Heartbeat by Softube Released

[Hans25]

don't deny that all the parameters are exposed, it is just the busyness of it and the inconsistent faux rack look. I know some people like that sort of thing though.

I'm afraid you are talking to somebody who thinks Valhalla's interfaces are superb. If you want something a bit more arty, then recent Native Instruments interfaces - Battery 4 or Replika.

I really could not sit and look at Heartbeat's interface, but each to their own - I'm sure its designer loves it

Ok well taste is just different and people are different. Isn't that wonderful . It's very strange what you mention as negative things for you is positive for me. I like the realistic look of it. My mind get's more inspiring when looking at something that actually looks real instead of an ugly minimalistic GUI. It's not that I don't like simple looking VSTs if they are well layed out. A plugin doesn't become better with flashing lights and colors. But some synths are just plain ugly. You wonder why they didn't spend just more than 2 minutes designing them.

I just took a look at Valhalla's webpage. I don't like that. I like the simplicty and that they are well layed out but I don't like the look of the button and the colors. They look like 10 year old plugins. Look at Fabfilter's plugins. They look fantastic and at the same time everything is visible, clear and perfectly layed out.
New Sonic Art's plugins have also a fantastic workflow while looking simplistic yet very good.

Anyway of course the sound quality/functionality is the most important .

[dformd]

watched some Youtube video of this beast. Correct me if i am wrong that heartbeat doesn't have a built-in sequencer. If so, I'll stick with Punch.

No it does'nt have one.

For me that's a plus. I don't use them and they are often just annoying because you have to turn the sequencer of when you just want the sounds to play midi-notes in your host sequencer.

+1

[Robmobius]

watched some Youtube video of this beast. Correct me if i am wrong that heartbeat doesn't have a built-in sequencer. If so, I'll stick with Punch.

No it does'nt have one.

For me that's a plus. I don't use them and they are often just annoying because you have to turn the sequencer of when you just want the sounds to play midi-notes in your host sequencer.

Same here... I enjoy just cranking the sounds out and making the beats. Sometimes I feel more constrained if I have to work within a Vst's sequencer.

[lnikj]

don't deny that all the parameters are exposed, it is just the busyness of it and the inconsistent faux rack look. I know some people like that sort of thing though.

I'm afraid you are talking to somebody who thinks Valhalla's interfaces are superb. If you want something a bit more arty, then recent Native Instruments interfaces - Battery 4 or Replika.

I really could not sit and look at Heartbeat's interface, but each to their own - I'm sure its designer loves it

Ok well taste is just different and people are different. Isn't that wonderful . It's very strange what you mention as negative things for you is positive for me. I like the realistic look of it. My mind get's more inspiring when looking at something that actually looks real instead of an ugly minimalistic GUI. It's not that I don't like simple looking VSTs if they are well layed out. A plugin doesn't become better with flashing lights and colors. But some synths are just plain ugly. You wonder why they didn't spend just more than 2 minutes designing them.

I just took a look at Valhalla's webpage. I don't like that. I like the simplicty and that they are well layed out but I don't like the look of the button and the colors. They look like 10 year old plugins. Look at Fabfilter's plugins. They look fantastic and at the same time everything is visible, clear and perfectly layed out.
New Sonic Art's plugins have also a fantastic workflow while looking simplistic yet very good.

Anyway of course the sound quality/functionality is the most important .

I'm with you on Fabfilter and New Sonic Arts.

Unless you are going to tell me the plugin, which I have not installed, looks completely different to the hi-res screenshot on the website, then my major problem with the interface of Heartbeat is the inconsistency. The Auto Layer Machine does not look in any way like a real instrument, but the worse thing is the lighting effect coming in from the top right corner on the drum rack and from the right on the reverb. Why doesn't the rest of the interface have a lighting effect? I didn't know that the sun or other lighting source could illuminate just parts of a rack and not others, and from different angles too

It is also badly done - the gradient from light to dark is made too extreme by the fact that the light is too light. It makes the text hard to read - look at the lettering on 'SDCLP' - I can barely make out the SD, could be '80'. The brightness of the top right corner of the cymbal and percussion is horrible.

On the reverb the gradient is not smooth with a major shift in between the third and fourth slider, yet mysteriously, a brighter patch between the first and second sliders, and a darker patch either side of the sixth slider. Maybe the latter is supposed to represent finger grease that has rubbed off on the metal? As for the volume knob, well that looks like it was taken through a weddding photographer's soft focus filter.

Sorry, but it is all just a total mess to my eyes! I am sure it sounds wonderful though.

[zerocrossing]

watched some Youtube video of this beast. Correct me if i am wrong that heartbeat doesn't have a built-in sequencer. If so, I'll stick with Punch.

