FXpansion releases Cypher2

[pdxindy]

I also much prefer the existing Cypher2 skin- it is laid out logically, you can see what's going on and it is resizable and you can change the basic colour to suit the light level- I vastly prefer this to most GUIs, it just works (I am also a fan of Valhalla GUI's, I guess its a matter of taste, but I will take functionality over aesthetics every time)

I'm fine with the flat design of Cypher. It is other aspects of the GUI that bother me. On my MBP 110% is the largest size I can make the GUI. Various buttons and controls are still too small to comfortably work with. The Valhalla GUI's are nice and big, nothing overlapping or too close together. I don't have to be so precise that my attention goes to the GUI. With Cypher, I am consistently having to pay attention to being precise.

Then with Cypher, and unlike Geist, there is no undo/redo. Especially with a GUI that is so packed with small controls and where it is easy to make a mistake, undo/redo is important.

Double click does not reset a parameter. Every other synth I use regularly does this.

Not only are some knobs quite small, but each of them is 2 controls. The inner knob and the outer mod ring. Sometimes the outer mod ring is there, and sometimes it is not. This depends on whether a Transmod slot is selected or not. The outer mod ring is not so clearly differentiated by colour. I think it should be the same orange as a selected Transmod slot when you hover over the control so it is clear an obvious.

Also, when the Transmod slot is not selected, hovering over the mod ring area, does not show the mod amount. To see what the Mod amount is, you have to first go select the Transmod slot. But oops... I don't even know which Transmod slot is controlling that parameter so I have to go hover over a bunch of transmod slots to see which one is controlling that parameter, then select that slot then go hover over the narrow little mod ring area to see the mod value that is set.

There are other little things about the GUI that make it not so intuitive and easy to use.

[himalaya]

Also, when the Transmod slot is not selected, hovering over the mod ring area, does not show the mod
amount.

This is how it should be, imo. Imagine, if you could simply see the mod amount when you hover over the 'ring area', which mod amount would that be? Of which TransMod slot? There maybe multiple TransMod slots assigned to that particular parameter, so which one should you see?

That's why you need to select a TransMod slot and then inspect what it's assigned to.

To see what the Mod amount is, you have to first go select the Transmod slot.

yes, exactly, it has to be that way as I illustrated above.

But oops... I don't even know which Transmod slot is controlling that parameter so I have to go hover over a bunch of transmod slots to see which one is controlling that parameter, then select that slot then go hover over the narrow little mod ring area to see the mod value that is set.

This happens very quickly. Simply sweep the mouse over the TransMod slots and see what they are assigned to. The mod amounts jump out and you can see what's going on. It happens so fast, so easy to see and inspect.


You paint a bleak picture, one I can not associate with. In all my time with the TransMod system, I have not struggled once. The TransMod system is what had drawn me to the FXpansion synths in the first place. I thought it's such an intuitive and fast way of working. For me, it beats everything out there, except the "Alchemy-way', which is on equal footing when it comes to an extremely fast way of assigning modulation.


TransMod is so simple:

1. Select a mod source, for example an LFO.
2. Draw a mod amount on any and every knob on the GUI (the bottom row is the only exception)

as you draw the mod amount, it is possible to very quickly edit the base value as well. So the LFO can be assigned to the Filter cutoff in a nano second, and the filter cutoff itself can be adjusted just as fast by simply moving the mouse to the centre of the dial. So fast, and intuitive.

It's more complex to write it all out than to do it in reality.


Then, the issue of checking what is assigned to what.

Firstly, it is just so easy to sweep across all TransMod slots to see what they are assigned to.
Or we can do the reverse, play a note see which knobs as modulated - it's easy to see as each dial and fader get a realtime visual cue as you play a note, so you can see which dials and faders have modulation. Then, simply hover above a dial/fader and watch the TransMod slots. Each TransMod slot which is assigned to that dial/fader you are hovering on right now, will light up. This means that these mod slots are assigned to it.

It's so fast to do and inspect. Writing this all out is way more complex.

[pdxindy]

Also, when the Transmod slot is not selected, hovering over the mod ring area, does not show the mod
amount.

This is how it should be, imo. Imagine, if you could simply see the mod amount when you hover over the 'ring area', which mod amount would that be? Of which TransMod slot? There maybe multiple TransMod slots assigned to that particular parameter, so which one should you see?

That's why you need to select a TransMod slot and then inspect what it's assigned to.

Every knob has a popup. That popup could show a list of mod sources and their mod amounts. Nowhere in the GUI is there some place to see this info. Cypher currently requires too much mental work to keep everything in mind cause you never get to see it together.

Anyway, you obviously like how it works. I do not find it intuitive and fast. Assigning stuff is fast... but later looking at a preset and not remembering what is assigned to what and how much is very clumsy imo.

Likewise, if I have an LFO and an Envelope modulating filter cutoff, adjusting one can affect how I want the other set. In Cypher one cannot see the Env mod depth and LFO mod depth at the same time. I have to switch back and forth between mod slots to do this.

Bitwig works the same as Cypher, but they resolved this problem by having a modulation list. Say you are using the Bitwig Phase-4 synth. Selecting the device will show all modulation sources in the inspector and every target each is assigned to and you can set the range right there. You can sort by mod sources, or by mod targets. When they added that it made all the difference.

Since the browser is a separate area in Cypher, it would be easy to put the same sort of list there. That would be a huge workflow improvement.

[himalaya]

I do understand what you are saying. In fact, a modulation overview panel has been suggested by yours trully already. As an example, Alchemy's mod system is fast to use, but due to the multi-tab design, seeing all the mod assignemnts could be a nightmare...if not for the 'target' window which shows it all at a glance.

[risome]

I also much prefer the existing Cypher2 skin- it is laid out logically, you can see what's going on and it is resizable and you can change the basic colour to suit the light level- I vastly prefer this to most GUIs, it just works (I am also a fan of Valhalla GUI's, I guess its a matter of taste, but I will take functionality over aesthetics every time)

I'm fine with the flat design of Cypher. It is other aspects of the GUI that bother me. On my MBP 110% is the largest size I can make the GUI. Various buttons and controls are still too small to comfortably work with. The Valhalla GUI's are nice and big, nothing overlapping or too close together. I don't have to be so precise that my attention goes to the GUI. With Cypher, I am consistently having to pay attention to being precise.

Then with Cypher, and unlike Geist, there is no undo/redo. Especially with a GUI that is so packed with small controls and where it is easy to make a mistake, undo/redo is important.

Double click does not reset a parameter. Every other synth I use regularly does this.

Not only are some knobs quite small, but each of them is 2 controls. The inner knob and the outer mod ring. Sometimes the outer mod ring is there, and sometimes it is not. This depends on whether a Transmod slot is selected or not. The outer mod ring is not so clearly differentiated by colour. I think it should be the same orange as a selected Transmod slot when you hover over the control so it is clear an obvious.

Also, when the Transmod slot is not selected, hovering over the mod ring area, does not show the mod amount. To see what the Mod amount is, you have to first go select the Transmod slot. But oops... I don't even know which Transmod slot is controlling that parameter so I have to go hover over a bunch of transmod slots to see which one is controlling that parameter, then select that slot then go hover over the narrow little mod ring area to see the mod value that is set.

There are other little things about the GUI that make it not so intuitive and easy to use.

Get a hi res second monitor best thing i did for my MBP.

[tapiodmitriyevich]

Cypher 2 isn't pretty, that's a fact, but I don't care.

Obviously depends on our points of view. For me it is pretty. Ugly for me are a most of the UIs which design 3d/real knobs and sliders. Exception: U-He.

[plexuss]

I likce Cypher2's flatulent filter attack - very organic sounding!

[yellowmix]

I love that Amber's chorus and formants are available in the FX rack. It's not Amber 2 but I'll take it.

[Ou_Tis]

Their use of Lift is brilliant---that parameter has been very underutilized in Equator and Noise.

The sheer quantity of sounds is a tremendous improvement over Equator, though not over Noise.

However, some of the 5D presets don't map Press as well as Equator and Noise do, making them significantly less expressive. Hopefully there's a way to fix that.

And standalone Cypher2 is consistently giving me a crackling sound after just a few minutes of playing.

