Aly James Lab VSDSX 2.0

[Telematix]

Listening to the demos, it seems like the kick has been improved. I didn’t see anything mentioned about it but I didn’t find the kick very usable in V1 and was hoping it’d be better once updated. Since I can’t get into this until I’m home from vacation next week, can anybody with V2 comment on the kick and if it’s changed? I used to find it hard to get a tight and solid kick without it sounding too sweepy before. The current demos seem to sound more like how I’ve heard it on recordings. Thanks.

I found the solution for the "tight" kick. I changed the "OSC custom" to "On" and changed Control Voltage Curve to "Log". But since the settings are global, I lost some "analog" vibes in the rest drums. It's not a problem for me, because I use VSDSXs kick no so often.
Anyway, the more I use the plugin the more I like it. It is definitely well worth the money spent.

[Timfonie]

At least there is some development going on!

It all seemed slowed down to zero.
As an example: his Samplight Fairlight simulator still has the status "comming out soon", exactly like it has been for a couple of years now.

[DMG68]

I found the solution for the "tight" kick. I changed the "OSC custom" to "On" and changed Control Voltage Curve to "Log". But since the settings are global, I lost some "analog" vibes in the rest drums. It's not a problem for me, because I use VSDSXs kick no so often.
Anyway, the more I use the plugin the more I like it. It is definitely well worth the money spent.

Thanks, will mess with that too. Should hopefully be some presets to start with. I definitely want that Simmons kick.

[functionform]

Will buy the AJ collection after I make sure I finish a few other items I'm working on. I know I'll be sucked into a synthwave vortex so I have to finish this up first.

[budweiser]

Cool to see you back, AJ !

[JerGoertz]

Both babies slamming
https://www.instagram.com/tv/BwiAQtvDaB ... hare_sheet

Dang!

Pretty sweet, these are on my short list for next drum machine purchase

[DrGonzo]

At least there is some development going on!

It all seemed slowed down to zero.
As an example: his Samplight Fairlight simulator still has the status "comming out soon", exactly like it has been for a couple of years now.

Yeah. It's a shame. But I think that when a child expands the family, all your plans goes out the window. But I still think he'll release something eventually.

/C

[Nleif]

What makes this different from samples?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

What makes this different from samples?

Same thing that makes all synthesis different from samples. You'll likely get some type of variation that is difficult with samples, more options to tweak and sculpt the sound.

Like how Kontakt plus some analog waveforms can be made to function and sound like an analog synth, while still not being the same.

[teacue]

What makes this different from samples?

Among other one essential point is that these early sample based machine tuned a voice through the sample rate.
Only a few VSTis can do this.
Among them Aly James instruments and TalSampler.
A pitched down sample in Kontakt will sound quite different from a pitchdown sample in VProm or in TalSampler.

[Aly James]

What makes this different from samples?

Tons of things
For VSDSX every emulated module (drum card) are generated in real-time and are heavily affected by MIDI velocity: OSC tuning, envelope shapes, CV curves, output stage distortion etc.
I strive to reproduce the musicality in every products and if you have ever played with a real one you would understand that every hit would never produce the same sound twice.
This won't shine if you are just placing some notes on a grid, you need to really play it or tweak the notes velocity meaningfully.
Additionally there are some variable sample rate based digital parts notably on the HIHAT, CYMBAL and CLAP voices that are using a perfect reproduction of the randomness the original system had, again this will output a different sound on every hit and the tuning will sound vastly different than a modern sampler pitch tuning.
On top of that you can tweak VCA curves, CV curves, amount of velocity patched to tuning or LFO/FM modulations, output stage emulation for a strict analog reproduction or a cleaner "modern" stage.
Last but not least VSDSX got a "PROM" voice based on the SDS1 and SDS7 module, it can really load original EPROM image from the whole Simmons EPROM collection or any other "companded" compressed format like DMX, LINN etc.

