KVR Audio

richhickey · Post by **richhickey** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 12:56 pm

This sounds great, but the 2 slot mod 'matrix' makes me sad. U-he obviously knows how to do a great mod matrix (e.g. Hive) and I'd love to see that standardized on all their synths. I don't see why classic sounds need to be paired with anemic control in this day of LinnStrument, Roli etc, but perhaps there is some technical reason. I understand "the originals only did x" but the originals weren't software running as plugins. Emulation should stop somewhere and control is orthogonal, e.g. many classic synths didn't support velocity or aftertouch but adding that support is an obvious and useful enhancement.

Please Urs, more mod matrix!

(Zebra, Diva, Hive, Bazille, Repro... and breath controller, expression pedal and LinnStrument owner

Cinebient · Post by **Cinebient** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 1:01 pm

AdamWysokinski wrote:I've tried Repro-5 and was really impressed (not so much with Repro-1, it sounds good but it just doesn't fit in the music I do). I will definitely get Diva in the near future for soft, smooth, lush, warm pads and leads.
So, the question is: does Repro-5 can produce really unique sounds of this particular type that I won't be able to create in Diva? I think that Diva plus some external processing and effects (e.g. mangling with Uhbik/Reaktor) can be much more productive for me.

I think for those wonderfully distorted pads there is nothing better than Repro out there now.
The per voice distortion is really nice to have and the per voice panning too.
Especially if i combine the per voice distortion and velvet it sounds so beautiful saturated but without really sounding too distorted and noisy which happens often with external saturation plug-ins or if you put distortion after the voices sum.
But of course it´s up to personal flavor and workflow and there is a demo to try too.
Before Repro (and P900) i didn´t know i even like analog/vintage stuff so much

For mono synth i also think Repro is fantastic. Having the sequencer as modulation source (via velocity) and using the LFO to modulate the speed you can achieve some pretty awesome rhythmic stuff. Also still the wavefolder (JAWS) is outstanding good in Repro-1.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:22 pm

noiseboyuk wrote: No FM in the Repros, so that just leaves the extreme pitches - I'm guessing that might apply to high resonance pitches, so that might explain why some kick drum sounds (with that laser zap) are affected.

Of course there is FM. In the Voice Mod section you could route Osc B to Osc A pitch/frequency and also to the filter Cutoff. Routing OSc B to Osc A PWM (again in the voice mod section) gives audio rate PWM.

In the Wheel mod section you could mix the LFO source with a noise source which means audio rate modulation too.

noiseboyuk · Post by **noiseboyuk** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:30 pm

Ingonator wrote:
noiseboyuk wrote: No FM in the Repros, so that just leaves the extreme pitches - I'm guessing that might apply to high resonance pitches, so that might explain why some kick drum sounds (with that laser zap) are affected.
Of course there is FM. In the Voice Mod section you could route Osc B to Osc A pitch/frequency and also to the filter Cutoff. Routing OSc B to Osc A PWM (again in the voice mod section) gives audio rate PWM.

In the Wheel mod section you could mix the LFO source with a noise source which means audio rate modulation too.

Oh yeah, very good.

egbert101 · Post by **egbert101** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:34 pm

waltercruz · Post by **waltercruz** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:50 pm

egbert101 wrote:I think Urs learned about this trick about saturating each voice from a modified version, possibly a Tangerine Dream prophet 5.

Not really. It has a coincidence. From Repro-5 manual

Repro-5 manual wrote: Repro-5’s distortion unit is polyphonic. Each voice has its own processor, so there is no interaction between notes in a chord. Although it wasn’t what sparked the idea for including a per-voice distortion unit in repro-5, Edgar Froese (of Tangerine Dream) once attached an Elektro-Harmonix “Big Muff” fuzzbox to each of the five outputs of his modified SC Prophet-5.

egbert101 · Post by **egbert101** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 3:00 pm

dreamkeeper · Post by **dreamkeeper** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 4:39 pm

I think Urs learned about this trick about saturating each voice from a modified version, possibly a Tangerine Dream prophet 5.

Polyphonic distortion isn't something new. Absynth did it right from the start. Massive has waveshaper inserts, too - probably many other synths, sometimes hidden like Olga.

Cinebient · Post by **Cinebient** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 4:52 pm

dreamkeeper wrote:
I think Urs learned about this trick about saturating each voice from a modified version, possibly a Tangerine Dream prophet 5.
Polyphonic distortion isn't something new. Absynth did it right from the start. Massive has waveshaper inserts, too - probably many other synths, sometimes hidden like Olga.

Of course it´s not new but i still think in Repro it sounds better mostly.
Otherwise it´s anyway easy to make everything polyphonic these days with modern software.
Just use an instance per voice and sum the output. Polyphonic reverbs are great too

fluffy_little_something · Sun Dec 17, 2017 6:21 pm

Most interesting patches use a lot of the built-in effects, which makes me wonder whether the original sounded nearly as interesting as Repro. After all, the original did not have those effects, right? And when I turn them off on Repro, the sound becomes pretty similar to that of other good soft synths.

Regarding the CPU usage, I just downloaded Reaper (looks rather complex) so that I can exclude Mulab as the bottleneck. It is really odd when a patch uses less than 10% on someone's laptop, while the same 6-note chords overpowers my CPU, which is 5 years more modern and superior on benchmark tests.
I wonder what computers and audio setup U-he employees use when developing their plugins. Maybe also Intel-based notebooks?

db3 · Post by **db3** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 6:47 pm

fluffy_little_something wrote:I wonder what computers and audio setup U-he employees use when developing their plugins. Maybe also Intel-based notebooks?

I'm sure Urs will confirm, but I've only seen them using Macs in videos in their office and at trade shows. That said, they always appear to operate very thorough betas across platforms. I'm finding Repro-5 DSP usage very respectable given the quality, and enabling multi-core reduces load significantly (Mac i7).

Interesting video

e@rs · Post by **e@rs** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 6:51 pm

Sounds delicious, but the CPU usage is brutal. Can only use maximum 4 voices.

I sincerely hope you don't plan Zebra 3 to be anywhere near as hungry as this one.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 7:01 pm

What's your CPU?

fluffy_little_something wrote:And when I turn them off on Repro, the sound becomes pretty similar to that of other good soft synths.

Well... no. The difference becomes very obvious as soon as resonance is pushed and some audio-rate modulation is introduced.

e@rs · Post by **e@rs** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 7:21 pm

EvilDragon wrote:What's your CPU?

It's an old one, C2D E6750. But my point is that I can use multiple instances of Diva or Bazille in middle quality, but not Repro-5.

noiseboyuk · Post by **noiseboyuk** » Sun Dec 17, 2017 7:22 pm

e@rs wrote:Sounds delicious, but the CPU usage is brutal. Can only use maximum 4 voices.

Don't know what your system is but CPU is actually very reasonable for me in Cubase with MC turned on - drops by 75% when I do that.

u-he Repro (Repro-1 & Repro-5) released