One Synth Challenge #72: Eclipsis by VSTZONE (Richard Semper Wins!)

[doctorbob]

Seems like we all need to use our DAW's "freeze" option to render an audio stem from an Eclipsis track and then mute that original track. I found that in REAPER taking that instance of Eclipsis "offline" (even when the track was MUTE) seemed to help - i.e. even having the VSTi loaded could cause some issues(memory use I guess) - also patch dependent as well it seems.

My workflow these days with OSC is to always freeze down a track once I am more or less happy with it without any additional FX (ie no EQ, verb, comp etc). I apply the track FX to the audio stem track for mixing into the song. I keep the original track loaded in case I need to go back and make changes to the patch etc to better "fit" the particular sound into the overall mix - a process of iteration!

At least I know with my meagre PC I can mix around 100 audio tracks with FX without too much issue (using BUSS tracks etc for room verbs etc), so more than enough once I freeze down MIDI+VSTi to audio stems.

OK, it's a bit of a hassle to sometimes go back and "fix up" a MIDI+VSTi track - but if you get it more or less right, you probably won't need to do that too often!

Hope this view of my workflow helps somebody get their track done. Most, if not all DAWs, have a freeze or render to stem option for a track.

dB

[RichardSemper]

Here's my entry:-
https://soundcloud.com/richard-semper/r ... t-eclipsis
no of instances of Eclipsis - 15 (had to bounce some tracks to save cpu).
All patches designed from scratch except closed hat - thanks to Animehaus!
Used lots of automation of various synth parameters

DAW Cubase 7.5

Daw Fx used -
7x StudioEQ
3x RoomWorks SE
2x Limiter

Third Party Fx -
2x TAL-Reverb-3

used Voxengo SPAN spectral analyser.
DR=9

Had lots of fun with this synth, especially creating multi-layered rhythmic patches. Hope you enjoy.

[Reefius]

Awesome track Richard, really love all the sounds!

[Mojo42]

@Crimsonwarlock: Do you mean with "freeze" to mute the instances?

In cubase there is an option in the inspector to 'freeze' the track - the icon looks like a snowflake. What it does is creates an audio file in the background and disables the instrument from further editing (until you use the same icon to 'un-freeze') So you can still hear the sounds on playback, and you can still edit things like volume and eq etc.

That`s the rescue . I found the snowflake. I freezed 5 instances and now everything is fine again. CPU usage is on 50% despite using an Arp patch by you. Okay I would like to add more, now we have to see how far I can come, but I guess I will have a chance now with all this great tipps I didn`t know this freeze option until now but that`s really great!!!! Yep OSC is for learning

Your Song: Just great, exactly my taste. Makes me just more sure that I haven`t got the smallest chance to win something of this nice prizes here, but I don`t mind, because I have won already something which is way more precious for me: Knowledge

Thanks!!!!
Yvonne

[urlwolf]

Thanks all for the patches and explanations.
One thing I don't understand is the shaper. What are x, x2 and x3?
The entire modulator on the filter is doing filter FM, right?... which is something I've never experienced.

[RichardSemper]

That`s the rescue . I found the snowflake. I freezed 5 instances and now everything is fine again. CPU usage is on 50% despite using an Arp patch by you. Okay I would like to add more, now we have to see how far I can come, but I guess I will have a chance now with all this great tipps I didn`t know this freeze option until now but that`s really great!!!! Yep OSC is for learning

you're welcome, glad i could help, and pleased you like the tune

and yes, for me also OSC is about having fun learning, trying new things, experimenting and sharing with a great community

@Reefius - thanks, glad you like it

[tatanka]

I am glad at least my forename will win a prize

Richard, thats by far the coolest song I have heard in the contest. Time here for me is unfortunately spare but your song is a real highlight, really love it. And I hope, sometime, with more time I can come back and ask you about "automation of various synth parameters" (I am glad if I can do volume automation of the track and - sigh - fade out....).

