KVR Audio

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 1:19 am

dub3000 wrote:the lack of vst params is a little bit of a shame but everything is still tweakable via midi cc's,

Is that a general problem with Aria? If so it would be a dealbreaker for me as it would make it impossible to use properly inside NI Kore 2.

davidv@plogue · Post by **davidv@plogue** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 1:22 am

aMUSEd wrote:
dub3000 wrote:the lack of vst params is a little bit of a shame but everything is still tweakable via midi cc's,
Is that a general problem with Aria? If so it would be a dealbreaker for me as it would make it impossible to use properly inside NI Kore 2.

Kontakt 2 has a flat list of 512 params with no names.
ARIA doesnt even bother.
how does core deal with multi timbral plugins?

dub3000 · Post by **dub3000** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 1:47 am

i really should point out - this thing is a lot of *fun*.

just threw this together - this is using all SID sounds: http://remaincalm.org/mp3/tmp_chipsounds_test.mp3 - this is 100% chipsounds except a tiny bit of delay and a compressor on the master bus. no external filters or EQ. all the arpegs are internal to chipsounds.

everything important is CC controllable - you can hear a bunch of filter modulation etc i'm handling externally in that track using ReaControlMidi.

(yo, david - just so you don't double-count my feature requests, i've already emailed you about some of those things. cheers!)

--dan

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 1:54 am

davidv@plogue wrote:
aMUSEd wrote:
dub3000 wrote:the lack of vst params is a little bit of a shame but everything is still tweakable via midi cc's,
Is that a general problem with Aria? If so it would be a dealbreaker for me as it would make it impossible to use properly inside NI Kore 2.
Kontakt 2 has a flat list of 512 params with no names.
ARIA doesnt even bother.
how does core deal with multi timbral plugins?

It deals with them fine afaik but I don't tend to use the other outs myself. Kontakt's params can be mapped fine in Kore - they are open by default because you set up your own custom sets of params (bit like with Omnisphere) by dragging a param to a knob etc. If Aria has no VST params at all it would be impossible to create templates for using it in Kore with the hardware controller.

dub3000 · Post by **dub3000** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 2:06 am

the arpeggiator really is pretty epic. here's some live mucking about with it: http://remaincalm.org/mp3/tmp_chipsounds_test2.mp3

.:illanoise:. · Post by **.:illanoise:.** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 2:17 am

dub3000 wrote:the arpeggiator really is pretty epic. here's some live mucking about with it: http://remaincalm.org/mp3/tmp_chipsounds_test2.mp3

nice

dub3000 · Post by **dub3000** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 2:23 am

i think i might have spent a bit too long listening to the 'wizball' bonus level music as a kid...

mistertoast · Post by **mistertoast** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 2:46 am

This is a great synth. I had the happy experience of working with a lot of these computers as a day job (I was an assistant editor at COMPUTE! Magazine and COMPUTE!'s Gazette, so I spent a lot of time with SID and POKEY--including programming sound effects and game music--and the chips in the PCJr, TI-99, etc). I even got to know Jay Miner (who designed the TIA, many Atari 8-bit chips, the Amiga chips, and some pacemakers) thanks to a couple World of Commodore or Amiga shows.

Anyone who spent a lot of time with these chips knows what they are SUPPOSED to sound like, and I think Chipsounds gets it right.

I can't wait to hear how these sounds get used along with other instruments. People looking for some percussion variety are going to love this. And having it available as a VST means that we won't get just "chip tunes," but also some subtle uses of these classic sounds.

This is wonderful, and I can't wait to see what other chips David pulls in later.

topaz · Post by **topaz** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:46 am

Most multi timbral plugins I have tried let's you expose what you want to be automated.

amiga909 · Post by **amiga909** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:59 am

dub3000 wrote:i really should point out - this thing is a lot of *fun*.

just threw this together - this is using all SID sounds: http://remaincalm.org/mp3/tmp_chipsounds_test.mp3 - this is 100% chipsounds except a tiny bit of delay and a compressor on the master bus. no external filters or EQ. all the arpegs are internal to chipsounds.

--dan

very nice! like it a lot

chipsounds is the sensation of the year for me!!
usually i want to demo a soft b4 i buy...

what about performance? i am quite picky about this. dont want plugins that use even half of the cpu of NI Massive.

davidv@plogue · Post by **davidv@plogue** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 11:33 am

topaz wrote:Most multi timbral plugins I have tried let's you expose what you want to be automated.

