UVI USQ-1

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USQ-1

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As an owner of both an ESQ-1 and an AX-80, I can't bring myself to buy UVI's sample libraries of either....especially in the case of the ESQ-1

The engine of the ESQ-1 is so deep and fun to play with that, once you've programmed one, the limited control over the presets on the like on the USQ-1, and inaccessibility to the raw waveforms...just feels hollow

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Bump1 wrote:As an owner of both an ESQ-1 and an AX-80, I can't bring myself to buy UVI's sample libraries of either....especially in the case of the ESQ-1

The engine of the ESQ-1 is so deep and fun to play with that, once you've programmed one, the limited control over the presets on the like on the USQ-1, and inaccessibility to the raw waveforms...just feels hollow
As mentioend earlier i got a real ESQ-1 too but still USQ-1 is a very nice instrument iMO.

USQ-1 besides 400 full presets includes 268 raw multisamples that ar available for both layers in USQ-1 that are called "Osc1" and "Osc 2" there. Those multisamples include all 32 raw waveforms and most of the original 40 factory presets and each note/key seems to be sampled, not just a few per octave.

As you might notice from the comparison i posted here earlier USQ-1 is able to actually sound like the real thing.

The sheer amount of multisamples based on all kinds of different sounds (including also the Osc Sync) allows using a huge amount of sounds, either by using the presets or doing you own ones with the USQ-1 engine.
The sound design of the raw multisamples seemed to be mostly done on the ESQ-1 (including certain filter modulations etc.) while the Amp envelope is adjusted in the USQ-1 engine which makes sense.

You should also not forget that the real ESQ-1 only included 40 factory presets (or abnak theer in general) where USQ-1 has 400 factory presets.

Besides that the presets included in USQ-1 while based on samples of the real thing often try to go beyond what is possible in the real thing. Actually going beyond what is possible in the real thing is something that could make the sampling approach really interesting.
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

Post

Ingonator wrote:
Bump1 wrote:As an owner of both an ESQ-1 and an AX-80, I can't bring myself to buy UVI's sample libraries of either....especially in the case of the ESQ-1

The engine of the ESQ-1 is so deep and fun to play with that, once you've programmed one, the limited control over the presets on the like on the USQ-1, and inaccessibility to the raw waveforms...just feels hollow
As mentioend earlier i got a real ESQ-1 too but still USQ-1 is a very nice instrument iMO.

USQ-1 besides 400 full presets includes 268 raw multisamples that ar available for both layers in USQ-1 that are called "Osc1" and "Osc 2" there. Those multisamples include all 32 raw waveforms and most of the original 40 factory presets and each note/key seems to be sampled, not just a few per octave.

As you might notice from the comparison i posted here earlier USQ-1 is able to actually sound like the real thing.

The sheer amount of multisamples based on all kinds of different sounds (including also the Osc Sync) allows using a huge amount of sounds, either by using the presets or doing you own ones with the USQ-1 engine.
The sound design of the raw multisamples seemed to be mostly done on the ESQ-1 (including certain filter modulations etc.) while the Amp envelope is adjusted in the USQ-1 engine which makes sense.

You should also not forget that the real ESQ-1 only included 40 factory presets (or abnak theer in general) where USQ-1 has 400 factory presets.

Besides that the presets included in USQ-1 while based on samples of the real thing often try to go beyond what is possible in the real thing. Actually going beyond what is possible in the real thing is something that could make the sampling approach really interesting.
That's good to know they do actually have the raw waveforms. It still seems like a compromise where it's the waveforms inside a different synth engine.

Only 2 Osc? No ring modulation?

Also, on the ESQ-1/SQ-80 the modulation routing allowed almost all sources to be destinations.

And then the filter...which isn't a dealbreaker anyway for me as the ESQ1 filter isn't my personal favorite

Post

Bump1 wrote:
Ingonator wrote:
Bump1 wrote:As an owner of both an ESQ-1 and an AX-80, I can't bring myself to buy UVI's sample libraries of either....especially in the case of the ESQ-1

The engine of the ESQ-1 is so deep and fun to play with that, once you've programmed one, the limited control over the presets on the like on the USQ-1, and inaccessibility to the raw waveforms...just feels hollow
As mentioend earlier i got a real ESQ-1 too but still USQ-1 is a very nice instrument iMO.