Really enjoy your song, hope I find the time for more in detailed comments till the end, if I had known what I would have to expect here I would have never find the courage, but now I just enjoy it to be all part of it

Kind regards,

.......(you know who )

[Mojo42]

I am glad at least my forename will win a prize

Yeah man, you are a lucky one. I won`t have that pleasure I`m afraid.

Richard, thats by far the coolest song I have heard in the contest. Time here for me is unfortunately spare but your song is a real highlight, really love it. And I hope, sometime, with more time I can come back and ask you about "automation of various synth parameters" (I am glad if I can do volume automation of the track and - sigh - fade out....).

Really enjoy your song, hope I find the time for more in detailed comments till the end, if I had known what I would have to expect here I would have never find the courage, but now I just enjoy it to be all part of it

Well, that`s really intresting. If I play some psychedelic grooves you always just say: "Hm, nice, beautiful sounds........." and such

I`m just kidding

@RichardSemper: My perfect world lasts until instance 13. That is where I am now and new problems came up. VST brigdes are intermittent and such. I`m afraid that I have to come to an end with my track soon. My PC already takes ages for some operations. Export groups to audio is my next step for to be able to go onward at all and then I try to find an end with this song because I`m at the limit now, but it`s okay because the song length is more than enough and I could realized at least the most of what I wanted to try here. Concerning your Arps: Unfortunately I just can "afford" 2 of them, but that`s also okay. At least I have got 2 of them at all. Just a couple of hours ago it seemed that I will have to work with just a few instances and so I`m happy and satisfied with the progress so far.

[Mojo42]

Hm some very strange and funny things happen here now. Cubase developed an own will and makes what it wishes. Cubase decides now which instance is muted (it simply happens without that I have done anything) and which cannot be muted at all and the funniest thing until now was that I opened up my project file and then I listened sounds from earlier instances (I had deleted in the meantime) on instances with my actual sounds but my actual sounds were gone (fortunately I save often so this was no big problem). But hey, this opens up completely new dimensions of composing: Simply let Cubase decides what to do with your song

It`s a bit Poltergeist atmosphere here now, but I hope that I can convince Cubase from the fact that I`m the composer here. We will see. At the moment I shut down the program, I open it up, I shut it down, I open it up again and so on. That`s the only way to get onward just a little step at least. By the way: I can`t shut down Cubase on the normal way anymore. I always have to open up the task manager and stop the Cubase process manually. Someone else recognized this Poltergeist phenomenon until now? I hope that I haven`t got a virus *ugh*.

But the good news: Only just a few bars and then I will be finished

[z.prime]

Sorry there are a bunch of problems with this... I just got to playing around with this synth on my windows box. I can see the count will be very limited on my machine, here. Eek. This calls for NOT 50+ instances of stuff this month... these presets are very nice, too. But alas, I can't really use 'em.

Does anyone know how to stop the velocity sensitivity on the filters? Or assign keytrack to other things?

[z.prime]

Hm some very strange and funny things happen here now. Cubase developed an own will and makes what it wishes. Cubase decides now which instance is muted

Ehhh... similar thing here, got up to 10 instances and BAM!, the GUI doesn't load properly anymore. Even have Eclipsis split to separate processes for each instance (nice work, Bitwig!). But still no dice. Any suggestions?

[RichardSemper]

Hm some very strange and funny things happen here now. Cubase developed an own will and makes what it wishes. Cubase decides now which instance is muted (it simply happens without that I have done anything) and which cannot be muted at all

I don't know which version of cubase you are using but in 7.5 i have found the same happens when i've saved a file with some tracks muted or soloed. unmuting or soloing some tracks then has no effect when reloaded - until i found the global mute and solo controls on the toolbar which resets the mute state of all the tracks - this seemed to fix it.
Also, since saving files with 10 or more instances of eclipsis any attempt to load the file from scratch in cubase causes a crash. However, if i load another file first, close the file then open the one with 10 or more it seems to work fine. i have not so far had shut down problems.
Whenever i load an instance of eclipsis it causes a power spike, same happens when changing patches, or turning one of the oscillators up from zero (i avoided setting to zero in automations for this reason - used 1 as the lowest setting), maybe this has something to do with it.

