Kjaerhus Synth coming up

[emdot_ambient]

*There's no control other than time to control the harmonic morphing speed...

Not quite true, you can also control morphing speed by key and velocity using the Stretch function.

*More than one full oscillator (at least 2). This synth is begging for it.

I agree, and it was on my Christmas wish list I sent to Torben after finishing 128 presets for Spectra. He said he felt like Santa with all the wish lists he had received. So . . . he's heard this one before. However, CPU usage would certainly be an issue here.

[jplanet]

Yes, I was also looking for a way to have the effect of oscillators tuned a fifth apart, etc. My biggest wish is that when playing a mono patch, you can hold one key and "tap" another key, so that as soon as you lift your finger you hear the note you are holding.

For some reason I can't think of a concise way to describe that! Anyone else?

I think that Spectra will be a well-loved synth with a character all it's own. Character is, after all, as much of what something isn't as much as what it is!

[Dave Blakely]

Yes, I was also looking for a way to have the effect of oscillators tuned a fifth apart.

I think that Spectra will be a well-loved synth with a character all it's own. Character is, after all, as much of what something isn't as much as what it is!

Its possible to get close to this effect using a couple of ways firstly if using a single harmony you set the edit to "5th's only" in the harmony inspector, you can then ramp up the 5th harmonics of the harmony, its also possible to do other intervals and well as a full octave, after a while you get a sense of where to push and prod to get the effect you are after, the other way is by analysing a wave from another synth thats patched to a 5th then use that as the basis for your own patch on Spectra. But it would be nice in a future revision to see this more easily implimented.

[lebaron]

I REALLY like this synth. Been demoing it.

It's just got this, I don't know, soft or organic sound, easy to play and the sound doesn't go into fits and starts when you release then press the keys again. It seems to blend well from note to note, chord to chord.

The price reduction is great also. I'm just biting my fist over whether to put out some money this soon after Christmas.

[rogerperrin]

Yes, I was also looking for a way to have the effect of oscillators tuned a fifth apart, etc. My biggest wish is that when playing a mono patch, you can hold one key and "tap" another key, so that as soon as you lift your finger you hear the note you are holding.

For some reason I can't think of a concise way to describe that! Anyone else?

I think that Spectra will be a well-loved synth with a character all it's own. Character is, after all, as much of what something isn't as much as what it is!

Hi Jplanet. Spectra's harmonies correspond to the overtone series of a particular note and not to any musical scale. So merely editing 5th or 3rds won't do what you are trying to do. You might play with the overtone series a bit, but it won't be as satisfactory as importing and analyzing a wave with 2 or more oscillators in it. But here's the overtone - harmonic series:

Harmonic Series

1. Fundamental or Root
2. Octave
3. P(erfect) 5th
4. Octave
5. M(ajor)3rd
6. P 5th
7. Flatted 7th - not in tune
8. Octave
9. M 2nd
10. M 3rd
11. Flatted 5th - not in tune
12. P 5th

So to get a root and a 5th you'd need to tweak the harmonics: 1,2,3,4,6,8,12. But they're going to be spread out over 3 & 1/2 octaves. And then you wouldn't have any of the overtones of the notes you have just tweaked, so you wouldn't really have much of a tone. Spectra is just not made to work this way. To do so would be a huge cpu hit given the current architecture. So importing a wav file of a 2 or 3 or 4 osc synth would be the way to do it best.

As to your key pressing question, I don't know an answer for you there. To me there is a slightly similar thing going with the portamento feature. In my opinion, when port is turned on, and you press a key and let up, then the next note should not be portamentoed. The 2 notes don't overlap and therefore it shouldn't glide into a non-overlapping note, imho. I guess I'm saying that a midi "note-off" should momentarily cancel portamento. Or, portamento should be triggered only in the case of over-lapping notes. One man's opinion, just that.

But I'm liking Spectra for other reason's. I'm still learning little things slowly everyday. The one detail that I was slowest learning was that Spectra is designed to be a .wav importing beast first and foremost. I imported one wav and Spectra chopped it into 42 harmonies - morphing through them all, as smooth as silk.

[jplanet]

Yes, I was also looking for a way to have the effect of oscillators tuned a fifth apart, etc. My biggest wish is that when playing a mono patch, you can hold one key and "tap" another key, so that as soon as you lift your finger you hear the note you are holding.

For some reason I can't think of a concise way to describe that! Anyone else?

I think that Spectra will be a well-loved synth with a character all it's own. Character is, after all, as much of what something isn't as much as what it is!

Hi Jplanet. Spectra's harmonies correspond to the overtone series of a particular note and not to any musical scale. So merely editing 5th or 3rds won't do what you are trying to do. You might play with the overtone series a bit, but it won't be as satisfactory as importing and analyzing a wave with 2 or more oscillators in it. But here's the overtone - harmonic series:

...

But I'm liking Spectra for other reason's. I'm still learning little things slowly everyday. The one detail that I was slowest learning was that Spectra is designed to be a .wav importing beast first and foremost. I imported one wav and Spectra chopped it into 42 harmonies - morphing through them all, as smooth as silk.

Thanks for the clear explanation on the harmonies.

When I imported harmonized wavs (2 osc tuned to fifths, etc) the analyzer seemed to find the timbre of only one note, the resulting harmony sequence sounding like a unison.

Worth noting, I discovered a lovely effect when trying to work around this: I duplicated the harmony several times along the timeline, and in the second one enhanced 3rd, the next one fourths, the next fifths, etc. The result was that while playing melodies with a long release time, it is followed by echos of the same melody but with different harmonics...a very musical and new type of effect! (I think that I named the preset "Bells Answer")

[ouroboros]

Worth noting, I discovered a lovely effect when trying to work around this: I duplicated the harmony several times along the timeline, and in the second one enhanced 3rd, the next one fourths, the next fifths, etc. The result was that while playing melodies with a long release time, it is followed by echos of the same melody but with different harmonics...a very musical and new type of effect! (I think that I named the preset "Bells Answer")

bring it back down, too, 5ths to 3rds, etc and turn the loop function on. Enable time stretch and in midi window, set a decent timestretch parameter and, ...voila crazy pad!

sorry that was probably obvious, but it is a lot of fun!

[ugo]

a feature i think could be handy (and i apologize in advance if this has already been discussed) would be the ability to import wavs starting from whatever harmony handle you currently have selected, leaving the contents of all handles before it unchanged. this would let the user resynthesize multiple waveforms and have them morph into each other.

-ugo

[zvon]

Been trying the demo since yesterday. Looks (and sounds) like a very interesting synth indeed.

[droolmaster0]

Damn - I'd buy this, but I think I'm going to be switching back to a mac in about a month

[rogerperrin]

a feature i think could be handy (and i apologize in advance if this has already been discussed) would be the ability to import wavs starting from whatever harmony handle you currently have selected, leaving the contents of all handles before it unchanged. this would let the user resynthesize multiple waveforms and have them morph into each other.

-ugo

I agree with that UGO. And it would be handy to be able to save an entire batch of harmonies as individual harmonies without having to save and name each one of them individually. Say in the case of the wav that yielded me a 42 harmonies program. Talk about impossible. But at least they can be saved collectively as a program.

I'll bet we'll begin to see some of these features in later versions as it evolves. And maybe it'll be skinable someday, for those whiney weenies that can't stand to look at pretty colors and light colored gui's.

And it would be handy to me to have a separate multipoint amplitude envelope for the noise oscillator. This would be handy for giving more accurate breath to wind instruments, as the analyzer generally can't analyze noise content, just tones.
All in good time, eh.

[Torben]

I've played with Spectra off and on for the last week, and it's a great little synth whose parentage clearly comes from Chameleon 5000 and Absynth3. But Kjaerhus has made some operational and GUI decisions and additions that have created a synth with a lot of sonic flexibility, easily accessible and manipulated.

The oscillators are by far this is the most interesting section of Spectra. The concept of morphing harmonic content is not a novelty but the possibility of establishing 100 different points and cycling through them is brilliant.

