Fxpansion have a NEW drum synth on the way!

[pdxindy]

@zerocrossing
I totally agree. MicroTonic takes almost no CPU, super fast to program and just sounds meatier. I also like that Microtonic does not have any bloat at all. If you want to add effects you just route the sounds to different channels.
Tremor is the most CPU hungry software instrument I have ever tried, and it's a drum machine! Programming all 8 engines in the standalone version reached almost 80 %. And when it's this high the sound better be mindblowing.
Sorry for being so negative, but this was such a disappointment.

Of course the modulation system in the DCAM series is as fun and intuitive ever.

I like the sound of Tremor better than Microtonic... But the CPU consumption is scary. I have a 2.8Ghz i7 iMac and some of the presets are not playable without crackles. Those ones have at least one of the engines set to polyphonic (cut off). I think there needs to be some way to limit the voices when cut is off.

[philliptwenty]

I always thought uTonic had a signature sound and no matter what I did short of adding ridiculous effects, i couldn't escape the sound. Tremor seems to have a more variety of sound capabilities. I don't feel like it's leaving a watermark on the sounds at all. More organic imo.

[Bronto Scorpio]

I wouldn't compare MT and Tremor at all. They are both drum synths but that's it really in my opinion.
They work really well together imo
If I had to choose I'd take MT without even thinking though but that's just my personal opinion

Cheers
Dennis

[grymmjack]

I wouldn't compare MT and Tremor at all. They are both drum synths but that's it really in my opinion.
They work really well together imo
If I had to choose I'd take MT without even thinking though but that's just my personal opinion

Cheers
Dennis

+1 to that. uTonic is essential.

It's interesting times for drum synthesis... the new kids Kong, Drummaxx, Punch, Tremor are really great. RMIV (or RMV I guess now?) and DKS Pro from now defunct araldfx used to be my go-to's for drum synthesis and before that of course ephonic Drumatic*, but once I got uTonic I was in love.

I demoed Punch. It's great, but man it's a bit of a battleship!

Looks like Tremor fits in between Punch and uTonic kind of, not so much of a battleship as Punch; a little leaner in use but not complexity, but not as immediate and simplified as uTonic... hrm.

My current two drum synths are uTonic and Waldorf Attack; the Attack is venerable and irreplaceable IMO. It does it's job extremely well. Both of these give a great variety of sound.

I have been building Live racks using Abletons effects and operator to create my own drum synths lately. I'm sort of a bull in a china shop though doing it this way but I've got some pretty great sounding kicks so far I'll put the live racks up if anyone wants them.

Tremor is a little scary considering the DCAM synthesis kind of loads my box down a bit (i've got an old quad @ 2.6ghz), but I think I will demo it regardless. I like supporting Angus and fxpansion as much as I can. Punch was very tempting too but I feel it's a little more than I'm after currently.

Does the Tremor sequencer output MIDI?

@fxpansion: best of luck with this product.

[pdxindy]

Does the Tremor sequencer output MIDI?

@fxpansion: best of luck with this product.

Yes it does... I tried with the demo and recorded the midi in Live... worked fine... only with VST not AU

[lung]

I would buy Tremor on the spot, if you would consider include/bundle a 'Tremor light' version with just one engine + master, no seq.

Doubt this would happen, but I would absolutely love this.

I'd also be interested in a one engine + master, no seq version.

I may be interested in Tremor if the discount applies to GURU owners as well (currently using Maschine - haven't needed to upgrade GURU to GEIST). I'm pretty happy with Drumaxx & DKS Pro (although it's not supported anymore).

Tremor sounds great and is very capable. Nice work.

[contrast]

I am interested in a synth+fx only version too, but what I would really like to see is that plus a decent sampler section so that there's a whole drum creation kit in one plugin. Sort of a better version of that Vengeance kick plug I guess.

[SKoT_FX]

Having a standard suite of effects within a product that sound designers can rely on being present is essential - although you can route the synths to individual outputs and apply your own effects, we can't deliver presets for drum sounds that require post-oscillator section effects if we are relying on a varying set of external plugins across a range of formats, host sequencers and operating systems.

So much sound design is beyond a mere note, as I'm sure you will all know.

