One Synth Challenge #119: Waverazor 2 by Tracktion (Jasinski Wins!)

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Waverazor

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I'm going to possibly run counter to most people's OSC philosophy here, but my goal is music, not winning.
I think there is some really excellent music that isn't all that far away using Waverazor. Sure, the modulations are strange and difficult to route and it's hard to track down exactly which audio send / receive you need (for me at least), but the waveform editor is really excellent and rather accessible.

I know some of y'all are wizards and plan on manipulating and FX'ing patches to blow us away with incredible design. I'm not. Instead, i'm the guy who thinks that 1-bit simplicity sounds beautiful: https://bangonacan.org/store/music/1_bit_symphony
instead of fighting this UI, i'm letting it work for me. I invite y'all to do the same. make it digital, let the intereference patterns move you, and make beautiful (powerful ugly playful bright fascinating) music. 'Cause it would be a shame to let this thing stop you from making music.

TL:DR; This whole challenge is a lot simpler if you let the things that come naturally to Waverazor guide your music rather than trying to force it to fit your genre.
My moment of philsophy for those struggling to get music out of WaveRazor.
mostly here for the One Synth Challenge
you can hear some of my newest music at: https://wrenharmonic.bandcamp.com/ or https://www.youtube.com/@wrenharmonic

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Thanks, yeah, like there's any clue as to what this little square does, which virtually always seems to do nothing until you give up trying, haha. My god. :dog:
And I've noticed the loss of all settings when switching filter modes, yep, yep...imagine I've gotten that far already! :lol:
...well, well. Anyway: BIG THANKS for the clue! :tu:

As for you, Leo, I am with you, but it's a key part of the challenge to make one synth work for your composition not with the limits that are given, but with your daring to stretch them to your desire! For me to get inspired, I first need to get some sense of control, even if the sounds came awesome right out of the box. But in Waverazor's case, well, it's not much to fall back on and the chances that every track would sound the same are enormous! So... to get any personal note in there and indulge in its possibilities, I really want to have some control. Then I want to exploit what only it can do, of course! I want to make use of its character, as I always try to. I work, contrary to some, with the major weight on the synth and not on my DAW, even when I used to use some distortion every now and then. Lately I haven't even done that, but limited effect use to some reverb, some delays, compressor and limiting. Same goes for automation, especially automating EQs, which are hardly ever do, except possibly subtle changes for the mix, but not for the sound creation. I wager that most of the dubstep like tracks have brutal automation outside of the synths, for example, but it's merely a guess, of course.

Also, when I bitch around a bit, it feels like it might actually be useful to both developer and musicians, who then won't have to bitch as much, hahaha, but it is rather passionate feedback with the chance to lead to solutions and or help, just like the above, which is great! Still the info is out there that this synth is a beast to figure out. :scared:

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Ranoka - those images are great, thanks for posting! I will someday get those images into the menu and make it easier to select (and as suggested elsewhere, to make it more fluid as well). Until then, your images will certainly help folks!
Taron wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:26 pm Not sure, if it helps or whether there's even a chance, to make some reasonable suggestions to Taiho, trying to clean up the logic and access a wee bit. It's also the sense that much of the gui sections feel hidden and you can only hope to stumble across any particular gui section. Quite exhausting.

BUT I'm not giving up, just yet! :pray:
Absolutely a chance... we love feedback, suggestions and honest criticism as well. I am aware that this UI is not perfect, and it ended up being a lot of parameters that I felt should be available to those that would make use of them. The downside is that it is a lot of parameters, whether you want them or not. The contextual panels (left and right columns) were intended to help navigate to connected sections, so that it wouldn't take so long to find modulation routes, which certainly helps, but I think we have really only begun to explore what can be done with the contextual panels.

Thanks for not giving up!

- Rob

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Ranoka wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:49 pm
Taron wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:26 pm Mission: Simple sound, one oscillator, one filter, envelope on oscillator (figured that out regarding AMP), envelope on cutoff for filter.
I've attached a screenshot with a clue for adding an envelope.
The most helpful thing I've found so far to learn Waverazor is to take one of the presets and try to re-create it from Init by having 2 instances open.
One preset that does what you're trying to do is Templates / Synth 8-Pole

Btw I think Eauson has gotten the furthest by limiting himself to the LE version. The Editor is an absolute time sink!

It doesn't help that there's lots of little gotchas, for instance if you assign a different filter then all the modulation connections get lost - so probably best to chose a filter before wiring up the modulation/macros.
Well, this appears to control the AMP of the filter output and I yet couldn't find a way to control the cutoff with it. I might be too unnerved by now, but thanks anyway. Maybe tonight or tomorrow I have another look at this synth. Again, thanks, it's great that you're trying to help! :tu:

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An important aspect of working with this synth is thinking out what you want to do first. For Modulation LFO's and ENV, click on the Mods block, then use the drop down (3) to add a LFO or ENV to use for modulation. The ENV under AMP ENVS are 8 dedicated, "hard-wired" amp envelopes that have associated mixer functions with to send their output to the Mix or the sends, which creates confusion and possible sending of parts of signals to the mix that you don't actually want.