[RichardSemper]

Sorry there are a bunch of problems with this... I just got to playing around with this synth on my windows box. I can see the count will be very limited on my machine, here. Eek. This calls for NOT 50+ instances of stuff this month... these presets are very nice, too. But alas, I can't really use 'em.

Does anyone know how to stop the velocity sensitivity on the filters? Or assign keytrack to other things?

afaik there is no way to adjust the behaviour of the velocity or keytrack (would be nice to see it in mod matrix). Pitch and modwheel don't work either.

[Mojo42]

Hm some very strange and funny things happen here now. Cubase developed an own will and makes what it wishes. Cubase decides now which instance is muted

Ehhh... similar thing here, got up to 10 instances and BAM!, the GUI doesn't load properly anymore. Even have Eclipsis split to separate processes for each instance (nice work, Bitwig!). But still no dice. Any suggestions?

Suicide?

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh

Hm some very strange and funny things happen here now. Cubase developed an own will and makes what it wishes. Cubase decides now which instance is muted (it simply happens without that I have done anything) and which cannot be muted at all

I don't know which version of cubase you are using but in 7.5 i have found the same happens when i've saved a file with some tracks muted or soloed. unmuting or soloing some tracks then has no effect when reloaded - until i found the global mute and solo controls on the toolbar which resets the mute state of all the tracks - this seemed to fix it.
Also, since saving files with 10 or more instances of eclipsis any attempt to load the file from scratch in cubase causes a crash. However, if i load another file first, close the file then open the one with 10 or more it seems to work fine. i have not so far had shut down problems.
Whenever i load an instance of eclipsis it causes a power spike, same happens when changing patches, or turning one of the oscillators up from zero (i avoided setting to zero in automations for this reason - used 1 as the lowest setting), maybe this has something to do with it.

I use Cubase Elements 7. The global solo controls didn`t help in my case. I removed 2 instances, freezed simply all, but the result was still that your both Arps got muted by Cubase whenever it liked to mute them. I tried to export my song to audio and even on the wave file your Arps are partially muted. So there is probably also no use in trying to export your Arps to audio. Apart from that Cubase crashes now at each opportunity. It is enough to make it crash, when I try to delete an instance. I`m afraid it will be better to recognize that minimalism is the way to get this song at least finished anyhow. I haven`t got the time to deal with such massive problems hour for hour.

I have to work the next 5 days nightshift and there is absolutely no offtime and then the month is almost over. The last thing I could try is to use my laptop instead of my PC. It is a little bit better than my PC. It is maybe this little bit I need now, but when the same sh*t happens there.....

Fortunately I have got a nice lead melody and this will carry the song. I guess. But thanks for your constantly support

The main thing is a song in the end. This is not the time for making big leaps. That`s my conclusion after this very long night almost only struggling with Cubase.

[Mojo42]

The news: I`m at work now, have got a little bit offtime and tried to play my track on my laptop. I have got exactly the same problems!!! Laptop and PC both are Windows 7. I also can`t shut down Cubase on my laptop without the task manager and also both Arps of Richard Semper got mutet at exactly the same positions as it happened on my PC.

So it seems that we are seeing here typical problems concerning the combination: Cubase Elements 7, Windows 7 and Eclipsis. Two different PC`s = same problems. On the plus side: Until now Cubase didn`t crashes at least on my laptop but I just had 15 minutes here and maybe this will come later.

I presented Tatanka my wip song and he said that less would be anyway more at this kind of song and I also think that it will work with less presets. I have to put off the both Arps by Richard Semper and then I have to look and see what else I still can do with this song, but I will make it finished! Anyhow!!
Amen