KVR Audio

Gucky · Post by **Gucky** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 9:42 am

Unfortunately I don't like the sound of Largo.

Maybe it are my ears but it has not the sound I want.
I thought it would be like the PPG 2.V only much better.
I wanted to have some of the classical crystal PPG sounds I know from the older Tangerine Dream recordings (PPG choirs...).
But there seems to be nothing in that style of sound.
Is it only the factory soundset or can Largo not make such sounds?

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 9:44 am

Gucky wrote:Unfortunately I don't like the sound of Largo.

Maybe it are my ears but it has not the sound I want.
I thought it would be like the PPG 2.V only much better.
I wanted to have some of the classical crystal PPG sounds I know from the older Tangerine Dream recordings (PPG choirs...).
But there seems to be nothing in that style of sound.
Is it only the factory soundset or can Largo not make such sounds?

My bank here on the KVR database mostly contains PPG recreations. Check that one.

DocT · Post by **DocT** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 9:52 am

Gucky wrote:I wanted to have some of the classical crystal PPG sounds I know from the older Tangerine Dream recordings (PPG choirs...).
But there seems to be nothing in that style of sound.

These sounds have been re- and recreated on Waldorf synthesizeres repeatedly during the last decades. Maybe this time the sound designers were tired of them

Is it only the factory soundset or can Largo not make such sounds?

Largo is a synthesizer

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 9:59 am

DocT wrote:
Gucky wrote:I wanted to have some of the classical crystal PPG sounds I know from the older Tangerine Dream recordings (PPG choirs...).
But there seems to be nothing in that style of sound.
These sounds have been re- and recreated on Waldorf synthesizeres repeatedly during the last decades. Maybe this time the sound designers were tired of them

Is it only the factory soundset or can Largo not make such sounds?
Largo is a synthesizer

Besides some patches on my own bank DocT made several "Bell" patches for the factory bank. Like i already stated the installation folder contains many more patches than only 128. The folders are named after the sound designers like e.g. DocT. Thanks for those patches !!

In my case those folders are in /vstplugins/Waldorf/Largo sounds. I found 246 besides some duplicates.

rectus_dominus · Post by **rectus_dominus** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 10:01 am

PPG patches can surely be recreated with Largo
I use Live 8.03, so I don't know if those Cubase presets would work for me... The factory banks would be some kind of solution

Gucky · Post by **Gucky** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 10:10 am

Hi Igonator,
many thanks for your bank. Now it sounds really in the direction of old PPG sounds. Although I miss a little bit the high crystal frequencies that I hear on older PPG recordings. The sound of Largo seems to be in the middle frequencies and not in the high frequencies.
When I add an exciter effect it sounds a little bit more like PPG for me.

I like the "Kiew" preset very much.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 10:58 am

Surely you must know that a large part of a record is achieved with equalizing, compressing, reverb, chorus etc. All added in the mix. You cannot simply compare a synthesizer directly to an album. That would be rather foolish.

Cheers!
bManic

penguinfromdeep · Post by **penguinfromdeep** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 11:11 am

Tried the demo and I actually noticed bit the same thing as Gucky, the sound of Largo seems to be a bit 'muffled' for the lack of a better word. Like there was always some kind of lowpass filter on the sound.. Not that it's necessarily bad thing .. I have kind of mixed feeling about the sound myself, filters are great though

Waza · Post by **Waza** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 11:17 am

sounds ok to me but i'll need to look into it deeper. Yes i hate the way you have to browse the presets.

Igro · Post by **Igro** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 12:00 pm

Playing all day with it. Largo definitely gives the most highest quality sound i ever heard.

rob_lee · Post by **rob_lee** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 12:03 pm

Igro wrote:Playing all day with it. Largo definitely gives the most high quality sound i ever heard.

It gives high quality sound alright but trying to acheive a high quality patch using fx/unisono etc my quad core spits the dummy with just 2 layer..
try moving the amp env release and sustaining a sound and you'll see the cpu go way up..
NOT GOOD

rob

Igro · Post by **Igro** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 12:09 pm

Tell me please how to get Oscillators run not free and vice-versa.

