KVR Audio

paulbreeze · Post by **paulbreeze** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 4:34 pm

Anyone here with AAS Modeling Collection 5.0? What's the upgrade path? Should I go ahead and upgrade UA VA-2 for $29?

Spitfire31 · Post by **Spitfire31** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 4:36 pm

cryophonik wrote:Unfortunately, the days of large GUIs at an affordable price are gone.

Not at U-He's, anyway. His GUIs are even resizable!

/Joachim

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 4:38 pm

paulbreeze wrote:Anyone here with AAS Modeling Collection 5.0? What's the upgrade path? Should I go ahead and upgrade UA VA-2 for $29?

Go with whatever the GAS tells you. I always do that

paulbreeze · Post by **paulbreeze** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 4:40 pm

Then I'll wait a bit. Sent them two emails (one yesterday and one today) but they seem to ignore them. Great way to treat customers...

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 4:46 pm

Numanoid wrote:
Integratron wrote:Oh man... I fired up my DAW hoping that I had bought VA-1 Session somewhere along the way. Yea! I had it so I was immediately off to upgrade land. For $49.00 I have a really slick, killer VA synth!
I in fact have two serials for VA1 Session, one that I bought a long time ago, and not using anymore as I upgraded to VA1 full, and one unused that I got with a Korg controller.
Would it be wrong of me to sell them secondhand for lets say 20 bucks a pop?

'Fraid so, I see them in the market place going for about 20USD for all three. Not sure what they're actually getting for them. But I now have two copies of the sessions as the freebies given with the korg Nanos and Cake's including them on X3. The license is good for two machines and they happen to be perfect for tablet use. (Which means I still have an extra copy that CakeWalk demands as being NFR.) And I have no need for it there since I use the full bundle on that tower. (Well, I use VS1 & CP often, and sometimes one of the Strums). I do like their synths though, because the character of their voices is different than others I have. I would rather they change the GUI on T4. I always feel like I'm looking at someone's stereo from the 70's there. But the synths have been more players for me, so I consider the GUI very little anyway.

I'm told as a CW customer, I need to get use to collecting multiple copies of synths they give redundantly and deem as NFR though.

And really, the 'Sessions' don't seem like they have any resale value.
$5.00 a piece at most.

edit: typos!

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 4:54 pm

Arrested Developer wrote:...hmm
I checked out the demo of v2.
I don't know.
29$ isn't that much, but i think that buying an additional Zebra Soundbank for that money probably is a greater value...

Probably so. Given that option, I would get another Z-Bank too.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 5:32 pm

arachnaut wrote:There is a quite different volume setting between similar instruments.
The older VA-1 is a bit louder and sounds more aggressive.
The newer VA-2 is a bit more refined and complex.

Are you sure you have the levels the same? I just loaded the same patch in each and they sounded identical.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 5:34 pm

ChiTown24 wrote:Some of the belly aching seems pre-mature or based on semantics { i.e would be happy with a paid 1.5 upgrade, instead of a paid 2.0 upgrade ? with the same feature set ? }. For $29/$39 the price-to-feature-ratio is right imo. Soundbanks retail for that alone. And the extras are welcome.

What does Ultra Analog 1 or 2 offer in a world of Synthsquads & Monarks ? CPU bang-for-buck. If that's not a concern for you, then I envy you Nevertheless it's a worthy attribute and as such UA 1 or 2 is still relevant today imo.

even if Tassman 5 arrives with 'only' a GUI overhaul, the improved preset system, and maybe some improved effects... at the right price I would certainly welcome that without complaint. Of course, I would also be happy with more significant improvements in the patching area {though a GUI overhaul would go some way towards that ends} or some more significant additions to sound or modulation sources.

This is the age of entitlement!

Have you used Tassman lately? Many of the modules are broken.

emasters · Post by **emasters** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 5:53 pm

Just noticed the eight v1 sound banks were updated on the AAS download page today, for v2 compatibility. Just go to the AAS support download page, enter the sound bank serial number and the download now has the v2 bank, as well. Nice to see this was added.

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 6:08 pm

I enjoy playing around with it.

But that GUI is on par size with Phonec (less tall, but a bit wider), so it's THAT little

On my 13,3 laptop I could fit almost 4 on the screen at the same time, it's THAT little

Gosh · Post by **Gosh** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 6:19 pm

emasters wrote:Just noticed the eight v1 sound banks were updated on the AAS download page today, for v2 compatibility. Just go to the AAS support download page, enter the sound bank serial number and the download now has the v2 bank, as well. Nice to see this was added.

thanks for that info emasters. must have happened during the last two hours or so because when i checked in the afternoon it was still the v1 versions only.
cheers

Sequent · Post by **Sequent** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 6:26 pm

+1 Thank you very much for this info, emasters!

Gosh wrote:
emasters wrote:Just noticed the eight v1 sound banks were updated on the AAS download page today, for v2 compatibility. Just go to the AAS support download page, enter the sound bank serial number and the download now has the v2 bank, as well. Nice to see this was added.
thanks for that info emasters. must have happened during the last two hours or so because when i checked in the afternoon it was still the v1 versions only.
cheers

jsp1979 · Post by **jsp1979** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 7:19 pm

paulbreeze wrote:Then I'll wait a bit. Sent them two emails (one yesterday and one today) but they seem to ignore them. Great way to treat customers...

Wait a bit here. They're probably inundated with emails these days. Give them a little bit of time (more than 24 hours). Just because they haven't replied doesn't mean they're "ignoring" customers.

I say that because AAS email support for me on several occasions has been some of the best I have *ever* received from any software company period.

I think they'll come through for you.

michael2 · Post by **michael2** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 7:56 pm

jsp1979 wrote:
paulbreeze wrote:Then I'll wait a bit. Sent them two emails (one yesterday and one today) but they seem to ignore them. Great way to treat customers...
Wait a bit here. They're probably inundated with emails these days. Give them a little bit of time (more than 24 hours). Just because they haven't replied doesn't mean they're "ignoring" customers.

I say that because AAS email support for me on several occasions has been some of the best I have *ever* received from any software company period.

I think they'll come through for you.

I have received good support from them in the past as well. I too emailed them yesterday, but I'm sure they're slammed with emails from guys like me who misplaced their serial numbers and want AAS staff to dig them out for them.

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 8:10 pm

I've taken UA-2 for a very quick spin. GUI is Tee-TINY! And the tabs. THE TABS!!! What happened to the beautifully understated, colour coded one-page GUI of the original? I realize they added extra stuff so they would have needed pages for the FX stuff, but at least leave the main synth stuff in one panel!

Oscillators are very 'straight' but sound good. Sync sound is nice. Shame you can't sync sine wave or a triangle wave, I know a lot of people hate sync on soft waveforms but if you modulate it slowly you get a nice unwinding effect, which works well mixed with a more sturdy tone underneath. Opportunities missed.

Pulse wave has a varying DC offset content which varies depending on the freqency you play. Mildly annoying but it's nothing a highpass filter can't handle.

Filters sound great. I love the formant filter. Filter drive works really well with the resonance.

But that GUI... It kinda feels like I'm operating one of these new-wave little monotron-inspired synths.

One more note: They missed a trick on the suboscillator. The way the phase is aligned means that when you bring up the sub under a saw wave, the two waves merge because their discontinuities align, and you get a different octave saw. This is in contrast to the Juno's sub, which is phase-offset so this masking doesn't happen, and gives a chunkier sound.

AAS Ultra Analog VA-2