KVR Audio

Integratron · Post by **Integratron** » Fri Oct 18, 2013 5:05 pm

Just downed 2.01 of Ultra Analog VA-2... guess I better check Lounge Lizard EP-4 too!

Thanks for the heads up!

Integratron · Post by **Integratron** » Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:19 pm

aMUSEd wrote:
Gosh wrote:
clif321 wrote:Updated v.2.01 with facility to import and convert .axf banks exported from v.1 is now available for download on the AAS site.
fantastic, so this means that we can import our third-party ua-1 libraries now? may i ask where you found that information since on the aas website i couldn't find such an annoucement.
anyway, thanks a lot for the heads-up and cheers
Cool but why didn't they do that for Lounge Lizard too?

No recent (3/13) update to LL EP-4... still at version 4.04.

DrGonzo · Post by **DrGonzo** » Tue Oct 22, 2013 2:54 pm

Just a short information about my soundset UltraBass for the Ultra Analog. It has been converted into v2 and all people who bought the v1 and don't want to do the conversion themselves can just write me a PM here or on the Plughugger web and I'll send you the correct files.

http://www.plughugger.com/aas-ultra-ana ... -bass.html

/C

Kindred · Post by **Kindred** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:10 am

Just a quick update - after playing around with this now for a couple of weeks I am starting to seriously warm to it. It has an unusual sound that doesn't seem to fit any other synth. It can sound reasonably analogue on some patches and quite digital & trancey on other patches.

Still not convinced on the pricing model, but price aside this is a really cool little synth

Gosh · Post by **Gosh** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:32 am

Kindred wrote:Just a quick update - after playing around with this now for a couple of weeks I am starting to seriously warm to it. It has an unusual sound that doesn't seem to fit any other synth. It can sound reasonably analogue on some patches and quite digital & trancey on other patches.

Still not convinced on the pricing model, but price aside this is a really cool little synth

+1. it has a great sound which can be convincingly analog but in contrast to e.g. diva (which i also love to bits, don't get me wrong) ultra analog delivers this sound at a rather low cpu consumption. now, if they only would increase the interface a bit

biomuse · Post by **biomuse** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:06 pm

clif321 wrote:Also, the conversion doesn't preserve any subfolder organization within the v.1 preset bank. I suspect this facility is intended mostly to enable conversion of self-made v.1 presets, though it will certainly work on third party expansion banks. But it wouldn't surprise me to see the developers of some of those banks releasing updated versions with presets tweaked and organization restored for v.2, like AAS did with its own expansion banks.

C'mon AAS, seriously?? What sound bank DOESN'T have subfolder organization? This shouldn't be that hard to implement.

GalleryHakon · Post by **GalleryHakon** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:26 pm

I've been lurking a bit in the KVR forum every now and again as I often end up here googling for things to do with music, VSTs, reviews, etc.

I have had Ultra Analog 1 for just over a year, and I have found it quite nice. Without thinking much about it, I upgraded to VA2. I like the sounds of it, it is definitely an improvement, the new limiter is great (can it be switched off, though?) and the new sounds are lovely.

I am not sure I'll ever use it for anything, though, which is a shame, but it simply doesn't go with the instruments I play (recorder and Native American flutes) and so I am considering selling to "make room" for something else in my studio. The same goes for Tassman 4, Lounge Lizard and Strum Acoustic and Electric, I suppose All those AAS instruments are nice, but I simply don't use them enough to merit keeping them. String Studio and Chromaphone still sees some use, but as I have a tendency for sample libraries these days with more realistic sounds, they'll probably have to go too when I find something to replace the sounds I tend to use from them.

Still, Ultra Analog is a nice-sounding soft synth. I like it, and at the upgrade price it was a steal. If synth music was my main thing, I'd even have considered getting it at the full price if I didn't already have UA 1, and I'd be happy making compositions using nothing else.

Muziksculp · Post by **Muziksculp** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 10:43 am

AAS Ultra Analog 2 sounds good.

But... I give it First Place Award for The Worst Visibility GUI Design for a Virtual Synth.

