Anybody got a Plugiator yet ?

[jens]

So we now have come full circle and all is good after all?

[TiUser]

Hi Folks.

I see that there is some live coming into discussion, that's fine and I appreciate to read more opinions

Just to comment on the B4000 sound... I said in my opinion the original tonewheels and noises of a real hammond may be modelled fine but to get more screaming or monster rock organ sounds there is an emulation of overdrive, distortion, cabinets and some more effects missing.

Of course you can archive the total sound as you could with the original by putting the real overdrive, amps and cabinets behind a plugiator... maybe evenmore realistic.

Compared to NI B4II where you get all modelled completely - including amp simulations and effecs - the plugiator gets you only one half of the total cake...

Never mind, I agree that nothing can ever emulate the real original - except you put in the smell and dust of decades and some weight emulator too, to get closer to 200 pound But to be honest, even this isn't totally impossible!

I am also trying to put some effects behind the plugiator B4000 and it works more or less but it reduces convenience a lot.

[TiUser]

Hi Folks,

I have not much to comment on the vintage synth sounds. Minimax is great, for sure. Even I didn't listen to Prodyssey and Pro12 I would buy on demand without checking, I bet these are as great.

But on the other hand decades have passed since the monophonic original thrilled us...

My opinion is any "modern" vintage remake should offer some decent effects - as part of the patches itself. The plugiator delay is ok (except that tweaking it live creates artifacts, something that is toally unneccessary from technical standpoint). Maybe it's usage is a bit overdone in many patches. Chorus and Flanger are great addons too, because they can be an essentioal part of the sound. I am not sure about their quality, some tell the plugiator ones degrade the sound... an referring to their experience I trust them. Most subtle and often underrated is a built in EQ - in terms of being part of the synth sound itself - and can be a great add on, especially if it can be stored with the patches.

Well you always can put external effects to a synth, but it's less convenient - he we live in the 21'th century... Vintage sound does not necessarily mean to accept the old effort of original vintage gear... and there is competition from the VSTi's too.

Never mind, the plugiator gives you great vintage sound if you accept that it is basically nothing more than the "originals"... named split, layer or even multimode... and in terms of knobs you get less - intentionally of course.

[TiUser]

Hi Folks,

at the end of the day the most difficult question seems to me, "is the plugiator really cheap?"

This depends strongly on how you interpret this question...

Looking at the market it is clearly on the low price end. If you don't want to spend more what is availiable? You can get Edirols sound canvas module, a rompler with focus on GM2 / xg-lite compatible sounds. You can get a Blofeld - if you are lucky to find a dealer who has one... Or you can wait for the V-Box which is announced to be a similar price range and close your eyes when it comes to the cost for commercial plugins. Of course all these "alternatives" are totally different things...

When I look on the hardware only, the Blofeld seems to be the "best". Fully editable, nice display. That said, the plugiators mic input is a unique feature to consider.

When you look at the concept it's again difficult... The plugiator is basically a preset module and selecting presets is cumbersome, except of the 10 quick pads. Tweaking sounds with the 5 knobs for "sounddesign" gives me a big grin... no further comment. For any serious modifications you need a PC. Maybe there is another underrated option... all parameters can be tweaked via midi controllers, but if you hook up a flexible one, like Novation Remote SL zero, the combi isn't so cheap any longer... Anyway, you can control more on plugiator without a PC if you absolutely want... <forgot: the Blofeld is 16 part multitimbral which makes some config much easier, also I guess real polyphony isn't much higher than on plugiator...>

So, is plugiator cheap?

Well... if you compare it to what it emulates - ... perfectly YES. The few real analogue Moog replicas or Dave S. stuff is by it's hardware nature much more expensive - but well, it is also different again, real analogue circuits... but who cares?

Well... if you compare the plugiator HW to what it is - basically see the ASX board version - it is expensive. Keep in mind that all the costs for the difficult software devellopment are already paied. Keep also in mind that you have to pay a bit extra to get all plugins. So the total box is about 450€. I leave it to you to correlate this to the average polyphony of approx. 12 voices (except the organ) and one sound at a time... Without doubt the box looks very basic - to describe it in less controverse words...

So it's cheap, isn't it? Or is it not cheap, is it??

Oh and don't forget your PC, this isn't for free either...

Most VSTi freaks don't talk about this and the fact that it is nearly impossible to use your normal PC for audio...

Just to add something looking off topic: the plugiator is very cheap in terms of power consumption! Notebooks and even more PCs are pure energy wasters!

Ok, now I am empty of thoughts for the next 10 minutes...

[hifiboom]

regarding minimax:
keep in mind, that creamware did really concentrate on the quality of the emulation and the sound.

so if you want an fx synth, you'd better use your virus TI, but the minimax is a purist plug-in, that does try to recreate the sound of a minimoog as close as possible.

so are all Creamware plug-ins: pro-12, Prodyssey,...

you won't find much better sounding emulations with such great filter and a fat sound.

[TiUser]

regarding minimax:
keep in mind, that creamware did really concentrate on the quality of the emulation and the sound.

Ok, agreed.

regarding minimax:
so if you want an fx synth, you'd better use your virus TI, but the minimax is a purist plug-in, that does try to recreate the sound of a minimoog as close as possible.

so are all Creamware plug-ins: pro-12, Prodyssey,...

you won't find much better sounding emulations with such great filter and a fat sound.

Well, I often read about this purist thing... Maybe ok for the plugin concept but possibly old fashioned for a proprietary platform module... even a small one...

When you seek for demos then you will see many use effects on their whatever purist machine, at least reverb anywhere - which I accept being not included - but also any kind of other fancy stuff... so why not being honest and include some more (good) effects in the emulations...? I would be perfectly satisfied with a dezipped delay / echo, a great chorus / flanger / phaser and EQ. Switching off those is always simpler than not being able to switching them on... I think the same of arpeggiator/sequencer stuff...

Or to get back to B4000, let's exclude the weak overdrive/distortion and leslie to go for more purism... and let's add that outboard. ...no, I think all that is part of the typical sound and if you go too puristic the magic can be off very quickly too.

I am not really about fx synth but fx options to be included in a synth sound.

[Mr Arkadin]

i'm surprised you dislike B4000, i love it. Are you saying it has no Leslie, because it's in there (i have the Scope version)? Also have you found the Add page which has additional mic distance/spread parameters, another distortion an leakage controls (as well as rotor speed functions)? Just want to make sure you're getting the most out of this - lots of people rate this organ (unles Use Audio have done something to it since migrating it from Scope).

[hifiboom]

why not add your own fx afterwards...?

nobody is preventing you from using fx.

the fx that are built into VA synths are mostly shitty or medium quality anyways... and in many cases they fool the end users about the quality of the raw synth.

Add some delay and a pcm series reverb behind the Minimax and you got a huge sounding synth monster.

Some say a minimoog is limited, but I don't think so. You can get a lot of different sounds, from bass, pads, Leads, fx, sweeps out of it.

I cannot comment on the B4000, as I am an electro producer, so I almost never used the B4000 for anything more than playing around a bit.

[buscemi]

So we now have come full circle and all is good after all?

Of course Everything is good. Heck, I might even grab one of these since Receptor seems to be due for an upgrade and has way too much as I've got projects looking to add some specific "vintage" sounds to and I can just grab this on the cheap. I might have to hide my microphones from myself so I don't overuse the vocoder haha. Seriously, though, the lively discussion is great (except for some of my pissiness - I'll hit the bottle or something next time). I actually think there's a lot more flexibility than just the purist-pleasing sounds too, at least from the samples they've posted. I think I can live with its limitations, at least what could be considered potential limitations from this thread.

Sorry, TiUser - I said "cheap" but really what's cheap really just means within the current budget and more like a good value for the price IMHO.

[TiUser]

i'm surprised you dislike B4000, i love it. Are you saying it has no Leslie, because it's in there (i have the Scope version)? Also have you found the Add page which has additional mic distance/spread parameters, another distortion an leakage controls (as well as rotor speed functions)? Just want to make sure you're getting the most out of this - lots of people rate this organ (unles Use Audio have done something to it since migrating it from Scope).

