kit used by Collins (the son as well as the father) or by any other percussionist an instrument which is aged ? Are the snares and the cymbals aged ?

Even for many great electro musicians of nowadays, Jarre, Rudess, Schulze, Rimbert, Schroeder, and so many keybordists in hundreds of bands of today, there isn't any synth which is aged. Some are even totally stuck in love to real old hardware synths of the 70's... and they perfectly use them with or without more recent other synths in the same album.

There isn't any instrument which is aged. All depends only the kind of music that one wants to play... and most of all the relation that one has with the instruments and what he want or doesn't want to draw from the instrument.

An instrument is not a space shuttle which absolutely needs to be more and more complex year after year. By the way, the era of the space shuttles has finished pitifully... while the old good space rockets have never been used as much as now. The era of the run for complexity of the synths will end one day the same way (because it has ran too fast)... while all the simple synths and simple instruments in general will always remain active. Because the music is not in the complexity of the modulations, but simply in the search for the pleasure to the ears and to the soul.

The music doesn't rely on the race for technology. The technology is a tool, an excellent and very useful tool. But the music is not produced by the tools. It is produced by the head of the musicians. The music rely only on the imagination of the musicians in their compositions and their good taste on arrangements, for the search of the pleasure. Even with flutes, guitars, pianos, simple synths... and even pieces of wood and sets of stones.

[Teksonik]

Bought it years ago, got bored with it years ago, sold it years ago.

Even UA 2 wasn't much of an upgrade....more like a retrograde in some respects.

EDIT: Looks like it was UA 2 I sold and still have a license for UA 1. Ehhh....not excited.

[JerGoertz]

I think UA sounds good (but not great), although was great when it came out. It sounds pretty unique among my many VA's. I've gotten some really amazing basses out of it.