Cameleon 5000 vs. Doppelmangler

[McLilith]

More to come?
Frank

Hi Frank,

I think it's time to give the demos a try, and then come back with any further questions you might have. We've covered a lot of information at this point. It's time for some hands-on experience now, so you will fully grasp what everyone has been saying. It's like being in a science class. You have lectures, followed by some hands-on, personal labwork.


take care,
Glen

[Hunter]

Hunter - most excellent comments! (I didn't see your first Reply, at first). I really don't have anything suitable, at this point, to try with both programs. And I am very slow with the 'learning curve'. That is why I am trying to gather info from the Forum.

At 56k, my downloads are slow, but it is worth a try.


Frank

Both demo versions are not that big at all, compared to giant whoppers such as Absynth3's or Cube2's demo versions.

Dopplemangler is about 7Mb and Cameleon about 5Mb, so they'll take a while on dialup but the cost is pretty low if you're going to invest in a synth like either of these two.

I really think that you can't compare these two on paper (or screen, rather!), and acoustically they are remarkably different products. Really worth checking out the demo mp3s and demo versions.

[frnewman]

Glen -
The demos will be tried. I did not intend for this to take a left turn into the technical areas. Even after all that has been said, I still think that my original concept of how these programs work was fundamentally OK. Some of the details were wrong, and the terminology was messed up, but . . . .

I am still getting very valuable comments about overall impressions, like from Hunter and ew and a couple of others, and that is what I am primarily interested in. With these impressions at hand, I can more accurately gauge the usefullness of each program to my needs - now, and when I 'wrastle' with the demos.

I did ask a lot of 'technical' questions at the first, and they have been answered, by now. I would still like people's impressions about the "differences" between the two programs.

Thanx, again, to you all.

Frank

[Ben [Camel Audio]]

the Cam performance can be Saved as a wave file (through the host) that can be any (practical) length (because of time line morphing), right?

Yes - any VSTi instruments output can be recorded down to a WAV file, and there is no restriction on length in this regard.

The TUN library looks to be as extensive as the Scala library, but I would bet money that they don't have my Hydrogen scale (based upon the Balmer (spectral) lines of elemental hydrogen). But the TUN website probably has the method to contruct your own temperment into a .tun file (like Scala does).

Scala allows you to export files as .tun too - so if you want you can use the Hydrogen scale! More info on Scala here:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala/

I've just uploaded the PDF manual to the website by itself, so you can view it more easily. Its here:
http://www.camelaudio.com/Cameleon5000Manual.pdf

I still think that my original concept of how these programs work was fundamentally OK.

Yes - I think so too.

It's definitely time to check out the demos now. Whenever debates like this come up, I think its always the best thing to do. It may be that one product will suit you better than an other, depending on what you want to achieve. I only want people to buy Cameleon, if its the best tool to help them achieve what they want. The Cameleon download link is here:
http://www.camelaudio.com/cameleon5000.php

Thanks
Ben

[frnewman]

Ben -
You have been very helpful, and it is princely of you to put the manual download on your website.

I downloaded everything from Scala a while back, but a lot has probably changed (if he has a TUN converstion). I should check it out, again. (as well as TUN's website).

I am still interested in users' thoughts on why certain aspects of one program is preferred over the other, and what one program excels at, or isn't suited for. These types of things might (probably will) escape me when auditioning the demos.

I will be away from my computer for much of the next 2 days, so any Replies by me will be late at night or early in the morning.

Frank

[PaulSC]

A few more comments from an additive synth enthusiast, in case they're helpful.

First, I wonder if you've misinterpreted Dave's "soup" comment: I don't think he was saying that morphing among 5 or more sources will inevitably produce murky results ("soup" in a derogatory sense). I think he was saying you might get diminishing returns if you're intent on processing source material through several *stages* of spectral manipulation (first through one additive resynthesis device, then another, then a vocoder, or something along those lines...).

Second, I'm a big believer in economy when it comes to building a collection of softsynths -- my personal approach is to acquire a few versatile tools and really learn them inside out. Nevertheless, having been a happy user of Cameleon for many months now, I've recently purchased the other major cross-platform additive synth (VirSyn's CUBE 2). It's just a matter of my finding, after time spent with the demo, that I get a lot of new functionality by having this new item sitting alongside Cameleon in my arsenal.

Finally, in case you find it helpful, here's a few comments on strengths (and to some extent weaknesses) of the two synths. (I realize CUBE may not be on your "short list", although you should at least check it out IMO).

CAMELEON

Relatively easy to build harmonic profiles from scratch, and with full control over the way these profiles evolve over time. Similarly, full and indepent control over a filtered noise profile (although frustratingly the noise source lacks high frequency content due to an apparent design oversight that will probably be corrected in due time...).

Resynthesis of audio files is optimized for a certain kind of material: sounds dominated by a single, stable pitch. With the right source material, resynthesis results are very realistic and you benefit from the multiple zones and dual velocity layers that are unique to Cameleon. The quality of resynthesis results drops off pretty drastically for other types of sounds -- you might get something interesting, but it's pretty hit-or-miss.

Importing bitmaps may seem arcane, but it quickly becomes intuitive and is actually the best way to design certain kinds of sounds from scratch.

