Arturia V Collection 6

[electro]

I haven't upgraded to 6 yet because $200 is a tad steep, but Woody's Piano Shack just did a demo video, comparing Yamaha to Arturia and dexed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZRZfIA8rF4

He notes that a lot of patches sound very dull compared to the original when the velocity dropdown at the bottom is set to "DX7," which ostensibly accounts for the weird "cap MIDI at 100" thing Yamaha did because they didn't understand the MIDI spec at the time. Setting that to "Full" makes them sound pretty damned close to me. The dropdown likes to reset itself when you change patches, so be on the lookout.

Assuming he loaded the same .syx files to each synth, Dexed examples sound more accurate. For the fairest comparison, the controller data should be from external keyboard and DX7 keybed on the Arturia has to be disabled.

[shonky]

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=496594

Wow, Arturia V Collection looses value from day to day...

Remember seeing that shortlived reverb.com promo for the Soundtoys bundle and V collection 5 and thinking someone could make a tidy profit on resale, then a week or so later they drop 6.

Please never follow my advice, I certainly didn't.

[braj]

I dunno, I don't make any money with my music, and I don't consider it money wasted. When I don't use it, it is definitely time wasted though.

[lnikj]

Not sure it does work. Certainly not in Ableton. Anybody?

In the manual I couldn't see how the pre-amp section, to which it's referred you can send external audio into, actually does this. There is nothing about it in the pre-amp section of the manual, nor anything that suggests you can feed audio into it, other than that one reference mentioned above - I'm guessing this is a manual error.

No. It says you can do it but not how to route the audio in. As it is a key feature of the Easel its like they intended to do it and then forgot the last link in the chain. Thanks for looking. My reading of the manual drew me to the same conclusion.

PEBKAC ... sorry guys ... it does work in Live via the sidechain (though this is not documented in the Easel Manual).

[hellomrbike]

Not sure it does work. Certainly not in Ableton. Anybody?

In the manual I couldn't see how the pre-amp section, to which it's referred you can send external audio into, actually does this. There is nothing about it in the pre-amp section of the manual, nor anything that suggests you can feed audio into it, other than that one reference mentioned above - I'm guessing this is a manual error.

No. It says you can do it but not how to route the audio in. As it is a key feature of the Easel its like they intended to do it and then forgot the last link in the chain. Thanks for looking. My reading of the manual drew me to the same conclusion.

PEBKAC ... sorry guys ... it does work in Live via the sidechain (though this is not documented in the Easel Manual).

Since it's not documented in the Easel manual, could I trouble you to explain a bit how you route audio into the VST through sidechain in Live?

[beely]

Since it's not documented in the Easel manual, could I trouble you to explain a bit how you route audio into the VST through sidechain in Live?

I gave it a quick try in Logic too, and it worked for me.

Feed the audio into the sidechain (using whatever method your host uses for this).

In the Buchla, the preamp must be in "EXT" mode, and the gate section must be feeding from the preamp.

Once those two switch are set, you can take mod sources from that incoming audio from the mod cv or env out sockets, and patch it to where you want.

There may be other thing you can do, those are the only things I tried...

[Bump1]

Wow...I never pulled the trigger on the Arturia plugins....but I might buy the standalone DX7 V for $99

I really don't need/want the others.

Dexed is very good but the GUI on the DX7 V looks nicer to work with. The envelope implementation is very nice.

And the 25 waveforms really makes it more like an SY77 (or really an sy99 without sampling functionality)....guess they wouldn't cause a frenzy if they marketed it as such.

[mcbpete]

Assuming he loaded the same .syx files to each synth, Dexed examples sound more accurate. For the fairest comparison, the controller data should be from external keyboard and DX7 keybed on the Arturia has to be disabled.

Did you reach the bit where he realised he had to switch the DX7 V velocity range setting from 'DX7' to 'Full' (about the 14 min mark) for the factory patches. (ps. loved the perfect example of confirmation bias from 15:50 - 17:32 with him saying it sounded much better before noticing the setting had gone back to the original 'DX7' mode again )

[foosnark]

Feed the audio into the sidechain (using whatever method your host uses for this).

In the Buchla, the preamp must be in "EXT" mode, and the gate section must be feeding from the preamp.

