OXIUM -New Xils-lab synthesizer- [ Jp8 Comparison :) ]

[Lotuzia]

A sounded a lot better than B, its very obvious. I don't know why Xils Lab went and did another analog sounding synth, when I heard they were going to do a modern synth I was very excited because the quality of there products is top notch but I was disappointed, I tried to like it, I even love the gui and colors but with Diva around there is no need for this

I can understand that, but if you add the double filter structure, and all the exciting possibilities we will soon add regarding how you can exploit it, the arpeggiator, the sync, the Unisson mode, true stereo, the fully innovative Le Masque modulator with all its possibilities, the LFOs with cumulative waveforms, as well as Oscillators, etc etc etc, well you will soon find out that Oxium can produce instruments very few other synthesizers can do, in addition of the classic ones. More than that, it offers instruments that cant be done by any other synthesizer, and even, a few new musical ways to play synthesizer patches.

Add to this the very affordable price and the moderate cpu appetite ....

But lets be honnest, Oxium was not designed to be just another JP8 emulation ( this was really far from our mind when designing it), though it appears it might not be the worst one : It was created to be a VA based synthesizer with a stellar sound, and very expressive possibilities, fast, intuitive and fun to operate.

So I can understand that people having already xxx JP8 emulations might not be the most excited, but just try it or listen to some sound examples : It can do much more than this imho.

[goldenanalog]

[OT] But quickly:

Just bought Oxium and was running it through it's paces-Softsynth worked has definately *evolved* since my last purchase of a softsynth some months ago...

I used to own a Oberheim 4-voice, Oxium has a modular sound character which really opens up, and gets powerful when you start using unison modes.

Which brings me to a couple comments/suggestions(?):

1.) It might be of help to have a basic flow-chart showing Oxium's 'virtual' module-wiring (although I shudder when I imagine what a fully-listed modulation option diagram would look like-sheesh...) This could possibly help a new user who wants to get up and running ASAP, although fairly experienced users such as myself can put Oxium together fairly quickly.

2.) This is important IMO: Since I use unison modes whenever they are available, what I'm running into with Oxium is a fair amount of non-compensate-able distortion. Yes, my fault for pressing the architecture, but there's some real richness embedded in Oxium, which partially washes out because of distortion.

This may be way too much, but if you had virtual volume controls at key nodes in Oxium's virtual architecture, the user could then reduce the signal, and probably in large part eliminate distortion that comes with 'stacking'.

In other words: Reduction of signal at key spots IMO would reduce the tendency for Oxium to distort when run in unison mode.

[carrieres]

When time allows I'd really like to make a drums demo made "all in Oxium"

LtZ

http://soundcloud.com/ccarrieres/oxium-drum-demo

done !

[baconpriest]

Got Oxium, yesterday. Very impressed but it crashes if i press the Le Masque preset button ( most of the time, anyway )
Im running it in Live 8 on osx.7. Any one else come across this issue?

Sorry to hear that and thanks for getting it. Le Masque will have more presets in the next update.

Did you try to save your own Le Masque patterns, then reload it ?

Anyway thanks for the report this will hopefully be fixed in the next update.

LtZ

Le masque doesn't give me the option to load presets. When it doesn't crash, it shows me a choice between using current and init settings but nothing happens whichever you choose. I'm running the latest version of Live and this didn't happen in the demo version ( though, perhaps, I didn't investigate that feature all that much ).

[4damind]

A sounded a lot better than B, its very obvious. I don't know why Xils Lab went and did another analog sounding synth, when I heard they were going to do a modern synth I was very excited because the quality of there products is top notch but I was disappointed, I tried to like it, I even love the gui and colors but with Diva around there is no need for this

I agree.

Now this new idea "we can sound like a Jupiter"? People will come to the conclusion that Oxium is crap because it sounds so bad compared to a Jupiter or a Jupiter emulation.
This synth is far away to be called a Jupiter emulation and it was Afaik not emulated or designed to be such a synth. I hope the next thing is not "we can sound like a Minimoog"...
This marketing guys should stop to move this synth to a direction where people have the feeling it's only another wannabe synth

It's a synth of it's own and not a emulation of something. IMO it needs some improvements (dull sound, features, resource usage). That's all.

[Ingonator]

A sounded a lot better than B, its very obvious. I don't know why Xils Lab went and did another analog sounding synth, when I heard they were going to do a modern synth I was very excited because the quality of there products is top notch but I was disappointed, I tried to like it, I even love the gui and colors but with Diva around there is no need for this

I agree.

Now this new idea "we can sound like a Jupiter"? People will come to the conclusion that Oxium is crap because it sounds so bad compared to a Jupiter or a Jupiter emulation.
This synth is far away to be called a Jupiter emulation and it was Afaik not emulated or designed to be such a synth. I hope the next thing is not "we can sound like a Minimoog"...
This marketing guys should stop to move this synth to a direction where people have the feeling it's only another wannabe synth

It's a synth of it's own and not a emulation of something. IMO it needs some improvements (dull sound, features, resource usage). That's all.

