Surreal Machines Impact

[soma]

Beedog, We didn't bother people who already have everything with more junk in their inbox. (We hate spam and try to make sure all our communication is relevant). We are sending out emails individually to all our "golden" customers that had everything before the sale today ... so I'll be seeing you (and others) in the inbox later Hope that helps, Matt

[monophonK]

We are undecided on this at the moment. We only have so much bandwidth and so many feature requests and ideas. With Dub Machines, we received very little feedback on the NKS support and it was quite a bit of effort to fully support. We'd rather use the time instead to deliver an update for Dub Machines with a resizable UI and support for more OS' but if the public would rather have NKS support, we could focus on this.

Is an NKS update planned for Impact?

For me the NKS support of the Dub Machines is great - I understand your focus and a update for the Dub Maschines would be great too. Maybe after when you have time left a NKS support for Impact

[kmonkey]

Purchasing Impact and Modnetic today. I grabbed Diffuse VST while it was free. I had them in M4l but this VST is way way better and sound is right there. Crack is awesome.

Thank you so much for your work you produce some amazing plugins.

[FapFilter]

I also think the transient shaping part is sounding nice, but think it could still benefit from some additional snappiness when needed to leave the safe zone, via dials that bring some more logarithmic behavior into the curves, or something like that.

[dionenoid]

Demoed, not impressed.

Bad detection, bad crossover, no volume per band, mediocre sounding saturation/clipper/limiter etc.

Definately not worth the money.

[sinkmusic]

We tried to compensate this by offering all of our existing customers a 10€ voucher (check your spam folder) and making the other products €20 or less. This means you can get diffuse for free, Modnetic for €5 euros or both for €10. We think that these prices are as an honest effort to make our plugins as affordable as we possibly can and still cover our costs. (We have a handful of customers that already owned them all and will contact them personally with a special gift)

Slightly crappy that there's a Black Friday sale of this barely two weeks after the initial release. I guess I can suit myself, being an early-adopting moron.

I bought Modnetic yesterday, before reading this message. I didn't received any e-mail or newsletter either (but i'm enjoying the plugin )

[audiot]

Demoed, not impressed.

Bad detection, bad crossover, no volume per band, mediocre sounding saturation/clipper/limiter etc.

Definately not worth the money.

Volume per band? It has an equalizer, that can lower the volume in certain areas of the spectrum. For what do you need volume per band That would overlap. Disqualified for further discussion

But i agree that the saturation might not satisfy everyone.

As i said before: This tool has to be handled with care. I think i havent used settings in the transient shaper that surpassed 30 or 40% in a certain direction. It can quickly suck the life out of your material (but this is also true for bestsellers like Soothe). I find it very useful to smooth out drum groups that are to present in the mix. This is a problem that can apear if you use different drum machines and samplers to create a beat (and additional effects on the individual tracks).

In some situations i found Impact also very good for taming harsh frequencies in the upper spectrum.

The transient shaper behaves different than others, but i like that ... fits good into my toolbox. If you think of a real toolbox, then it's always good to have different wrenches for different nuts

[BeeDog]

Beedog, We didn't bother people who already have everything with more junk in their inbox. (We hate spam and try to make sure all our communication is relevant). We are sending out emails individually to all our "golden" customers that had everything before the sale today ... so I'll be seeing you (and others) in the inbox later Hope that helps, