u-he ACE vs Oddity2

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Stefken wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 2:15 pm
sacer wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 10:13 am I am a big fan of U-he, but oddity2 is for me the best synth, compared to ACE, Arturia ARP2600, KORG Oddyssey, TimewARP 2600 and madrona labs aalto. For me it's best sounding and i am using it most. Korg has very good presets but sounds more steril compared to GForce .... I hope Artura updates anytime the sound quality of their old synths and not only the GUI. The Sound quality of ARP2600 is much behind Timewarp and also the fist Oddity which was released from GFroce 2002.
I've played with the Oddity2 and Korg Odyssey side by side.
For me the quality of the sound of Oddity2 is closer to the quality of the older Arturia's and 'sounds more as an older sound engine'.
The Korg is more defined for me, more crisp and better in the higher frequencies. (Some might call that more sterile). It has a 'stronger signal' for me. The FM possibilities, that can give more dissonant sounds when used with moderate settings, is much better possible with the Korg. But I would not use the Korg for pads and soft sounds. Rather for leads, basses, bleeps, plucks.
The oddity on the other hand sounds more like a classic VA for me with a more diverse palette of sounds (can also do pads, atmo's etc as it is softer).

My 2 cents....
I agree with all that. I have the korg one now because I wanted the most accurate odyssey. One thing I like about the odyssey is thy it can do a lot with very few controls. So even though the oddity2 has more power and can do a lot that the original can’t, I’m good with the korg. But the oddity2 is pretty cool.

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I finally got a chance to demo oddity 2. At first I didn't really care for it but I started going through the presents and they're really good.

I think ACE definitely sounds more phat though.

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Oddity 2 has a loverly lushness.
A well-behaved signature.

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djmino02 wrote: Sat Oct 20, 2018 2:12 am I finally got a chance to demo oddity 2. At first I didn't really care for it but I started going through the presents and they're really good.

I think ACE definitely sounds more phat though.
ACE has so much flexibility because of all the ways it can be re-wired

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Yeah. It's kind of hard to understand the routings. I typically just use the default routings

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Lucky you... that means you have a whole landscape waiting for you to explore :)

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ACE is most definitely underrated, even among u-he fans. It still hasn't had an update since 2015 which is a shame. It could do with more effects and oscillators, but otherwise, I couldn't be happier with the sound.
<List your stupid gear here>

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Yeah, out of all the synths, ACE is the one that keeps surprising me the most. It seems so simple on the surface, but it's surprising how far beyond classic subtractive sounds it can go.

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Another vote for ACE, I checked it out recently when someone mentioned it could do linear detune. It sounds great and is a very versatile and nicely thought-out synth. But you should demo them both and see which one you actually want. I have never tried Oddity2.

edit - but I have used Odysseys and various emulations - the Odyssey filter (typically the one in the black/orange version) is quite distinctive, great for a quacky funk sound. It's great but very recognisable (maybe just because I've used Odysseys so much). The ACE filter is less distinctive but I would say it's more versatile.
Last edited by moshimoshi on Sat Oct 20, 2018 9:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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When testing ACE be sure to check out the KyhoN's patch sets. While not overly musical, they show how strange places can this synth go (and what kind of places does the authors mind go I'm not even trying to imagine). Some of the best sounds I've heard.
Metal in my heart
Synths in my sound card

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ACE doesn't seem too simple to me. I was trying to route all the default patch cables to see how it's set up but couldn't get it to work. I guess some of the routings are set just to override the default set up?

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the init preset is pre-wired but has no cables showing, yes.
for example below your cutoff knob you have three knobs for mod sources. keytrack is fixed, but adsr2 and lfo2 are just the default routing, which you can override by putting a cable in from another output than these two modules.
similarly, on your pair of amps at the top, it says vcf1/2 on inputs cause it's pre-routed that way, until you wire it otherwise.

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Cool. You can get some wild sounds out of ACE. I need to read the manual

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yeah the u-he manuals are pretty good, lots of nice tricks while not veering into page-long patch examples before you even know much about the interface, unlike a certain other German synth-maker, cough NI. speaking of it, here's a quote:

"If you really want to compare ACE to a classic modular synth (or three), think of it as a pimped-up ARP 2600 using modules from a Roland SH-7 with (almost) the patching flexibility of an EMS VCS3 / Synthi A – but polyphonic."

so, about the thread subject, I think someone into ARP synths could certainly make room for ACE alongside the equally interesting Oddity since it's built on a different base, and more of a hybridized kind of thing.

including the aforementioned kyhon sounds there's like a thousand extra patches on the site
https://u-he.com/PatchLib/ace.html
the thing has nothing but a chorus and a delay, and you won't find two similar sounds, that's when you know you have a special synth

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i am also a huge fan of ACE!

love its versatility when it comes to sound design! :hyper:

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