One of the best features of the overall design is that no matter what the origin of your material -- resynthesis of a sound file, interpretation of a bitmap, or profiles created internally -- the end result behaves identically. So you can resynthesize a plucked string and then strip out the even partials from the tail of the decay, or add a touch of detuning to one portion of an evolving sound, etc. Two limitations go hand-in-hand with this strength (and it's a good trade-off most of the time): Cameleon only handles 64 partials, which puts certain sounds out of reach; and the time evolution of these partials has to be captured within 128 breakpoints -- which is a lot to be able to manipulate individually at the editing stage, but which is too coarse a resolution to capture all the nuances of a line of spoken text or a drum loop or such.

Finally, Cameleon has a lot of conventional "subtractive" architecture sitting beyond the additive stage. A formant filter (well, that's unconventional!), a multimode filter, effects processing, and so on. I don't think the quality of these components is uniformly as high as what you'd find on a good subtractive synth, but they still give you lots of ways to make quick refinements to your sound.

(I won't comment much on the morphing capabilities because this feature is equally strong in both of the synths, although Cameleon has the benefit of more preset morphing paths plus some clever third-party utilities for making your own.)

CUBE 2

Well, I know it less well, since I just purchased it; but I've spent a lot of time with the demo leading up to my decision to purchase. With CUBE, I've gained:

More partials, which makes a difference in plenty of sounds built from scratch and in many cases of resynthesis. An unlimited (or virtually so) number of resynthesis windows, with settable resolution, which lets you optimize the process for different kinds of source material: speech remains intelligible, drum loops retain body and punchiness. Furthermore, envelope stages seem faster, so plucked sounds (even those built from scratch) have a "snap" that's hard to achieve in Cameleon.

The ability to move around the timeline of resynthesized material, creating stutters in the attack or reversing a portion of the middle. To do this in Cameleon would require an unrealistic amount of cutting and pasting individual breakpoints. On the other hand, in Cameleon the individual breakpoints *are* there for whatever amount of cutting/pasting/dragging you feel like performing, whereas in Cube all this detail (more detail than Cameleon tends to capture) remains behind the scenes.

There's less "subtractive" processing available in CUBE. And there are other differences that matter but shouldn't be portrayed as stronger in one, weaker in the other. For instance, formant filtering comes AFTER the morphing process in Cameleon -- so everything passes through the same formant structure; in CUBE, each of the for morphable elements has its own formant filter, and you get lots of control over the evolution of the formant peaks during morphing. Each approach has advantages.

--

Stepping back from all these details, maybe my overall point is this: you're asking "which one should I get?" but really the question might be, "which one should I get FIRST?" And I think one thing you'll find out from the demos better than from any comments posted on a message board is which one makes more sense TO YOU. Start with that one; then you'll develop the intuitions to recognize if you've picked the only one you need or if, someday, you want to go for another.

[frnewman]

Looks like this thread has either been "kicked in the head" or that everyone who regularly visits the Forum and is in a position to comment, has commented.

Anyway, thanx a lot for your comments, Paul. They are EXACTLY what I have been looking for (and would hope to get, maybe, another half dozen as insightful). I looked at the Cube webpage(s), but it is 4-5 times more expensive as C5K, but doesn't appear to be worth 4-5 times more - too pricey for me. (Maybe OK for those who can pass the expense along to their customers).

So, thanx for y'all's comments.

Frank

[McLilith]

Looks like this thread has either been "kicked in the head" or that everyone who regularly visits the Forum and is in a position to comment, has commented.

Hi Frank,

I'm not sure what you meant by "kicked in the head", but the Camel Audio and White Noise people aren't ignoring you, if that's what you meant.

Personally, I was just giving some other people room to get a few words in.


Take care,
Glen

[droolmaster0]

Looks like this thread has either been "kicked in the head" or that everyone who regularly visits the Forum and is in a position to comment, has commented.

Anyway, thanx a lot for your comments, Paul. They are EXACTLY what I have been looking for (and would hope to get, maybe, another half dozen as insightful). I looked at the Cube webpage(s), but it is 4-5 times more expensive as C5K, but doesn't appear to be worth 4-5 times more - too pricey for me. (Maybe OK for those who can pass the expense along to their customers).

So, thanx for y'all's comments.

Frank

? Cube is not 4-5 times more expensive as Cameleon. Audiomidi lists Cube 2 for $259. Cameleon is $199.

Personally I find the sound quality of Cube superior. I also prefer the interface. I don't dislike Cameleon (far from it) and if you prefer the demo, you should by all means get it. But I don't see the difference in price as that great. I don't think that many people purchase Cube at the list price from the Virsyn site.

[frnewman]

Droolmaster -
Oooops! I was thinking of Neuron, or something. The website listed $350 (or something close to that). So, almost twice as much as C5K - it may be twice as powerful and twice better, but still above my limit. Actually, C5K is a 'stretch' FOR ME. Even if I were to be desperate for it, I would have to wait a while.

Glen -
The 'heavy hitters' seem to want me to do the demos, now. I'll get to that, but I would hope that there are some more insightful comments out there, just waiting to 'see the light of day' on this thread.

Frank

[droolmaster0]

Droolmaster -
Oooops! I was thinking of Neuron, or something. The website listed $350 (or something close to that). So, almost twice as much as C5K - it may be twice as powerful and twice better, but still above my limit. Actually, C5K is a 'stretch' FOR ME. Even if I were to be desperate for it, I would have to wait a while.

Well, you're comparing the list prices of 2 synths, one of which (Cameleon) is only sold at list price throught the camel audio site (as far as I know), and one (Cube) which is generally heavily discounted through retailers. To the best of my knowledge you can get Cube for $250 and possibly less, whereas Cameleon costs $199. That might be the crucial difference for you, but Cube is not twice as expensive in reality.