KVR Audio

Chemik · Post by **Chemik** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 11:23 am

Been on KVR asking for a DW6000 like plug forever and wasn't aware that one had previously existed until now. Just gave it a quick run through and was very pleased with what I heard. Really appreciate this!!

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 12:45 pm

ENV1 wrote:Anyone notice that Cobalt has minimoog-style VCF Envelope behavior?

Quite surprising, considering there are even minimoog emulations that dont have it.

First time i see this in a non-minimoog plugin...

BTW, my half-a-mind to make a new skin for Cobalt turned into a good mind shortly after i knew that it is a definite keeper.

So i kinda blitz-skinned him. (Probably the fastest skin i ever did.)

click for fullsize

i was going to do the same thing. but i was also going to make the text more readable by lightening it up some.

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 12:53 pm

GaryG wrote:
Aloysius wrote:Two thing I never liked about the Plugin.

1) The GUI is too dark.
2) I've always hated the way the GUI loads square by square. It looks cheap.
1) Agree though it's easily remedied in ten minutes with Resource Hacker if you're so inclined. I just lightened the text up a bitand it's now more readable to my eyes.
2) Never experienced that, so it loads slowly, you can see each bit being drawn?

more people wishing for the gui to be lighter..... perhaps if we beg and plead Mr. Sanford........
even just the text being lightened....
not to start another Arcsyn gui battle thread....

Chris-S · Post by **Chris-S** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 12:56 pm

Ingonator wrote:What is also a bit confusing and/or misleading for me are the "FM1" and "FM2" section for modulation.

Agree, for all custom skin makers I suggest to change to "MOD1" and "MOD2" for the Osc modulation.

For the VCF "fm" is ok (filter modulation).

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 1:01 pm

Chris-S wrote: I suggest to change to "MOD1" and "MOD2" for the Osc modulation.

++++++1

i would use the MOD label in the filter section as well

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 1:04 pm

ENV1 wrote:click for fullsize

man, that looks damn nice (as usual). always a better feeling using a synth that has a "pro/polished" look to it.

Leslie Sanford wrote:... I have to say that I'm not comfortable with the DLLs being distributed outside of my website. I appreciate your asking, though.

might it be possible to distribute a version with his GUI changes on your website then? looks quite a bit better really (though the original is pretty good itself). would be much appreciated.

ENV1 · Post by **ENV1** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 1:15 pm

Leslie Sanford wrote:Hi, I have to say that I'm not comfortable with the DLLs being distributed outside of my website. I appreciate your asking, though.

Of course. If you dont want that i consider the topic closed.

One question though while i have your attention. Do you plan to do any more work on Cobalt at all? Im asking because ive found a lot of inconsistencies with respect to the alignment of various elements, the most readily observable being the Level slider of the Overdrive section, which is positioned 3 pixels higher than the Level sliders of DCO1 and DCO2. (Enough to make it touch the section-label background-band.) And theres a lot more like that, (mostly just 1 or 2 pixels), so in case you do want to make everything 'flush' i would be more than happy to provide you with a list of affected items along with an image that visually shows where the element boundaries are at present and which of them would need correction by what amount of pixels for 100% symmetry. Just let me know, its no trouble at all.

As to the black skin; ive noticed that whenever im working on a very dark skin during the evening hours for a longer period of time, (as in this case), i tend to make the labels much darker than they probably should be because the eyes simply get used to all the darkness after a time. I couldnt help but notice this once again this afternoon, so i went in again and brightened up the labels and scale-lines by circa 20%. Of course this resulted in a somewhat starker contrast, but i dont think thats necessarily a bad thing and still in the OK range. Feel free to let me know what you think.

click for fullsize

ENV1 · Post by **ENV1** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 1:18 pm

layzer wrote:i was going to do the same thing. but i was also going to make the text more readable by lightening it up some.

Yeah, mine was definitely too dark too.

Ive noticed it this afternoon when i came in from the bright daylight.

Ive already made it brighter, should be OK now.

