FXpansion releases Cypher2

[EvilDragon]

@EvilDragon do you have any customized HOSTS file or blackhole routing? There was a bug which could cause hangs in conjunction with that.

Actually, I do, I have a fair bit of stuff added there by Spybot and a decent amount added by uBlock.

So it looks like you're aware of that, so an upcoming update might fix it? I will try to do the same thing with a temporarily defaulted hosts file and see what happens. Thanks!


EDIT: Yep, it made unloading Cypher/Strobe much quicker. It still wasn't instantaneous (as it is with like 99% other plugins that I have), it took like 4-5 seconds, but no hang. If removal time can be improved, that'd definitely be nice

[pdxindy]

@pdxindy Yes, that's kind of neat. Would be nice I guess to be able to lock a parameter in focus in Cypher2 & have the mod source selectors at the top turn in to depth faders or something of the sort.

Yeah... that sounds useful.

I would say my sound design thinking process is not source based. I don't often think, hmmm, what can I do with this LFO. My thinking is more target based. Okay, here is this parameter, which sources do I want to modulate it with.

So if you implemented your above suggestion, that would end up being how I would use Cypher most of the time (whenever I get around to buying Cypher).

I am still testing the Pigments demo, but once I discovered that one can select the parameter and adjust any sources, it is the same. I'm gonna go from target to sources most every time.

[ThomasHelzle]

I personally didn't care for Pigments much - mainly because it does no MPE - but I personally don't find the whole Cyhpher GUI including the Transmod System well laid out.
AT ALL.

The main problem in my view is, that the importance of things isn't clear or just wrong. Things you need all the time are sometimes much harder to find than things you use sparely. It also does not adhere to the "normal" order of things - and it's not even consistent between Strobe 2 and Cypher 2.
Examples:
- The first button in the Strobe menu is the spanner for the settings, which basically is the "main menu" in the plugins. In Cypher it's the second - and here it's a gear icon. I need that menu often and in Strobe it makes much more sense.
- In Cypher 2, the first button is "Browser", which I often hit accidentally since it's position makes it so prominent. But I ALWAYS want the browser visible, so this button for me is the very least important of them all.
The whole menu row is totally inconsistent between Strobe and Cypher and feels rather random, especially in Cypher.
- Then you have this whole visual hodgepodge in the menu row between text as buttons, icons, text with icons, buttons that have another frame around them, visually unclear things like the left-right arrows that aren't clearly related to the preset field beside it since they are further away from it than from the Edit button, the preset field having yet another look, then an icon again, then a knob with a label and finally another icon. All of that is totally unclear, visually not cleanly bounded/connected and looks just thrown in randomly.
My brain always struggles to know what's supposed to be what.
- I personally find all the modulation stuff on top totally wrong and annoying, to me that belongs to the bottom.
- The XYpad is too small, the X-mod fields are too large, the humongous logo area makes no sense at all, what the synth is called on the other hand I only know from the window title, not consistently from the GUI, since the central area is showing something else all the time in it's hectic flicker.
- The quick presets and the freeze buttons again are totally unclear, look all the same and what item belongs to what is anybody's guess.
- All the GUI - again, for me - is somehow out of proportion and very strangely thrown together. Yes I can navigate it, but man it's no fun at all. It's one of the most confusing GUIs of all the synths I own and I wouldn't have bought it because of that if not for the MPE capabilities.
The problem is not that it's ugly - that I can live with - but that it's just very badly structured and prioritised visually.
Strobe is a bit better but could use some serious love too.

I know you didn't ask for that, but since this visual assault hit's me in the face each time I start Cypher 2 and less so Strobe 2, there it is anyway...

On a scale from 0 (crap) to 10 (really good), Cypher would get a 2 from me, Strobe a 3-4.
Only Melda plugins rate even lower than Fxpansion in my book, they clearly hit the 0.

I hope you can improve this!

Cheers,

Tom

[epiphaneia]

@pdxindy Yes, that's kind of neat. Would be nice I guess to be able to lock a parameter in focus in Cypher2 & have the mod source selectors at the top turn in to depth faders or something of the sort.

+100 - I love Cypher2´s and Strobe2´s sound, but the transmod system is exactly the opposite of the way I do things.