USQ-1 besides 400 full presets includes 268 raw multisamples that ar available for both layers in USQ-1 that are called "Osc1" and "Osc 2" there. Those multisamples include all 32 raw waveforms and most of the original 40 factory presets and each note/key seems to be sampled, not just a few per octave.

As you might notice from the comparison i posted here earlier USQ-1 is able to actually sound like the real thing.

The sheer amount of multisamples based on all kinds of different sounds (including also the Osc Sync) allows using a huge amount of sounds, either by using the presets or doing you own ones with the USQ-1 engine.
The sound design of the raw multisamples seemed to be mostly done on the ESQ-1 (including certain filter modulations etc.) while the Amp envelope is adjusted in the USQ-1 engine which makes sense.

You should also not forget that the real ESQ-1 only included 40 factory presets (or abnak theer in general) where USQ-1 has 400 factory presets.

Besides that the presets included in USQ-1 while based on samples of the real thing often try to go beyond what is possible in the real thing. Actually going beyond what is possible in the real thing is something that could make the sampling approach really interesting.
That's good to know they do actually have the raw waveforms. It still seems like a compromise where it's the waveforms inside a different synth engine.

Only 2 Osc? No ring modulation?

Also, on the ESQ-1/SQ-80 the modulation routing allowed almost all sources to be destinations.

And then the filter...which isn't a dealbreaker anyway for me as the ESQ1 filter isn't my personal favorite
As alraedy mentioned the sound design for the samples was mostly done on the real ESQ-1 so the filter is NOT fully replaced by that in USQ-1. The filter there is just to further modify the samples and the real ESQ-1 did not have BPF and HPF modes like the filter in USQ-1 (which actually is the Xpander multimode filter from Falcon).

Also what is called "Oscs" in USQ-1 actually are 2 layers where each layer starts with an ESQ-1 based sample which could have used up to 3 Oscs there while it was sampled (+ Osc Sync and/or Ringmod with some of the samples).

While the engine of USQ-1 does not support Ringmod and Osc Sync teh sames included in USQ-1 include samples that used those features in the ESQ-1. Sound wise this might be more obvious for those samples who are based on Osc Sync.

FWIW the Xpander filter in Falcon is inspired by the CEM3372 chip based multimode filter of the hardware Xpander/Matrix-12 while the ESQ-1 uses a CEM3379 chip (one for each of the 8 voices). Both chips also include a VCA.

While the overall amount of single samples in USQ-1 looks big with 268 multisamples this corresponds to around 85 single samples for each multisample. That would fit to sampling each note of 7 octaves.
To me also when compared to a real ESQ-1 the multisamples indeed do sound like they sampled all of the notes.

Besides all that some of the presets of USQ-1 that are based on using the raw Osc waveforms (the last 32 of the 268 multsamples) in combination with teh synth engine of USQ-1 could sound really good.

To sum it up you really should be aware that most of those multisamples seem to be "full" patches create wit hteh ESQ-1 while the raw Osc waveforms are included too.

Anyway the Amp envelope controls are mostly done with the USQ-1 interface which makes sense. That way most of those samples could be used as both short/one shot and sustained sounds (while some of the samples do not seem to be usable for sustained sounds).
Last edited by Ingonator on Fri Apr 20, 2018 5:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

Post

Ingonator wrote:
Bump1 wrote:
Ingonator wrote:
Bump1 wrote:As an owner of both an ESQ-1 and an AX-80, I can't bring myself to buy UVI's sample libraries of either....especially in the case of the ESQ-1

The engine of the ESQ-1 is so deep and fun to play with that, once you've programmed one, the limited control over the presets on the like on the USQ-1, and inaccessibility to the raw waveforms...just feels hollow
As mentioend earlier i got a real ESQ-1 too but still USQ-1 is a very nice instrument iMO.

USQ-1 besides 400 full presets includes 268 raw multisamples that ar available for both layers in USQ-1 that are called "Osc1" and "Osc 2" there. Those multisamples include all 32 raw waveforms and most of the original 40 factory presets and each note/key seems to be sampled, not just a few per octave.

As you might notice from the comparison i posted here earlier USQ-1 is able to actually sound like the real thing.

The sheer amount of multisamples based on all kinds of different sounds (including also the Osc Sync) allows using a huge amount of sounds, either by using the presets or doing you own ones with the USQ-1 engine.
The sound design of the raw multisamples seemed to be mostly done on the ESQ-1 (including certain filter modulations etc.) while the Amp envelope is adjusted in the USQ-1 engine which makes sense.