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r_mok wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 2:34 pm Ranoka - those images are great, thanks for posting! I will someday get those images into the menu and make it easier to select (and as suggested elsewhere, to make it more fluid as well). Until then, your images will certainly help folks!
Taron wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:26 pm Not sure, if it helps or whether there's even a chance, to make some reasonable suggestions to Taiho, trying to clean up the logic and access a wee bit. It's also the sense that much of the gui sections feel hidden and you can only hope to stumble across any particular gui section. Quite exhausting.

BUT I'm not giving up, just yet! :pray:
Absolutely a chance... we love feedback, suggestions and honest criticism as well. I am aware that this UI is not perfect, and it ended up being a lot of parameters that I felt should be available to those that would make use of them. The downside is that it is a lot of parameters, whether you want them or not. The contextual panels (left and right columns) were intended to help navigate to connected sections, so that it wouldn't take so long to find modulation routes, which certainly helps, but I think we have really only begun to explore what can be done with the contextual panels.

Thanks for not giving up!

- Rob
AH, you've posted in the meantime. Well, sorry about the frustration on my part, really.
Thing is, there are certain basic priorities on controlling the character of a sound, which should be ideally clear as day or at least somehow accessible without intense study. I know how hard it is to manage parameters, especially when it almost gets modular. But there seem to be virtually 16 tons of parameters, which one may never ever care to explore or even know of, while those that are crucial to sound design seem to be absent altogether.
I would try to design the UI to make the standards quickly available such as making and assigning envelopes to the most relevant parameters. Some way to, for example, set TARGETS for an envelope. OR for targets to choose an envelope.
For example, staying with the cutoff situation, most brilliant it would be to have either a right click or extra button with which you can then choose modulators for this parameter. I find this the most beautiful implementation, because it's clear and obvious. No fishing around through ominous pages beneath pages until maybe one finds some way to tie some things together.
The other option would be to have an enveloper or any modulator and then assign targets to it. Very common, also elegant enough and most certainly still clear. Couldn't find that way, yet, either.

I know, there is a chance that there simply is a very different philosophy in there. For example, I could imagine you could assign those vectors and/or macros to certain parameters and then assign envelopes to those macros/matrix vectors, but even that already would be...hmmm...way too buried for pleasant sound design, unless there was some very obvious way to do so.

Well, I hope you can forgive me for being blunt and excuse, like I said, my frustration. I just see that some clever ideas went into the foundation of this and it hurts me to miss out on what it might be capable of.

No matter what, thank you for being here and having an ear for us and even me, haha. I can't wait to come back to you with far, far more positive reactions!

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I have to say, this synth can get some lovely textures going very quickly. I'm not experience with Wavetables, but this one seems really nice. I was just comparing a few dabbles with Pigments, the new one from Arturia, and I like this one a lot more. Part of it are the better filters imo. That said, I would kill for a Xils-3 style grid instead of these awkward circular dials for managing sends in a group.

Somehow I don't feel that frustrated as I play with it. I think it's partly the fun filters. Haven't really tried percussion yet.

Is there someway to copy an entire oscillator to another? Seems like a big miss there if there isn't.

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This synth sawed my existence in half.
Image

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I have approached this by carefully navigating through all the synth starting with the controls page to find how things are routed together and see all the parameters. I think i have pretty much got the hang of the interface now, so its just my own sound design limitations and general slowness getting in the way now.

I did post a kick patch earlier in this thread, with some parameters set up on the front of the interface to shape the sound - 3 layers. More will follow when i have time.

For the moment i will reserve comments and suggestions for the synth interface, until i have a more in depth feel for it. Except to say that the manual is not particularly useful as a starting point. All parameters are listed in a pretty dry way, with very little information for the user on HOW to create sounds and manipulate patches. It could do with rewriting from a users perspective.

For example:
How to assign an envelope or other modulator:
-First go to the MODS section in the editor navigation
-Select Voice Mods (first of the three tabs)
-From the dropdown selector on the right choose Add Envelope ADSR
-the new envelope appears in the list - from here you can set its parameters and rename it, but it will do nothing until you assign it.
-To Assign it go to the MTRX section in the navigator
-Make sure to click the VOICE MATRIX tab, then select the routing from the dropdown on the right (1x1 or 1xN)
-The new empty routing appears in the list - select the box which says 'none'- from the dropdown list choose Modulator>voice:[your new env]>output
-from the Matrix Route box's drop down selector on the right choose add mod destination, a box will appear which says 'none' ie no routing applied yet
-click this and choose the parameter which you want your new envelope to modulate.
- With diagrams

As you can see this is a pretty complicated process, and certainly not intuitive. All the more reason why a rewrite of the manual is necessary.