Just like pdxindy, I usually wonder "what can I do to the lpf frequency?", not "here´s this square lfo, what can I modulate with it?".

[Stefken]

@pdxindy Yes, that's kind of neat. Would be nice I guess to be able to lock a parameter in focus in Cypher2 & have the mod source selectors at the top turn in to depth faders or something of the sort.

Yeah... that sounds useful.

I would say my sound design thinking process is not source based. I don't often think, hmmm, what can I do with this LFO. My thinking is more target based. Okay, here is this parameter, which sources do I want to modulate it with.

Same here. My primary thinking process is target based. Like ok, I want to modulate this parameter. How am i going to do that. Once I have a few things in place (like lfo's, mseg) I might go as an afterthought: ok, i have this lfo running, i might as well connect it with this parameter as well and see what gives.
The fact that you can go both ways in Pig is very powerfull and fun.

But my primary thinking process is target based. The fact that designing in Cypher 2 currently is mod source based, is somewhat contra- intuitive for me.

It would very much love something closer to the Pig implementation. Cypher 2 is the synth of 2018 for me. A modulation system closer to Pig would make it even better.

[Whywhy]

It's fun and a pain for developers, because my brain works as the opposite, I ask to myself what kind of modulations I want with the pressure for example , after that, I paint my modulation and go to another mod source...
If I have some modulations conflict, with the actual transmod system, it's easy to find the problem. With pigment, a no go for me,no mpe, I was" lost "during my demo test...
About the ui, same, I find the Cypher2 logic, it follow the signal flow.
What i like about Pigment ui, is the mod sources in the center, it separates the generator from the modulators.

[pdxindy]

It's fun and a pain for developers, because my brain works as the opposite, I ask to myself what kind of modulations I want with the pressure for example , after that, I paint my modulation and go to another mod source...

That is why it is cool that Pigments allows it in either direction.

[Stefken]

It's fun and a pain for developers, because my brain works as the opposite, I ask to myself what kind of modulations I want with the pressure for example , after that, I paint my modulation and go to another mod source...

That is why it is cool that Pigments allows it in either direction.

+1
You keep saying what I think.

[Angus_FX]

Useful feedback, thanks all.

@EvilDragon - the incompatibility with blackholing HOSTS files is a known issue, yes, and one which will be fixed in the next update.

What I'm thinking for Cypher2 & Strobe2 is to be able to double-click a parameter and have all the mod source buttons turn in to depth sliders for that target-parameter.

@ThomasHelzle the reason for inconsistency between Cypher2 & Strobe2 is that they are, in effect, different generations. (There's a longer story, but I'll spare you the gory details). The symbols used for Cypher2 are consistent with those in e.g. Equator, and Strobe2 will be moved in that direction in the next update).

[Karbon L. Forms]

Great synth. Awful interface. (to me)

Can someone explain how unison works? If I assign 'Unison+/-' to a nob, do the voices get spread over the range applied to said nob? (e.g pan). If not, how does it work? Also what is the Unison Index applicable to?

[ThomasHelzle]

@ThomasHelzle the reason for inconsistency between Cypher2 & Strobe2 is that they are, in effect, different generations. (There's a longer story, but I'll spare you the gory details). The symbols used for Cypher2 are consistent with those in e.g. Equator, and Strobe2 will be moved in that direction in the next update).

The inconsistency is the least of my concerns, especially since I find Strobe actually better.
But get somebody who has at least a clue about relevance of elements, how to make clear what belongs to what, consistency and order of importance into your team.
Your instruments as such were always good, but I never used synthsquad for anything because of the GUI and have to push myself into using Cypher 2 - without MPE, I wouldn't touch it...
Equator is a bit better overall, but also not on my most favourite list - I hope it doesn't get worse...

Cheers,

Tom

[Stefken]

Useful feedback, thanks all.

What I'm thinking for Cypher2 & Strobe2 is to be able to double-click a parameter and have all the mod source buttons turn in to depth sliders for that target-parameter.

Yes, that could work, if you mean double clicking on the control in the UI. Like double clicking on the e.g. the cutoff dial in the filter panel. That would activate 'target mode' for that parameter and activate the sliders in the transmod.

I'm wondering how you would exit "target mode" and how you would go to "source mode".