Thank you. And may I add that Spectra offer much more partials than the other two and at a much lower CPU usage.

Things I'd like to see:

*Right-click on the points themselves for standard cut/copy/paste/delete operations.

Was implemented but changed again due to some potential problems when we are going to port this to Mac. I will have a look at it again.

*There's no control other than time to control the harmonic morphing speed; it would be useful to have at minimum a selection of ramp rates (linear, slow, fast, etc... as Vegas implements for event fades) to control the rate of change over time. Another right-click option...

Making un-linear fading will cost more CPU than I think most people would like to offer for this. In the end it won’t make any sound significant more interesting.

*More than one full oscillator (at least 2). This synth is begging for it..

There are 8 but they are not independent. Naturally you could do some more things with independent oscillators but many of these things are more or less possible other vice and it would be more complex for the user.

*I'd like to see a section of sub-harmonics added below the fundamental in order to craft subharmonic content and add some tailored "oomph".

You can do something very similar to this by choosing the right harmonics i.e. remember that you could make a wave that are one octave higher by letting the 2 harmonic be the 1, the 4 harmonic be the 2, the 6 harmonic be the 3 etc. If you then ad the first it will be a sub harmonic, so it is possible.

While low CPU economy is claimed for this synth, I find that some of the more complex patches I've played with in Spectra rival some of the complex patches in Absynth3. CPU use goes up proportionally to the number of Harmony Handles that are used.

I think many has gotten the impression that because Spectra looks simple, and it easy to use it must be limited sound vice but it is not (or not more than other synths at least ). It is just easier to use. It is nice to hear another one discovered that Regarding CPU is not proportionally to the numbers of harmonies but is uses more CPU while fading from one harmony to the next than when it has reached the last point.

It's a really great 1.0 offering from Kjaerhus. Hope the above doesn't come across as negative: I haven't commented on the many things I like about this synth (great filters, multi-stage envelopes...). I'm looking forward to its evolution..

Not at all, I think that was very constructive criticism.

My biggest wish is that when playing a mono patch, you can hold one key and "tap" another key, so that as soon as you lift your finger you hear the note you are holding.

Try Key Assignment Mode1. We will improve this further in v1.01 but it already does like you describe.

I REALLY like this synth. Been demoing it.

Thanks

To me there is a slightly similar thing going with the portamento feature. In my opinion, when port is turned on, and you press a key and let up, then the next note should not be portamentoed. The 2 notes don't overlap and therefore it shouldn't glide into a non-overlapping note, imho. I guess I'm saying that a midi "note-off" should momentarily cancel portamento. Or, portamento should be triggered only in the case of over-lapping notes. One man's opinion, just that.

That's interesting. I can see why this would be desirable in some cases but not in all, and it is not the way any of my hardware synths work. Maybe it should be an option that could be turned on and off?
BTW have you noticed that we got two different potamento types; the usual "fake" one used in other soft synths and the one used in analog synths (last one supports polyphonic portamento)

a feature i think could be handy (and i apologize in advance if this has already been discussed) would be the ability to import wavs starting from whatever harmony handle you currently have selected, leaving the contents of all handles before it unchanged. this would let the user resynthesize multiple waveforms and have them morph into each other.

-ugo

Good suggestion. Not sure how to implement it right now but it’s a good idea.

Torben

[jplanet]

a feature i think could be handy (and i apologize in advance if this has already been discussed) would be the ability to import wavs starting from whatever harmony handle you currently have selected, leaving the contents of all handles before it unchanged. this would let the user resynthesize multiple waveforms and have them morph into each other.

-ugo

Good suggestion. Not sure how to implement it right now but it’s a good idea.

Torben

Since it's possible to copy a harmony to the clipboard, maybe it's possible to copy a new analyzed file's harmony to the clipboard and paste it over the selected harmony automatically...really just a macro of existing functionality...just the added complexity that there may be several harmonies read by the analyzer...

[Breeze]

*There's no control other than time to control the harmonic morphing speed; it would be useful to have at minimum a selection of ramp rates (linear, slow, fast, etc... as Vegas implements for event fades) to control the rate of change over time. Another right-click option...

