Phase Plant released

[Gamma-UT]

I think a lot of the Phase Plant presets either overcook the effects or just don't add that much. I remember a couple where I took them off and all they really did was increase the CPU consumption.

Kilohearts may have made a rod for their own backs in making it seem as though buying into the whole ecosystem is essential for Phase Plant. Half the time, all you really want is a channel compressor (and that's only if you want that slap-in-the-face OTT sound), maybe a delay and an EQ (though even that is optional as you can broad brush it with the crossovers and channel controls). Otherwise you can wind up slapping chorus and all sorts on channels for that Ridiculously Big Superwide Bass only to find out it's horrible in the mix.

[Stan Navi]

Popping by to share a new Phase Plant tutorial but will clarify a couple of things about presets whilst I'm here.

The Kilohearts ecosystem is modular. So you have hosts (Phase Plant, Multipass and Snap Heap) and FX modules that you can load into them.

Presets in any Kilohearts host plugin will work whether you own the used FX modules or not but you won't be able to directly tweak the parameters of the FX you don't own unless they're hooked up to macros, which still leaves a lot of tweaking for presets that use the macros well. And you can still move those modules about and switch them on and off.

This counts for factory presets and any third-party presets you get your hands on.

It's well worth noting that the Snap Heap host is free, can be used as an FX module in Phase Plant, and comes with its own collection of presets that include tweakable reverbs, delays, distortion, glitches, creative effects, and loads more... all available without owning a single extra FX module!

Hopefully that shines some light on the preset stuff.

SPOILER: The next generator to be added to Phase Plant will be granular, it will be added at no extra cost, and you can bet it will as functional and powerful as the existing generators.

Now... what did I come here for... ah yes!

There is a new official Phase Plant tutorial available on the brand new 'blog' section of the Kilohearts website. In collaboration with SubPac, Kilohearts bring you part one, "Making a Bass in Phase Plant" with Protostar: https://kilohearts.com/blog/phase_plant ... _protostar

Enjoy!

Granular generator, great to hear! I was thinking about it today and now i know, i don't need Pigments. Phase Plant is great synth! Interesting do Kilohearts have plans for kind of Arp or step sequencer as modulator?

[StuSmith]

...do Kilohearts have plans for kind of Arp or step sequencer as modulator?

I know this is on the requested features list but I'm not sure how high. It's one I would love to have too so hopefully it's not too far off!

You can use the existing LFOs as pitch sequencers though and a recent update added a bunch of pitch sequence LFO presets that show just how that works.

[highkoo]

SPOILER: The next generator to be added to Phase Plant will be granular, it will be added at no extra cost, and you can bet it will as functional and powerful as the existing generators.

Its Phase Plant and Pigments in a battle to the death in my daw!

[m43lstr0m]

I've been waiting on a sale like this for a while now. I don't want the sub as I have too many in life already and do not need another that goes on for years.

Can anyone that uses Phase Plant speak up for the value of the Ultimate vs Professional bundle for a new user of the synth? I'm strongly considering the Pro bundle, but don't want to miss out on some crucial snap-ins that are in the Ultimate while it's still only a $100 difference between the two during this sale.

I have watched so many demos on youtube, but everyone has everything. Not sure if they were all hooked up with free Ultimate bundles or a free subscriptions. They all have and use every piece and that makes it seem like I'd be missing out.

In the end, I'd really rather save that extra $100 for now (maybe upgrade on black friday), but don't want to go into it feeling gimped.

Thanks.

[Biome_Digital]

SPOILER: The next generator to be added to Phase Plant will be granular, it will be added at no extra cost, and you can bet it will as functional and powerful as the existing generators.


Enjoy!

[dermage]

I'm not sure what happened with my latest post here, but think it wasn't send properly. Anyway what I wanted to say is:

Phase Plant is a great synth, have just been playing with it the last few days. I already had "The Works" through the Toolbox and another sale where I upgraded. I think it's good value when bought on a sale and KH are good guys, when there's a sale you can upgrade for the sale price.
What I love on Phase Plant is the visual representation what's going in the oscillators. It's directly there and you can watch it modulate. Never seen something detailed and easy and to understand as in PP. It's really fun doing AM/FM/PM now.

Anyway, there's just one-two little feature requests Stu could pass on:
Please add step shift left/right for the trance gate. This is so basic but so powerful when programming the steps. I often have this problem that I just want to shift the steps by one instead of clicking on/off on each step to move them.
And of course would very much like it to have a better mod-matrix kind of visualization of the mod/macro routings, but this has been said before in the thread. Just complex preset/patches are quite hard to understand / read right now.

