KVR Audio

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Sun Jun 04, 2017 9:55 pm

Ingonator wrote:
fluffy_little_something wrote:Never heard anything greater than 48db, and even that was only two crappy SE filters in series and probably far from a true 8-pole filter

What's the purpose/result soundwise? Usually the more poles, the more "muted" a LP filter sounds. Except for Saurus if I remember correctly
Well, based on our conversatiosn in the past (and recently i mostly tried to ignore you...) i am not sure if it makes sense to start a serious reply to you but here you go:

As just mentioned that drawable filter in Spectral displays the semitones in x-axis (with 12 semitones = 1 octave) and dB in teh y-axis so you coudl measure the usual dB/Oct value for the "steepness" of the filter.
Anyway the drawable filter in Spectral is not really similar to a hardare filter that normall used multiple values of 6dB/oct like e.g. 6, 12, 18, 24 etc.
I Spectral you coudl also use values that are not multiples of 6 like e.g 10 dB etc.

A higher "Steepness" of a Lowpass filter at the same Cutoff value results in less high frequency content which could be especially helpful for Bass sounds (and also for Synth Horns liek in my own patch i mentioned above).

A "formant filter" usally consists of many Banpdpass filters with a fixed Cutoff and those Bandpass filters usually need to be very steep to not have too much overlapping of the different filter bands.
With the drawable filter in Spectral you could create a very steep Bandpass filter and also a kind of formant filter with mu8ltiple bands.
You could also create a complex filter that does not correspond to anything found in a hardware synth.

I imagine that this extremely flexible filter plus the huge additive features are the main reasons of the CPU hog from Spectral. It was certainly a drawback at the moment of the first version four or five years ago, but now that the computers are quite faster than in 2013 it is certainly a problem which disappears now. It's too bad that Peter will not profit financially of that improvement of the CPUs of today (I guess that one of the reasons of his stop today is because Linplug was less and less money-making along the years). With Spectral he has worked for the future (the other companies too of course)... and now he leaves. It's sad.

I could almost say that Spectral is a synth which would have better been released today than in 2013...

DJBuddhaBear · Post by **DJBuddhaBear** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 1:50 am

wickfut wrote:
Caine123 wrote:how is CRx4 different than eg a sampler like TAL SAMPLER?
because it can do much much more. Once you get passed its small and cluttered GUI it's an amazing synth for odd noises and weird shit.

it's also a wavetable synth, a VA synth, a basic sampler only with timestretching built into each sample, etc.

The filters can by swept through the different filters too, so a sound can start off with a low pass and sweep to a high pass.

here's one sound I quickly just knocked up on crx4 with its time stretching :

https://instaud.io/Zq5

Thanks for sharing that sample. I have been on the fence between CRx4 and Spectral. Hopefully I will have funds and time to get both (damn NI with their Komplete offers!). But now I know I must get CRx4. Fantastic!

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 1:51 am

BlackWinny wrote:
Ingonator wrote:
fluffy_little_something wrote:Never heard anything greater than 48db, and even that was only two crappy SE filters in series and probably far from a true 8-pole filter

What's the purpose/result soundwise? Usually the more poles, the more "muted" a LP filter sounds. Except for Saurus if I remember correctly
Well, based on our conversatiosn in the past (and recently i mostly tried to ignore you...) i am not sure if it makes sense to start a serious reply to you but here you go:

As just mentioned that drawable filter in Spectral displays the semitones in x-axis (with 12 semitones = 1 octave) and dB in teh y-axis so you coudl measure the usual dB/Oct value for the "steepness" of the filter.
Anyway the drawable filter in Spectral is not really similar to a hardare filter that normall used multiple values of 6dB/oct like e.g. 6, 12, 18, 24 etc.
I Spectral you coudl also use values that are not multiples of 6 like e.g 10 dB etc.

A higher "Steepness" of a Lowpass filter at the same Cutoff value results in less high frequency content which could be especially helpful for Bass sounds (and also for Synth Horns liek in my own patch i mentioned above).

