Luxonix Purity reduced to $49.00!

[Numanoid]

Purity gets even more tempting now that the price has dropped even further to $39 (until October 31).

But just before succumbing to my GAS, I thought, as I already own WusikStation 7, why would I also need Luxonix Purity ?

[HaganeSteel]

Are you asking to be convinced?

Purity is a bit of an oddball in that it's hard to outright recommend to anyone who doesn't need a 90's rompler.

It has some very characteristic sounds, like Breath Bell, Dist TV 1/2/3 basses, FAT Bass 1-6, Blue Mist, Atlantis, Arco Low, Legato Strings, and Panflute, all of which are really nice.

Those sounds give Purity its own character and make it relevant for today, but they're very pop music/M1 inspired and not for everyone.

But it can't really do anything other synths and samplers can't do.

It does make it very easy to do those things, though. If you know how envelopes, filters, filter envelopes, LFOs and arpeggiators work (and everyone does), you'll know right off the bat how to recreate any of the techniques used to design these presets.

It doesn't replace my Hyper Canvas, but it does add things like a slew of awesome synth sounds, a good church organ and usable strings that are still better than the ones on the Proteus 2000.

Still hate its drums, though. Sorry.

Eventually I'm picking up Miroslav, which will replace Dimension Pro and Edirol Orchestral in my setup, but the Proteus 2000, Hyper Canvas and Purity are staples for me.

Edit: Typoooo.

[Numanoid]

I like the layout, the patches are stackable right?

[BBFG#]

One way to look at is;

If Purity is a Rompler (like the M1)
Then WusikStation is the wavesequencer (like the WaveStation).
However, how many VI's do what WusikStation does and at its level of doing it?

Unfortunately, Purity fails in being 32 bit only. That seems to eventually limit its life span for me.
The sounds seem solid, but nothing grabs me. But to tell you the truth, I wasn't the same type of fan as other people were for the M1 either. My 'romplers' I used in the 90's were Peavey; Emu; Alesis. And the M1 belonged to my wife... After a major buglary, The one keyboard we bought to get us through the next few years was a Korg N5 with a R70 Drum machine (Both of which I still have for sentimental reasons mostly).

What I consider to be my 'romplers' now are Dimension, SampleTank, Aria, and Kontakt. And only one them is 32bit, but that should change shortly. And hopefully will change the libraries of those VIs to be the only one of the IKMs I will use. (Although MSO is the definite maybe of any exception to that).
But Sampletank seems to be the more obvious choice between it and Purity along these lines.

Therefore, Purity, is a non sequitur.
Even at this 'give away price'.

[HaganeSteel]

I like the layout, the patches are stackable right?

Yeah. The combis are really where it shines. That's why mentioning the CPU load is so important.

My only real complaint is that some of the preset banks are only about half filled. There aren't really any combis here that make me go, "Wow, that's a good <insert acoustic instrument here>" like a lot of romplers did back in the 90's.

I said I didn't like its drums, but after having taken a break from all this for the last week or so, I've come back and I like them now. I don't like the preset drumkits, but the drum samples themselves are very usable.

[HaganeSteel]

One way to look at is;

If Purity is a Rompler (like the M1)
Then WusikStation is the wavesequencer (like the WaveStation).
However, how many VI's do what WusikStation does and at its level of doing it?

Unfortunately, Purity fails in being 32 bit only. That seems to eventually limit its life span for me.
The sounds seem solid, but nothing grabs me. But to tell you the truth, I wasn't the same type of fan as other people were for the M1 either. My 'romplers' I used in the 90's were Peavey; Emu; Alesis. And the M1 belonged to my wife... After a major buglary, The one keyboard we bought to get us through the next few years was a Korg N5 with a R70 Drum machine (Both of which I still have for sentimental reasons mostly).

What I consider to be my 'romplers' now are Dimension, SampleTank, Aria, and Kontakt. And only one them is 32bit, but that should change shortly. And hopefully will change the libraries of those VIs to be the only one of the IKMs I will use. (Although MSO is the definite maybe of any exception to that).
But Sampletank seems to be the more obvious choice between it and Purity along these lines.

Therefore, Purity, is a non sequitur.
Even at this 'give away price'.

I think you have a point there.

I'll be honest: Purity is definitely for people who don't want to fight with the instruments you mentioned.

Dimension Pro is still a pain in the ass to use for me. In theory, it really shouldn't be, but it never has the sounds I need, and when it does, I always have to fight them in some way, whether it's sample offset, mixing, or removing silly programming.

I think Garritan Pocket Orchestra bugs me the most about Dimension Pro.