Nobody claimed that it's an exact replication but what's wrong if we try to get some "Jupiter like" presets for it? There are tons of other possible sounds for Oxium (e.g. my "Bellish Vox" factory preset) but sometimes it is also interesting to go "back to the roots" and trying to reprogram a certain Jupiter preset could be as challenging as trying to create a totally new preset.
A great sound stays a great sound after all no matter how old it is...

I think that Peter from Sonicprojects nailed it exactly with his comment at the Jupiter 8V thread:

Yes, I agree, to have the exact original sound there's probably no other way than getting the original synth. But even if the sound can't be copied in all its specific details it makes you program rich and interesting sounds by trying to copy it as we can see in this thread - I would call it the power of inspiration

Ingo

[Lotuzia]

A sounded a lot better than B, its very obvious. I don't know why Xils Lab went and did another analog sounding synth, when I heard they were going to do a modern synth I was very excited because the quality of there products is top notch but I was disappointed, I tried to like it, I even love the gui and colors but with Diva around there is no need for this

I agree.

Now this new idea "we can sound like a Jupiter"? People will come to the conclusion that Oxium is crap because it sounds so bad compared to a Jupiter or a Jupiter emulation.
This synth is far away to be called a Jupiter emulation and it was Afaik not emulated or designed to be such a synth. I hope the next thing is not "we can sound like a Minimoog"...
This marketing guys should stop to move this synth to a direction where people have the feeling it's only another wannabe synth

It's a synth of it's own and not a emulation of something. IMO it needs some improvements (dull sound, features, resource usage). That's all.

Well people who have a real Jupiter AND compare both units AND provided some audio examples just think the opposite of you, and they even think that it can come eventually closer to their Jupiter 8 than "some other synths" claiming to nail it. But well you seem to know better than owners of the real thing dont you ? ( actually you seem to know better than anyone else on any subject, including telling people how they should promote their work, make their audio demos etc etc : You seem to be an uberexpert in everything if I read you well )

You think Oxium sounds dull, its your sole opinion, and we're fine with that, we can't please everybody, just like when I say that the Ayin Zahev Oxium demo sounds by far superior that some other attempts in a similar vein I've heard, not that far away from your sig, and that some poeple could take inspiration about it. Aiyn tracks tells me a story, I can feel there's something happening in his track, while some other tracks just tell me the endless tale of boredom. Just my sole opinion.

Anyway your comments doesnt surprise me from someone who declared in a recent thread that a wellknown and praised harwired synth could be an emulation of the Korg MS-20, a modular synth. So the supposed emulation is far from beeing one in this case also. Makes me wonder if you ever touch, or just saw, a real MS-20 in your entire life ?

In another recent thread, not Oxium related this time, some people said you have discredited yourself by large. Makes me wonder if they were that far of the truth

Now about features : if you compare Oxium to some other synths, I think it has very few from nothing to fear.

Here's again what Ayin has done with this damned dull Oxium synth.
Sound speaks for itself impho.

Embrace - Oxium- By Mr Zahev

LtZ

[Lotuzia]

[OT] But quickly:

Just bought Oxium and was running it through it's paces-Softsynth worked has definately *evolved* since my last purchase of a softsynth some months ago...

I used to own a Oberheim 4-voice, Oxium has a modular sound character which really opens up, and gets powerful when you start using unison modes.

Which brings me to a couple comments/suggestions(?):

1.) It might be of help to have a basic flow-chart showing Oxium's 'virtual' module-wiring (although I shudder when I imagine what a fully-listed modulation option diagram would look like-sheesh...) This could possibly help a new user who wants to get up and running ASAP, although fairly experienced users such as myself can put Oxium together fairly quickly.

2.) This is important IMO: Since I use unison modes whenever they are available, what I'm running into with Oxium is a fair amount of non-compensate-able distortion. Yes, my fault for pressing the architecture, but there's some real richness embedded in Oxium, which partially washes out because of distortion.

This may be way too much, but if you had virtual volume controls at key nodes in Oxium's virtual architecture, the user could then reduce the signal, and probably in large part eliminate distortion that comes with 'stacking'.

In other words: Reduction of signal at key spots IMO would reduce the tendency for Oxium to distort when run in unison mode.

Hi Golden analog,

Thanks for your kkind words

For the signal flow and modulations, please just have a look bat the INFO PANE ( the info pane will replace the keyboard in this case) It will show you all the modulations affecting the kore modules ( oscs, filters, VCA) in real time. Afaik no other synth has yet this kind of "intelligent feedback" feature. But we can improve this module a bit : Its rather new.

For the saturation ( provided that the filter drive is set to zero ): Just lower the gain of all sources in the main, or both, mixers : To do this please use the ALT key while lowering the volume of one source, and all gains will decrease while keeping their relative sliders positions.

In Oxium the level of the oscillators does matter, so sometimes its better to use this trick to adjust the volume in the mixer, than with the global gain knob.

I hope it answers in a partial way to your question.