Say you double-click on the filter cutoff control. The depth sliders are activated for the cutoff parameter; you dial in a few sliders.
Then you double click the filter resonance control. The depth sliders are activated for resonance; you dial them in. So far, so good.

Now say at this point you want to connect a few extra parameters to LFO1 for example. (so you want to go to "source mode" now.) How would you go to "source mode"?

My suggestion would be if you (double)click on the headers/labels of a mod source in the transmod you would go to source mode for that mod source. Then you can paint in the modulations as it is already implemented. A second (double)click on the same label/header would exit source mode. A (double)click on another label/header would bring you into source mode for that other mod source.
As a clue, if you mouseover the label/header of a mod source, the header would get some sort of highlight.

(Currently you go to source mode by clicking to whole 'block' of a mod source in the trans mod. But if you present sliders in there in target mode, that you manipulate by clicking and dragging, you can't use the click event there anymore. Double click on the whole block is also assigned. So I would use a (double)click on the header/label instead).

A double click on e.g. the filter cutoff control in the UI would bring you back to "target mode".
So a double click on controls versus transmod labels would switch modes.

Note: currently double clicking on a control is assigned to manually inputing a value. So that would need to be reassigned.

Note2: I would space the 'blocks' equally in the transmod to give it more symmetry. You need enough space for a slider anyway. You also have a large black area to the side that you can use much more efficiently. Also, how about giving classic mod sources like envelopes and lfo's a fixed position in the transmod? Order them according to relevance for left to right and top to bottom. So, most important position is top left.

Note3: a double click for both target mode and source mode is probably the most consistent.

Note4: Pigments uses another system where you have to actively exit a mode (by clicking the X) before you can go to the other mode. That's an option too off course. In the suggestion above you could swith between modes without having to exit the other mode first though, which is faster.

Just generating some ideas here ...

[Angus_FX]

Note2: I would space the 'blocks' equally in the transmod to give it more symmetry. You need enough space for a slider anyway. You also have a large black area to the side that you can use much more efficiently.

That area is unavailable when the browser is hidden. That said, I'm not convinced people are using the Quick Presets that much (which is kind of a shame, they're a neat feature, OK not as comprehensive as Wave's' Flow Motion), it might make sense to move those to one of the scope tabs & have more space for the modulation system.

Also, how about giving classic mod sources like envelopes and lfo's a fixed position in the transmod?

That's a little problematic because of uni/bipolar, the via multipliers and the different possible envelope shapes (e.g. Cypher's envelopes simultaneously output four shapes). Tremor for example has fixed transmods, the sound designers I work with express a strong preference for assignable. The other issue here is that every TransMod source adds some cpu overhead, it's not practical to go past 24 at this stage.

What I can do though is highlight the connection between modulation generators (e.g. LFOs, envelopes) and the sources they output via. For me (software engineer), linking things together via words is fine.. abstract verbal thinking is my preferred way of dealing with information. I appreciate that everyone's different though - for example, I have friends who listen to podcasts at 2.5x speed, I find them hard work at 1x & would infinitely prefer the same content as a blog article.

I like your idea around the consistency of double-clicking.. slightly slower than the current single click, but very preferable to those modal "close" boxes in Pigments, I think.

[ChamomileShark]

just spotted the oversampling thing (which means nothing to me)

"Realtime and Render Oversampling
These settings relate to the oversampling in the synth engine.
Higher oversampling sounds better but uses more CPU!
The Realtime Oversampling setting relates to the oversampling
used for normal realtime operation. Set this as high as the system's
CPU (and the number of voices) allows.
The Render Oversampling setting relates to 'offline' mixdowns and
'freeze' operations in hosts that provide this feature. This setting can
be set to very high levels regardless of the system CPU for extremely
high sound quality. However, higher settings result in longer render
times for offline mixdown/freeze operations."

So I'm guessing leave it at 2 for Realtime (default) but change the Render Oversampling from the default 2 to 8 for the best quality on the final audio mixdown?

[pdxindy]

So I'm guessing leave it at 2 for Realtime (default) but change the Render Oversampling from the default 2 to 8 for the best quality on the final audio mixdown?

I have not explored it in Cypher... but in some synths it can change the sound... so check to make sure you get the result you intended