The synth emulations of plucked string instruments are some of the best I've heard---though I've stuck to sample-based or physical modelling programs in the past for that.

In general, lots of good sounds. However, even though I really wanted to use some of them in a recent project... I ended up deciding my other synths just had similar sounds that I like slightly better. But Cypher2 has the advantage of greater Seaboard compatibility.

[Angus_FX]

Right, two weeks and 534 forum posts later, I'm back. Going to try and answer as much as possible in one big post, apologies if I miss anything.

1.1 - Memory leak

Well, that's embarrassing - seems like something that has been there for a long time, but undetected by our beta team and QA testers as it didn't cause any noticeable performance degradation on their set-ups. Fortunately a fairly easy fix. Some memory growth during normal operation is expected (there's a kind of preset cache to help speed up switching of recently loaded sounds) but clearly it's growing a lot more than it should when auditioning large numbers of presets. Expect an update within the next 2-3 weeks.

1.2 - CPU load

I've measured it against Cypher1 - on any Intel machine with an AVX instruction set (anything after 2011 apart from Atoms and some other low-end chips), it's more efficient running like-for-like patches at 2x than Cypher1 is at 1x. But the reality is, these are bigger patches with lots of effects. The good news is that there is still quite some room for improvement, watch this space.

A quick word on "Multicore" CPU optimisations for synth plug-ins: in most DAWs (which are already multicore), these are little more than a scam or con. Quite simply, they take load away from the cycles the DAW is measuring, and move it to unmeasured CPU cycles (which otherwise the DAW could allocate to another plug-in, but now are being invisibly used). It's a bit like employers' payroll deductions as used in many tax jurisdictions: it might not show up as a cut in your salary, but it's absolutely coming from money which otherwise might be used to pay that employee. So it looks like this multicore-optimised plug-in is nice and efficient (that's what the DAW reports) but really it's using up CPU cycles elsewhere.

The honourable exception is for plug-ins which are simply too CPU hungry to achieve good polyphony on one core at all, and need to span multiple cores, but Cypher2 at 2x oversampled, 44-48KHz base sample rate, 256-1024 buffer size, is really not that hungry - even a fairly slow system should be able to run 24 voices per core. If it's not, there may be something happening that shouldn't be: a misconfigured ASIO driver or a previously unidentified bug etc.

1.3 - Windows 7

Honestly I wasn't aware that it's still such a popular OS. The detailed story on this is.. detailed, read on.

Strictly speaking, the minimum API level we support is Windows 7 with SP1, and the post-SP1 "Platform Update" installed. This is, mostly, because Cypher2 uses DirectWrite and Direct2D for its graphics renderer, which wasn't available before that update. (Use of these APIs is necessary for hardware accelerated vector graphics, and High DPI monitor support).

However, because we can't guarantee that every Win7 system will have this service pack and update installed, we can't simply say "supports Windows 7" - it won't run on a vanilla Win7 install, for the reasons outlined above. OTOH, we had a lot of feedback about this one, so I'll look in to whether the messaging there can be changed.

Long term, though, if it's a choice between supporting a newer technology and an older one, expect us to lean towards the new. I don't expect anything we're planning to break Win7 compatibility, with the exception that if you're running an "HEDT" Skylake (i7 78xx / i9 79xx) processors (although TBH I'm not sure if those cpus will run W7 anyway): I'll be adding AVX-512f support for those specific chips in a future update , and that will require that those systems be running W10.

1.4 - Legacy plug-ins / support / Waves etc.

Waves have a unique approach to their development framework which allows them to bring old plug-ins forward more-or-less indefinitely. We do not; there are times we've built things and they haven't worked out commercially, or simply run their natural course and reached the end of the road as far as maintainability goes - at that point it's no longer appropriate to carry on selling it.

1.5 - GUI roundup
1.5.1 - Vector GUI - themes / resizing

The GUI is fully resizable - pick a size from the Settings menu. It is very much designed with High DPI ("Retina", "4K" etc.) monitors in mind - these represent a huge improvement over the old 1080p etc. displays, and it will certainly look far better on a higher resolution display; very much designed with those in mind.

Regarding comments of "designed by engineers" and suchlike.. it's less about who it's designed by, as who it's designed for - the (mostly) one-page layout was very much created, in consultation with professional sound designers, with that kind of user in mind. It's certainly a slightly steeper learning curve than some popular synths on the market - especially if you're making your own patches from scratch - but rewarding for power users.

1.5.2 - Skinning

The colour themes are defined in a set of XML files in the product's resources folder. It's certainly possible to create user skins if you have a reasonable understanding of XML syntax and RGB colour-values and a bit of patience - do post if you make some you're willing to share. If there's a lot of demand, I'll create some detailed documentation for this.

1.5.3 - Pop ups, Transmod rings etc., click selected transmod slot to deselect

One of the functions of these is to give you a bigger click target area for the knob (without the knobs feeling uncomfortably crammed together on the GUI) - if you don't want to accidentally add modulation, firstly watch which ring is highlighted, or secondly, click the currently selected mod-slot to de-select, and then you'll be out of TransMod modulation mode entirely.

It'd be possible to get rid of these (or render them invisible) via skins (see above), but not recommended - you'd lose access to TransMod which is 80% of the synth's capabilities!

1.5.4 - Transmod assignment and right clicks

The right click assignment of TransMods (via the drop down menu) is mostly a speedy shortcut for power users. The recommended way to assign TransMods is to double-click the slot and use the central display, this gives you a much friendlier way to navigate the mod sources with longer names to explain what they do.

1.5.5 - Removing a via source

"Vias" are really just multiplication (originally they were simply called "x", but that was too mathematical for some). So to remove a Via, choose "1" from the "Constants" mod sources.

1.5.6 - Roll over a knob to highlight sources

Although this won't show you the exact amount of modulation, if you roll over a knob, any sources affecting that knob will be highlighted in the upper TransMod area. So it's easy to see which sources are modulating a given control: just roll over.

1.5.7 - Shift & drag for fine control of knobs

This should work as on most other synths, regardless of Snap modes?

1.5.8. - Double click to reset

I'm confused about this on two points. One, why is right-click to reset described as a two-handed operation? With my mouse, and on my PC trackpad, it's one finger (right button), and on my Macbook, it's a two-finger tap from one hand.

And secondly, what's the need for "Reset parameter" (to what is, on the face of it, some rather arbitrary value from the INIT patch -- what IS the default value for an LFO speed or envelope attack time?) to be a fast operation? Is there a particular use case I've missed.. or in reality would a decent Undo / Redo system be a lot more useful? I only ask because I've spent more time with this synth than anyone bar one or two of the sound designers, and never found this lacking or slow, so I'm assuming there is some way of working that I don't know about

1.6 - Analog-ness.. thru-zero FM etc., filter models

The oscillator engine is pretty much unchanged from Cypher v1 - there is the Sin core and the additional FM paths, but any circuit modelled magic is very much still there. Ditto the filters (with the exception of the Combs, but frankly a decent-sounding digital comb filter is a lot more musical than an analogue model of a BBD-based comb). We're not playing this up in the marketing campaign this time round for the simple reason that, ten years on, I don't feel like software has anything to prove in terms of "sounding as good as hardware". That's not to say that it all does (although, frankly, there are some turds on both side of the fence), it's more that it's not news anymore to prove that it can.

We learned a lot in the quest to understand why great hardware sounds great, but there's no longer any need to be constrained by it.

This is, incidentally, why I nowadays absolutely reject pseudo-3d skeuomorphism for synth plug-ins. There's no reason for software to try and ape something that it isn't; yes, there are good lessons to learn from the past, but it should play to its own strengths. When I see a synth plug-in that tries too hard to look like a Moog (or whatever), I see an inferiority complex that says software is still trying to prove that it can live up to the standards set by hardware. That battle was won a decade ago, let's move on. As far as I'm concerned, companies like iZotope and Fabfilter are the ones doing software GUIs right.

Drifting a little OT here, but to reign it back in.. a little plea to take some of the voodoo out of this sometimes controversial topic, let's post audio examples. We're not 1980s music journalists who had to describe an album to people who might not get to hear it for weeks, or food critics trying to describing some exclusive restaurant on another continent from their readers. If you've something to say about "warmth", "mojo" and the rest.. bring the audio.

