StiX : MultiSynthesis Drum Machine (v1.6 Released + Flash sales)

[rod_zero]

I didn't liked the interface at all, as others said: too much wasted space, small knobs and small fonts. Also I couldn't get around it.

[Lotuzia]

I didn't liked the interface at all, as others said: too much wasted space, small knobs and small fonts. Also I couldn't get around it.

Well the interface is only beta and WIP. When the final GUI/UI will be there, there wont be any space wasted.

StiX is very easy to use ( at least at the rookie level) I'll make some videos that will illustrate all this. Btw There's also a 'getting started' section in the manual, for those who want to see quickly what can be done with StiX.

[AnX]

ok, found the problem...sends were at zero, but one/all fx were active. Seems its hard to tell when they are on or not (when the sends are at zero, just using your ears)

a suggestion: make on/off more visible with red/green buttons as in image. (also the current on/off buttons dont like up)

thanks

[Lotuzia]

Hmmm. You can create your own macros in StiX, in the Advanced Synthesis page.

So you can. I could say this only re-inforces my point about the UI being confusing or you could say I wasn't paying enough attention.

One thing is im encouraged by the fact that you're engaging with issues and criticism so i'll definitely keep my eye on things and keep trying each update because I do love drum synths. No so keen on internal sequencers in drum plugins because I either use the DAW or generate sequences from Reaktor, but thats just me.

To refine my criticism down to my use cases : with any drum synth I always start by trying to synthesize 4 things :

1: a solid Roland x0x sounding kick, both 808 and 909 style. With this I got close-ish for the 808 but it felt quite 'fiddly'.

2: closed hi hat. this is generally the easiest with some noise and a BP or HP filter, but again the default envelope shape didn't feel quite right for this sound.

3: Snare (again x0x style, 606 / 808 / 909). The 3 OSC setup is perfect for this, 2 for the body tones and Noise for the 'snare' but I find that the combination of the noise spectrum and the filter response is always too 'sharp', like there is always a touch too much resonance on the filters so I couldn't get the snares to 'punch' they just 'crack' a bit too much.

4: Clap. Claps are hard to synthesize, i've spent many hours trying . With StiX I couldn't even see where I would start with getting the initial roll (i.e. re-triggered very short decay envelopes spaced about 10ms apart)

I just went through the advanced UI again and the main source of confusion is the layout of the Oscillator section because the PEV controls are layed out perpendicular to the actual oscillator controls. It might be worth considering using some of that spare space in the Envelopes section to sort out the Oscillator section

Yes you can

Thanks for maintaining your interest, and also discussing how we could make it better. Yes the 3 PEV are a problem I agree, at the very least I think a separation might be put ( though they are somewhat related to the OSC section) between them and the rest of the oscillator section, wich is now coherent. and maybe another colour for the knobs could be used. It's impossible to add a 4rth row in the triple ADSR section. Too bad.

Synthesis : I'll only cover the clap case, the most complex, and give a few possibilities to explore. Usulaly claps are a complex circuit and involves combined Pulse wave and PWM. There's no pwm for the Pulse or SQ waves on StiX atm. But the pulse might still be used as a starting point.

So the first, obvious possibility is to load any 808/909 etc clap sample in StiX. A bit disapointing for synthesis wizardry, but .... it should not be neglected imho.

Synthesis : You can use several different envelopes to control oscillators, or the filter. Modulating very slightly the Pulse might be worth exploring. You can also get a wide variety of noise by modulating the sine oscillators by themseleves (FM). Something i'm exploring atm for claps is cross synthesis : Load a clap sample ( your own or from StiX sample library), then modulate with it in one of the macro mods the freq and output of one (or two) sine oscillators ( choose source = noise/smp and dest osc outpu and freqs ) . ( while using the other macro slot to do FM with the sine) Zero the output of the sample itself ( or mix it with the other oscillator(s)). This way the shape of the sample *kinda impose* itself on the analog oscillators. Tune the EVs as desired. It gives interesting results, and at least a *clap* thing everytime . Well, there's a lot to explore in each department for StiX.

