Cherry Audio releases massive new Eight Voice synthesizer!

[Niowiad]

I'm not sold on the voice-linking implementation.
It completely gets rid of slight differences in parameter settings between voices, which is a huge part of what makes poly/unison patches sound great.

It sounds especially weird with oscillator tuning, but to me it's an issue on every single parameter, if the goal is keeping all voices slightly different most of the time, if not all the time.
Of course you're free to turn off voice-linking, but it also makes me wonder when would I ever want to use it, if I'd have to later go and re-edit the parameters anyway, on all 8 individually to restore unevenness.

So I just went and checked how GForce implemented voice-linking (didn't even bother to check that out before, since I'm on Windows), and they of course implemented a linking method which acknowledges and preserves any parameter offset between voices.

[Teksonik]

I do wish for a little sharper GUI but with the ability to focus the different sections it's functional.

Do you use the ZOOM feature? I'm at ZOOM 140% on a 4K 28" screen and it looks fantastic. 150% is too big to fit on screen

Yes the first thing I tried was the Zoom. Grab and drag resize works best here at 1920x1080 as the sweet spot is in between 100% and 110%. Perhaps this was made with 4k screens in mind.

Being able to Focus the different sections really helps the functionality but when viewing all 8 modules things are still a bit fuzzy.

Like I said the GUI is functional but I don't find it pleasing to look at like many of the other plugins I own. But when I consider the price there's really no room to complain.....

[chk071]

Sound wise, it's awesome just like the SEM, but... programming all those voices independently isn't my thing really.

You don’t have to program them independently, you just select link and you are programming them all from 1 module (or in groups)

I know, this or the OB-E give you lots of aids. It's just that I prefer to have that kind of functionality on oscillator level, and have it run through one or several filters. The traditional way. It's just not my cup of tea.

[Teksonik]

I'm not sold on the voice-linking implementation.
It completely gets rid of slight differences in parameter settings between voices, which is a huge part of what makes poly/unison patches sound great.
It sounds especially weird with oscillator tuning, but to me it's an issue on every single parameter, if the goal is keeping all voices slightly different most of the time.
Of course you're free to turn off voice-linking, but it also makes me wonder when would I ever want to use it, if I'd have to later go and re-edit the parameters anyway, on all 8 individually to restore unevenness.

For me voice linking is for major changes like setting all the modules to a certain filter setting. Then go in individually to make tweaks.

It works sort of like Dune 3's "All Tab" where all voices are edited at the same time when it's active then you go into each individual voice to edit so it's very comfortable for me.

[Vortifex]

Edited

[Niowiad]

I'm not sold on the voice-linking implementation.
It completely gets rid of slight differences in parameter settings between voices, which is a huge part of what makes poly/unison patches sound great.
It sounds especially weird with oscillator tuning, but to me it's an issue on every single parameter, if the goal is keeping all voices slightly different most of the time.
Of course you're free to turn off voice-linking, but it also makes me wonder when would I ever want to use it, if I'd have to later go and re-edit the parameters anyway, on all 8 individually to restore unevenness.

For me voice linking is for major changes like setting all the modules to a certain filter setting. Then go in individually to make tweaks.

Yes. That's likely the only way to use it.
Not sure how I feel about that though (not that anyone should care )

The 8 independent voice structure surely opens up several possibilities, although I would have hoped they provided a way to also normally program poly/unison patches, like GForce did with the additional linking method which preserves parameter offset.

[Arashi]

I'm not sold on the voice-linking implementation.
It completely gets rid of slight differences in parameter settings between voices, which is a huge part of what makes poly/unison patches sound great.

It sounds especially weird with oscillator tuning, but to me it's an issue on every single parameter, if the goal is keeping all voices slightly different most of the time, if not all the time.
Of course you're free to turn off voice-linking, but it also makes me wonder when would I ever want to use it, if I'd have to later go and re-edit the parameters anyway, on all 8 individually to restore unevenness.

So I just went and checked how GForce implemented voice-linking (didn't even bother to check that out before, since I'm on Windows), and they of course implemented a linking method which acknowledges and preserves any parameter offset between voices.

I have both, and you're right. The lack of offset-preserving link mode makes editing a real pain. The only thing it provides an offset for is cutoff frequency. GForce got this right, and Cherry should implement something similar. OB-E also shows a green or orange dot in the center of the individual controls when linking is enabled. Eight Voice has no indication other than the on/off switch for the linking section in the bottom left, so it's easy to forget if it's enabled and accidentally erase all your offsets by tweaking a knob. Fortunately you can just click Undo to reverse that change.