They give you 3+ different flute, oboe, and clarinets, and almost nothing in the way of brass instruments.

It's like, really? Do they not know how/why people use romplers?

It's like, give us a decent bass trombone before giving us woodwind ensembles, please.

It just gives me more than I want, but less than I need.

What's that? I own GPO and can just use it? Shutupthat'snotthepoint!

Even the Hyper Canvas has a decent bass trombone.

SampleTank is really good. I've sort of changed how I feel about it. It's good, and I intend to buy Miroslav, but I still don't like stereo samples and that limits its usefulness for me, I think.

Kontakt and such just require a more powerful computer than I've got.

You can run Purity on a laptop easily without it even breaking a sweat.

But that's really at the cost of sound quality. It's impossible to compare Purity's sound to something like Kontakt because it loses by miles in every regard, I imagine. But it is a lot less expensive.

[Numanoid]

I like the layout, the patches are stackable right?

Yeah. The combis are really where it shines.

That is a big selling point, will think about adding this to my rig.

[HaganeSteel]

I like the layout, the patches are stackable right?

Yeah. The combis are really where it shines.

That is a big selling point, will think about adding this to my rig.

It just takes a lot of programming. Purity's sequencer can make some potentially awesome moving pads, though. Just be prepared to kinda work at it, and the sequencer is not the easiest to understand at first (but it is easy after a little while).

I'd show it off, but every time I think about programming any kind of synth, I die a little inside.

Where is my SC88... oh... there it is... mm... presets... teddy bear...

[BBFG#]

Dimension Pro is still a pain in the ass to use for me. In theory, it really shouldn't be, but it never has the sounds I need, and when it does, I always have to fight them in some way, whether it's sample offset, mixing, or removing silly programming.
I think Garritan Pocket Orchestra bugs me the most about Dimension Pro.
They give you 3+ different flute, oboe, and clarinets, and almost nothing in the way of brass instruments.
It's like, really? Do they not know how/why people use romplers?
It's like, give us a decent bass trombone before giving us woodwind ensembles, please.
It just gives me more than I want, but less than I need.
What's that? I own GPO and can just use it? Shutupthat'snotthepoint!
SampleTank is really good. I've sort of changed how I feel about it. It's good, and I intend to buy Miroslav, but I still don't like stereo samples and that limits its usefulness for me, I think.
Kontakt and such just require a more powerful computer than I've got.
But that's really at the cost of sound quality. It's impossible to compare Purity's sound to something like Kontakt because it loses by miles in every regard, I imagine. But it is a lot less expensive.

Well, my first point was you can't compare WusikStation and Purity really in that they're two different types of processing. However, if given only those two to choose from, it would have to be Wusik V7.
Dimension doesn't do a whole lot for me either. Kontakt, with the library it ships with, may be worse in some ways. And to get good sounds for it means buying things that cost as much as it did. Aria, which is the Garritan player, I suspected wouldn't be any better than the Pocket Orchestra (I agree it just seems to lack much), so I opted for GWI/GIO/GH instead,and GIO gives me much more instant results. Sampletank was something that surprised me since all I wanted was MSO also. Since it will allow me to load the other VI samples in their line into it and the upgrade is not too far off, my hope is that will be the one (layering in it is easier than Dimension, 64bit, and sounds that I do like quite a bit).

If Purity is something they have no plans of for future developement, I can't see it being worth any more than one of HGF's backlist deals. I might consider it @ $19.99?

But you do bring up a good point about it being a no-CPU-hit tool.

[HaganeSteel]

@Numanoid: I did this for you:

https://soundcloud.com/dimensionprotest/purity-combi

This is a Purity preset combi called "Alien Cave", and I added a sound (it's not actually a panflute) to it to demonstrate the kinds of stuff you can do with this:



Notice the only note I'm holding down is A.

The Purity sequencer works thus: You choose a root note, and each of the purple cells represents a 16th note in a 4/4 measure. Each page represents a separate measure, so you have up to 4 measures in 4/4 time to work with.

The "00" means the note plays the root note I chose, which in this case is A3. The +7 means it plays a note 7 semitones above that root note, in this case, E4.

The purple bars represent that note's velocity amount. You can also tweak sounds so that velocity affects filter cutoff too, and many presets do this.

It's really easy to understand.