[CANE CREEK]

Love the tremor demo, will buy in next day or two ( when wife ain't about lol)

But pleez pleez pleez fxpansion consider a 'Drag & Drop midi to DAW" function.

You don't have to add anymore clutter to the GUI you could drag from the pattern number.

[elipsis1]

I bought tremor tonite.



I've noticed that my E6600 or whatever "older" i7 dell has a bit higher CPU usage than the latest i7 laptop I bought...

Must be cache sizes on the processor / turbo modes on the laptop? Maxes out at 3GHZ quad at full throttle...

[zerocrossing]

@zerocrossing
I totally agree. MicroTonic takes almost no CPU, super fast to program and just sounds meatier. I also like that Microtonic does not have any bloat at all. If you want to add effects you just route the sounds to different channels.
Tremor is the most CPU hungry software instrument I have ever tried, and it's a drum machine! Programming all 8 engines in the standalone version reached almost 80 %. And when it's this high the sound better be mindblowing.
Sorry for being so negative, but this was such a disappointment.

Of course the modulation system in the DCAM series is as fun and intuitive ever.

I had some more time to play with it tonight and I'm going to revise my initial opinion a bit though...

I think a big part of my, and many others, issue with it is that Tremor is rife with ways to overdrive each sound, so if you want a big round meaty drum from a preset, you're going to have to spend some time finding them. I'd thought i'd gotten rid of overdriven parts of the gain stages only to find there were distortion and compressor gain also going on.

Well I did find it. It's not µTonic... and never will be (god I love that little plug!) but there actually is meat on them bones. but you have to dig past a lot of gristle. It does have it's own sound though, and for harder types of music it can really be great. I think it can sound a lot better than Punch's synths, that's for sure. I don't care about sample playback, and I'm actually glad Tremor doesn't either. It's a drum synth. It's very deep too, and I think FXspansion does itself a disservice by putting their sonic brand on the presets. They do it in DCAM too. I don't care who's making them, they want to please the boss and the boss likes a type of sound. They're good be more variety that's for sure. Show what it can really do... all of it. To me, distortion on drums is something best used very sparingly.

The sequencer is really good. I'd like to see it go even further, but it's simple and easy to get working and make interesting beats. I like that I don't have to go mousing and I can just input notes via midi.

CPU use is high, but I had it running in a few of my projects and it was OK and my machine's no screamer.

So... I'm going to get it. It won't work for everything, but it's a nice flavor and it'll help me get over the fact that I can't get a Tempest any time soon.

[SKoT_FX]

ehehe, dunno about "pleasing the boss" - there is a good serving of glitch/dubstep/industrial/etc fans in the building, and we're a pretty shouty lot at defending our musical tastes against that of other staff anywhere in the "hierarchy".

Clearly we're missing a minimal House fan.

As it turns out, the vast majority of the presets are actually by our external sound designers.

We certainly can & will whip up more presets to show it off better, I'm hearing we overplayed the funtime grungtasticness.

[CANE CREEK]

We certainly can & will whip up more presets to show it off better, I'm hearing we overplayed the funtime grungtasticness.

If they can't see beyond the presets then maybe their better off with a good sample disc instead, I'd prefer you spent your time on a 'Drag & Drop Midi to DAW' function instead

[dcfac73]

@zerocrossing
I totally agree. MicroTonic takes almost no CPU, super fast to program and just sounds meatier. I also like that Microtonic does not have any bloat at all. If you want to add effects you just route the sounds to different channels.
Tremor is the most CPU hungry software instrument I have ever tried, and it's a drum machine! Programming all 8 engines in the standalone version reached almost 80 %. And when it's this high the sound better be mindblowing.
Sorry for being so negative, but this was such a disappointment.

Of course the modulation system in the DCAM series is as fun and intuitive ever.

Funnily enough, I tried the Tremor demo, and didn't really notice a high cpu strain. I was only checking out the presets though. I've got Spark, and that takes up 40-50% with one instance (and not playing any sound!).

Is it just me, or do all the presets on the Microtonic sound the same?

[Noisewarrior]

I just bought Tremor and I love the sound! Its so big and punchy!

I have heard microtonic and I find it kind of puny sounding in comparison..