[Arashi]

Other than the linking thing, my initial impression after playing with it for about half an hour is pretty positive. Sounds great. At least on my 5K iMac display, the UI is perfectly readable and usable at 100% without zooming.

I haven't attempted to compare it to OB-E yet (that's gonna be a project) but here are some of the UI/feature differences I've noticed:

• Eight Voice doesn't have a rear panel for its SEMs, but it does have the velocity controls for each envelope.
• Eight Voice adds a range control to each SEM (much nicer than dialing in octave offsets using the main frequency knob).
• Eight Voice has its level and pan settings on each SEM. OB-E has a side panel that acts as a mixer for each group, with a master level and lock/solo/mute at the group level.
• OB-E has a full third oscillator per voice. It can also provide the usual sub or noise output, or be used as an LFO for VCO1/2 FM or PWM. Eight Voice has an additional global LFO2 instead (but OB-E also has a global vibrato LFO).
• OB-E's rear panel also has advanced LFO and filter tracking controls, extensive velocity mapping, and aftertouch assignment.
• Eight Voice has mono/poly assignment (and for mono, note priority) per voice. You can create two poly groups with any SEMs you want (OB-E can only split the top four and bottom four).
• Eight Voice has three different portamento settings for each of its groups — mono, poly A, and poly B.
• Eight Voice lets you specify which voices respond to keyboard and which ones respond to the sequencer. OB-E's sequencer can either control all voices, or only SEM 8.
• Eight Voice has reverb, and its delay has a spread feature. OB-E has a stereo delay that preserves the pan position of each voice (but has cross feedback).
• OB-E's sequencer has per-step gate length. Eight Voice has a single global gate length. There are numerous other sequencer differences; I won't list them all here.

As with other Cherry Audio products, Eight Voice is an excellent value for a very low price. I definitely prefer OB-E overall, but if you love classic synths like I do, I don't know why you wouldn't buy it (even if you're on a Mac and already own OB-E).

[abernathy]

Like all these Cherry synths, this is certainly a great bargain. I'm still not totally thrilled by this cheapest possible price... I wonder how sustainable this business model is. Will they charge for updates? I think OB-E is only a little overpriced, maybe just due to the conversion from euro? It's about in line with u-he synths - people don't seem to scream and yell about u-he's prices. I think a lot of the complaining is just because PC users were so frustrated - understandable, but I think it's clear that GForce didn't set out to exclude PC users - just the way new development went... which did result a remarkably CPU friendly Mac synth. Hopefully they can do the same for PC users someday soon. OB-E sounds better to me - hard to really judge with different presets - but it has more of feeling of coming straight from hardware to me. Subtle, but not so subtle... makes me want to keep playing it because it has this huge sweet spot. Eight Voice sounds great, but not the same irresistible warm vibe to me.

[plexuss]

Like all these Cherry synths, this is certainly a great bargain. I'm still not totally thrilled by this cheapest possible price... I wonder how sustainable this business model is. [snip...]

Cherry's flagship product is Voltage Modular and their associated module store. I am sure this fits within their busines plan in that these synths work as modules in Voltage and so by selling the synths at a low price gets more people in the purchase funnel of Voltage and hence the module store. Perhaps a loss-leader depending on the costs of the synths vs sales. Generous of them!

[briefcasemanx]

I got into voltage modular from their vst stuff and I've spent a mint on modular modules, lol. I'd bet they're doing fine. If they upped the price of vsts to $40 I don't think they'd see a decrease in sales.

[arkmabat]

It's not often that I get an email about a recreation of a synth I never knew I loved so much and find that it's only $30 for a permanent place in my arsenal. Not only that, the file-size is small enough that I can download and install it right now, over mobile data without worry. Thanks, Cherry Audio!

[arkmabat]

The qwerty-to-midi keyboard is just spoiling us now... FL has one built in, but this one keeps focus even after switching a preset. Very handy without a midi keyboard nearby.

[masterhiggins]

Like all these Cherry synths, this is certainly a great bargain. I'm still not totally thrilled by this cheapest possible price... I wonder how sustainable this business model is. [snip...]

Cherry's flagship product is Voltage Modular and their associated module store. I am sure this fits within their busines plan in that these synths work as modules in Voltage and so by selling the synths at a low price gets more people in the purchase funnel of Voltage and hence the module store. Perhaps a loss-leader depending on the costs of the synths vs sales. Generous of them!

Also, from the sound of it they're just recycling the same old code and just wrapping them into new GUIs.

[zerocrossing]

https://youtu.be/KWh9vMPAifg

This video should be entitled, “Why software still doesn’t sound as good analog hardware synthesizers.”