PLASMONIC - A new synth from Brian Clevinger

[elnn]

I does look a bit like user-made GUIs that were popular in World of Warcraft in 2012 or so. The layout is ok, but graphics, huh, not his strong suit.
The sound tho, I love it. Making this baby haunt is eeeezz. I might buy it.

[zerocrossing]

I does look a bit like user-made GUIs that were popular in World of Warcraft in 2012 or so. The layout is ok, but graphics, huh, not his strong suit.
The sound tho, I love it. Making this baby haunt is eeeezz. I might buy it.

I do game UI design for a living, and that was my exact thought when I saw it. I normally don’t care about such things, but in this case it does make the readability of the UI a bit more difficult than it should be. I hope this isn’t the final UI, but if it is, I can deal with it. The sound is excellent, though the CPU load is pretty high. I tried bringing the voice count up to 8 and it was unusable on my i7, so I guess what ever virtual instrument I’m playing only has four strings. Still, an instant buy when he gets it set up.

[Michael L]

If you squint, you can see the Absynth family resemblance.

[gunnar]

I have to agree and don't find the GUI layout balanced. The text needs to be bigger in my humble opinion.
But i dont make Sound with the GUI and i Like the Layout and i love the sound

[foosnark]

This is 2020.

Its time for new ways of Digital Synth Plugins

What we need in the virtual world is:

A bunch of old synths ranging from 1977 to 2003?

[Niowiad]

But i dont make Sound with the GUI and i Like the Layout and i love the sound

I get what you mean and I absolutely love the sound too, but if we're talking about functional (and not aesthetical) issues, those indeed do interfere with the usage/experience of the tool and therefore the results you obtain with it.

I mean, some people are fine with the GUI and that's great, but for anyone else getting eye-strain (which eventually leads to headache) from the very dark color scheme, text definition, low contrast and whatever else after staring at the synth for 10 minutes or even less, they're not going to be able to use it even close to its fullest, or use it at all.

I don't make sound with the GUI either, meaning I don't need a synth or a DAW to look "cool" or "inspiring" (and never criticized the older "ugly" GUI), but I do look for optimal visual usability.


I have an LCD screen in front of my face 15 hours a day without issues.
I'm often in front of the same softsynth for hours without issues.
But I can only deal with that through a consistency of light to neutral value color schemes in my tools.
Even slightly dark themes are sometimes ok (like the previous GUI), but very dark themes f**k me up immediately, and I can only hope for devs to come to the rescue
Brian seemed to understand and be open to the idea. Let's just hope.

[noiseresearch]

/* whitenoise */

[Spirit2020]

Its about digital and this synths are still missing as plugins in 2020.

[gunnar]

But i dont make Sound with the GUI and i Like the Layout and i love the sound

I get what you mean and I absolutely love the sound too, but if we're talking about functional (and not aesthetical) issues, those indeed do interfere with the usage/experience of the tool and therefore the results you obtain with it.

I mean, some people are fine with the GUI and that's great, but for anyone else getting eye-strain (which eventually leads to headache) from the very dark color scheme, text definition, low contrast and whatever else after staring at the synth for 10 minutes or even less, they're not going to be able to use it even close to its fullest, or use it at all.

I don't make sound with the GUI either, meaning I don't need a synth or a DAW to look "cool" or "inspiring" (and never criticized the older "ugly" GUI), but I do look for optimal visual usability.


I have an LCD screen in front of my face 15 hours a day without issues.
I'm often in front of the same softsynth for hours without issues.
But I can only deal with that through a consistency of light to neutral value color schemes in my tools.
Even slightly dark themes are sometimes ok (like the previous GUI), but very dark themes f**k me up immediately, and I can only hope for devs to come to the rescue
Brian seemed to understand and be open to the idea. Let's just hope.

He wrote that he is always open for feedback.
I would think that he is always open for constructive suggestions...
and its clear that this synth will grow and develop

[Michael L]

Give Brian very nice sounding feedback
in small, alternating dark and light text
with small boxes around
[each] [word]
and
stacked...

[CinningBao]

From non-stop playing with it for the last 2 hours (reloading the demo) I think I can work around the gui; I've seen worse and at the moment I can't hear the edges of the sound potential, so it won't keep me away. The design doesn't repulse me anywhere near as much as others here, and it kind of suits my style of organisation.

It won't take me long to start begging for another resonator working in sympathy with the first one though..

[gunnar]

it would be nice to have somewhere a place to share presets...

[v1o]

No VST2 because Brian started working on this after Steiny pulled VST2 availability for new plugin developers.

damn , the solution was right under my nose , running loomer architect (hosting vst'3) as a vst plugin inside renoise
Edit ..doesn't work with plasmonic , but works with other vst's 3

Polac has a free VST3 to VST2 bridge.

[glokraw]

Tested briefly in Ubuntu Studio 20.04, reaper 6.14, wine-stable 5.02
Controls work fine, nice there are some numeric entry possibilites. Love the sound, reminds of Kinetic Metal K6 lib, also like the gui. If when making a detuned sound preset, if it was simple to include a tuned version, there would be more musical bread & butter for varied compositions. Hope it sells a million

Plasmonic-Ubuntu.png

[zimmerabc]

Feel like 1984 with my new DX7, just much better.