[Lotuzia]

ok, found the problem...sends were at zero, but one/all fx were active. Seems its hard to tell when they are on or not (when the sends are at zero, just using your ears)

a suggestion: make on/off more visible with red/green buttons as in image. (also the current on/off buttons dont like up)

thanks

Thanks AnX,

Yes we already changed this part of the GUI from v 0.96B last week. In the v 0.95 beta gui it was really hard to tell if an Fx was on or not.( I hope nobody did think that we could have left it like that )

here's a screenshot form the beta v0.97 (soon to be released ) where you can see the changes. Very close to your solution



Other changes : Fx area is now near the Fx send area. More logical

[Lotuzia]

Yesterday at another thread i posted that in StiX the zero delay feedback filter could produce nice kick drum sounds based on Self-oscillation. This means the Reonance is set to maximum and the oscillators set to off (= volume/level at 0). Depending on the Cutoff, envelope amount and filter envelope settings it'S possible to get different nce sounds that way.

As also mentioned in the other thread some older plugins do not seem to do self-oscillation properly or are not able to do it at all.
Due to that i just tested Waldorf Attack v2 (from Waldorf Edition 2) which i really love and even if it's really old could still produce great sounds (v2 also added sample import and additional FXs to that).
Anyway what i just found that the filter in Attack v2 is not able to do filter Self-oscillation at all, the sound just stays silent at maximum Resonance (when oscillators are off). Compared to StiX it also seems to miss the option to do Filter FM.

You could create a bunch of different kick drum sounds without self-oscillation but several of those possible with Self-oscillation seem to be difficult or even impossible to recreate (at least without using samples).

For high Resonance until Self-oscillation (and without loosing too much low end) and also doing Filter FM (or both at once) a filter with zero delay feedback technology like that in StiX (and other Xils Lab synths) seems to be perfect.
In StiX even at maximum Resonance the low end still seems to be great which is where many older plugins (and also some newer ones...) seem to lack. I had found this e.g. when comparing my Ensonq ESQ-1 synth (hybrid synth with a CEM analog filter) to the SQ8L plugin (which at lower Resonance is a great emulation and also has a good low end at low Resonance).

I also found that the BP6 filter (opposing to teh LPF modes) could be great for kick drum sounds when used at Self-oscillation (maximum Resonance). In terms of low end this could be even better than a LPF, depending on teh Cutoff and Filter ENV amount.

When reducing the bit-depth in StiX when using Self-oscillation or "normal" sounds you could get some interesting results. When you go down top around 14 bits or lower (default is 24-bit) you could add some noise to the sound.

FWIW my Waldorf Pulse 2 analog synth is capable of Self-oscillation for all 4 filter modes (24dB LPF, 12dB LPF, 12dB BP, 12dB HP) and i had created a lead sound based on this along my factory presets for teh Pulse 2 (for this filter key tracking at 100% and tuning with the cutoff amount with help of a tuning plugin was necessary). Have not tried using self-oscillation for drum sounds with this yet but i will try ASAP.



Ingo

Thanks for pointingg it out, Ingo : StiX filter can self-oscillate in all modes, like Pulse 2

You can build impressive kicks using high resonance with analog filters, and this is the same with StiX. Not always desired, but well, possible. It's also nice on toms etc. And a lot of other percussions.

And zdf filters are not always that demanding. CPU print is quite reasonable on StiX I think. But more than in Attack v2 iirc.

[mcbpete]

Really enjoyed playing with this, currently on the hunt for a drum synth and this has so far been top of the pile ! One suggestion RE the gui is the strange use of the three miscellaneous 'Easy' and 'Advanced' buttons in the middle section, when they're just the different editor pages.

Wouldn't it make more sense to the user to just have the sections named, so have it something like:



EDIT: Also noticed the same thing as mentioned a few pages back ( http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 0#p6339429 ) about click-dragging the mouse off the gui when turning some of the knobs causes it to lose focus. Funnily enough fxpansion's Tremor does exactly the same thing - must be a drum machine thing

[Lotuzia]

Really enjoyed playing with this, currently on the hunt for a drum synth and this has so far been top of the pile ! One suggestion RE the gui is the strange use of the three miscellaneous 'Easy' and 'Advanced' buttons in the middle section, when they're just the different editor pages.

Wouldn't it make more sense to the user to just have the sections named, so have it something like:



EDIT: Also noticed the same thing as mentioned a few pages back ( http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 0#p6339429 ) about click-dragging the mouse off the gui when turning some of the knobs causes it to lose focus. Funnily enough fxpansion's Tremor does exactly the same thing - must be a drum machine thing

Thanks.

Yes it makes so much sense that it's more/less the new design that will be implemented in one of the next betas.

