Waldorf Largo + Blofeld: free + commercial patches

[rob_lee]

Largo would have much more potential once some issues are sorted out such as the phase issue.. bass sounds go out of phase upon every key pressed..this is just one reason why i stopped creating any soundbank at the moment for the Largo.
There are other issues but if i can't make bass sounds that stick to (c) and not drift off left and right then i can't do the bank.
Hopefully in the next update this will be rectified.

Rob

[Ingonator]

BTW: Did you also try my new analog patches?

Yes, tried those today - nice job! I'll check out your Clipper bass patches tomorrow (recording equipment is already shut down for the day).

I went off on a tangent this evening and was trying to emulate some of the PPG (or rather Microwave I) patches in u-he Zebra instead. I've had the PPG wavetables in Zebra for a long time, but hadn't ever gotten around to trying to create very many PPG emulations with them.

Surprisingly enough, I was able to get closer approximations of the Microwave sounds with Zebra than with Largo. For some reason, the wavetables I messed with (like Clipper) don't get nearly as muffled in the bass regions in Zebra as they do in Largo...in Zebra, those waves seem to sound more like the Microwave in the lower ranges than Largo does. I didn't have to mess with FM or filter overdrive and such to give them bite - the waves just sounded more like they should coming straight off the oscillators. The three PPG/MWI sounds I tried to mimic this evening all came out fairly decent in Zebra. I might take a stab at a few more just to see how they fare.

If you are interested in a new powerful synth which can do wavetable synthesis you can have a look at Synthmaster 2.0 from KV331Audio. It's currently in beta status. If you buy v1.0.5 (for 39$) you get v2.0 free and you can participate at beta testing for v2.0.
I curently do beta testing for Synthmaster 2.0 myself and some bugs have to be fixed or are close to be fixed. Curently it's at v1.9.9.7 and v1.9.9.8 wil come in the next days or maybe tomorrow. This synth looks very promising IMHO.

links:
version 1: http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2548.html
http://www.kv331audio.com/purchase.aspx
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=253647
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=256255

If you are interested it's best to post at the threads listed above.

[DocT]

Largo would have much more potential once some issues are sorted out such as the phase issue.. bass sounds go out of phase upon every key pressed..Rob :)this is just one reason why i stopped creating any soundbank at the moment for the Largo.
There are other issues but if i can't make bass sounds that stick to (c) and not drift off left and right then i can't do the bank.
Hopefully in the next update this will be rectified.

Bass sounds drifting between left and right means that more than 1 oscillator is used. Phased locked oscs won't help in this case because the drift is caused by detuning. Use 1 osc, synced oscs or the "analog" waveforms from the wavetable oscs instead. The latter are not free running afaik.

[rob_lee]

maybe but if i want to pan center with however many oscs then i want it to do exactly that on whatever sound i create..personal opinion of course so basically i can have oscs panned center using only 1 oscs but if i want a fat bass and use 2 oscs im all over the place?
nevermind i'll figure something out.

New soundbank by rob lee - "No Bass"

Rob

[DocT]

You can of course pan multiple oscillators to the center of the panorama and they'll stay in the center even if intereferences caused by detuning or different phases happens.
If you pan detuned oscillators to either side of the panorama, you'll get a kind of panning effect like a chorus. In any synth. Then, if you pan phase locked oscillators that are not detuned to different sides of the panorama, you'll get a very strange and skinny sound that sounds worse than a single osc in the center.

[Ingonator]

You can of course pan multiple oscillators to the center of the panorama and they'll stay in the center even if intereferences caused by detuning or different phases happens.
If you pan detuned oscillators to either side of the panorama, you'll get a kind of panning effect like a chorus. In any synth. Then, if you pan phase locked oscillators that are not detuned to different sides of the panorama, you'll get a very strange and skinny sound that sounds worse than a single osc in the center.

For a fat sound you could also use a single OSC with unison and/or a Sub-OSC. Adding Bass Boost and or filter drive ("Pickup" mode) also helps. The Overdrive effect could also be used for a fatter sound.
Look at my post about Bass sounds in one of my last posts above. In that example i used two wavetable OSCs so no phasing problem IMO.

UPDATE: I made a bass sound using a single OSC (+Sub-OSC), the saw wave from a wavetable, bass boost and filter drive ("Pickup 2" mode). If i change to a "normal" saw wave i guess i could hear what you call "phasing".
link: http://rapidshare.com/files/260582435/S ... 01__IW.fxp

With two OSCs the "phasing" is obvious, no matter if they are detuned or not. It's better when you use the saw of a wavetable. A 100% "normal" sound i only get when using 1 OSC and a wavetable.

