KVR Audio

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 12:10 am

Hey guys, just a quick heads up that I've temporarily removed Strobe 2 and Upgrades from the site. I'll put them back up as soon as FXpansion makes the official announcement about it. Until then, let's just keep all the details between ourselves, shall we?

Everyone who already placed orders, we'll deliver your licenses tomorrow. Anyone who was about to place an order and didn't get to, please PM me.

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 6:53 am

Ok, I expect that Fxpansion will make the announcement later this day. Maybe they will make their customers happy and deliver the serials quickly to the resellers!

audio/fault · Post by **audio/fault** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 11:38 am

Angus_FX wrote:How much would you normally reckon to pay for 900 professional-quality presets alone?

honestly? nothing, as i don't buy or hardly use presets. i mean, it's a synthesizer...
i respect that these presets are part of the price, but somehow it would be nice to buy the upgrade without presets for a lower price.
72€ is way too much for me at the moment, though i really was looking forward to that update.

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 11:50 am

audio/fault wrote:
Angus_FX wrote:How much would you normally reckon to pay for 900 professional-quality presets alone?
honestly? nothing, as i don't buy or hardly use presets. i mean, it's a synthesizer...
i respect that these presets are part of the price, but somehow it would be nice to buy the upgrade without presets for a lower price.
72€ is way too much for me at the moment, though i really was looking forward to that update.

Don't forget that 72€ is not the discounted price for which the update is available in some online stores

I have never used presets in Strobe.. To be honest, I don't like most of them but I think it's good to have some "showroom presets" showing the capabilities of a synth.
But Strobe is IMO not a typical preset synth because it's so easy to use and to program own sounds.

Angus_FX · Post by **Angus_FX** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 12:04 pm

If you don't use presets & design all your own sounds, I'd sincerely hope that the new workflow & feature set (on which I've spent a substantial chunk of the past two years) is worth 72€. But don't listen to me, grab the demo and try for yourself.

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 12:16 pm

Got the EMail announcement that Strobe 2 is officially out now and in the stores

No I must only wait for Jrrshop to deliver my serial

Apostate · Post by **Apostate** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 12:23 pm

Demo'ing, this is so cool. I might be wrong, as I haven't used Synth Squad in awhile, but it seems some of the Fusor features are implemented in Strobe 2. It makes me wonder exactly what form Synth Squad 2 is going to take? Or if maybe just having the 2 or three synths within a synth made separate might end up being the plan (forgive me if I'm wrong on any or all of these points, please).

Angus_FX · Post by **Angus_FX** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 12:28 pm

As I've outlined above - Synth Squad 2 is more of a family of instruments than an all-in-one bundle.

Many of the Fusor features (stepsequencer, arpeggiator & TransMod-able effects) are indeed implemented in Strobe 2, and will also be in Cypher 2 & Amber 2 when their time comes. So Fusor has a different role in the v2 platform, but I can't say any more than that right now - other than to add that Strobe 2 owners with suitably beefy CPUs will, I hope, be pleasantly surprised when & how Fusor 2 arrives.

DrGonzo · Post by **DrGonzo** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 1:03 pm

Hey Angus - I remember way back you were talking about CPU optimizations. Could you please expand a bit on that? I'll upgrade for sure, but if you tell me that Strobe2 won't be sucking the life out of my processor, I'll be upgrading with a bigger smile.

/C

Apostate · Post by **Apostate** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 1:12 pm

Angus_FX wrote:As I've outlined above - Synth Squad 2 is more of a family of instruments than an all-in-one bundle.

Many of the Fusor features (stepsequencer, arpeggiator & TransMod-able effects) are indeed implemented in Strobe 2, and will also be in Cypher 2 & Amber 2 when their time comes. So Fusor has a different role in the v2 platform, but I can't say any more than that right now - other than to add that Strobe 2 owners with suitably beefy CPUs will, I hope, be pleasantly surprised when & how Fusor 2 arrives.

This all sounds terrific, especially FUSOR 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apostate · Post by **Apostate** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 1:46 pm

Angus, I must say you've done it again. This is a completely righteous upgrade and more than worth the piddling upgrade price, it's undoubtedly a synth all its own.

The regular price would be what you'd pay for, say, the Waldorf PPG 3, and certainly Strobe 2 is on that (HIGH) level, at least from what I've experienced messing with the latter for the past couple of hours.

I locked right back into the modulation work flow, having had so much time with the original SS made it so easy.

You've got me reappreciating Synth Squad overall too. Terrific work, the wait was worth it.

Angus_FX · Post by **Angus_FX** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 2:13 pm

Hi DrGonzo,

Hey Angus - I remember way back you were talking about CPU optimizations. Could you please expand a bit on that? I'll upgrade for sure, but if you tell me that Strobe2 won't be sucking the life out of my processor, I'll be upgrading with a bigger smile.

The whole thing is highly optimized for AVX & AVX2.. in fact, it's optimized for AVX512 as well, which was supposed to have been out by now, but has been delayed seemingly until 2016-17. There's a DAFx paper or two's worth of work in there, actually.

We're confident enough about CPU performance that it now runs at 2x, 4x and 8x oversampling only (no more 1x) but I'd certainly advise trying the demo - which is available to download now. If you have a pre-2011 CPU or an Atom, you won't see anything like such significant speedups, but Sandy Bridge / Ivy Bridge cores (i7-2xxx & 3xxx) get a pretty nice boost, and Haswell / Broadwell / Skylake (4xxx-6xxx) even more so.

If you go to the Options menu & choose Diagnostics, there's a tool in there which does a single-threaded benchmark on how well it performs on your system. A Core2 @ 2GHz scores around 1, a 3.6GHz Haswell i5 scores 4.5, I've not yet had a chance to benchmark it on a top of the line Devil's Canyon or Skylake but would be interested to see some numbers from those who have.

SJ_Digriz · Post by **SJ_Digriz** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 2:31 pm

I've been waiting for a worthy CPU upgrade. I have a 980X which although not the fastest thing these days, still holds up well. The i7 5xxx seems to be getting to that roughly 50% increase that starts getting me the itch. I'll be interested in peoples performance opinions as well.

Angus_FX · Post by **Angus_FX** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 2:37 pm

So a friend with an i7-4790k just tested it.. 6.8 single-core Synthmark on that thing.

My poor old 2008 Mac Pro ("Harpertown" @ 2.8GHz) barely manages 1.5.

Still, shows the optimizations are doing what they're supposed to!

DrGonzo · Post by **DrGonzo** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 2:44 pm

Is 1 the baseline of how Strobe 1 performed, or what does the score represent?

/C

(bought).

All good things come to those who wait.. the Synth Squad 2 thread