Fxpansion Strobe 2 is available

[ariston]

Oh, and this would be just icing on the cake, but it would be great to have some routing options for the FX section - that would really open it up for experimentation.

What did you have in mind?

Well, I don't know if it's feasible, of course, but I was thinking of something along the lines of PSP's N2O - that would enable feeding signals back into the processors, among other things. And exempting the sub oscs from the FX treatment could be useful, as well.

But, like I said, icing on the cake - the current options are pretty deep, to say the least.

[Angus_FX]

What we might be able to do - although not immediately - is allow individual voices to be routed selectively to FX Bus B, bypassing bus A (courtesy of a transmod'able A/B send control). Then you could use unison together with TransMod to get some sub waveforms to bypass FX A. Make sense?

[ariston]

What we might be able to do - although not immediately - is allow individual voices to be routed selectively to FX Bus B, bypassing bus A (courtesy of a transmod'able A/B send control). Then you could use unison together with TransMod to get some sub waveforms to bypass FX A. Make sense?

Oh yes, definitely. I was wondering whether this was possible already. That would be cool.

[epiphaneia]

What we might be able to do - although not immediately - is allow individual voices to be routed selectively to FX Bus B, bypassing bus A (courtesy of a transmod'able A/B send control). Then you could use unison together with TransMod to get some sub waveforms to bypass FX A. Make sense?

That would be a "mix" (left: FX A, right: FX B) knob in each of the two osc sections (main/sub) that can be addressed as a modulation target? Yes, please!

[Angus_FX]

epiphaneia - can't do it quite like that because there's only a single filter per voice. We could to a single knob, and then use unison to create one voice that's all oscillator, and another that's all sub.

[epiphaneia]

That's over my head it seems - unison?

Let's try a practical example (maybe I'm better at that): A simple sqr sound with a sine sub octave from the sub osc.

Typically, I might use a phaser + reverb + delay on the sqr, and only a bit of overdrive on the sub.

That would suit two effects chains:
main osc feeding into
-> FX A) phaser reverb delay
(either independent to output
or
A feeding into B)
and
sub osc feeding into
-> FX B) overdrive

(How) Would I be able to achieve that?

[Angus_FX]

OK.. so.. one of TransMod's more powerful capabilities is that you can set up a unison voice (i.e. two or more voices playing from each note) and then apply different parameters to each of them, using e.g. the "Unison1+" mod source

In this instance, what you'd do is set Unison to 2 & Voice Count to 2. So you've now got, effectively, a monophonic synth where each note is triggering two voices.

Start with the square wave turned up & the sub turned down.

Then use the Unison+ mod source (which will output "low" i.e. zero on the first voice & "high" i.e. 1 on the second) to turn the square wave level right down & the sub level right up.

So now when you trigger your two voices from one note, one will be "all square", and the other will be "all sub".

The bit you can't do yet is to then assign one voice to the FX A chain and the other to the FX B chain. But you can still have lots of fun with this stuff e.g. setting different filter cutoff, envelope timings or pan position for your "square" voice and your "sub" voice.

Simple example in Strobe 1 here:


.. but could do with a full tutorial really.

Here's a preset to demonstrate some of what you can do with this stuff. The "sine" attack from the main oscillator (actually a filtered sawtooth) is mixed with the buzzy sub saw/pwm that fades in, those are two separate voices.

[RichN]

Most people who flit around trying the all latest wizz bang shit get very little actual work done...

They fart around checking out the sounds and the all new dooh daahs and then get bored and move on to the next "big thing"...

The new Messiah that will be their new "go to"

It's light entertainment for sure,but it can waste an awful lot of time and it doesn't achieve much of actual substance....

Most of those people who "dabble" will never feel fulfilled because their focus is on the transient things...

Heh, you're describing me, unfortunately. I have way too many plugins, every time when I buy a new one I intend to learn this thing inside and out, but I never do.

I definitely don't need another substractive synth, but when I tried the demo of Strobe 2, I quickly found myself designing my own sounds from scratch, instead of trying the presets. I actually bought Strobe 2 (well, the upgrade from Synth Squad), because I wanted to be able to save the sounds I kept designing with the demo. I've now had it for a couple of days and I haven't even touched the presets yet. That's a first really. This synth just seems to click with me... €72 well spent, I think.

[epiphaneia]

Then use the Unison+ mod source (which will output "low" i.e. zero on the first voice & "high" i.e. 1 on the second) to turn the square wave level right down & the sub level right up. So now when you trigger your two voices from one note, one will be "all square", and the other will be "all sub".
The bit you can't do yet is to then assign one voice to the FX A chain and the other to the FX B chain. But you can still have lots of fun with this stuff e.g. setting different filter cutoff, envelope timings or pan position for your "square" voice and your "sub" voice.

It seems I´ll be busy enough practicing using the transmod system for the time being, I obviously underestimated a few of these more exotic modulation sources, the "unison" source for example is great for my purposes, thanks for the explanation!
(but being able to address fxa and fxb separately... )

[Amberience]

New version now available which fixes the FLStudio issues and a few other minor bugs. Demo being updated within the next few minutes also.