LtZ

[Lotuzia]

Got Oxium, yesterday. Very impressed but it crashes if i press the Le Masque preset button ( most of the time, anyway )
Im running it in Live 8 on osx.7. Any one else come across this issue?

Sorry to hear that and thanks for getting it. Le Masque will have more presets in the next update.

Did you try to save your own Le Masque patterns, then reload it ?

Anyway thanks for the report this will hopefully be fixed in the next update.

LtZ

Le masque doesn't give me the option to load presets. When it doesn't crash, it shows me a choice between using current and init settings but nothing happens whichever you choose. I'm running the latest version of Live and this didn't happen in the demo version ( though, perhaps, I didn't investigate that feature all that much ).

Thanks for the report, BaconPriest this looks like a bug in Live and we'll look after this one.

Also in the next update we plan to include basic templates/starting points for Le Masque, to save users some time we know is always precious !

LtZ

[Lotuzia]

A sounded a lot better than B, its very obvious. I don't know why Xils Lab went and did another analog sounding synth, when I heard they were going to do a modern synth I was very excited because the quality of there products is top notch but I was disappointed, I tried to like it, I even love the gui and colors but with Diva around there is no need for this

I agree.

Now this new idea "we can sound like a Jupiter"? People will come to the conclusion that Oxium is crap because it sounds so bad compared to a Jupiter or a Jupiter emulation.
This synth is far away to be called a Jupiter emulation and it was Afaik not emulated or designed to be such a synth. I hope the next thing is not "we can sound like a Minimoog"...
This marketing guys should stop to move this synth to a direction where people have the feeling it's only another wannabe synth

It's a synth of it's own and not a emulation of something. IMO it needs some improvements (dull sound, features, resource usage). That's all.

Nobody claimed that it's an exact replication but what's wrong if we try to get some "Jupiter like" presets for it? There are tons of other possible sounds for Oxium (e.g. my "Bellish Vox" factory preset) but sometimes it is also interesting to go "back to the roots" and trying to reprogram a certain Jupiter preset could be as challenging as trying to create a totally new preset.
A great sound stays a great sound after all no matter how old it is...

I think that Peter from Sonicprojects nailed it exactly with his comment at the Jupiter 8V thread:

Yes, I agree, to have the exact original sound there's probably no other way than getting the original synth. But even if the sound can't be copied in all its specific details it makes you program rich and interesting sounds by trying to copy it as we can see in this thread - I would call it the power of inspiration

Ingo

+1 Could not say better

[Lotuzia]

When time allows I'd really like to make a drums demo made "all in Oxium"

LtZ

http://soundcloud.com/ccarrieres/oxium-drum-demo

done !

Excellent Christophe

I had a great time listening to it

I'll make some more drums presets in the future for Oxium. Some people dont like that much drums presets, but well I think they can be very usefull in some situations.

Some Sequences presets that Simon did with his Huge Kick are awsome too. But maybe people will miss them, as tey are located in the Seq presets, and not in the Percs folder.

LtZ

[hakey]

people who have a real Jupiter [...] think that it can come eventually closer to their Jupiter 8 than "some other synths" claiming to nail it.

"some other synths"?

haha... I wonder what other synth(s) you might be referring to?

(and it seems that owning a JP8 is no cure for cloth ears)

[baconpriest]

Got Oxium, yesterday. Very impressed but it crashes if i press the Le Masque preset button ( most of the time, anyway )
Im running it in Live 8 on osx.7. Any one else come across this issue?

Sorry to hear that and thanks for getting it. Le Masque will have more presets in the next update.

Did you try to save your own Le Masque patterns, then reload it ?

Anyway thanks for the report this will hopefully be fixed in the next update.

LtZ

Le masque doesn't give me the option to load presets. When it doesn't crash, it shows me a choice between using current and init settings but nothing happens whichever you choose. I'm running the latest version of Live and this didn't happen in the demo version ( though, perhaps, I didn't investigate that feature all that much ).

Thanks for the report, BaconPriest this looks like a bug in Live and we'll look after this one.

Also in the next update we plan to include basic templates/starting points for Le Masque, to save users some time we know is always precious !

LtZ

Thanks. I must admit that, even though I haven't a clue how it works, i can still get very nice sounds using LeMasque.

[goldenanalog]

Thanks very much! I'll spend more time with it today! I got some very satisfying sounds out of it yesterday... even if the saturation were to stay in the mix no matter what I did, it is a superb softsynth as is! IMO criticisms of Oxium even in comparison to greats like the JP8 are unfounded, although we're all entitled to our opinions. But sometimes, I do wonder about people's actual experience... I had a 4 voice for a number of years, I'm familiar with that sound, so I can comfortably state just how good Oxium sounds, which is very.

[zvenx]

hi, can some kind soul please tell me what page the a/b is on... It would be really nice when threads change their names that the info on the new name is placed on the first post.
thanks
rsp

edit:
never mind, found it....now to another gripe
I never get a/b when sometimes it is between two patches that one would rarely if ever use on the original.

rsp