Harmor vs. Diversion

[pdxindy]

I find other methods towards the same result faster and more reliable.

Come on, did you ever edit 500 multipoint envelopes? No human can or wants to do that. A 2D image is the best way to edit hundreds*hundreds of points. Of course you have to be willing to edit them, if not there are lots of other tools in Harmor to work on bulks of partials.

I have tried 2d images and do not find it useful except for noises... I would much rather craft sounds via classic osc/filter structures...

ps - thanks for the link... will listen later

[Ingonator]

I reckon you have to have a keen interest in synthesis/sound design to even comprehend the possibilities of Harmor. Otherwise you'll just be judging the talent of the preset designers. I don't think sound designers are in any doubt as to the power of this beast

I am into sound design (and betatesting) for some time now and have used different synthesis types like subtractive, FM (e.g. NI FM8), additive (e.g. Alchemy + Cameleon 5000), wavetable scanning (e.g. PPG Wave 3.V), sampling, Granular synthesis (e.g. Alchemy, NI Absynth), Pulsar synthesis (Hamburg-Audio Nuklear) etc. but i still don't get what's so special about

Whatever...I think your problem is that you want total control but you fail to understand synth and because of that you are judging it as something ordinary.

exactly my thoughts as well. Gol already said, that no point to compare this synth with others. Just take the new approach.

Funny, i wanted to say the same about Hamburg-Audio Nuklear but even after a new update (fixed automation bug), improved demo (longer time until noise burst and preset saving enabled) and the developer entering KVR ("ThomasR") almost nobody seems to be interested:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=327243

About the price of Nuklear: I have started a discussion with the developer so let's see. Same about some additional features.

BTW i really wanted to understand and like Harmor but at this stage i guess i will pass. I got too many synths anyway including some additive stuff like Alchemy, Cameleon 5000, Synthmaster 2.5 and ImpOSCar 2 (basic additive Osc). Last purchase was the upgrade to ImpOSCar 2.

So now i'll stop adding comments about others synths as it's about Diversion (seems to be ignored now...) and Harmor.


Ingo

[Liero]

Well, after 2 hours of Harmor I have to say that while the sound is very good the GUI is simply a dealbreaker for me. Just working with and trying to learn what this synth does feels like an awful chore when the visuals infront of you seem like burgundy mess of knobs. I'd really like to see some background colour coding or something to visually make the different sections pop out. Opening harmor makes me anticipate work while opening some other synths make me anticipate fun. I know this problem would alleviate if I'd take a lot of time to learn the ins and outs of the synth, which brings me to problem number 2...

The documentation is not very good. It's clearly written by and for people who already know their stuff. Funcitonalities are explained in one or two sentences as if they're self-explanatory and there are no video tutorials, just videos with someone playing a preset (how very useful). So my vote goes for Diversion, although I think the pure sound of Harmor is superior.

[pdxindy]

Diversion is of more interest for me... only if the resynthesis is distinctly better than alchemy would Harmor interest me.

[tony tony chopper]

I'd really like to see some background colour coding

But knobs themselves are color-coded.

I had constraints here: minimal amount of tab-switching (thus lots of knobs in front), big knobs (people don't like Sytrus GUI), a GUI that still fits on 1024..

It's clearly written by and for people who already know their stuff. Funcitonalities are explained in one or two sentences as if they're self-explanatory

Sadly it's more the opposite (not saying it's a good thing). But on the other hand almost no one reads help files, I expect tutorials to be in videos.

[Image-Line]

Sadly it's more the opposite (not saying it's a good thing). But on the other hand almost no one reads help files, I expect tutorials to be in videos.

The help still has quite some development to go. What you see is produced to a deadline.

Regards Scott

[grymmjack]

What i found confusing is the editor for the harmonics which in other synths is a more or less long row of bars and e.g. in Alchemy you could edit each of those bars.
In Harmor this seems to be more or less continuous which is difficult for editing certain harmonics.
That is what i meant when i talked about "programming from scratch". Importing images or resynthesis is a different thing (and has been done in Alchemy and Cameleon 5000 already). Besides that i don't really get how some controls like "Harmonizer", "Blur" or "Prism" work. When i use them in the demo version almost nothing seems to happen to the sound. Are those not working in the current demo? Based on a message which i get while installing the demo this is not the final version of Harmor.

BTW i like how the additive synthesis works in ImpOSCar 1 and 2. It only got a few harmonics but it still works nicely. Same for the additive oscillator in Synthmaster 2.5.


Ingo

You can approximate this behavior by using the Timbre 1 Harmonic Level (click the timbre wave, and then in the little arrow menu in that graph editor, choose create sequence. There you can get a grid with bars. See screenshot:



This shot shows making a sine wave. It's not as 1:1 match as alchemy or impOSCar additive editor, but it's kind of cool working this way to generate a sequence that creates the envelope. What's kind of sweet though with this sequencer that builds envelopes you can see in realtime the envelope that is potentially created after you make adjustments. Note the decay, sustain, and gate settings pictured in the shot are to approximate the bars.

TBH though, I think the bars are too restrictive and the free-form envelope editor is way better. Throw an FFT up (like span say), then as you draw the envelope, watch the FFT for the harmonics it generates. It's pretty fascinating way to work. You can get extremely precise.