(Shout outs @Yemski @4damind @plexuss @himalaya and anyone else I missed who already did exactly that).

1.7 - misc
1.7.1 - Linnstrument support
Linnstrument is supported for "5D" MPE patches. If it's not working right, it's likely that the Linnstrument isn't in MPE mode, or something else in the signal chain is flattening the channels (Ableton, for example, is notorious for flattening MPE data streams by throwing away the channel information - this will give similar broken results to those described above.

1.7.2 - Elektronisch, FL studio

The FL studio bug you're talking about hasn't been fixed because, simply, I've no idea what bug /problem you're actually talking about. Give us a detailed description and our QA team will look in to it and prioritise it for fixing as soon as realistically possible.

1.7.3 - Sequencer Variable params => Arp

This is a feature request that's been kicking around internally for a little while. I'd imagine it's something that should be possible to implement before too long. Could be fun!

1.7.4 - ProTools 2018.7

PT 2018 is one of our supported DAWs and should work fine. I'll get QA to take a look in the next few days to see if we can reproduce the problem report - there is one other similar bug report with 2018.4 but nothing confirmed yet, watch this space.

Thanks for reading - feedback welcomed.

- Angus.

[aMUSEd]

I just bought it and got an extra 'FX bonus" that brought the price down to £52 - is that due to owning everything else including stuff that's just been put out to pasture?

[pdxindy]

The honourable exception is for plug-ins which are simply too CPU hungry to achieve good polyphony on one core at all, and need to span multiple cores, but Cypher2 at 2x oversampled, 44-48KHz base sample rate, 256-1024 buffer size, is really not that hungry - even a fairly slow system should be able to run 24 voices per core. If it's not, there may be something happening that shouldn't be: a misconfigured ASIO driver or a previously unidentified bug etc.

- Angus.

welcome back Angus!

I have a 2016 MBP 15" (top o the line model)

Cypher 2 @ 2X 96khz sample rate - 256 buffer - There are factory presets (no unison) where 4 voices is making crackles... that would mean about 8 voices @ 48khz

I only have the demo... will investigate a bit further when I have a bit of time. Try different DAW's

[Angus_FX]

@pdxindy Can you give me some examples of such crackly presets - and which DAW? I'm on a 2015 MBP and haven't seen that at all at 48, a 2016 should cope with a healthy number of voices even at 2x96.

@aMUSEd i will ask the relevant people tomorrow & try and get an answer

[lastmessiah]

This is, incidentally, why I nowadays absolutely reject pseudo-3d skeuomorphism for synth plug-ins. There's no reason for software to try and ape something that it isn't; yes, there are good lessons to learn from the past, but it should play to its own strengths. When I see a synth plug-in that tries too hard to look like a Moog (or whatever), I see an inferiority complex that says software is still trying to prove that it can live up to the standards set by hardware. That battle was won a decade ago, let's move on. As far as I'm concerned, companies like iZotope and Fabfilter are the ones doing software GUIs right.

[pdxindy]

1.5.8. - Double click to reset

I'm confused about this on two points. One, why is right-click to reset described as a two-handed operation? With my mouse, and on my PC trackpad, it's one finger (right button), and on my Macbook, it's a two-finger tap from one hand.

And secondly, what's the need for "Reset parameter" (to what is, on the face of it, some rather arbitrary value from the INIT patch -- what IS the default value for an LFO speed or envelope attack time?) to be a fast operation? Is there a particular use case I've missed.. or in reality would a decent Undo / Redo system be a lot more useful? I only ask because I've spent more time with this synth than anyone bar one or two of the sound designers, and never found this lacking or slow, so I'm assuming there is some way of working that I don't know about

You're right... on my iPad Pro 2 fingers is generally undo... so I stopped using the 2 finger right click on my trackpad. So I got in the habit of using the control key instead... so forget that point.

Sure, there are some parameters where double click reset has no meaning. But there are also many where it is meaningful. For example, all modulation rings could reset to zero. It is very fast and I use it regularly in my other synths (even the ones with undo/redo).

Undo/Redo would be overall more useful...