Roli: Equator 2 is here !

[machinesworking]

Equator 2 is $149 r/n. Seems like it might have a future? Good time to purchase?

Personally I think you're good. Equator 2 got the M1 update, I'm sure if there's any tweaks for Windows 11 you'll get those. It's always a game to guess which VI will last the longest, but Roli have spent money on Equator during their transition, that says a lot.

With all I've said about Roli etc. IMO Equator 2 is still a top ten VI to me. Worth $150 for sure.

[Tj Shredder]

Even the sales price for an upgrade is still very high, but what me puts of even more:

Can I use Equator2 offline/without ROLI Connect?
Once authorisation has completed, Equator2 can run without requiring ROLI Connect to be running for up to 4 weeks before needing to "phone home" again. Should this occur, you'll be prompted to launch ROLI Connect again.

According to Murphy’s law this will happen in the concert hall without internet connection…

I consider M1 support is there if its native, I could not find any hint for that at Roli, only Himalayas claim in this thread…

M1 is supported. Scroll down to the spec list:
https://roli.com/products/software/equator2/overview

It isn’t listed as M1 native, to the contrary, the requirement is x64. Its only tested on Big Sur and running under Rosetta as it seems, according to the forum announcements…

[machinesworking]

Even the sales price for an upgrade is still very high, but what me puts of even more:

Can I use Equator2 offline/without ROLI Connect?
Once authorisation has completed, Equator2 can run without requiring ROLI Connect to be running for up to 4 weeks before needing to "phone home" again. Should this occur, you'll be prompted to launch ROLI Connect again.

According to Murphy’s law this will happen in the concert hall without internet connection…

I consider M1 support is there if its native, I could not find any hint for that at Roli, only Himalayas claim in this thread…

M1 is supported. Scroll down to the spec list:
https://roli.com/products/software/equator2/overview

It isn’t listed as M1 native, to the contrary, the requirement is x64. Its only tested on Big Sur and running under Rosetta as it seems, according to the forum announcements…

It's definitely running as M1 native here. Reported by the system as a Universal Binary etc.

Sucks about it's phoning home every 4 weeks, but I keep my list of live performance VI's to trusted agents like U-He or Falcon. Roli or any of the the "authorization center" oriented plug in developers are not to be trusted for live work IMO.

[Tj Shredder]

It's definitely running as M1 native here. Reported by the system as a Universal Binary etc.

Sucks about it's phoning home every 4 weeks, but I keep my list of live performance VI's to trusted agents like U-He or Falcon. Roli or any of the the "authorization center" oriented plug in developers are not to be trusted for live work IMO.

Thanks for confirming. I have no idea why they don’t put that information on their site
If I could load Equator patches into the iPad, that would be an alternative for Live…
I don’t like that Roli Connect at all, always wondered what kind of use it possibly could have. It seems its the core of their copy protection. Maybe they could get rid of it if they’d sell it through the app store?

[machinesworking]

It's definitely running as M1 native here. Reported by the system as a Universal Binary etc.

Sucks about it's phoning home every 4 weeks, but I keep my list of live performance VI's to trusted agents like U-He or Falcon. Roli or any of the the "authorization center" oriented plug in developers are not to be trusted for live work IMO.

Thanks for confirming. I have no idea why they don’t put that information on their site
If I could load Equator patches into the iPad, that would be an alternative for Live…
I don’t like that Roli Connect at all, always wondered what kind of use it possibly could have. It seems its the core of their copy protection. Maybe they could get rid of it if they’d sell it through the app store?

Yeah I don't run it here, it's not a Universal Binary and it takes up CPU even if it's just a little, I have no use for it. So I'm a good test for their phone home ability without it running, I should get a warning to authorize Equator soon.

Cypher 2 and Strobe 2 are also both M1 native.

[Examigan]

Even the sales price for an upgrade is still very high, but what me puts of even more:

Can I use Equator2 offline/without ROLI Connect?
Once authorisation has completed, Equator2 can run without requiring ROLI Connect to be running for up to 4 weeks before needing to "phone home" again. Should this occur, you'll be prompted to launch ROLI Connect again.

According to Murphy’s law this will happen in the concert hall without internet connection…

I consider M1 support is there if its native, I could not find any hint for that at Roli, only Himalayas claim in this thread…

M1 is supported. Scroll down to the spec list:
https://roli.com/products/software/equator2/overview

It isn’t listed as M1 native, to the contrary, the requirement is x64. Its only tested on Big Sur and running under Rosetta as it seems, according to the forum announcements…

I saw this on their support page and they don't mention Rosetta:

We can confirm that the following software products are now tested and are confirmed to work on machines using the Apple M1 ARM chip:

Equator2
ROLI Studio Player
ROLI Studio Drums

and on the main page it also doesn't say anything about Rosetta:

Native M1 Mac support for Standalone and Plugin versions

[fisherKing]

am late to the conversation; i just added equator 2 to my arsenal. really like this one (& once my lumi keys arrives, i can check out MPE), something i can also explore with some of my other synths.

there are some great presets. altho... one thing i never get: why does every synth plugin feel it has to cover basics? how many sub basses, hi hats, clap sounds does anyone need? how many pseudo pianos, guitars, etc?

but anyway, EQ2 is pretty great. plus, am moving to a silicon mac soon... so, glad this is ready.

[Spitfire31]

I agree that Equator 2 is an interesting and inspiring synth.

