U-he The Cat

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

But the feedback ("make it poly!") was overwhelming. People made that legendary choice with their wallet.

Thinking about this a little more...

I imagine that there were many people for whom the idea of a mono-synth was not very exciting, and it was only when you added Repro-5 that they paid up, and had access to both. Does your survey data account for those that might never have bought the original mono version, but then grew to love it due to it coming along with the poly version. Isn't it conceivable that many of those customers have now been persuaded by monophonic charm, and would be happy to buy more in a similar vein?

[akira2]

For those who can't wait for an eventual Cat by u-he
There are 2 nice free emulations (32 bits only)
Modcat
http://vst4free.com/free_vst.php?id=2960

and the nice sounding Felix (mono + poly)
http://www.vstplanet.com/Instruments/VS ... zers27.htm

[ghettosynth]

Any free 32 bit plugin that has hereto gone unnoticed is unlikely to have the necessary attention to detail to get me excited. I have a CAT and what I love about it is how it responds to complex filter modulation.

I suspect that I could knock up a better emulation in Reaktor than either of those and that's only because any recent audio rate modulated filter that is even close to the 2040 is likely to outperform pretty much anything that is too old to be 64 bit.

What this is about is Urs' attention to detail, I think that's what those of us willing to pay for this thing are after. I want the thing to react very much like the real thing.

[beely]

or maybe model the Prodigy sync and add it to the Minimoog oscs (there's already sync, I know).

For me, although I prefer polysynths in general, Repro is all about the Pro-1, and not so much the P5.

But I agree, unless a new instrument is, say, massively modular to offset the voice limitation, making it mono only in this day and age seems (to the average plugin consumer) to be a step back, and an artificial restriction just because the developer couldn't be bothered to change the "1" to a "32" in a header file to make it polyphonic...

[AnX]

and the nice sounding Felix (mono + poly)
http://www.vstplanet.com/Instruments/VS ... zers27.htm

wow, ten years old... time does fly

also, based on a Kitten, not Cat

[AnX]

i got the impression the reason repro1 was mono, was more to do with the fx they added than the actual synth itself. Hence the fx were changed in the repro5

[nilhartman]

I'd be delighted with a mono u-he Cat, each and every exemple I've heard of the original bit sound lush AF, so characterful.
Never really got the complains regarding RePro (even though I now do enjoy having a poly option (even though I barely use it)).

[News From The Sky]

Don't get me wrong: I love Repro-1.

But the feedback ("make it poly!") was overwhelming. People made that legendary choice with their wallet. It made clear to us that we can bury our idea of preserving some monophonic beauties "as they are" in code.

As for the Cat, there was a polyphonic version ("Voyetra 8").

I'd happily pay for a U-He Cat, but I would really love (and pay even more) to have a U-He Voyetra 8.

That said, monosynths can do some things that are difficult, pointless, or impossible to do with polysynths, so there's a place for both. It's a shame more people don't understand that.

[News From The Sky]

i got the impression the reason repro1 was mono, was more to do with the fx they added than the actual synth itself. Hence the fx were changed in the repro5

The parameter ranges are different, IIRC.

[EdSfer]

That said, monosynths can do some things that are difficult, pointless, or impossible to do with polysynths, so there's a place for both. It's a shame more people don't understand that.

I'm really curious about what are those things? Besides the FX tricks Urs mentioned, are there any specificities in monosynths that are unreachable for a poly? In the vst world I mean, where every polysynth has a mono option.

[News From The Sky]

Urs would be able to give a better answer, but gainstaging is different on monosynths (you can have a lot more dynamic range because you don't need to save headroom for other voices) and, as I mentioned above, Urs pointed out early in the development of Repro One that the parameter ranges were much more extreme on the Pro One as compared to the Prophet 5. In terms of virtual synths, monosynths can use more CPU-intensive-processing than polysynths, eg, a monosynth could use a filter algorithm or distortion in the voice path that would be too taxing to be practical in a polysynth (obviously, this is a moving target as CPUs continue to get more and more powerful). Even if CPU power isn't an issue, there's often a tradeoff with synth parameters - the wider the range they cover the more flexibility you have in sound design and the easier it is to get unusual sounds, but the smaller the "sweet spot" is and the less approachable the synth can feel.

[EdSfer]

I hadn't thought about CPU handling, that makes sense, thanks

[ghettosynth]

I hadn't thought about CPU handling, that makes sense, thanks

Which also makes sense for staged release, mono first, then poly. Put the mono out as best of breed, develop the poly later as CPUs get more powerful. But, it seems that people really rejected the idea of a mono Repro, which is too bad.

[kylie]

I'd pay for it, no doubt. Looking for a decent VST plugin for years, when someone did a module for the Scope platform. Urs, did you already start development and stopped it for making Repro-5? If so, is there a prototype we could at least take a look at?

[pitchdrifter]

I'd be buying it.
With VSTis monophony isn't really a limiting factor