Sugar Bytes - Obscurium

[VariKusBrainZ]

Is this multitouch?
The modifiers page is crying out for multifinger tweakery.

[zerocrossing]

Finally had the time to sit down with this for a bit. I'm really impressed. I still don't quite understand the criticism of the sound engine. Sounds fine to me and seems to complement the style of sequencer/arpeggiator well. I don't think I'd want a sound that was really complex when dealing with a modulation system like this one anyway. I'll definitely buy this one.

[Orbit-50]

I had to try it out and honestly, if I, out of nowhere, decided to start producing atonal wankery, then this would be for me. Other than that, all I get from it is dark techno chord weirdness and Sci-Fi sounding sequences. Not that that's the worst thing in the world, but this is definitely not for me. Great job on the GUI though. Totally awesome looking and totally awesome workflow. I swear I wish I could use this, but the whole not being able to use actual scales, puts me off.






Disclaimer: If I find out that you can actually program multiple chords and melodies in a specific key, I will fix this post to say, "this is the best plugin ever made" and I will buy it within no longer than 10 minutes after that revelation. That's a promise!

.-.

[Daags]

Well what I see in this thread is that users complain about the inbuilt synth capabilites of Obscurium.

Then I see Thesys for sale at €35 in the sales forum.

And then start to think if I could get some of the same functions for a lot less of the price

heh, well, they share some space in the venn diagram of sequencing ... but you'd have a much better chance substituting Obscurium in place of Thesys than you would the other way around

Thesys is great though, a tremendous bargain at 35euro.

as far as the inbuilt synth of Obscurium goes - well, I'm not appalled by it. It's fine, but I'm interested in the sequencing functions. I own all the sugarbytes sequencers and I don't use the inbuilt synths of any of them though - not because they're bad, but because I own other synths I'd rather use. I suspect the inbuilt synths are more 'placeholder' synths... well, at least that's what they are for me in theory - a handy way for hearing how a sequence sounds without leaving the plugin.

For my uses it needs to prioritise sequencing other gear/plugs first and foremost. If I'm locked in to the inbuilt sounds, they had better be superb.

ymmv.

My most major feature request would be lengthening the clock to 16 bars, or even much further. It pains me in Numerology that you have to jump through hoops to drone.

I'm not much into plinkety plonkety stuff, more slowly evolving stuff.

Second on the list would be 'scenes'/a pattern sequencer, like in just about any drum machine.

+1

[Hans25]

...whereas the reality is that this feels like an alpha software release at times.

Yeah just to state (not to mock) that the crash i experienced was with Dune 64-bit vs. Obscurium 64-bit. So this is not just 32-bit vs. 64-bit incompability.
But he told me he would fix it right away. Can't ask for more I guess.

[Ah_Dziz]

I had to try it out and honestly, if I, out of nowhere, decided to start producing atonal wankery, then this would be for me. Other than that, all I get from it is dark techno chord weirdness and Sci-Fi sounding sequences. Not that that's the worst thing in the world, but this is definitely not for me. Great job on the GUI though. Totally awesome looking and totally awesome workflow. I swear I wish I could use this, but the whole not being able to use actual scales, puts me off.






Disclaimer: If I find out that you can actually program multiple chords and melodies in a specific key, I will fix this post to say, "this is the best plugin ever made" and I will buy it within no longer than 10 minutes after that revelation. That's a promise!

.-.

I watched a couple of the videos and it seemed to me that the entire sequencer is based around playing in scales. Is there something I'm missing? I'm genuinely interested in its shortcomings in this regard. I'll be demoing it after I catch up all my deadlines, but I think this think look pretty rad so I'm trying to find out as much as possible.

[Ah_Dziz]

Does this thing has an effect section on its output? That could also be applied to a hosted instrument? It doesn't really sound like it and I'm thinking that that might have something to do with how bummed out everyone seems about the onboard synth. I'm interested in running some morphing samples in alchemy through here. Also doing some semi random sequencing with the semi randomness of synplant should be fun.

Also, what's the CPU hit on a modern workstation like?

[profdraper]

Stereo only. Really should have multi-out capability.