Very looking forward to the new enhancements. As said, on a sale the Ultimate bundle is good value. Out of a sale if I would earn big this would still be good value But for now I can wait for the sales which are quite often. (Bundle 1-2 a year, single snapins more often for 50% off)


Edit:
to answer the lastest question here:
If I understand right, that the difference between Pro/Ultimate is the EQs and Faturator/Dispenser, I'd say the Pro is the way to start. You can get the others on the next sale. Actually you can demo everything for free for 10 days if you have used the Pro for some weeks, or make a one time sub to test them. Anyway, I mostly use the snapins of the Pro bundle.

[m43lstr0m]

Thanks for the response dermage. Pro it is for now. Will definitely upgrade further later on.

[BONES]

I probably would have however if it didn't install and show a large amount of plug ins I cant use or presets I cant alter. Reminds me of IK Multimedia's marketing model in Amplitube and T-racks, load all the stuff you haven't bought and frustrate the hell out of you in an effort to make you buy it. Has the opposite effect on me!

Either way you are allowing other people to control how you respond. Why give anyone that kind of power over you?

I quite like their installer because as well as showing me things I don't own and haven't tried, it also shows me things I demo'd but decided not to buy, which reduces the chance of me impulse buying something I have already decided I didn't need. It's also great because when you buy some new stuff - I got a $30 voucher from Kilohearts last week and spent it last night - you just run the installer and it automatically finds the new licenses and activates those products without you even having to sign in. It is super-convenient.

I think a lot of the Phase Plant presets either overcook the effects or just don't add that much. I remember a couple where I took them off and all they really did was increase the CPU consumption.

Kilohearts may have made a rod for their own backs in making it seem as though buying into the whole ecosystem is essential for Phase Plant.

I don't think they have done that at all. The Snap-In ecosystem came several years before PhasePlant so, for me, PP is something I can re-use my Snap-Ins on, making them even more useful than they were.

I should have KHs own FXs to work with inside Phase Plant?

Why? A lot of the time it makes better sense in the context of a mix to have one reverb on a Send and use it on channels that need it. You get a clearer, more consistent sound and use less CPU into the bargain. Same with delay.

[dune_rave]

final thoughts about phaseplant:
the gui where everything is layed out and you can insert and reorder things reminds me of zebra and twin2. I don't think this vertical arrangements is that super, but that's just me. i think the factory sounds could be better. I have the feeling the browser also lacks something. the installer is cool.
Afaik Phaseplant can contain many wavetable oscillators, not limited by their number. this is a unique feature, icarus or serum is limited, and even avenger is limited to 8 wt oscs. however i can't imagine a use case for this, where you would need 10 wt oscs...
this is my problem with phaseplant: i don't really know which features are unique to phaseplant. and i should have some good reason , before buying phaseplant in the current promo. maybe i fetch its manual to read...

[TIMT]

final thoughts about phaseplant:
the gui where everything is layed out and you can insert and reorder things reminds me of zebra and twin2. I don't think this vertical arrangements is that super, but that's just me. i think the factory sounds could be better. I have the feeling the browser also lacks something. the installer is cool.
Afaik Phaseplant can contain many wavetable oscillators, not limited by their number. this is a unique feature, icarus or serum is limited, and even avenger is limited to 8 wt oscs. however i can't imagine a use case for this, where you would need 10 wt oscs...
this is my problem with phaseplant: i don't really know which features are unique to phaseplant. and i should have some good reason , before buying phaseplant in the current promo. maybe i fetch its manual to read...

I would literally take any of those synths over Phaseplant,despite Phaseplants "infinite"possibilities for sound design.at its core level this synth is flawed and everything seems sort of half arsed in terms of the sound quality of the modules also sounds like not much thought was put into the interpolation of the table frames either.this all just sounds like stock code to me and all of Kilohearts plugins give off this vibe.the filters are rubbish to be honest.i'm kind of shocked a synth this modern has filters that bad.not everything needs to be ZDF or have non-linearties in its loop e.g the filters in Arcsyn are really plastic sounding but very usable as are Rapids(love that synth).i feel kind of the same about all the effects really and the oscillators,distortion..none of it sticks out.the only thing IMHO that this has going for it that is mostly unique for VSTI's is how it actually does per voice processing and oscillator assignments like a proper analog poly.i wish people would stop saying its "audiorate"as well(not saying you did but i've had a lot of people parrot this to me who bought it)having a macro for phase and amplitude modulation is not audiorate.the wavetables can't even be controlled via osc mod nor can the sync because they are table based.there's nothing audiorate happening in this synth at any level

