RAPID Synthesizer | Rapid 1.8.0 released | Free "SP - Granular Elements"

[recursive one]

Nope

Was just guessing because of the price of 139 euros.
No idea then...

Whatever it is, 139 is a lot less than anything over 200. It is more of a psychological thingy.

That synth is more expensive now. An yes, it was not dead after 2 updates

[fmr]

Nope

Was just guessing because of the price of 139 euros.
No idea then...

Whatever it is, 139 is a lot less than anything over 200. It is more of a psychological thingy.

That synth is more expensive now. An yes, it was not dead after 2 updates

Serum... or Spire...

[MirkoVanHauten]

To me Rapid sounds good, but not special. And I doubt I'll ever hear sounds you can't get easy with another synth too. I also don't need 8 layers. 3 could have been the max in my opinion. I understand that it sounds good for marketing if a developer can say "with my product you could do this and that with up to x layers and ..." but the real use case is different I think. It's simpler. Same for VS Avenger which I think of is the bigger brother of Rapid

Also: They are the ones who typicaly don't complain about GUIs and evaluate the sound more than features. And this is absolutely understandable, the end product is sound and music and not features.

That's right, a synth or effect should sound good. But if I have to work with it every day, it should also look good and make me feel comfortable. This reminds me of the Meldaproduction plugins which have a huge amount of options but I wouldn't buy and use them ever since the ui is the ugliest and messiest I've ever seen. I wouldn't have much fun using them.

I also don't understand that so many people insist on import and wavetable editor. What, do you want to create music, or just waste time fiddling around with one cycle waveforms.

Because we've seen with Serum how easy and useful it can be. Also you announced "Morphable Wavetables" and "Multi-Samples with velocity layer and/or Round Robin" as first features which (perhaps unintentionally) implies these are main features which I can use and control/load with my own samples. To me it was

Again, read the name of our product.. what is it implying? Fast and good sound design. Not "you can do everything" with this synth.

Yes, that's also related to the GUI. Fast work requires a good ui. I have to say that the preset loading times weren't that rapid also I think one can get used to it if it would be the only synth you have. But compared to workflow and usability of others, this is a step behind.

Like mentioned before I also don’t think it is a 200$ synth, sorry.

[fluffy_little_something]

Anyway, good luck with Rapid. Judging from the features I am sure you have already invested a whole lot of time and effort in it, so it would be a shame if it had been in vain.

[Mirko R.]

Hey. You're right. So I told in one of the last posts, that I made the wavetables. That was a really hard task to get into it. I wrote three different wavetable generators/calculators software to create them. That was pure mathematik and my brain said to me "are you kidding me?"
Later it was a lot of fun but generating good wavetables is really really hard. I hope I made enough and you're lucky with it.

You did a good work with the wavetables, for what I saw so far, but since you already has the tool, isn't it just a matter of creating a GUI, adding the analysis/resynthsis capabilities, the possibility to calculate interpolated waves when just some slots are filled, and we have the tool ready to use? This has been done so many times already that I am still amazed when people argue about the possibility.

The Microwave even had a much more esoteric feaure call "User Programmable Algorithmic Wavetables", and this was in the eighties.

BTW: I also think that eight layers is too much for a sound. Unless this is to create multi-timbral programs or some sort of combined patches.

I agree in some parts with You. The main editor I wrote could be an extra software. It is very similar to the Serum editor but has some other helpfull stuff. But don't forget. I am not the developer of RAPID, I am the sounddesigner and my software would also be hard to understand. (Btw. I also used it for some Avenger Wavetables)
The second wavetable generator is totaly based on mathematics and formulas. Each table has an own function. Just for fun I will show You a totaly basic FM calculation. This function is called each wavetable frame and the tablecounter increases the number each step/frame:

Code: Select all

override protected function generationLoop(e:Event):void 
		{
			const frameFact1:Number = tableCounter * 0.25;
			const frameFact2:Number = tableCounter / numTables;
			for (var j:int = 0; j < tableSize; j++) 
			{
				var phase:Number = j / tableSize-0.5;
				
				var t1:Number = Assets.sin(phase);
				var t2:Number = Assets.sin(phase + t1*frameFact2*4);
				var val:Number = t2;
				buffer[j] = val;
			}
		}

That's stuff only programmers understand but the cleanest way to create wavetables like FM, RM, beinding stuff, basics, etc.
Should Parawave really implement that? I think this will be too hard.

[fmr]

The second wavetable generator is totaly based on mathematics and formulas. Each table has an own function. Just for fun I will show You a totaly basic FM calculation. This function is called each wavetable frame and the tablecounter increases the number each step/frame:

Code: Select all

override protected function generationLoop(e:Event):void 
		{
			const frameFact1:Number = tableCounter * 0.25;
			const frameFact2:Number = tableCounter / numTables;
			for (var j:int = 0; j < tableSize; j++) 
			{
				var phase:Number = j / tableSize-0.5;
				
				var t1:Number = Assets.sin(phase);
				var t2:Number = Assets.sin(phase + t1*frameFact2*4);
				var val:Number = t2;
				buffer[j] = val;
			}
		}

That's stuff only programmers understand but the cleanest way to create wavetables like FM, RM, beinding stuff, basics, etc.
Should Parawave really implement that? I think this will be too hard.