One thing I ran into that was interesting was when drawing a timbre envelope in the editor with values that span beyond the first horizontal rule, generated a sort of exciter/overdrive/clip. I don't think this is possible in other additives, so that's kind of nifty IMO.

*edit* Actually I just discovered if you hold shift while snap and step are on, you can get bars that way. Granted, a bit more fiddly than the very strict up and down nature of a slider like in impOSCar, but somewhat solves the problem. I think I prefer envelopes over bars for flexibility though.

gol,are you going to ever add actual direct in the plugin image editing on the image planes? That would be neat.

[tony tony chopper]

gol,are you going to ever add actual direct in the plugin image editing on the image planes? Smile That would be neat.

it was the idea at first, but eventually it wasn't done. But those things are of no use, it's like icon makers that also feature their own image editor: we know that we can't beat Photoshop/Gimp/Whatever, so our own editing would always be a gimmick.
I would have liked to support 32bit float image files, though, but it's hard to find the right format, it looks like only some uncommon HDR formats would really work here, and the Windows clipboard of course has no support for that. So image editing is in 8bit, but the way it's calibrated it shouldn't result in any audible loss.

Hint: right click the "paste" button, the image is now auto-pasting. So if your MIDI kb is plugged, all you need to do while you're in your image editor is copy, then it's automatically pasted behind the scenes in Harmor, and you can immediately preview, assuming that your host handles MIDI even when not focused.

[Ingonator]

You can approximate this behavior by using the Timbre 1 Harmonic Level (click the timbre wave, and then in the little arrow menu in that graph editor, choose create sequence. There you can get a grid with bars. See screenshot:



This shot shows making a sine wave. It's not as 1:1 match as alchemy or impOSCar additive editor, but it's kind of cool working this way to generate a sequence that creates the envelope. What's kind of sweet though with this sequencer that builds envelopes you can see in realtime the envelope that is potentially created after you make adjustments. Note the decay, sustain, and gate settings pictured in the shot are to approximate the bars.

TBH though, I think the bars are too restrictive and the free-form envelope editor is way better. Throw an FFT up (like span say), then as you draw the envelope, watch the FFT for the harmonics it generates. It's pretty fascinating way to work. You can get extremely precise.

One thing I ran into that was interesting was when drawing a timbre envelope in the editor with values that span beyond the first horizontal rule, generated a sort of exciter/overdrive/clip. I don't think this is possible in other additives, so that's kind of nifty IMO.

*edit* Actually I just discovered if you hold shift while snap and step are on, you can get bars that way. Granted, a bit more fiddly than the very strict up and down nature of a slider like in impOSCar, but somewhat solves the problem. I think I prefer envelopes over bars for flexibility though.

gol,are you going to ever add actual direct in the plugin image editing on the image planes? That would be neat.

Thanks,

i'll check it later. Currently i have to care about some other projects.
Hard to not get distracted when new synths are released...


Ingo

[Cultureelect]

Two greats softs.
In the near future I intend to buy, the more these software
Great sounds.

[Neon Breath]

At the moment I can't try the demo since it's WIN only. I love spectral synthesis, for experimentation and experimental stuff. I use Photosounder and Alchemy alot for this, so anyone tried and explored spectral synthesis in Harmor? How does it sound and work compared to Alchemy?

[aquar]

Funny, i wanted to say the same about Hamburg-Audio Nuklear but even after a new update (fixed automation bug), improved demo (longer time until noise burst and preset saving enabled) and the developer entering KVR ("ThomasR") almost nobody seems to be interested:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=327243

About the price of Nuklear: I have started a discussion with the developer so let's see. Same about some additional features.

BTW i really wanted to understand and like Harmor but at this stage i guess i will pass. I got too many synths anyway including some additive stuff like Alchemy, Cameleon 5000, Synthmaster 2.5 and ImpOSCar 2 (basic additive Osc). Last purchase was the upgrade to ImpOSCar 2.

So now i'll stop adding comments about others synths as it's about Diversion (seems to be ignored now...) and Harmor.


Ingo

hehe you sure are having to push Nuklear really hard.

Nuklear sounds good but nowhere near (when I say nowhere I really mean nowhere) as good Harmor neither does it have the sonic scope Harmor has.
Yeah I know I shouldn't comapre apples with oranges but sometimes its just unavoidable.
I think this sends a clear message to any developer/s that think they can release a medicore synth and charge the earth for it.
The vst market is already very overcrowded so if you are going to release a synth in todays climate it better be good and at a fair price otherwise its just going to fall by the wayside.

On topic:
I must say I think Harmor is one really cool synth that has so much potential its unreal.

Diversion is also a very interesting synth with a lot of potential.

[pikadilly]

The soft synths that took me less than 30 mins to make purchasing decision: Diversion, Harmor, and impOscar2. A few other synts like DUNE made me hesitate for a few more days.

[kyodeejay]

The soft synths that took me less than 30 mins to make purchasing decision: Diversion, Harmor, and impOscar2. A few other synts like DUNE made me hesitate for a few more days.

Just the opposite here hehe

[grymmjack]

Is Diversion an additive too? Can it do resynthesis? I didn't pick up on this. It's certainly a beautiful and very ergonomic UI.