Unfortunately, the modulation system doesn't accept any user defined MIDI CC:s as sources, For instance, I can't use a CC11 pedal to supplant the mod wheel on my keyboard. An odd and crippling oversight by the designers, I think.

[himalaya]

there are some great presets. altho... one thing i never get: why does every synth plugin feel it has to cover basics? how many sub basses, hi hats, clap sounds does anyone need? how many pseudo pianos, guitars, etc?

Well, the simple answer to this predicament is this: choice. not everyone has hundreds of plugins and it is crucial to provide a well rounded preset selection in a product of this type.

Equator2 is what I call an 'uber' synth that offers numerous synthesis engines and sample playback. It's a workstation. And a product of this type needs to cover all the typical sound categories. It needs to cover such a range due to having to fulfill the needs of as many musicians as is possible.

Interstingly, when it comes to drums, there is a small selection of MPE drums in the Equator ENGINE (not Equator 2, but Equator). These were some of the first MPE drums back in the day. Equator was the only synth plugin with such sounds back then (the Eagan Matrix had a few drums, like the excellent Tabla preset but it wasn't a plugin but a synth engine tied to the Continuum). For example, the simple 'SHAKER - Morph' preset in ENGINE-Equator does some nifty MPE tricks. It uses all 5 dimensions (even LIFT). And simply playing this (simple) sound with one finger will add some very cool articulations. But you'd need a proper MPE controller for that. LUMI won't do (simply becouse you'd need a ribbon to do proper gliding, and the Y-axis - SLIDE - in order to awake what's assigned to it).

But, if you are not keen on the 'pseudo pianos' then try some of the real pianos, both acoustic and electric.

[fisherKing]

there are some great presets. altho... one thing i never get: why does every synth plugin feel it has to cover basics? how many sub basses, hi hats, clap sounds does anyone need? how many pseudo pianos, guitars, etc?

Well, the simple answer to this predicament is this: choice. not everyone has hundreds of plugins and it is crucial to provide a well rounded preset selection in a product of this type.

Equator2 is what I call an 'uber' synth that offers numerous synthesis engines and sample playback. It's a workstation. And a product of this type needs to cover all the typical sound categories. It needs to cover such a range due to having to fulfill the needs of as many musicians as is possible.

Interstingly, when it comes to drums, there is a small selection of MPE drums in the Equator ENGINE (not Equator 2, but Equator). These were some of the first MPE drums back in the day. Equator was the only synth plugin with such sounds back then (the Eagan Matrix had a few drums, like the excellent Tabla preset but it wasn't a plugin but a synth engine tied to the Continuum). For example, the simple 'SHAKER - Morph' preset in ENGINE-Equator does some nifty MPE tricks. It uses all 5 dimensions (even LIFT). And simply playing this (simple) sound with one finger will add some very cool articulations. But you'd need a proper MPE controller for that. LUMI won't do (simply becouse you'd need a ribbon to do proper gliding, and the Y-axis - SLIDE - in order to awake what's assigned to it).

But, if you are not keen on the 'pseudo pianos' then try some of the real pianos, both acoustic and electric.

i hear you, really. but i don't know of anyone who only has one plugin in their DAW (or a DAW with, say, only one synth). and there's a glut of 'fake real' sounds that are just redundant, and often bad. anyway, easy enough for me to ignore a bad piano patch somewhere and use pianoteq (or whatever). so... all good.

[zvenx]

If I had a $1 everytime I read about someone who complains that Omnisphere despite its thousand of sounds it has, does not have bread and butter sounds, I would be a millionaire.
rsp

[fisherKing]

If I had a $1 everytime I read about someone who complains that Omnisphere despite its thousand of sounds it has, does not have bread and butter sounds, I would be a millionaire.
rsp

i'm certainly not referring to omnisphere anyway. i mean synths that are synths, so more like vital or serum, dune3, etc. a true synth doesn't need to try for piano sounds (for example), but...

what the hell. am enjoying exploring equator2, and can use (or skip) piano-like sounds easily enough.

[himalaya]

a true synth doesn't need to try for piano sounds (for example)

Equator2 isn't just a synth, it's also a sampler, and as such it really needs to provide bread&butter presets.

Equator2 has received so many requests from users for acoustic sounds, drums, this that and the other. KVR is a very small part of the music-making world, and does not represent the wider world out there, where people may buy a Seaboard RISE as the only instrument and want to play a piano sound on it, so Equator needs to fulfil that need.

The funny thing is, when the ROLI NOISE app was originally released it came without a piano sound. This was one of the main criticism of it: no piano! Ha! (it didn't come with a piano due to the Apple store app size limitation back then, not sure how it is now. The original Equator piano came at over 300MB, which is small by piano-sample standards but too much for the Apple store, back then).

[pierb]

Equator2 isn't just a synth, it's also a sampler, and as such it really needs to provide bread&butter presets.

I think it's more a synth than a sampler though.

If it was a proper sampler, you'd have more sampler oriented features. Like being able to import and edit multisamples. I know you can use sfz but it's not even well documented.

[fisherKing]

a true synth doesn't need to try for piano sounds (for example)

Equator2 isn't just a synth, it's also a sampler, and as such it really needs to provide bread&butter presets.

right, which is why i pointed out that i was fine with it. i still think that most synths should be... synths, and not attempt pianos, etc... that can be better had with real sampled pianos, etc etc.

but equator 2 is a new fave plugin, and in the end, if i don't like or need a preset... i can skip it.