This is how my eyes look after working with it for 10 minutes

I wonder, what were the AAS GUI designers thinking when they designed this thing ?

The horrible GUI visibility makes it almost unusable for me. Anyways... I have many other VST Synths to choose from, that look and sound a lot better. Hope they do something to improve the GUI's size, and visibility.

Krakatau · Post by **Krakatau** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 11:13 am

Muziksculp wrote:AAS Ultra Analog 2 sounds good.

But... I give it First Place Award for The Worst Visibility GUI Design for a Virtual Synth.

This is how my eyes look after working with it for 10 minutes

I wonder, what were the AAS GUI designers thinking when they designed this thing ?

The horrible GUI visibility makes it almost unusable for me. Anyways... I have many other VST Synths to choose from, that look and sound a lot better. Hope they do something to improve the GUI's size, and visibility.

CORRECTION

I disagree,

on the area of bad visibility Poly-ana Is notoriouly a daunting contenter !

Breeze · Post by **Breeze** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 2:07 pm

Muziksculp wrote:AAS Ultra Analog 2 sounds good.

But... I give it First Place Award for The Worst Visibility GUI Design for a Virtual Synth.

This is how my eyes look after working with it for 10 minutes

I wonder, what were the AAS GUI designers thinking when they designed this thing ?

The horrible GUI visibility makes it almost unusable for me. Anyways... I have many other VST Synths to choose from, that look and sound a lot better. Hope they do something to improve the GUI's size, and visibility.

I agree 100%. I wrote to AAS about it and they it doesn't seem like much of a priority for them. I get the feeling they must be working on large 1080p TV screens. I find the tiny black dots on the "silvered" knob-tops almost impossible to locate on a 2560x1600 screen...

indeed!

windsongstudio · Post by **windsongstudio** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 5:01 pm

I emailed AAS regarding the GUI size. The very prompt and professional reply was "Thanks for your feedback. We are not planning to change the size of the interface at this point as it's just out. ". The product specialist did query me on my monitor size, resolution, etc. I am running a very standard system - nothing out of the ordinary - and with my 50 year old eyes I struggle using the upgrade efficiently. The upgrade price was very reasonable and I love the sound but it won't be a "go to" instrument for me due to the difficulty I have working with the small interface. I hope they consider an update down the road for those of us with "old" eyes.

twolegstoneworks · Post by **twolegstoneworks** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 5:26 pm

windsongstudio wrote:I emailed AAS regarding the GUI size.

Did the same thing. No reply yet, but even on my modest 1680*1050 22" monitors the GUI size is among the smallest in recent years!

Yet I still just bought it..

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 5:40 pm

And yet, the individual pages are noticeably larger than VA1's modules all cramed on the same page...

Breeze · Post by **Breeze** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 6:20 pm

BBFG# wrote:And yet, the individual pages are noticeably larger than VA1's modules all cramed on the same page...

Totally, but VA1 was a pretty much legacy wrt screen size; and size is the main reason I didn't use it much. To come out with new version in 2014 and still use same-sized GUI design is somewhat short-sighted (pun intended).

What I don't get is that if they had brought it to Chromaphone's size it would have been acceptable. In fact their entire lineup except Lounge Lizard uses larger GUI sizes. In LL it's forgivable because it doesn't have a lot of parameters and it's not the kind of machine you spend hours editing on. In UA2, the edit page knob positions, the names and the values are simply hard to read on a bigger screen.

One interesting thing: if I use the W7 magnifier to enlarge the GUI, you can see that a simple 200% multiplication doesn't make it clearer though it does make it more legible. Some small-GUI synths like Glass Viper blow up crystal-clear at the same magnification; I suspect that the images used in UA2 have been reduced from a larger resolution which might explain why they're inherently fuzzy. Again at the very least, they should consider revising the silver cross-hatch pattern on the edit knobs; a plain knob with a clear dot would be much more useful.

Muziksculp · Post by **Muziksculp** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 6:24 pm

Maybe using a Magnifying Glass while editing it, to see what's happening in the GUI is one way to use it.

Since AAS did not reply with some positive feedback regarding improving the GUI design via a future update.

AAS Ultra Analog VA-2