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 2:29 pm

ENV1 wrote: i went in again and brightened up the labels and scale-lines by circa 20%. Of course this resulted in a somewhat starker contrast

click for fullsize

I hope Mr. Sanford Adapts this as the default.
It has that same elegance of your work on PG8X!

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:03 pm

layzer wrote:I hope Mr. Sanford Adapts this as the default.
It has that same elegance of your work on PG8X!

definitely, that's just gorgeous. pretty nice synth, just tried it out (been away for the weekend, just catching up on all the recent news). something a bit odd about it that i can't put my finger on (and i'm sure using ENV1's GUI would certainly make it more pleasurable to work with if they can work something out), but really has that 80s sound nailed pretty good. some little pops/clicks here and there, but overall pretty good. not sure what i think about the filter, need to spend more time with it. does seem a bit "thin" sounding sometimes, though some patches certainly have some weight to them. definitely doesn't feel/sound like SQ-8L to me though, not that it matters. more like the light/airy sound of PG-8X, for example (that's the feeling i got from spending a few minutes with it so far).

not sure if i noticed the "slow drawing" problem when loading it, but there is something weird about the current GUI. i was using Sonimus' Britson on the same channel and had both GUIs displayed. when i moved the Britson GUI over Cobalt, the Cobalt GUI seemed to slightly "move" underneath (as if it were sort of "re-drawing" itself as parts of its GUI were exposed). really weird, never seen anything like it.

i did notice that when loading it into Maschine standalone, trying to load the large version just gave me the smaller version for some reason. both sizes seemed to work ok in Ableton. haven't looked into it much, but thought i'd mention it.

GaryG · Post by **GaryG** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:22 pm

Aloysius wrote:Yeah. I've used it on two (maybe three) different computers and it always 'draws' the same way. Block by block. It's quick enough but noticible. I've never seen any other Plugin behave this way.

Interesting, I'll try it again tonight and pay closer attention.

ENV1 · Post by **ENV1** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 3:44 pm

jbuonacc wrote:not sure if i noticed the "slow drawing" problem when loading it, but there is something weird about the current GUI. i was using Sonimus' Britson on the same channel and had both GUIs displayed. when i moved the Britson GUI over Cobalt, the Cobalt GUI seemed to slightly "move" underneath (as if it were sort of "re-drawing" itself as parts of its GUI were exposed)

You mean like this:

click to view animation

Ive noticed this too, but its not really bothering me since the controls return instantly.

(If they didnt, it would be more of a problem.)

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 4:02 pm

ENV1 wrote:You mean like this:

click to view animation

Ive noticed this too, but its not really bothering me since the controls return instantly.

(If they didnt, it would be more of a problem.)

oh, god no, nothing as bad as shown there. that's friggin' horrible. can't test it again at the moment, but i think it seemed like the envelope sliders (the GUI element that caught my eye) just jumped a pixel or so then settled back into place. didn't really pay too much attention to it, but i definitely would have noticed if there were things totally disappearing like shown in your animation there.

i'll try to report back on it a bit later.

EDIT: i was able to test it just now. that's exactly what's happening - the slider caps are actually disappearing for a split second, then they show back up. ...but only the slider caps here on 32-bit Ableton. the knobs, switches, etc are all fine. sorry, didn't look too closely at it earlier.

EDIT #2: actually, it's also the knobs sometimes as well. i think i didn't notice them at first because the default GUI doesn't seem to have the "holes" where the knobs would be, it just shows the (blue/grey? sorry) background. i noticed that it depends on how fast i move the Britson GUI over it. if i move it slowly, they seem to stay in place.

ENV1 · Post by **ENV1** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 4:15 pm

What host are you using?

I just checked and it doesnt happen at all in energyXT and REAPER, so it seems to be a host-specific thing.

EDIT: I see you said Ableton. Never mind.

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Mon Nov 28, 2016 4:16 pm

in EnergyXT2 under WinXp SP3 x32 i have not experienced any slow or strange GUI
behavior. it opens and closes fast and no issues moving other synths over it.

Welcome back Cobalt.