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Funny discussion... I have fun with Waverazor
First it's unique synth and yet like every other modular synth in terms of the approach of patch wiring. It requires a considerable amount of "modules" and wiring to have a basic sound. Probably checking out what people are doing with VCV would be a good practice.
Second, with everything that is complex you have to rtfm. No, it's not yet another 3 OSC subtractive single page synth. I went quickly through the manual and the videos to get a grasp of what is going on, still have to carefuly read mixer and fx/output routings.
Third part of the challenge for me, or say part of the advanture game, is to be equipped with a structured approach of exploring things, like always start with the simplest thing: Init-Patch, only 1 OSC active, only 1 step, stepsize 1: It allows you to go thru all waveforms and watch them with your eyes, be it OSC or any other "thing" in waverazor. Try what wave duty and phase does...Then increase number of steps and...
Fourth part: Draw a mental map in your mind and map it to equivalent concepts you know.
Fith part: Be curious, willing to experiment and Trial and Error

There have been terrible OSC synths, alpha version warez that crashed a lot. Waverazor is unique fun but stable as hell.
Right now, I have nothing to complain about. I enjoy the game. I feel this is kind a similar to MeldaProduction Plugins - You have "easy screens" with just a few macros but if you go into edit mode you have countless possibilities to tweak sounds...
Before just telling the devs how terrible everything is I expect a portion of time of humble experiments.

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Ranoka wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:27 pm As a New Year gift for everyone I assembled a Wave Shape Reference image for Waverazor!
Excellent, thank you Ranoka. :tu:
and Welcome @r_mok great to have you on the forum :hyper:

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RichardSemper wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 3:30 pm I have approached this by carefully navigating through all the synth starting with the controls page to find how things are routed together and see all the parameters. I think i have pretty much got the hang of the interface now, so its just my own sound design limitations and general slowness getting in the way now.

I did post a kick patch earlier in this thread, with some parameters set up on the front of the interface to shape the sound - 3 layers. More will follow when i have time.

For the moment i will reserve comments and suggestions for the synth interface, until i have a more in depth feel for it. Except to say that the manual is not particularly useful as a starting point. All parameters are listed in a pretty dry way, with very little information for the user on HOW to create sounds and manipulate patches. It could do with rewriting from a users perspective.

For example:
How to assign an envelope or other modulator:
-First go to the MODS section in the editor navigation
-Select Voice Mods (first of the three tabs)
-From the dropdown selector on the right choose Add Envelope ADSR
-the new envelope appears in the list - from here you can set its parameters and rename it, but it will do nothing until you assign it.
-To Assign it go to the MTRX section in the navigator
-Make sure to click the VOICE MATRIX tab, then select the routing from the dropdown on the right (1x1 or 1xN)
-The new empty routing appears in the list - select the box which says 'none'- from the dropdown list choose Modulator>voice:[your new env]>output
-from the Matrix Route box's drop down selector on the right choose add mod destination, a box will appear which says 'none' ie no routing applied yet
-click this and choose the parameter which you want your new envelope to modulate.
- With diagrams

As you can see this is a pretty complicated process, and certainly not intuitive. All the more reason why a rewrite of the manual is necessary.
I'm so glad I've mentioned that exact scenario as one of the theories of mine of how this might have been meant to work, haha. This- dare I say- is insane. I would almost prefer having to write a damn script myself, hahaha. Which actually might be a fun approach to a synth, too...might play around with that at some point just to freak people out, hehehe. But, yeah, no. There has to be a much more direct and less convoluted access to deal with modulations.

But it does work at least. I'm trying to think of some more pleasant way of doing this. Feels like you'd want the whole MATRIX assignment section available on the left column while having modulations up, such as envelopes. It ALMOST looks like it wants this to be possible, except nothing shows up there, when you are in MODS.
SO... if you are in [MODS} of the navigation, the left column should allow assigning source and target stuff. This would at least begin to feel manageable without needing an initiation into the inner circle, haha.
THANKS, Richard! That was the first really useful guidance!

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r_mok wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 5:56 am
ontrackp wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 5:48 am Thanks. Please talk to our admins — BJ Porter or Richard Semper. Very interesting synth!
We are in touch now. Cheers!
Hi R_mok -- is there a forum that we can leave feature requests and/or comments in? There are a number of extremely accomplished synth programmer/composer-producers working with it this month and we've already identified a lot of things that could be improved for better musical workflow.

Thanks.

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Here's a little test I did with what I've learned today. All sounds from Init, except the ride cymbal like thing, which was based of the crash3 or do in the templates.
https://soundcloud.com/taronium/waverazortest01/s-L8OCr

Must say...things I shouldn't say. So...I'm not gonna say them. It's kinda dirty and I'm not quite sure, if it's enough to say it's meant to be that way, but hey...made a decent rhyme. :shrug: :lol:

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Eauson wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:07 pm Well, thought I'd try out the LE version.
Pretty limited :D
So made this :)

https://soundcloud.com/eauson/kvr-osc-mok-waverazor

I said I wasn't gonna, but everyone is allowed to change minds ;)
Shame after doing LE version there is not way to try the full product :(

All details of fx etc on Soundcloud
I like this a lot.
I think the LE version is perfectly capable. Can't say which one is more of a challenge though really.

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