A "formant filter" usally consists of many Banpdpass filters with a fixed Cutoff and those Bandpass filters usually need to be very steep to not have too much overlapping of the different filter bands.
With the drawable filter in Spectral you could create a very steep Bandpass filter and also a kind of formant filter with mu8ltiple bands.
You could also create a complex filter that does not correspond to anything found in a hardware synth.
I imagine that this extremely flexible filter plus the huge additive features are the main reasons of the CPU hog from Spectral. It was certainly a drawback at the moment of the first version four or five years ago, but now that the computers are quite faster than in 2013 it is certainly a problem which disappears now. It's too bad that Peter will not profit financially of that improvement of the CPUs of today (I guess that one of the reasons of his stop today is because Linplug was less and less money-making along the years). With Spectral he has worked for the future (the other companies too of course)... and now he leaves. It's sad.

I could almost say that Spectral is a synth which would have better been released today than in 2013...

The CPU use also depends on the Unison settings in the Oscs which could be different for each Ocs/Layer.
The Unison (or "Spread") voices could be set to up to 6 for each of the 4 Oscs.

Each of the up to 4 Oscs in Spectral has it's own filter so it's more like a "layer". Anyway the AM and FM also works between different Oscs (e.g. FM of Osc 1 with Osc 3) so it's not just "simple" layers...
Same about Filter FM and RM where the sources for Fm and RM could be all 4 Oscs or all 4 Filters.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 2:09 am

fluffy_little_something wrote:Hm, makes me wonder why soft synths don't have a db knob for continuously setting the slope. Probably a remainder of hardware convention...

How many db would a filter have where the line on the scope drops vertically like a stone at any given frequency?

Maybe you do not really get how the filter editor in Spectral works. It's not just about setting the filter slope but you could design your own filter shape from scratch which is not just about Lowpass filters.
You could design a filter that does not exist in hardware synths or any other synth.
It's not about design of filter circuits but about drawing the shape of the filter frequency response. The resolution of the filter shape is not "endless" but you got around 121 "filter bands" that create the final filter shape (bands -60 to +60).

The FFT filter in VPS Avenger might be somehow comparable to what this does while the FFT filter does not have dedicated controls for Resonance and filter FM and also the modulation of filter parameters is limited in the FFT filter. Spectral offer modulation of the "usual" filter parameters like e.g. Cutoff and Resonance and you could also set the filter keytracking. Not to forget that each of the 4 Oscs in Spectral could have it's own filter (or you could use the copy/paste feature for filters and also save/load filter settings). The filter presets also include e.g. a 96dB Bandpass filter.

Tone2 Icarus has a filter mode called "LP Chain 6-48dB" that has no resonance but you could vary the slope between 6dB and 48dB usig the "Reso" oparameter which could be also modulated. Theer is also a filter mode called "HP Chain 6-48dB" which does the same with a Highpass filter. If you combine those LP and HP modes in a dual filter in series you receive a very flexible Bandpass filter.

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:47 am

Here's a little spectral ditty. its all spectral except the drums. only some reverb applied.

https://soundcloud.com/musicofplexus/spectral

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 8:18 am

robotmonkey wrote:The only problem I see in all of this is that they are asking 49$ for dead plugins. It would be more sensible to make them 9.99 or even free.

tbh I'm considering buying the only one I don't have (MorphoX) just to give them a send off gift - I think historically their contribution to plugin development and the community should not go unrecognised. As far as I recall not only did they produce some of the very first commercial VST plugins but also the first one with a modulation matrix:

http://testtone.com/developers/linplug- ... toar-delta

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 9:56 am

which soundsets on the linplug page can u recommend for spectral?
I dont need bead & butter sounds like edm etc cause i use sylenth. serum etc for it

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 10:21 am

Ian Boddy is my favourite, Transformer is also excellent, The Arksun/BigTone one I also like - was expecting it to be more EDM focused but it's broader than that and the quality is very good. Most are worthwhile (only one I didn't need is the bass/lead one).