Making un-linear fading will cost more CPU than I think most people would like to offer for this. In the end it won’t make any sound significant more interesting.

The reason I suggested this is because I Analyzed 2 different waves I wanted to morph through, saved 2 points of each and reimported them into a new patch, and then tried to get them to morph from one to the other in a loop over a specific amount of time. I was unable to get the effect I wanted within the specified time because the transitional harmonic fading seemed to be linear, while logarithmic and exponential transitions would have created the effect I wanted (fade from the first handle sooner, fade from the 2nd handle later).

But FYI: I have found a workaround Just duplicate the inner handles and then adjust the distance to the handles on either side to simulate faster or slower change. One for the FAQ's I guess.

*I'd like to see a section of sub-harmonics added below the fundamental in order to craft subharmonic content and add some tailored "oomph".

You can do something very similar to this by choosing the right harmonics i.e. remember that you could make a wave that are one octave higher by letting the 2 harmonic be the 1, the 4 harmonic be the 2, the 6 harmonic be the 3 etc. If you then ad the first it will be a sub harmonic, so it is possible.

Yes I thought of this (especially with 250 available harmonics!) but my intent was also to apply this to analyzed handles. However a "Shift Up/Down" command that would preserve the harmonic inter-relationships of the original wave (and destroy any harmonics that end up out of bounds) would certainly be welcome. (Could also have a shift up/down that doesn't preserve them while you're at it ) And since the fundamental will shift, it would require a transpose button to set the oscillator to the desired octave.

Or a few musically useful sub-harmonics could be implemented ...

To me there is a slightly similar thing going with the portamento feature. In my opinion, when port is turned on, and you press a key and let up, then the next note should not be portamentoed. The 2 notes don't overlap and therefore it shouldn't glide into a non-overlapping note, imho. I guess I'm saying that a midi "note-off" should momentarily cancel portamento. Or, portamento should be triggered only in the case of over-lapping notes. One man's opinion, just that.

That's interesting. I can see why this would be desirable in some cases but not in all, and it is not the way any of my hardware synths work. Maybe it should be an option that could be turned on and off?
BTW have you noticed that we got two different potamento types; the usual "fake" one used in other soft synths and the one used in analog synths (last one supports polyphonic portamento)

Actually E! for the DX7 offered these 2 portamento modes (if anyone remembers!): one was full time while the other allowed portamento only if a note-on was received before any note-off of any currently held notes were received. They were quite forward looking and had many revolutionary controller ideas.

a feature i think could be handy (and i apologize in advance if this has already been discussed) would be the ability to import wavs starting from whatever harmony handle you currently have selected, leaving the contents of all handles before it unchanged. this would let the user resynthesize multiple waveforms and have them morph into each other.-ugo

Good suggestion. Not sure how to implement it right now but it’s a good idea.

I'm with ugo and roger with regards to a more flexible import/export arrangement for the harmonic handles. Another option to add would be to allow random selection of specific handles (Control-A and Control/Shift-click) and saving only selected handles , and their relative distance from one-another along the time line, into a "Handle Set". These sets could be imported from any currently selected position.

BTW: Thanks Torben for being so actively involved. It's nice to see. While I wish you much success, I hope it doesn't bury you behind the fortified walls of protectionist administrative bureaucracy

[Torben]

Yes I thought of this (especially with 250 available harmonics!) but my intent was also to apply this to analyzed handles. However a "Shift Up/Down" command that would preserve the harmonic inter-relationships of the original wave (and destroy any harmonics that end up out of bounds) would certainly be welcome. (Could also have a shift up/down that doesn't preserve them while you're at it )

Or a few musically useful sub-harmonics could be implemented ...

These tools sould not be a problem to implement. We could even make an option to Shift up and Add so you had the original wave + one an octave higher or even an option to make perfect fifths.

And since the fundamental will shift, it would require a transpose button to set the oscillator to the desired octave.

There is one in the Midi&Voices section

Torben