No it does'nt have one.

For me that's a plus. I don't use them and they are often just annoying because you have to turn the sequencer of when you just want the sounds to play midi-notes in your host sequencer.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I never quite get the reasoning for a built in sequencer in a drum program unless, like Axiom or Tremor they bring something interesting to the table. Oh yeah, Stylus RMX has some fun tricks too. But you're drum plug ins that have a basic x0x style sequencer... I don't see the point unless it's tied to a hardware controller.

[Lotuzia]

watched some Youtube video of this beast. Correct me if i am wrong that heartbeat doesn't have a built-in sequencer. If so, I'll stick with Punch.

No it does'nt have one.

For me that's a plus. I don't use them and they are often just annoying because you have to turn the sequencer of when you just want the sounds to play midi-notes in your host sequencer.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I never quite get the reasoning for a built in sequencer in a drum program unless, like Axiom or Tremor they bring something interesting to the table. Oh yeah, Stylus RMX has some fun tricks too. But you're drum plug ins that have a basic x0x style sequencer... I don't see the point unless it's tied to a hardware controller.

+1. Built in sequencers in drum machines should offer things that are impossible, and/or at least difficult/cumbersome to achieve within the regular Daw drum edits. It's not that difficult btw. Some already propose such capabilities like Axiom, Microtonic, etc.

[deastman]

I'm with you on Fabfilter and New Sonic Arts.

Unless you are going to tell me the plugin, which I have not installed, looks completely different to the hi-res screenshot on the website, then my major problem with the interface of Heartbeat is the inconsistency. The Auto Layer Machine does not look in any way like a real instrument, but the worse thing is the lighting effect coming in from the top right corner on the drum rack and from the right on the reverb. Why doesn't the rest of the interface have a lighting effect? I didn't know that the sun or other lighting source could illuminate just parts of a rack and not others, and from different angles too

It is also badly done - the gradient from light to dark is made too extreme by the fact that the light is too light. It makes the text hard to read - look at the lettering on 'SDCLP' - I can barely make out the SD, could be '80'. The brightness of the top right corner of the cymbal and percussion is horrible.

On the reverb the gradient is not smooth with a major shift in between the third and fourth slider, yet mysteriously, a brighter patch between the first and second sliders, and a darker patch either side of the sixth slider. Maybe the latter is supposed to represent finger grease that has rubbed off on the metal? As for the volume knob, well that looks like it was taken through a weddding photographer's soft focus filter.

Sorry, but it is all just a total mess to my eyes! I am sure it sounds wonderful though.

I think you're overthinking this. The lighting is fairly consistent, in the sense that the shadows on the controls are all going straight down. The other parts which you visually read as inconsistent lighting could also be blurry reflections in the metallic surfaces of the panels. Metal surfaces are primarily defined by their reflections. I do have to agree that the various regions are not rendered with a consistent level of realism, but it isn't as horrible as you're making it out to be. Also, it is entirely possible for different lights to catch some details but not others, depending on angle and position, not to mention barn doors, flags, bounce cards, etc. that would have been used if this had been a real live product shot.

Aside from all of that... Heartbeat sounds amazing!

[lnikj]

The knob shadows are going straight down yet the light is coming in on a diagonal on the drum rack and horizontally on the reverb. Consistent ??

I know your game... you're just trying to make me spend even more time looking at it !

Don't even get me started on the fonts and the drop shadowed 'HEART' and bevelled 'BEAT' ....

[Hans25]

The knob shadows are going straight down yet the light is coming in on a diagonal on the drum rack and horizontally on the reverb. Consistent ??

I know your game... you're just trying to make me spend even more time looking at it !

Don't even get me started on the fonts and the drop shadowed 'HEART' and embossed 'BEAT' ....

I don't understand why you even want to spend time looking at the font the below right corner where there is nothing of interest. Who cares (obviously you do) about that? I didn't even remember the name was there. What does it matter? If this was a graphical design course you were attending I'm sure some of the audience would applause you for your observations but as I see it this is of no interest for the regular musician using this plugin. Maybe some of the shadows are at a slightly wrong angle and maybe the light could have been sligtly different but this is something that's of the puny.

They have spent a lot of time to get the gui look good and I think that it's well layed out.

I think this is the first drum machine I have ever felt just looked right and had the right controls in the right places and at the same time was very easy to program and sounded terrific. All other drum plugins I have lack in some of these areas.

And then you like Valhalla design? They are plain ugly in my opinion - sorry to say that.

Is this obsession with the GUI details some kind of OCD you have or something? .... just kiddin'....

[lnikj]

Is this obsession with the GUI details some kind of OCD you have or something? .... just kiddin'....