Once those two switch are set, you can take mod sources from that incoming audio from the mod cv or env out sockets, and patch it to where you want.

Unless I missed another setting somewhere, Mod CV Out is always from the Modulation Oscillator, regardless of any other settings. Env Out is an envelope follower that always follows the preamp, regardless of gate 2's selection.

In Maschine, the external input doesn't show up as a sidechain (probably because the plugin is an instrument rather than an effect), but you can route an aux output of another "sound" into it anyway.

[beely]

Unless I missed another setting somewhere, Mod CV Out is always from the Modulation Oscillator, regardless of any other settings. Env Out is an envelope follower that always follows the preamp, regardless of gate 2's selection.

Sure, like I said, I only looked at this super-quickly, and I'm not familiar with the Buchla at all, just giving some feedback on my initial observations from mocking something up quickly...

Is it just that the incoming audio signal is a modulator that comes from the env out socket, then? That's the only use for incoming audio?

[lnikj]

Feed the audio into the sidechain (using whatever method your host uses for this).

In the Buchla, the preamp must be in "EXT" mode, and the gate section must be feeding from the preamp.

Once those two switch are set, you can take mod sources from that incoming audio from the mod cv or env out sockets, and patch it to where you want.

Unless I missed another setting somewhere, Mod CV Out is always from the Modulation Oscillator, regardless of any other settings. Env Out is an envelope follower that always follows the preamp, regardless of gate 2's selection.

In Maschine, the external input doesn't show up as a sidechain (probably because the plugin is an instrument rather than an effect), but you can route an aux output of another "sound" into it anyway.

Have you had any luck with the balanced external input for ring modulation. No external signal I feed it seems to modulate the complex oscillator. Something I'm doing wrong again I'm sure.

[lnikj]

Is it just that the incoming audio signal is a modulator that comes from the env out socket, then? That's the only use for incoming audio?

As in my previous post you should be able to use the audio for ring modulation as well (I think !)

[lnikj]

Feed the audio into the sidechain (using whatever method your host uses for this).

In the Buchla, the preamp must be in "EXT" mode, and the gate section must be feeding from the preamp.

Once those two switch are set, you can take mod sources from that incoming audio from the mod cv or env out sockets, and patch it to where you want.

Unless I missed another setting somewhere, Mod CV Out is always from the Modulation Oscillator, regardless of any other settings. Env Out is an envelope follower that always follows the preamp, regardless of gate 2's selection.

In Maschine, the external input doesn't show up as a sidechain (probably because the plugin is an instrument rather than an effect), but you can route an aux output of another "sound" into it anyway.

Have you had any luck with the balanced external input for ring modulation. No external signal I feed it seems to modulate the complex oscillator. Something I'm doing wrong again I'm sure.

Yep, me being thick again, the ring modulation is internal to the modulation oscillator, not hard wired to the complex oscillator.

[lnikj]

Since it's not documented in the Easel manual, could I trouble you to explain a bit how you route audio into the VST through sidechain in Live?

In Live:

screenshot_22.png

The drums (Tremor) are muted (useful for the enveloper follower), and the synth is active (useful for the ring mod). You can switch between them.

[waltercruz]

I haven't upgraded to 6 yet because $200 is a tad steep, but Woody's Piano Shack just did a demo video, comparing Yamaha to Arturia and dexed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZRZfIA8rF4

He notes that a lot of patches sound very dull compared to the original when the velocity dropdown at the bottom is set to "DX7," which ostensibly accounts for the weird "cap MIDI at 100" thing Yamaha did because they didn't understand the MIDI spec at the time. Setting that to "Full" makes them sound pretty damned close to me. The dropdown likes to reset itself when you change patches, so be on the lookout.

The devil on my shoulder keeps whispering to me about upgrading and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I give in, probably after the holidays. I'm mostly interested in a pedagogical sense, because I've always wanted to study John Chowning's FM synthesis book that's floating around on the web but uses DX7 patch settings as a reference. I'd love to do a study of Alan Strange's manual for the Music Easel, and go through Todd Barton's examples too.

Ugh, I'm gonna cave, aren't I.

he just did another video, where he plays everything on "Full" keyboard settings.