Well, my first point was you can't compare WusikStation and Purity really in that they're two different types of processing. However, if given only those two to choose from, it would have to be Wusik V7.
Dimension doesn't do a whole lot for me either. Kontakt, with the library it ships with, may be worse in some ways. And to get good sounds for it means buying things that cost as much as it did. Aria, which is the Garritan player, I suspected wouldn't be any better than the Pocket Orchestra (I agree it just seems to lack much), so I opted for GWI/GIO/GH instead,and GIO gives me much more instant results. Sampletank was something that surprised me since all I wanted was MSO also. Since it will allow me to load the other VI samples in their line into it and the upgrade is not too far off, my hope is that will be the one (layering in it is easier than Dimension, 64bit, and sounds that I do like quite a bit).

If Purity is something they have no plans of for future developement, I can't see it being worth any more than one of HGF's backlist deals. I might consider it @ $19.99?

But you do bring up a good point about it being a no-CPU-hit tool.

Yeah, I totally get you.

GPO in general is something I have very mixed feelings towards.

I grew up listening to Miroslav, and so I know how to use it.

GPO kind of turns everything I've been taught upside down, but its special programming doesn't really seem to add much. It just seems to get in the way a little bit since I'm used to doing things a certain way.

Ensemble building is something that also takes a lot of time, a lot of memory, and just feels clunky to me (bear in mind, I'm using GPO 2nd Edition. I'm 2 editions behind).

Pocket Orchestra gives me proper envelopes, and the ability to alter the sample offset, which I like and need, but the samples tend not to be very tame, and it's overall pretty incomplete, so it still isn't very useful to me, sadly.

[tapper mike]

WusicStation is bloatware as far as I'm concerned. A lot of poorly sampled instruments to make up for the fact that the actual recording and editing process was crap.

DimPro for all of it's flaws is my current Goto in-as-far-as keyboard (piano/electric/organ) sounds

Wallender wivi has the most realistic brass and woodwind sounds (IMO)Though high priced/

In as far as wave sequencing vector synthesis.....KLC wavestation is all that and more.

To Purity's credit though they do have some nice combi's It would be nicer if they had more. Sorry but for pure volume of combi's presets M1 puts it to shame.

[BBFG#]

They're all bloatware until I sit down and decide what I think their best use is for me. WusikStation and WaveStation do have a different sound character to me though, and as much as I'm liking WusikV7 better ATM, I can't see it as being a replacement to KWS. WSV7 has some libraries that get most of my interest in it right now though, HGFortune, ArtVera, WestGate.

If KWS could do the things WSV7 could, I might reconsider, but since it's nowhere as close in abilities as WusikSV7, but still has it's own signature sound, I'll keep KWS around as well as WSV7.

I feel Purity is in a different set of players than either one of those.
With the shortlist being SampleTank, Dimension, Purity as the real ones as a group to compare.

[HaganeSteel]

I feel Purity is in a different set of players than either one of those.
With the shortlist being SampleTank, Dimension, Purity as the real ones as a group to compare.

Even then, it's hard to compare Purity to Dimension. Dimension sounds better, but Purity has more character and has a more limited, but also more complete soundset.

Dimension Pro has 4-5 flutes, none of them very usable. Purity has 1 good flute. Purity's flute has this harsh breath noise to it, but it seems like the harshness can be removed with a LP filter, which is built into the preset.

It's harder to fix Dimension Pro's numerous problems because its sample content is just shoddy.

Purity also has a smaller, less professional and processed sound, but it also requires less work to sound good.

Purity's sounds are much more dynamic and flexible. To use an earlier analogy by you, BBFG#, Dimension Pro sounds like a photograph of higher-end sample libraries, in that it sounds good, but it's not very flexible, and can only be used in a very specific way.

Dimension Pro is suited for TV scoring, and the very bland, static musical style that goes along with it. That is, it's suited to a musical style that emphasizes timbre over melody.

Purity is for fun. It's for beginners, or for people like me, who go up to indie game devs and say, "I have this retro sound you'll like."

SampleTank, I feel, fits somewhere in between them.

I don't think Purity sounds as good as SampleTank, but I do have to say that SampleTank has some excellently edited samples.

Of all of them, SampleTank seems the most usable, but Purity is more "synth" than SampleTank is.

Edit: Typooooos.

[tapper mike]

The more I play with sampled libraries which I used to love...The more I think physical modelling is the way to go.

[HaganeSteel]

The more I play with sampled libraries which I used to love...The more I think physical modelling is the way to go.

Me too!

You are not the only one thinking that.

It's about whatever's more usable to me, and nothing screams "unusable pile of crap" like jarring sample transitions, samples with attacks that are too slow, etc.

Of course, all of my problems would be solved if I just owned an SC88VL instead of the SC88 Pro wannabe that I currently use because the Hyper Canvas has bad strings, and that is a huge chink in its otherwise flawless armor. SC88VL has older, but better strings.