[The Mymble]

I've been reading the pages of this thread for an hour or so and not come across this yet so i apologise if its already come up.

Is it or could it be possible to snap the step sequencer to values in much the same way as the osc and such does - harmonic, equal, just, free - to get accurate pitch modulation? Or perhaps arbitrary divisions such as Alchemy uses? I'd love to get Strobe2 running a 303esque line, particularly with the slew function.
I've played with the manual setting for the arp and it works well, better than I was expecting, and I can see how it can help with developing lines through time.

And, if you ever find yourselves with some spare time on your hands an FX version would be sweet I think I possibly used Strobe more in that form then the normal one (I mean, who doesn't want to use granular textures instead of boring old noise?.. or is there a side chain input I've missed?)

Aside from those two things, I love this synth. The first one was good, this one is better. I'm a trance kind of guy so the phase lock is, well for modern sounds at least, a must. On that matter, could we have a phase start position knob? I can live without it but the differences in tone, particularly on bass, that can be achieved that way is a powerful tool. Ok, so aside from those 3 things I love this synth, and out of the synth squad Strobe is the only one that got any real use, the other 2 have mainly sat there. Occasionally I'd load fusor to get an extra lfo, though I have always meant to fully explore the FM possibilities upon the audio in on Cypher...

I'm one of those who quite likes to have the choice to buy them individually, and £50 for the upgrade aint too bad, I've paid far more for other synths. Its funny how people value software so poorly, a Saturday night out or a new synth? Strobe aint a synth for everything in my eyes, but when it comes to strict monophonic, classic type, psuedo analouge sounds and ease of work flow (of massive importance to me, nothing kills the vibe more than going eerrmmmmm) then Strobe2 is a winner.

I'm glad to see the CPU hit isn't too bad... or have I just been using U-He stuff for too long?

I'm also not too keen on this paying for the presets business but I can see why and how this comes about... just please try and keep tas and himalaya somewhere near sane in their preset creation for Cyper , I may buy that one too, so long as I'm not buying a few thousand patches I'm never gonna use along with it.
Unless Himalaya comes up with something to rival his Iceland set for Alchemy (which I never managed to get... mutter, mutter, grumble), then I may just buy it for the patches after all

[Angus_FX]

Is it or could it be possible to snap the step sequencer to values in much the same way as the osc and such does - harmonic, equal, just, free - to get accurate pitch modulation? Or perhaps arbitrary divisions such as Alchemy uses? I'd love to get Strobe2 running a 303esque line, particularly with the slew function.

Not currently on the step seq - but routing it (or indeed any mod source) via the curves, which have snap on both input and output, you can do that.

And, if you ever find yourselves with some spare time on your hands an FX version would be sweet I think I possibly used Strobe more in that form then the normal one (I mean, who doesn't want to use granular textures instead of boring old noise?.. or is there a side chain input I've missed?)

You're not the first person to have remarked on that - although myself I'm a bit puzzled as to what's easier/better on Strobe FX versus our DCAM filter plug-in Etch?

Aside from those two things, I love this synth. The first one was good, this one is better. I'm a trance kind of guy so the phase lock is, well for modern sounds at least, a must. On that matter, could we have a phase start position knob? I can live without it but the differences in tone, particularly on bass, that can be achieved that way is a powerful tool.

Phase is usually relative.. do you mean phase shifting the main osc relative to the sub, or..? Just rephasing the start of the main osc won't make a huge difference most of the time. Relative phase of main and sub? That'll make a difference (as indeed would shifting or inverting the individual sub partials - though that'd be 4 more controls to explore a relatively small amount of timbral space, so I'm not sure we'd do it on Strobe).

I'm glad to see the CPU hit isn't too bad... or have I just been using U-He stuff for too long?

We spent a ton of time & effort figuring out how to get the best out of modern CPUs. Basically we can crunch more numbers per clock cycle than practically anything out there. 32 voices @ 8x oversampled playable in realtime.

I'm also not too keen on this paying for the presets business but I can see why and how this comes about... just please try and keep tas and himalaya somewhere near sane in their preset creation for Cyper , I may buy that one too, so long as I'm not buying a few thousand patches I'm never gonna use along with it.

I don't think thousands of presets is necessary no need to worry there. Strobe2 needed a new preset library that was on a par with its contemporaries, but these are very much synths for synthesists. On which note, I know Himalaya can't wait to get going with C2 - depends how busy his new employer keeps him, I think.