[filtide]

actually i made a bass, played on the keyboard, with E1 and E2 keys and each time i press E1 after E2 it gave me a slightly different sound, like 4 versions cyclically. Would that be the same phase prob was mentioned?

[rob_lee]

actually i made a bass, played on the keyboard, with E1 and E2 keys and each time i press E1 after E2 it gave me a slightly different sound, like 4 versions cyclically. Would that be the same phase prob was mentioned?

hooray at least im not the only one....

Rob

[DocT]

actually i made a bass, played on the keyboard, with E1 and E2 keys and each time i press E1 after E2 it gave me a slightly different sound, like 4 versions cyclically. Would that be the same phase prob was mentioned?

There is no phase problem in the Largo. Free running oscillators are standard, every analog synth has them, the better VAs have them, only some "cheaper" softsynths have phase locked oscillators, mostly sample based, because it's not easy to develop free running oscs. Having the option to lock the osc start phase would be an additional feature, but it's use would be very limited.

If different notes of a patch sound different, there are lots of possible reasons for that, but asking for constant osc start phase is the complete wrong approach. Is there more than one osc with slightly different tuning? If E2 sounds different from E1, is the keyboard tracking of the filter cutoff different from 100%? Are the notes overlapping in a mono sound? Is there some kind of velocity dependent modulation? And so on.

Phase locked oscs offer a few advantages for drum sounds, but that's it. If the Largo had an option to switch between free and fixed phase, you could easily spoil most of it's sounds by switching the oscs to phase locked.

Hey, my MiniMoog can't do proper basses because its oscillators are free running

[Ingonator]

actually i made a bass, played on the keyboard, with E1 and E2 keys and each time i press E1 after E2 it gave me a slightly different sound, like 4 versions cyclically. Would that be the same phase prob was mentioned?

There is no phase problem in the Largo. Free running oscillators are standard, every analog synth has them, the better VAs have them, only some "cheaper" softsynths have phase locked oscillators, mostly sample based, because it's not easy to develop free running oscs.
If different notes of a patch sound different, there are lots of possible reasons for that, but asking for constant osc start phase is the complete wrong approach. Is there more than one osc with slightly different tuning? If E2 sounds different from E1, is the keyboard tracking of the filter cutoff different from 100%? Are the notes overlapping in a mono sound? Is there some kind of velocity dependent modulation? And so on.

Phase locked oscs offer a few advantages for drum sounds, but that's it. If the Largo had an option to switch between free and fixed phase, you could easily spoil 98% of it's sounds by switching the oscs to phase locked.

Hey, my MiniMoog can't do proper basses because its oscillators are free running

Thanks for making this clear. I thought i am stupid because i didn't really understand the problem. In my post above i put a link for a singe OSS bass which uses a saw from the wavetable. In that way no "phasing" or what it's called could be recognized.

I am also not sure if Largo was planned as a drum synth even if it does some nice drum sounds...

[Vectorman]

UPDATE: I tried to make three bass patches using the Clipper wavetable:
http://rapidshare.com/files/260346690/PPG_Clipper_ Bass_01__IW.fxp
http://rapidshare.com/files/260346868/PPG_Clipper_ Bass_02__IW.fxp
http://rapidshare.com/files/260351300/PPG_Clipper_ Bass_03__IW.fxp

Interesting patches using the distortions - very grungy!

Since I hadn't posted an audio sample, there's obviously no way you could have known exactly what sound I was referring to. Just for illustration, here's a WAV sample.

http://www.davidvector.com/audio_clips/ ... r_test.wav


First in the clip is the original Microwave I patch for reference. The sound mostly comes from the raw wavetables - no FM or added distortion going on. It demonstrates how some wavetables retain enough bite even in the low range in the older instrument to make some great metallic, gritty basses.

Second is my brief attempt at replicating the sound with Largo. The Clipper wavetable gets very muffled down in that range in Largo, so I tried to add some bite back with oscillator FM and ended up doing stuff with FM on two different layers (six oscillators total) just to get close at all. But since that's kind of a Band-Aid fix, it really doesn't sound very close to the Microwave sound.

Third is Zebra. It's still not a perfect match - I doubt I'd ever get it exactly the same, since the Microwave's 8-bit wavetables and less transparent pitch transposition have an inherently different sound - but since the wavetable does retain more of its edge down low in Zebra and no "doctoring" is necessary to give it its bite back, it sounds closer to the original than the Largo patch.

Not trying to drive the subject into the ground - I just thought an audio example would better illustrate what I was talking about. Many probably won't care so much if they're more interested in doing VA-type sounds with Largo and other classes of sounds that don't require a more aggressive sound from the wavetables in the bass range.