It's alright It's not OCD as such, I'm an Aspie.

I was just trying to respond to you and deastman and explain what I don't like about it, but I fully accept that I am in a minority

As to Valhalla, I know that many people don't like them either. A bit like Marmite! Sparser interfaces will become more prevalent though over time as devs make the move to vector graphics. FXpansion are doing a fairly good job though with the vectorised Strobe 2 interface.

[Hans25]

Ok sorry about that. It wasn't my intention to suggest anything seriously. It was just ment as a joke - but you figured I can see . You have to be a little special to stay around this forum.

I see your point about vector graphics. Audio software will just be so easy to rescale and change. And there's nothing wrong with being a minority. No right or wrong especially about plugin taste . For example I would be happy to join a pool party where the maximum female age was 30 and I was a part of a very small male minority .

[zerocrossing]

As a UI designer, I'll chime in and agree that the UI isn't very good. I'm all for skeuomorphism, but it should never, ever interfere with clarity as it does in a number of places on the Heartbeat UI.

Also, it's doing some odd thing where instead of using color and grouping to suggest groups of like or related functions, it's changing the UI style. I get why they're doing this. They want to suggest a sort of "Frankenrack" made of different bits from different machines/synths. It sounds OK on paper but doesn't really work out because of the layout and design choices. There might be a way to more effectively suggest differences in sound generation style in a better way than what they came up with... maybe if they made it look more like a modular synth rack or mixing board (desk to my friends across the pond).

It's not horrible though. Seems simple enough to get used to after a bit. I've not downloaded the demo yet (I'm going by screen shots and their demo tracks) but what I've heard sounds good. My only question would be, is it better or different than what I have in any way? It's fairly high cost suggests it had better be, at least if they want this man's money.

[Hans25]

It's not horrible though. Seems simple enough to get used to after a bit. I've not downloaded the demo yet (I'm going by screen shots and their demo tracks) but what I've heard sounds good. My only question would be, is it better or different than what I have in any way? It's fairly high cost suggests it had better be, at least if they want this man's money.

You are just jealous because of the gorgeous looking interface . Just kiddin' (once again). The GUI has some different styles but I think that all in all it fits together in my humble non-interface-designer opinion. Maybe they can change the drop shadows/gradients in an upcomming update. In the mean time please go and tell the guys from Sylenth1 to improve their GUI .

And then:
What if I tell you that you can actually go to bestservice and (because you are outside Europe) get it for €149 * 0,81 (VAT removed) * 1,09 (exchange rate) = $133,55
http://www.bestservice.de/en/heartbeat.html

Now that isn't so bad is it? .

[zerocrossing]

It's not horrible though. Seems simple enough to get used to after a bit. I've not downloaded the demo yet (I'm going by screen shots and their demo tracks) but what I've heard sounds good. My only question would be, is it better or different than what I have in any way? It's fairly high cost suggests it had better be, at least if they want this man's money.

You are just jealous because of the gorgeous looking interface . Just kiddin' (once again). The GUI has some different styles but I think that all in all it fits together in my humble non-interface-designer opinion. Maybe they can change the drop shadows/gradients in an upcomming update. In the mean time please go and tell the guys from Sylenth1 to improve their GUI .

And then:
What if I tell you that you can actually go to bestservice and (because you are outside Europe) get it for €149 * 0,81 (VAT removed) * 1,09 (exchange rate) = $133,55
http://www.bestservice.de/en/heartbeat.html

Now that isn't so bad is it? .

No, that does not seem like a bad price at all, but I can't just willy nilly buy everything that's a fair price. I still have to demo it to make sure it's a unique enough, or has breakthrough levels of quality that's worth spending money on. I've cut off my allowance for such things to force me to clean out gear that's collecting dust and taking up space in my world and give myself more reason to dig into what I have on a deeper level. If I dig it enough, it'll force me to finally put my 3 MOTU 828s up on eBay... though, I have to say that Obscurium is first on the list of things to get. That's another story...

[Hans25]

No, that does not seem like a bad price at all, but I can't just willy nilly buy everything that's a fair price. I still have to demo it to make sure it's a unique enough, or has breakthrough levels of quality that's worth spending money on. I've cut off my allowance for such things to force me to clean out gear that's collecting dust and taking up space in my world and give myself more reason to dig into what I have on a deeper level. If I dig it enough, it'll force me to finally put my 3 MOTU 828s up on eBay... though, I have to say that Obscurium is first on the list of things to get. That's another story...

Of course one should not just buy every plugin just because it's there. That's up to you to judge. But you get a fully functional demo so no harm done in investigating it except that it needs physical I-lok to demo also.

But thanks for letting me give you that hint anyway .