This seems to be a little like the Programmable Algorithmic Wavetables I mentioned, that also allowed FM, RM, etc. in the Microwave. I have to confess I never fully understood those, so, it was always a matter of try and fail unitl I come up with something I considered usefull. But it was fun to mess with that

So, I'll let you guys (parawave and you) talk to each other. Maybe you could find some platform of agreement for an added feature

[recursive one]

Nope

Was just guessing because of the price of 139 euros.
No idea then...

Whatever it is, 139 is a lot less than anything over 200. It is more of a psychological thingy.

That synth is more expensive now. An yes, it was not dead after 2 updates

Serum... or Spire...

Spire

[fmr]

Spire

FWIW, somehow (don't remember how anymore) I managed to buy it for € 69,00 (I just checked the Invoice)
It was bought in August 2013, so, maybe some Summer sale.

[bite_me]

OK, there are some lucky dudes who got love from the dev.
What about an intro price for all that other crappy begging mob before your frontdoor, parawave?

[chk071]

Spire

FWIW, somehow (don't remember how anymore) I managed to buy it for € 69,00 (I just checked the Invoice)
It was bought in August 2013, so, maybe some Summer sale.

Should be the intro offer then, i remember that it was sold for 69 € in the beginning. I actually refrained from buying it back then, because that new russian company, with registered office somewhere in the south sea, seemed a bit shady TBH...

[ravasb]

OK, there are some lucky dudes who got love from the dev.
What about an intro price for all that other crappy begging mob before your frontdoor, parawave?

From the dev:
If you are not on the list, please don't ask for a discount.
Maybe you will get lucky next time.

This has certainly been one of the more eccentric rollouts of a new product and new company that I can remember. I understand having an intro price and I understand not having an intro price. This approach to giving a discount to a handful of commentators, not even beta testers, is really odd. I am sure there is a method to the devs madness.

[fmr]

Should be the intro offer then, i remember that it was sold for 69 € in the beginning. I actually refrained from buying it back then, because that new russian company, with registered office somewhere in the south sea, seemed a bit shady TBH...

Oh yeah... Now that you mention it, I remember. I just thought to myself: "€ 69,00, what the heck. If it doesn't evolve more, the loss will not be significant".

[recursive one]

Spire

FWIW, somehow (don't remember how anymore) I managed to buy it for € 69,00 (I just checked the Invoice)
It was bought in August 2013, so, maybe some Summer sale.

I think it was the intro price, iirc I've paid the same sum.

Thay also do regular sales. But the thing is that the synth is extremely successful despite all the scepticism accompanying its release.

[parawave]

Let me add something to the table:
You say sound designers are not your target audience. IMO, any synthesist is a sound designer is some sort of way.
[...]
IMO, a vavetable synth created nowadays that doesn't allow the user to create wavetables or even create new ones out of sample analysis is severely limited. Even Waves Codex, which I saw being sold for like $50,00, can do this.

I have wrote sound designers are not our only target audience. Of course they are one of our audiences, it's a synthesizer :D
But by far not the top one.

What really frustrates me: Everyone chops around the missing import feature, but imagine tomorrow I would deliver an update with that feature. Still too expensive. Still "no good" GUI. Still something. Let me tell you, these features are not missing because I forgot them, or because I can't implement them. It's about time. I could develop for 5 years and release the synth with the most features on planet earth. But is it healthy? During this time every feature would be outdated. I don't know what you expect from me now. Our first focus was the concept as you see it now. Really fast sound design.
We offer: good quality, good workflow, good presets, good content

That was the main focus. It's not about THE special feature that no one else has. It's about an organic combination, optimization of small things. If you work with RAPID, create sounds from scratch an measure the time/quality output you will get our concept.

[fmr]

What really frustrates me: Everyone chops around the missing import feature, but imagine tomorrow I would deliver an update with that feature. Still too expensive. Still "no good" GUI. Still something. Let me tell you, these features are not missing because I forgot them, or because I can't implement them. It's about time. I could develop for 5 years and release the synth with the most features on planet earth. But is it healthy? During this time every feature would be outdated. I don't know what you expect from me now. Our first focus was the concept as you see it now. Really fast sound design.
We offer: good quality, good workflow, good presets, good content.

You do offer what you say, and I didn't say the opposite. And I didn't complain about the GUI either. FWIW, I am more or less comfortable with it, actually, more than I am with others (like for example those based in red over black that so many people seem to like). At least, your GUI is clear, and I can see everything. Could be more beautiful, yes, but I've seen many quite uglier too using the flat design that people seem to think is trendy nowadays).

I just did some remarks about the price, which I still maintain, and I justified them plenty with examples. Of course, in the end, fxing the price is your prerrogative.But it would be a shame if you were unsucessful just because you aimed too much in the beginning (just saying).

Regarding the features, I mentioned those that matter the most TO ME in a wavetable synth.