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:06 am

Caine123 wrote:which soundsets on the linplug page can u recommend for spectral?
I dont need bead & butter sounds like edm etc cause i use sylenth. serum etc for it

If you want non EDM sounds, you might want to check mine out.

I hate EDM. LOL.

starflakeprj · Post by **starflakeprj** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:17 am

wagtunes wrote:
Caine123 wrote:which soundsets on the linplug page can u recommend for spectral?
I dont need bead & butter sounds like edm etc cause i use sylenth. serum etc for it
If you want non EDM sounds, you might want to check mine out.

I hate EDM. LOL.

Now I'm sure Caine123 was referring to the ones on the LinPlug website though, as those cost $9.99. Yours is $15 as far as I can tell. The ones on the LinPlug website are not aimed for EDM either IMO.

@Caine123, The ones I purchase during the Christmas holiday last year was "Arksun meets BitTone", "Ian Boddy Signature", "In-Visible" and "Warm n Deep". These are the ones I found most the most tempting to purchase.

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:33 am

starflakeprj wrote:
wagtunes wrote:
Caine123 wrote:which soundsets on the linplug page can u recommend for spectral?
I dont need bead & butter sounds like edm etc cause i use sylenth. serum etc for it
If you want non EDM sounds, you might want to check mine out.

I hate EDM. LOL.
Now I'm sure Caine123 was referring to the ones on the LinPlug website though, as those cost $9.99. Yours is $15 as far as I can tell. The ones on the LinPlug website are not aimed for EDM either IMO.

@Caine123, The ones I purchase during the Christmas holiday last year was "Arksun meets BitTone", "Ian Boddy Signature", "In-Visible" and "Warm n Deep". These are the ones I found most the most tempting to purchase.

Well, it's 100 presets for 10 bucks. Mine are 150 presets for 15 bucks. So it comes out to the same cost per preset.

starflakeprj · Post by **starflakeprj** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:36 am

wagtunes wrote:
starflakeprj wrote:
wagtunes wrote:
Caine123 wrote:which soundsets on the linplug page can u recommend for spectral?
I dont need bead & butter sounds like edm etc cause i use sylenth. serum etc for it
If you want non EDM sounds, you might want to check mine out.

I hate EDM. LOL.
Now I'm sure Caine123 was referring to the ones on the LinPlug website though, as those cost $9.99. Yours is $15 as far as I can tell. The ones on the LinPlug website are not aimed for EDM either IMO.

@Caine123, The ones I purchase during the Christmas holiday last year was "Arksun meets BitTone", "Ian Boddy Signature", "In-Visible" and "Warm n Deep". These are the ones I found most the most tempting to purchase.
Well, it's 100 presets for 10 bucks. Mine are 150 presets for 15 bucks. So it comes out to the same cost per preset.

Ok, yeah, I'll give you that one

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:38 am

Caine123 wrote:which soundsets on the linplug page can u recommend for spectral?
I dont need bead & butter sounds like edm etc cause i use sylenth. serum etc for it

The two sunsets from Patchpool (Simon Stockhausen) are mainly focused on Ambient and cinematic music. They can be sold alone each one, or in a bundle with a discount.

Spectral Shop

Browse both and for each one open the tab "Video Demos" to watch them in action. Beware, it is a very long set of videos, you'll have for a long time of blast.

Another one which is beautiful for Ambient music is Spectral Shadows from Homegrown Sounds.

I have also demoed those from Linplug's website, but I find them more generalist. They are an excellent way to discover the synth anyhow.

fluffy_little_something · Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:38 am

When you read the specs of Spectral, no wonder they gave up. It is so complete, there is nothing meaningful they could add.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 12:18 pm

BlackWinny wrote: Another one which is beautiful for Ambient music is Spectral Shadows from Homegrown Sounds.

This is my favourite out of all of them

Linplug discontinued :( Back your stuff up.