You should also not forget that the real ESQ-1 only included 40 factory presets (or abnak theer in general) where USQ-1 has 400 factory presets.

Besides that the presets included in USQ-1 while based on samples of the real thing often try to go beyond what is possible in the real thing. Actually going beyond what is possible in the real thing is something that could make the sampling approach really interesting.
That's good to know they do actually have the raw waveforms. It still seems like a compromise where it's the waveforms inside a different synth engine.

Only 2 Osc? No ring modulation?

Also, on the ESQ-1/SQ-80 the modulation routing allowed almost all sources to be destinations.

And then the filter...which isn't a dealbreaker anyway for me as the ESQ1 filter isn't my personal favorite
As alraedy mentioned the sound design for the samples was mostly done on the real ESQ-1 so the filters are NOT fully replaced by those in USQ-1. The filter there is just to further modify the samples and the real ESQ-1 did not have BPF and HPF modes like the filter in USQ-1 (which actually is the Xpander multimode filter from Falcon).

Also what is called "Oscs" in USQ-1 actually are 2 layers where each layer starts with an ESQ-1 based sample which could have used up to 3 Oscs there while it was sampled.

While teh engine of USQ-1 does not support Ringmod and Osc Sync teh sames included in USQ-1 include samples that used those features in the ESQ-1. Sound wise this might be more obvious for those samples who are based on Osc Sync.
While $80 is a generous price....I just don't see it offering much benefit over SQ8L. And the SQ8L sounds so close to a real ESQ1

Guess I'm just holding on for a modern replacement for SQ8L

Post

Bump1 wrote:
Ingonator wrote:
Bump1 wrote:
Ingonator wrote:
Bump1 wrote:As an owner of both an ESQ-1 and an AX-80, I can't bring myself to buy UVI's sample libraries of either....especially in the case of the ESQ-1

The engine of the ESQ-1 is so deep and fun to play with that, once you've programmed one, the limited control over the presets on the like on the USQ-1, and inaccessibility to the raw waveforms...just feels hollow
As mentioend earlier i got a real ESQ-1 too but still USQ-1 is a very nice instrument iMO.

USQ-1 besides 400 full presets includes 268 raw multisamples that ar available for both layers in USQ-1 that are called "Osc1" and "Osc 2" there. Those multisamples include all 32 raw waveforms and most of the original 40 factory presets and each note/key seems to be sampled, not just a few per octave.

As you might notice from the comparison i posted here earlier USQ-1 is able to actually sound like the real thing.

The sheer amount of multisamples based on all kinds of different sounds (including also the Osc Sync) allows using a huge amount of sounds, either by using the presets or doing you own ones with the USQ-1 engine.
The sound design of the raw multisamples seemed to be mostly done on the ESQ-1 (including certain filter modulations etc.) while the Amp envelope is adjusted in the USQ-1 engine which makes sense.

You should also not forget that the real ESQ-1 only included 40 factory presets (or abnak theer in general) where USQ-1 has 400 factory presets.

Besides that the presets included in USQ-1 while based on samples of the real thing often try to go beyond what is possible in the real thing. Actually going beyond what is possible in the real thing is something that could make the sampling approach really interesting.
That's good to know they do actually have the raw waveforms. It still seems like a compromise where it's the waveforms inside a different synth engine.

Only 2 Osc? No ring modulation?

Also, on the ESQ-1/SQ-80 the modulation routing allowed almost all sources to be destinations.

And then the filter...which isn't a dealbreaker anyway for me as the ESQ1 filter isn't my personal favorite
As alraedy mentioned the sound design for the samples was mostly done on the real ESQ-1 so the filters are NOT fully replaced by those in USQ-1. The filter there is just to further modify the samples and the real ESQ-1 did not have BPF and HPF modes like the filter in USQ-1 (which actually is the Xpander multimode filter from Falcon).

Also what is called "Oscs" in USQ-1 actually are 2 layers where each layer starts with an ESQ-1 based sample which could have used up to 3 Oscs there while it was sampled.