Igro · Post by **Igro** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 12:15 pm

rob_lee wrote:
Igro wrote:Playing all day with it. Largo definitely gives the most high quality sound i ever heard.
It gives high quality sound alright but trying to acheive a high quality patch using fx/unisono etc my quad core spits the dummy with just 2 layer..
try moving the amp env release and sustaining a sound and you'll see the cpu go way up..
NOT GOOD

rob

Just tried. Never got more than 25% max. Overal 17%. May you share one preset which give so much CPU loading.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 12:30 pm

Here's a statement from Wolfram Franke (Waldorf) in the Waldorf User forum, also based on an email from me:

"> Hello,
>
> now that the Largo demo is out i experienced a lot of confusion
> about the factory patches in the KVR forum. Everyone thinks there
> are only 128 patches but i know that's wrong. There are about 238
> patches as single preset files (fxp). It would be recommended to add
> bank files (fxb) with all patches to the next version of Largo or as
> an extra download. If it would be allowed i can publish 2 bank files
> with all 238 patches at KVR.
>
> Ingo

Hi all,

I'm just reading the KVR forum and found a couple of valid statements
but also some that I found a bit confusing. Especially those that are
based on listening to it or tweaking it for only a couple of minutes
or so.

Regarding the sounds in single program files rather than whole banks:
Largo comes as a VST 2.4 plug-in and therefore supports banks.
However, the bank terminology has been completely dropped in VST 3 and
has never been part of Apple's Audio Unit spec. Therefore I decided to
only include single programs into the sound library. But nothing
prevents you from assembling them into a whole bank. If you do so and
send them to me, I will upload them to our archive.

There's one life-saving feature which is not mentioned in the manual:
just grab a couple of sounds in the Explorer / Finder and drag them to
the Largo UI to load them all at once starting at the currently
selected program. Unfortunately, they are not loaded in any
determinable order but with the Sort functions in the Edit menu you
can rearrange them to your likeness afterwards. Then you can save them
as whole banks and, if you like, send them to me.

This automatically leads to the missing sound browser: yes, I know
that it's desperately wanted. However, designing and programming a
good browser is a task that requires a couple of weeks if not months.
And if you look closely, that's what the developers of state-of-the-
art VST/Audio Unit hosts did: all current hosts come with integrated
browsers, some of them are good, others are at least fair.
Unfortunately, on Windows, the Largo sounds might not show up in these
browsers automatically, you probably have to move them to dedicated
directories or create links or whatever. Mac users shouldn't have this
problem since Apple defined default folders for plug-in presets (/
Library/Audio/Presets/Waldorf/Largo/ or similar for the user's home
folder).

This does not mean that there will never be an integrated browser in
Largo. Actually, one of my tasks in the next months is to develop such
a beast and eventually this will show up in Largo. It was just a
decision by us to release a synthesizer with a great sound (in our
humble opinion) and a user interface that invites you to tweak your
own sounds rather than waiting with it till we have a browser.

Wolfram"

I will send my bank files to Wolfram and he will publish them on the Waldorf homepage. They contain all 246 patches. I will also put this to this thread:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 4&start=45

Vectorman · Post by **Vectorman** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 12:32 pm

Largo is definitely the cleanest-sounding Waldorf I've ever heard - I'm assuming the wavetables are being presented in 16-bit resolution here and there's way less audible aliasing. Obviously a factor in the sound of the original PPG (and Microwave I) was the fact that it had rather more grungy-sounding 8-bit wavetables and it aliased like hell. Largo doesn't have "quality" settings like the Microwave II/XT for deliberately bringing some of that grunge back in. You can get a somewhat more modern and polite-sounding version of old PPG sounds, but many of them, especially some of the bass sounds that depended on the early-generation digital grunge for their character, are only going to get so close in Largo, IMO.

On the other hand, Ingonator's transfers make a nice jumping-off point for making "PPG-inspired" sounds, and Largo has its own facilities for making sounds more aggressive in different ways from the PPG.

Largo demo version available!