Ok ill definitively investigate this.
Was ever only reported once as an issue for Garritan customers.

Now the biggest question is that did everyone stop thinking sample accurate automation was important?

VST params are NOT part of the audio stream and any host can push them on whatever thread they please (including the UI)

And this is my major design issue with them.
VST 3.0 gets that part right. But we have to live with 2.x

polyfonken · Post by **polyfonken** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 5:03 pm

After a whole day of procrastination I decided to splash out and buy Chipsounds and have been quite happy with it thus far. It has some quirks which have mostly been already mentioned here, most of which I guess are more about the underlying platform than straight-up design choices. Here are my top 3:

* UI skins are a matter of preference (hence I'm probably skinning chipsounds pretty soon) but how the UI works is another matter altogether. When I select another chip from the pull-down list, all of my parameters are gone, including the stuff that is common to all chips: arps, wavesequences and envelopes. I'm wondering if there is an intention behind this user-disrespecting behaviour or if is it an Aria quirk, this is preventing the user from trying out how different chips would sound on the same base program.

* I like layering different chips, hence I don't mind the clunky multi-timbral editor bit. However, I'd personally like to have it as an option, not as default, since it really does nothing that adding another track on a modern DAW couldn't do - there's no "common wavesequencer" that would let me assign different notes to different voices or anything fancy like that going on so it just feels a bit redundant.

- It's 2009 and Chipsounds wants to be regarded as a synth, not a sampler plugin, of course I'm expecting to be able to record my knobbing and have the program and it's UI respect my recorded knob-formance, that's what about every other synth plugin I own does. I don't care about sample-accurate and the whole issue is not a biggie for me since (a) there really aren't that many parameters to automate, and (b) most of the time I can be bothered to use CC:s (although I would expect the UI knobs to follow those).

These really don't mater all THAT much since the sound is utterly fantabulous. I'm no chiptune freak, that's mostly because I fear and hate purists, but I'm totally in love with these sounds. There isn't a lot to tweak per sound, sometimes not even a single parameter (that's why I tend to think of the chips more as oscillators than "devices") but that doesn't really bother me at all, extending the range of alterable parameters far outside the original designs would've diluted the sound and made this "just another VA/VD".

The chips sound different from each other and some of my favourite hardware features (like the programmable wavetables on a Gameboy or SID filter) have been carried over quite faithfully. Combine the brilliantly harsh sounds with the lovely wavesequencer (and, to a lesser degree, the arp) and you get an inspirational plugin, definitely worth the money I paid.

Oops, sorry, intended to write a couple of words worth of user experience, lookee what happened. Luckily you know how to scroll.

amiga909 wrote:what about performance? i am quite picky about this. dont want plugins that use even half of the cpu of NI Massive.

It's really really light, doesn't really even register on my MBP:s cpu meter! NI plugins are quite heavy on the CPU anyway.

davidv@plogue · Post by **davidv@plogue** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 5:39 pm

Hi polyfonken

Thanks for the review. I agree with most of the reserves about the UI, automation and whatnot, im actually surprised its been the more requested feature. But I've been living in multitimbral/cc land for a long time (Garritan Libraries and the likes).

But people so far like the sound, and i have to admit that ive spent nearly 80% of my time on the sound accuracy and emulation, and the "user experience" part has not been on part with it.

If people hated the sound, no GUI, whatever its flexibility would have saved this product, so please have faith in my ability to include new requested features (which is what we have been doing for nearly 10 years on bidule)

Cheers

polyfonken · Post by **polyfonken** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 5:45 pm

on that count you definitely have my trust, i've tried tens of synths, plugin and hardware, that had the ease of use, sexy thought-out interface, automation and all that down to a T, but were lacking in the one part that counts. If the sound was anything less than good, people wouldn't even bother to complain about the initial UI quirks.

mistertoast · Post by **mistertoast** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 8:45 pm

"When I select another chip from the pull-down list, all of my parameters are gone, including the stuff that is common to all chips: arps, wavesequences and envelopes."

That's my #1 gripe. But the sounds are so sharp and clean that's it's worth it.

chipsounds from plogue