While teh engine of USQ-1 does not support Ringmod and Osc Sync teh sames included in USQ-1 include samples that used those features in the ESQ-1. Sound wise this might be more obvious for those samples who are based on Osc Sync.
While $80 is a generous price....I just don't see it offering much benefit over SQ8L. And the SQ8L sounds so close to a real ESQ1

Guess I'm just holding on for a modern replacement for SQ8L
The introduction price was much cheaper but it was only available for a short time. Anyway UVI has sales quite often AFAIK.

The point of USQ-1 does not seem to fully replace the synth engine of a ESQ-1 but providing 268 multsamples done with the real thing that could be either used "as is" or tweaked further wit hteh built-in engine of USQ-1.
While this works differntly than a real ESQ-1 it still offers doing a lot of diffeernt sounds.

As all samples are based on a real ESQ-1 the basic sound is still always related to an ESQ-1 and not just a random synth.


Concerning SQ8L i recently found a serious issue when using it as 64-bit with jBridge. It does not seem to be possible to save the current patch in a host project, at least in Live 10.
When compared SQ8L to my real ESQ-1 i also found that with higher Resonance the filter of SQ8L sound much less than the real thing. Without any Resonance tehy coudl indeed sound very close.


I curently own an ESQ-1, UVI USQ.1 and also SQ8L but still i really like USQ-1 as it is, This is indepndent of how far it might replace a real ESQ-1 in terms of recreating patches from scratch (which actually is very difficult and/or impossible depending on which parameters that patch uses).
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

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Good info' in your last couple of posts there Ingonator but alas it's like casting pearls before swine.
Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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Aloysius wrote:but alas it's like casting pearls before swine.
As i am not a native speaker i had to think a bit about the meaning of that but here in Germany we have a similar saying called: "Perlen vor die Säue werfen"... :)
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

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:hihi:
Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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BTW, there is a repair shop article on the ESQ1 in Electronic Sound Mag this month :https://electronicsound.co.uk/product/issue-40/
'and when we got bored, we'd have a world war...'

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Aloysius wrote:Good info' in your last couple of posts there Ingonator but alas it's like casting pearls before swine.
Not sure if your comment implicates me...

But just in case it did...

I'm well aware of the differences and I explicitly stated that I'm seeking an emulation.

This is not that and what it DOES do is not that interesting. Even at it's price point

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One issue I had was when starting from the 00-Init Mono preset and I tried to change to a different sound from the "Waveforms" category, it cuts off the menu that drops down (about half of it is cut of at the bottom) when the UI is set to 150%. My monitor is set to 1920 by 1080.

It does work OK if you select a sound from up higher in the menu, such as a bass sound, then go back to the Waveform folder, and then you can see all of the 32 choices at once. I think it should work like that right from the start without having that extra step. I am using the standalone Workstation 3.0 and haven't tried it in Falcon yet.

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I don’t understand where the confusion is. Guys and gals the UVI player is a Rompler. It is not a synthesiser. What you are paying for are well designed custom sampled patches and a nice scripted GUI. It is obviously more useful to those who don’t own the original hardware, but even then a lot of people sample their own hardware synths to make sampler patches out of. Because sampling in itself is a creative process that often makes a different but very musical sound.

Junkies XL has a video up on his YT where he shows his process of sampling his hardware synths. Basically you don’t always sample to create an exact replica of the original hardware, often times you are also creating new sound palettes.
Orion Platinum, Muzys 2

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v1o wrote:I don’t understand where the confusion is. Guys and gals the UVI player is a Rompler. It is not a synthesiser. What you are paying for are well designed custom sampled patches and a nice scripted GUI. It is obviously more useful to those who don’t own the original hardware, but even then a lot of people sample their own hardware synths to make sampler patches out of. Because sampling in itself is a creative process that often makes a different but very musical sound.

Junkies XL has a video up on his YT where he shows his process of sampling his hardware synths. Basically you don’t always sample to create an exact replica of the original hardware, often times you are also creating new sound palettes.
Sound pallettes that could be created with an emulation...

I get it, UVI sells instruments for their sampler engine. The ESQ-1 is a perfect synth for them to offer a full control surface as the oscillators are multisampled wavetables...right up their alley.

Then package it with a ton of presets....boom, preset warriors are happy, sound designers or programmers are happy....win/win.

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I noticed in the manual it says that in the LFO Modulator section you can modulate Drive, Volume, Filter depth and Pitch depth with the LFO. There is no "Drive" control in there, correct? Unless its hidden somewhere...

I see Volume, Filter depth and Pitch depth.

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