Except that the 3 labels will now be implemented in the left area of the *3D structure*, with slightly different names ( but simuilar, here again ) So this will make more space for the *pure sequencer areas/grids* , and also the 3 columns ( copy, paste, randomize line) that have misteriously disappeared in your design In the future a 'rotate' step function might also appear, so we would need more room for that one too.

[mcbpete]

Nice - yeah a 'rotate' feature would be grand ! Look forward to see what new things arrive in the 'final' v.1.0 release

On a completely unrelated now - Just wondering if anyone has managed to successfully emulate the range of r0Iand's x0x drum machines (secretly tweaked developers name for copyright trawling bots as I know they get quite tetchy with their intellectual property !). Originally looked at Audiorealism's ADM VST but I get the feeling this thing can pull off pretty good emulation - I believe in Xils !

[Lotuzia]

Nice - yeah a 'rotate' feature would be grand ! Look forward to see what new things arrive in the 'final' v.1.0 release

On a completely unrelated now - Just wondering if anyone has managed to successfully emulate the range of r0Iand's x0x drum machines (secretly tweaked developers name for copyright trawling bots as I know they get quite tetchy with their intellectual property !). Originally looked at Audiorealism's ADM VST but I get the feeling this thing can pull off pretty good emulation - I believe in Xils !

Thanks

Rotate : Maybe not for the V1.0 release. Plus we have to consider if it will be global, or per line. And also all the implications in case of complicated metrics ( like 6 steps per beats followed by 4 steps etc)

New things : What we are experimenting atm for beta v097 however is an animated *vu-meter*/signal flux visual for each mixer line. It becomes red when overload is present at the input of a mixer channel. Very handy/usefull, and also pleasant for the eye.

[Lotuzia]

A bit of sound now. Just a new pattern with a new drumkit I made yesterday.

StiX Moscow

The drumkit uses mainly *cross synthesis* drumpads. You can hear that on the *raspy* snare drum for example.

[mcbpete]

pre-ordered

[plugin'd out]

I'm liking some of the sound demos but I'm finding the plugin itself, and the preset sounds, a bit harder to get on with.

I was surprised that there was no way to create a 'proper' clap, which seems to be a strange omission. It would also have been nice to see some tools for 808 style cymbals (ring mod?), or maybe some comb filtering.

In general this synth seems to have a kind of blurry quality, which might on some occasions be pleasingly 'analog' but I think may be symptomatic of a lack of synthesis tools to deal with sounds with a lot going on in mid to high frequencies (other than FM which, from the sound demos, does seem to come into its own when using the internal sequencer).

User error/unfamiliarity is of course likely but I got the same feeling from going through the presets. Not only claps were missing, but any variety of snares and cymbals (discounting samples). At the very least, would it be possible to put a tilt filter on the noise oscillator? The 'tune' knob could be used as it seems to have no function if noise is selected.

I recently bought RMV, finding that it was still on sale, which augments a general percussion synth module with specific modules for clap, snare etc. I appreciate that you are probably too far down the road to consider this approach (or already discounted it for whatever reason) but this really does seem to be the best way to deal with the variety of synthesis methods that seem to be necessary to make interesting electronic percussion.

[mcbpete]

Ooh just thought of something while playing around with the full version (and going wild with the random button!). How about a probability slider in the step sequencer, something like this:



ps (and more importantly) I think I've spotted a possible bug (Running through Ableton 9.5, Windows 10 if that makes any difference): The BPM in StiX only seems to get updated after it's played through a complete pattern (or until you restart transport on the DAW).

As an example: say you start the pattern with your DAW set to 40 bpm and then quickly turn the DAW bpm up to 120 bpm .... StiX will stay at 40 bpm during the length of the whole pattern, and once it gets back to the first note in the pattern will only then jump up to 120bpm. This'd mean that any project with a variable BPM would be completely impossible for Stix to stay in sync. Big eek !

pps spotted another bug - I accidentally went extreme with the BPM (slipped on Ableton's BPM slider!) and put it up to around 600 BPM, when I put it back to a sensible speed again I noticed that some of the drum hits had moved out of time. Here the snare drum is one step behind and the closed hi hat one step ahead :



I could get it to do it every time by repeating the above (going to a crazy high BPM and then back down to a slower speed) and a random instrument or two on Stix would be ahead or behind by one step ....

[sqigls]

yes, this sucks.
the whole thing sucks really.
I own every drum synth you can imagine. I love drum synths.
but this one is a dud.