[Ah_Dziz]

Hey there. So I went ahead and grabbed this monkey because I like you guys, and I have high hopes for the new version as you get everything all worked out. I'm guessing from my limited playtime that fx a and fx b are parallel and never the twain shall meet (let me know if I'm wrong) which leaves open the possibility to do some neat switching between the two chains with the subpatch system. Anyway I have a super duper feature request that could lead to amazing things on this and all your other synths that will incorporate the eight subpatch system. That would be to have the patch in use to be a mod destination. This was possible on the nerd modular G2 with it's scenes and I know it is something I can do with a subhost or something like the cubase input transformer, but to have it built in gives the possibility of having truly insane evolutions in sound in lots of unexpected ways. Something like this could get tricky to program (I'm guessing as I have no skills when it comes to coding) as it can create some pretty complex modulation feedback like an lfo modulating its sub lfo's divisor while the sub lfo is switching between the sub patches all of which have different lfo speeds and so on and so forth. If you could do this though you would have, as far as I know, the only soft synth with this capability (not including modular environments where all this and more is possible). I know from my experience with the norm g2 that those scenes and the ability to modulate between them let me setup for live performance things that would normally be so complex that I would need to sample it and just trigger it as a one off. It would also make this seemingly simple synth a serious contender for sound design work, a task I currently use zebra and rector almost exclusively for.

So yeah I'm pretty interested in having this added as you might have noticed, I'd also love to be able to use all six effects in one chain if that's not already possible. I keep running out of time right when I get to where I'm about to add some effects, and I'm not into presets so I haven't loaded any of those up.

Can't wait to get my license today. I bought it from jrr since I thought I'd be able to use one of their standard coupon codes. I didn't realize til after I checked out that the coupon wouldn't apply to the upgrade, just the other thing I was picking up. If I'd have bought straight from you guys I'd have made a song by now.

JJ

[The Mymble]

Not currently on the step seq - but routing it (or indeed any mod source) via the curves, which have snap on both input and output, you can do that.

I didn't know that, I've yet to explore the curves. I have just found what I'm doing for today.

You're not the first person to have remarked on that - although myself I'm a bit puzzled as to what's easier/better on Strobe FX versus our DCAM filter plug-in Etch?

Ooh I haven't used etch in ages, I trialed it a while back but decided my time at that point was probably better spent learning the basics of sound design before jumping to the advanced stuff, and I have fabfilter for just an external filter. I can't remember if you can trigger envelopes via midi or not.. I imagine you can, so my using Strobe as a fancy trance gate can sort of be done by etch, but I do love that analogue knob on Strobe and again its a matter of work flow, I can set up Strobe's filter and amp settings far quicker than I could in Etch. Though I suppose that would come with use.

The main thing is using it as a synth! Much like you'd use the noise generator to add some top end bite to certain patches I like to feed in a granular texture that I can make to measure. It can give an evolving transient stage that just adds to that psycho acoustic interest thing; it breathes some more life into it. So, to clarify I'd use Strobes osc and filter but feed it with whatever sound I like for the noise. I once made a searing acid line with a recording of fire being fed into the audio in. It was smoking (sorry, had to.).
And the unision and stack controls still have effect in Strobe which can make a difference to the density of the sounds.

Phase is usually relative.. do you mean phase shifting the main osc relative to the sub, or..? Just rephasing the start of the main osc won't make a huge difference most of the time. Relative phase of main and sub? That'll make a difference (as indeed would shifting or inverting the individual sub partials - though that'd be 4 more controls to explore a relatively small amount of timbral space, so I'm not sure we'd do it on Strobe).

I work a lot with 16th notes at 140-150bpm. Particularly when it comes to running bass lines (which Strobe2 is now a big contender for with the phase reset) the initial starting point within the waveform really can make a huge difference. So when I say a phase control, that is one to move the starting point away from the 0 crossing point. It has far less effect at higher frequencies due to the fact each cycle is so small, but 80hz and below it really can be quite profound, perhaps higher than that, I've not really explored up there yet. I understand this may be quite a specific thing to me but hey, its worth a go
My favourite for this currently is U-He's Bazille, which is the current winner for my bass lines. But then Bazille doesn't have a Transmod system, so I could be persuaded away...
Just to further this, a thought I've just had. On occasion I've turned to phase position to fix a bass before reaching for EQ. When in later arrangement stages and a ghost of a mix is coming together you inevitably run into masking and intelligibility issues; if I can fix this before the mix stage then all the better, and that phase position on Bazille has come through on more than one occasion. Not every occasion, not even close, but it has.

I don't think thousands of presets is necessary no need to worry there. Strobe2 needed a new preset library that was on a par with its contemporaries, but these are very much synths for synthesists. On which note, I know Himalaya can't wait to get going with C2 - depends how busy his new employer keeps him, I think.

don't know why but that just made a little bit of excitement creep up. I think I'm actually looking forward to hearing what he can up with (I usually love his stuff).

[The Mymble]

I've given the curves a go and... is there or will there be a way to snap the curve to precise arbitrary values
They are a bit more chaotic than I was expecting which is both good and bad. Couldn't for the life of me make the sequenced lead I was looking for but the one that came out was unlike anything I've ever made a synth do before, in a good way. Chords arping in a warped and detuned manner, weird.
But it would be sooo much easier if it could be neatly quantised, same with the sequencer. Not all the time, I love the fluid nature of them, but as an option it would be great. Perhaps within the context menu for the xstep and ystep controls, free and grid perhaps.