As for VProm you got filtering happening and variable sample rate output which runs internally at a very high sample rate to avoid any unwanted alias that the original machine didn't have while keeping the true harmonic alias which is part of the beauty of these early systems.
There are also VCA and CV acting for filtering or the Hihat part.
VProm can be a sketch pad to make any vintage sounding kit you want.

Each machines got their dedicated outputs so you can mix them on a per voice basis like we did back in the days.

All of this is what makes them vastly superior than any sample based sets even if it would be gigabytes of layer

[Aly James]

At least there is some development going on!

It all seemed slowed down to zero.
As an example: his Samplight Fairlight simulator still has the status "comming out soon", exactly like it has been for a couple of years now.

Yeah. It's a shame. But I think that when a child expands the family, all your plans goes out the window. But I still think he'll release something eventually.

/C

I had a loooonnnnnggggg adaptation time to set a new environment to work with, good news is that its done so I can restart everything that was on hold
SamPlight is my biggest project to date.. started as a simple Fairlight CMI voice reader to become a full blown CMI IIX system.. did you ever read the original manual with 200+ pages, do not ever read the service ones
Reverse engineering lots of voice and params structures (notably instruments files and FFT synthesis saved params) was done the old school way, looking at the memory state of a real CMI IIX system..
At some points I was able to transfer disks between SamPlight and the real CMI IIX system to fine tune.
Even the graphics were done the same way, trying to keep the original behavior and look which is IMO part of the experience.
If you ever tried a real one you could tell for example how it behaves when you are drawing harmonic curves, look at the scaling of the FFT...
I can say it is 90% done and will be released in 64bit and Win/Mac
here is an old quick demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eY1q2doD78

[mcbpete]

.. started as a simple Fairlight CMI voice reader to become a full blown CMI IIX system.. did you ever read the original manual with 200+ pages, do not ever read the service ones

Am I right in remembering the CMI IIX runs at some crazy sampling rate (or is it oversampling), like in the several megahertz or something ?!

[Aly James]

.. started as a simple Fairlight CMI voice reader to become a full blown CMI IIX system.. did you ever read the original manual with 200+ pages, do not ever read the service ones

Am I right in remembering the CMI IIX runs at some crazy sampling rate (or is it oversampling), like in the several megahertz or something ?!

A did see a large amount of "false" info based mainly on misunderstanding the specs...
Can you imagine a sampling rate in the Mhz range? ask yourself what size would be the sample, especially in the 80s?.. often people are talking about the Master Clock of the system or a subdivision of it.
A master clock is what runs the whole systems and is always subdivided or scaled for many operations.
Without getting too technical this also means that the sampling rate needed to output a special note/key is created from a division of the Master Clock and it is not linear, you will loose some resolution at some point and the note's frequency is not always perfect.
CMI version IIX can sample in 10bits with a clever trick (a rare option did offer a 12bit format compressed with companded rule) but the sampling rate is around 32Khz Max(do read the maximum sampling rate allowed to actually sample the outside world).
The other important thing is that the playing rate can be way higher than that, as the machine will clock the data at whatever sample rate the tuning/key implies and this is a crucial point.

[Timfonie]

I had a loooonnnnnggggg adaptation time to set a new environment to work with, good news is that its done so I can restart everything that was on hold
SamPlight is my biggest project to date.. started as a simple Fairlight CMI voice reader to become a full blown CMI IIX system.. did you ever read the original manual with 200+ pages, do not ever read the service ones
Reverse engineering lots of voice and params structures (notably instruments files and FFT synthesis saved params) was done the old school way, looking at the memory state of a real CMI IIX system..
At some points I was able to transfer disks between SamPlight and the real CMI IIX system to fine tune.
Even the graphics were done the same way, trying to keep the original behavior and look which is IMO part of the experience.
If you ever tried a real one you could tell for example how it behaves when you are drawing harmonic curves, look at the scaling of the FFT...
I can say it is 90% done and will be released in 64bit and Win/Mac
here is an old quick demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eY1q2doD78

That's even more impressive than I imagined!
Thanks for the update. I had missed that video by the way.

Cool to see it's 90% done now. Hopefully the Pareto principle won't delay its release significantly.