Apologies for the rant but this synth really disappointed me despite all the hype it got initially and after its launch.Matt Tytels Vital looks far more interesting and it isn't even a 10th as capable as this.mostly cause it sounds like he actually gives a shit about the fundamental elements

[StuSmith]

Phase Plant is a great synth, have just been playing with it the last few days. I already had "The Works" through the Toolbox and another sale where I upgraded. I think it's good value when bought on a sale and KH are good guys, when there's a sale you can upgrade for the sale price.
What I love on Phase Plant is the visual representation what's going in the oscillators. It's directly there and you can watch it modulate. Never seen something detailed and easy and to understand as in PP. It's really fun doing AM/FM/PM now.

Anyway, there's just one-two little feature requests Stu could pass on:
Please add step shift left/right for the trance gate. This is so basic but so powerful when programming the steps. I often have this problem that I just want to shift the steps by one instead of clicking on/off on each step to move them.
And of course would very much like it to have a better mod-matrix kind of visualization of the mod/macro routings, but this has been said before in the thread. Just complex preset/patches are quite hard to understand / read right now.

Thanks for the kind words! I'll pass those on along with the feature requests.

I know the team has previously said that some kind of mod matrix is on the cards but it won't be in the form of a traditional matrix... the guys have pretty specific design ideals which I feel is something that makes their products stand out, so I expect they'll come up with something unique and functional.

[quincy]

Apologies for the rant but this synth really disappointed me despite all the hype it got initially and after its launch.Matt Tytels Vital looks far more interesting and it isn't even a 10th as capable as this.mostly cause it sounds like he actually gives a shit about the fundamental elements

You don't have to apologise for not liking a soft synth but you're confusing your own subjective opinion with technical details about the synth architecture and programming. You may not like the sound but it doesn't mean it doesn't have audio rate modulation (which could describe many different things) which it definitely does in some aspects. I'm also pretty sure that, as a small company with a handful of developers in a competitive market, they do in fact "give a shit" about the quality of their synth as you so eloquently put it. It takes years of development to bring a product like this to the market, and I speak from first-hand experience. They care plenty. Also, filters are never "rubbish" it's just that you don't like their sound. Some people will love the sound of Phase Plant's filters and dislike the sound of the other plugins that you list. There are endless different oscillator/filter/etc designs and ways to implement them so it's just a matter of taste, plain and simple.

Why the need for all this hatred? Has somebody forced you to buy a plugin that you don't like? Last time I checked, you're free to buy this or not to buy it. Given that you've listed multiple other products that you prefer then why not buy one of those and have fun. I might point out that some (including Rapid, which I think is great by the way) have a no resale policy so you wouldn't be able to sell it on if you changed your mind later. Kilohearts allow transfers so if you bought Phase Plant for €99 and then you weren't happy with it you could easily sell it on. I'm tempted to buy it and give it a run on that basis, because I'll be able to sell it later if it doesn't work out. It's not a lot of risk. I'm also tempted by Rapid but I've got no exit route if it turns out that I don't get on with it in the longer term, although to be fair it has a fully-featured demo that I can use as much as I want before buying.

I don't come here so much any more because the level of misplaced anger and people's sense of entitlement has just gotten out of hand. Just because you don't gel with a product doesn't make it bad and the market is awash with synths so take your pick. And as for being really disappointed - I'm sure you'll get over it now it's been a full year since the product was released.

[Tannaliini]

I should have KHs own FXs to work with inside Phase Plant?

Why? A lot of the time it makes better sense in the context of a mix to have one reverb on a Send and use it on channels that need it. You get a clearer, more consistent sound and use less CPU into the bargain. Same with delay.

For me the price tag (even the cheapest one) is high price synth. And in this price category you usually have synth + at least the basic effects (reverb is one important effect at least for me). But that's just me... It's just easier for my workflow if the synth has inbuilt reverb that I can tweak when I try to play with sounds/create sounds.

[Gamma-UT]

Reverb is in the Starter bundle. I think they should either make that the basic package or put the dynamics, EQ and reverb into the basic package. But that starter bundle is not much more than the basic package overall and puts the pricing more or less in line with other synths of similar capability.

But as I wrote before, the whole Pokemon thing makes the synth look a lot more expensive than it should. It's natural to think "oh man, I'm only getting half the package here" when it's for a bunch of effects many people will only use rarely in patches within the synth itself rather than a channel strip that follow it.