[Ah_Dziz]

I was able to demo it for a few minutes earlier. It's quite different from the sequencers I've used in the past but the odd way the sequencer behaves makes it nice for getting odd sequences and sounds. The onboard synth is pretty sparse but sounds fine for what it is and has a morphable sequencer for every parameter so it can be way more impressive than if you were simply playing a simple patch where you could only realistically use a few controls at once. The sequence rotation is where the fun really starts for me. You can leave the pitch parameters out of the rotation to keep things a bit more predictable. Then all of these things are doubled along with everything in between by the use of the morph knob. Also the different playback modes and clock options allow for some pretty crazy rhythmic shenanigans. After the first couple times I timed out, I loaded bazille into it, assigned some filter settings, glide time and the decay/ release of an envelope I had shared between the filter and amp and I had some pretty crazy stuff happening in no time.

This isn't to say that there aren't plenty of things that would make this thing much better. A couple more LFOs and am extra envelope or two would go a long way. I would also love to see a compressor and maybe some distortion tacked onto the effects or maybe a couple switchable fx slots like turnado has that could be included in the sequencer.

All in all I would consider it more of a performance tool than a standard sequencer. I was able to come up with gestures on the parameter rotator that were whole new sequences and that I could play live predictably. I wouldn't suggest it if you just want a normal pattern based sequencer for dropping funky synth lines with, but if you want to be able to play wild solo lines with tons more parameters moving around than you could possibly control with conventional midi controllers then this will let you do it. I'll be buying it at my nearest convenience for sure.


Sorry for the extra long post. I was way more excited about this thing than I thought.

PS the CPU usage is negligible on my 3930k in cubase. The cup only got a bit nutty when I was sequencing bazille.

[UncleAge]

The more I play with it the less it reminds me of Thesys and the more it reminds me of a synth like Kinisis with a chord/arp sequencer strapped to it. I still want to try out the midi out with the cc values and I think that it would kick ass if those values and the midi notes could be midi-channel-assignable as well. But the real charm I think is just the different view of sequencing the aspects of the synth via this motion graph.

In that regard I think the folk over at Sugar Bytes really think outside the box a bit. When I look at how you modulate/sequence the different parts of Obscurium and Cyclops I just have to tip my hat in admiration for their approach to ITB synths. The way the gui is integral to programming the synth is a treat, imo.

My only gripe is I wish I liked the range of sounds that I got out of the synths a bit more. I'm not saying its bad. It's just not what I'm looking for mostly. It must also be said that getting away from the presets and rolling your own stuff is where the real story is, imo. I must say that I've owned quite a few Sugar Bytes plugs over the years and while I like the plugins I'm not a fan of the presets. I rarely find more than a few that are useful. I go thru the lot when I try it out for the first time and then I don't really revisit them. They are good for getting you familar with how the plugin works but that's about it.

And I'm probably still going to buy it

[synzh]

Might also be more interesting if they provided more chord tables with a future update, say, themed ones or progressions instead of leaping all over the place

[edit] maybe I'm not understanding it well enough, it looks like the chords are based on the scale you choose, and you can choose which chord to play from the sequencer (as well as the pitch offset); so the "jumping around" I mention above is being generated from the sequencer, not the chord table. For anyone interested, here is the info from the manual on the chord tables:

The chord table picks notes from the selected scale and stacks them to a chord. One chord table consists of 24 chords.
A chord table contains 24 variations. The CHORD motion lane will select any one of the 24 chords available.
The 54 chords table is taken from our MIDI Sequencer Thesys and contains, yep, 54 chords.
The chord is based on the root note. The root note is the lowest note on the keyboard, plus the Pitch sequencer value.

[republik]

@Sugar Bytes - Rico


can you comment on using the plugin to send midi CC data ?

Implementing Midi CC assignment page right now, on the General page.
Should make it into the first update

Great! Is it possible to control the triggers (steps on / off) and motion lane parameters via VST automation? It would be amazing to actually program Obscurium patterns from an external device (like Ableton Push).

[aMUSEd]

What is the scales support like?

[V0RT3X]

I wonder how this sounds being run through 2Caudios Kaleidoscope.

[Daags]

I wonder how this sounds being run through 2Caudios Kaleidoscope.

like any other synth being run through 2caudios Kaleidoscope.