Well, I don't want to make an issue of the B4000... in one of my early statements I already said, some love the B4000 and some hate it...

What I would have liked to see is "better" overdrive/distortion and some reverb in the plugin itself to get more aggressive organ sounds.

The B4000 has a Leslie emulation, so no, I didn't mean there is no Leslie, this was just an abstract idea of "puristic" and "vintage" view... head games...

Finally, yes, I can add outboard effects, but that's additional fuzz and complicates recall of presets I would have preferred to avoid. I am also not sure if it's wise to do overdrive fx behind the rotary simulation...

[TiUser]

...fx... and in many cases they fool the end users about the quality of the raw synth.

I agree to that, but that doesn't change my opinion that it would be nice to get all on high quality level in one, without multiple digital analogue domain changes

Add some delay and a pcm series reverb behind the Minimax and you got a huge sounding synth monster.

Thought there is already a delay in minimax that sounds ok (at least when you don't tweak it live like I tried )?

Some say a minimoog is limited, but I don't think so. You can get a lot of different sounds, from bass, pads, Leads, fx, sweeps out of it.

Technically I also tend to say a minimoog is limited. Sound wise I admit you are right, you can get many interesting sounds out of it. That's why it isn't an outdated instrument either. A violin or trumpet are also limited but they were and are interesting instrumnts as well...

I cannot comment on the B4000, as I am an electro producer, so I almost never used the B4000 for anything more than playing around a bit.

I am no big organ player either but if, I'd like to have some heavy ones, not only soft pearls ...

[TiUser]

<snip>
Sorry, TiUser - I said "cheap" but really what's cheap really just means within the current budget and more like a good value for the price IMHO.

I don't mind your different opinion - Indeed I like it!

One of my intentions is to feed some - or a lot of ideas - into the community and see reactions. Another is to get feedback from experienced users.

I stated as well that "cheap" - "expensive" is a very relative thing, depending on your personal view without the chance of one absolute answer. Referring to myself, It seems to be the ugly box itself is what I dislike most

The DSP concept could be better too, but plugiator is more or less in line with all that creamware / scope platform stuff...

Despite of technology differences you can find examples of companies that can do similar quality as cheap... especially if you don't mind getting keys with your "module" ... for instance Novation XioSynth, Korg R3, ... and all have far better user interfaces.

...but please don't start discussion about sound quality... for sure again different beasts and depending on personal preferences anyone would state another favorite...

[hifiboom]

...fx... and in many cases they fool the end users about the quality of the raw synth.

I agree to that, but that doesn't change my opinion that it would be nice to get all on high quality level in one, without multiple digital analogue domain changes

thats the point:

The plugiator is just the plugiator.

Its a bunch of creamware plug-ins in plastic box for a dirt cheap price.
The plugins were originally designed for a platform that holds many effects as complement.

The plugiator is just about 10% of what scope is.

In scope you
- have much more synths and many effects + an endless amount of quality free stuff
- can use them simoultaniously (multitimbral)
- can add as many effects as you want and even some very high quality ones!
- can route everything into everything.
- can design your own fx, synths through modular
- can save complete project environments
- and with the xite-1 get 10 times the power, so that you can load 150 monophonic minimaxes. LOL

Yeah I am a scope lover. I'll never buy a plugiator. But the XITE-1 is simply another price league.

[kmonkey]

Hi TiUser. In short can you tell me does this plugiator thing work like it should or not? I mean in terms of technical aspect. I dont want to discuss which synth is ubersuperduper which is not.I have scope so i can make my own opinion on that. Personally i am not interested but i have a friend which is considering to buy one unit for live use. So informations from you will be greatly appreciated

Thanks for answer!

[buscemi]

I couldn't take it any more, just ordered one. Thanks for all the info, everybody. Looks like someone snapped up the great deal at audiomidi (they had their demo unit as a B-stock for a great price) before I could.