[Ingonator]

The Largo downloads on the Waldorf site moved from "archive" to the "downloads" section: http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/downloads?relPath=largo

[Igro]

actually i made a bass, played on the keyboard, with E1 and E2 keys and each time i press E1 after E2 it gave me a slightly different sound, like 4 versions cyclically. Would that be the same phase prob was mentioned?

There is no phase problem in the Largo. Free running oscillators are standard, every analog synth has them, the better VAs have them, only some "cheaper" softsynths have phase locked oscillators, mostly sample based, because it's not easy to develop free running oscs. Having the option to lock the osc start phase would be an additional feature, but it's use would be very limited.

If different notes of a patch sound different, there are lots of possible reasons for that, but asking for constant osc start phase is the complete wrong approach. Is there more than one osc with slightly different tuning? If E2 sounds different from E1, is the keyboard tracking of the filter cutoff different from 100%? Are the notes overlapping in a mono sound? Is there some kind of velocity dependent modulation? And so on.

Phase locked oscs offer a few advantages for drum sounds, but that's it. If the Largo had an option to switch between free and fixed phase, you could easily spoil most of it's sounds by switching the oscs to phase locked.

Hey, my MiniMoog can't do proper basses because its oscillators are free running

Here is very easy bass audiosample, which shows instability of Largo sound. Attack volume changing and overall tone has instability too. Check meters.

LargoInstabilityBass.mp3 - 0.61MB
LargoInstabilityBass2.mp3 - 0.61MB

Nonsense. I need identical bass.

[kmonkey]

actually i made a bass, played on the keyboard, with E1 and E2 keys and each time i press E1 after E2 it gave me a slightly different sound, like 4 versions cyclically. Would that be the same phase prob was mentioned?

There is no phase problem in the Largo. Free running oscillators are standard, every analog synth has them, the better VAs have them, only some "cheaper" softsynths have phase locked oscillators, mostly sample based, because it's not easy to develop free running oscs. Having the option to lock the osc start phase would be an additional feature, but it's use would be very limited.

If different notes of a patch sound different, there are lots of possible reasons for that, but asking for constant osc start phase is the complete wrong approach. Is there more than one osc with slightly different tuning? If E2 sounds different from E1, is the keyboard tracking of the filter cutoff different from 100%? Are the notes overlapping in a mono sound? Is there some kind of velocity dependent modulation? And so on.

Phase locked oscs offer a few advantages for drum sounds, but that's it. If the Largo had an option to switch between free and fixed phase, you could easily spoil most of it's sounds by switching the oscs to phase locked.

Hey, my MiniMoog can't do proper basses because its oscillators are free running

Here is very easy bass audiosample, which shows instability of Largo sound. Attack volume changing and overall tone has instability too. Check meters.

LargoInstabilityBass.mp3 - 0.61MB

Nonsense. Need to be fixed obviously. I need identical bass.

But this is not any kind of error. It is just free osc. Oh dear god, hopefully they will add switch to sync oscillator so it will retrigger each time key is pressed..

[Igro]

actually i made a bass, played on the keyboard, with E1 and E2 keys and each time i press E1 after E2 it gave me a slightly different sound, like 4 versions cyclically. Would that be the same phase prob was mentioned?

There is no phase problem in the Largo. Free running oscillators are standard, every analog synth has them, the better VAs have them, only some "cheaper" softsynths have phase locked oscillators, mostly sample based, because it's not easy to develop free running oscs. Having the option to lock the osc start phase would be an additional feature, but it's use would be very limited.

If different notes of a patch sound different, there are lots of possible reasons for that, but asking for constant osc start phase is the complete wrong approach. Is there more than one osc with slightly different tuning? If E2 sounds different from E1, is the keyboard tracking of the filter cutoff different from 100%? Are the notes overlapping in a mono sound? Is there some kind of velocity dependent modulation? And so on.

Phase locked oscs offer a few advantages for drum sounds, but that's it. If the Largo had an option to switch between free and fixed phase, you could easily spoil most of it's sounds by switching the oscs to phase locked.

Hey, my MiniMoog can't do proper basses because its oscillators are free running

Here is very easy bass audiosample, which shows instability of Largo sound. Attack volume changing and overall tone has instability too. Check meters.

LargoInstabilityBass.mp3 - 0.61MB

Nonsense. Need to be fixed obviously. I need identical bass.

But this is not any kind of error. It is just free osc. Oh dear god, hopefully they will add switch to sync oscillator so it will retrigger each time key is pressed..

It's not oscillator sync(Largo has it). It just because there is not oscillator phase reset additionally added.