KVR Audio

highkoo · Post by **highkoo** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:13 pm

So, yay.

Pretty great.
A contender.
The cpu use is the only thing keeping this from being the king of the castle, imo.

db3 · Post by **db3** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:29 pm

loungepanda wrote:Tried finding some of the heavier patches to see what load is like on my 4970k (stock 4.0, turbo not on): PD Big Minor Seventh Pad [SN], 2 OSC with 10 Unison on both: 18-19% holding one note.

Not seeing quite that type of load on my mac mini. Nevertheless that patch has every effect slot enabled which would seem a little extreme

Screen Shot.jpg

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:34 pm

highkoo wrote:So, yay.
Pretty great.
A contender.
The cpu use is the only thing keeping this from being the king of the castle, imo.

agreed. i demo'd it on my intel centrino 1.8ghz toshiba tablet test unit. playing a single note of the pads patch"holy place" shot the CPU usage gauge to 42% in savihost.... compared to the miniscule 5% Synth1 registers with a 2 voice unison mode pad!

c_voltage · Post by **c_voltage** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:37 pm

fceramic wrote:Unfortunately it sounds really really cold and modern

I would call it cold, clean and transparent simultaneously. In my opinion it is a wonderful. Let it be an instrument with such sound. (Because there Waldorf for other any great sides of WT).

Gribs · Post by **Gribs** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:39 pm

Does anyone else notice some latency with the ring modulator filter option? If I adjust the filter mix so I can hear the input oscillator, I hear a little flamming.

So far I am enjoying this synth.

TheKid · Post by **TheKid** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:55 pm

I couldn't resist and had to buy the beast. It has been quite a while having that much fun fiddeling with a synth.

Maybe some others can help here: the portamento time is displayed as time value [ms]. It would be helpful to have this value also in bars like the LFO rate. Would that be possible?

djanthonyw · Post by **djanthonyw** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 10:17 pm

Uses very little CPU on my MBP, but I'm not too crazy about the sound. It sounds ok, but just vanilla. I like synths that have character. All the features don't mean much if the sound doesn't stick out. I guess I'll stick with Z3ta for this type of thing, considering Dune 2.

secretkillerofnames · Sun Sep 21, 2014 10:33 pm

fceramic wrote:This synth is a lot of fun to program, so visual and logical. Unfortunately it sounds really really cold and modern like most spectral synths. Was kinda hoping this would be a traditional subtractive wavetable synth like PPG. I also noticed that even the filters seem to be spectral and the filter drive only adds gain - no saturation going on. For a modern wavetable synth I have to say I much prefer the sound of Waldorf Nave, though I'm sure the EDM kids will be all over this for those plastic sounds.

The ease of programming is hugely important to me and this is a very similar synth to Waldorf Nave though the wavetable editing is more flexible and powerful.

I'm curious about your use of the term "subtractive" here. Typically it means creating complex waveforms from a combination of filtering and envelope based amplitude modulation which is entirely possible. As is a more additive approach.

Of course your idea of "cold" VS "warm" is entirely subjective - but there is no reason why you have to use the in built filter and distortion modules if external filtering and saturation provides a "warmer" result. As a sound design tool I think it fits the niche I was looking to fill and i'm at least 20years away from being an EDM kiddy

Deisss · Post by **Deisss** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 10:48 pm

buy it yesterday, alredy a track running it

Uge killer indeed

You cant go wrong at that price right now

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 10:53 pm

You can pick a different wavetable and play with the filter. IMO it doesn't sound as cold and digital as Massive.

DocShay · Post by **DocShay** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 10:55 pm

fceramic wrote:This synth is a lot of fun to program, so visual and logical. Unfortunately it sounds really really cold and modern like most spectral synths. Was kinda hoping this would be a traditional subtractive wavetable synth like PPG. I also noticed that even the filters seem to be spectral and the filter drive only adds gain - no saturation going on. For a modern wavetable synth I have to say I much prefer the sound of Waldorf Nave, though I'm sure the EDM kids will be all over this for those plastic sounds.

My exact thoughts...very powerful wavetable synth but the sound is too clinical/cold, cpu usage is pretty bad also but its fun to program on and the ui is great along with the filters.

TheKid · Post by **TheKid** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:40 pm

Oh man, I almost made a mess in my pants. 1.30 am here, room completely dark, loaded FX Ambiance Evil preset and reduced and increased the reverb size quickly while playing a note and I wondered who was suddenly breathing heavily in my room.

fceramic · Post by **fceramic** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:57 pm

secretkillerofnames wrote: Of course your idea of "cold" VS "warm" is entirely subjective - but there is no reason why you have to use the in built filter and distortion modules if external filtering and saturation provides a "warmer" result. As a sound design tool I think it fits the niche I was looking to fill and i'm at least 20years away from being an EDM kiddy

Well the problem I have with spectral synthesis comes down to the lack of per voice distortion. Feeding a complex additive sound into external effects will not really make it sound less cold. I'm pretty sure that Waldorf Nave used a classic Waldorf filter design that adds a lot of "analog charm" and controls the voice levels. I would love to see Xfer add something similar to that in Serum - an analog style filter with soft clip.

I find these new kind of synths like Loom, Razor, Spectre, Parsec etc. to be really tiring to listen to solo, but they cut through a dense mix like nothing else, so I get their appeal.

hollo · Post by **hollo** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 12:01 am

DocShay wrote:
fceramic wrote:This synth is a lot of fun to program, so visual and logical. Unfortunately it sounds really really cold and modern like most spectral synths. Was kinda hoping this would be a traditional subtractive wavetable synth like PPG. I also noticed that even the filters seem to be spectral and the filter drive only adds gain - no saturation going on. For a modern wavetable synth I have to say I much prefer the sound of Waldorf Nave, though I'm sure the EDM kids will be all over this for those plastic sounds.
My exact thoughts...very powerful wavetable synth but the sound is too clinical/cold, cpu usage is pretty bad also but its fun to program on and the ui is great along with the filters.

You guys likeky missing some voice drift function.
There is Chaos1 & 2, Random note on 1 & 2, just have to fine tune and the clinical sound
turns to analog drift.
I tried before the 20 min runs out, i used 6 mod slot just for the drift so we could possibly
ask Steve to have a Voice Drift preset on Global page in a future update.
Would be better 2 or 3 different preset.

So we can free the matrix a bit and still have some nice drift.
He already promised to work on some Reverb drift/spin in the future.

I also think it's a joy to work with the lovely, brilliant and well thougt out UI.

Cheers,

Joseph

swamiill · Post by **swamiill** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 12:52 am

So, bought Serum.. Love it. However, I can't seem to find the Pitch Bend parameter in the browser for linking to my keyboard, only the Mod Wheel. I'm in FL 11.

Official Serum thread!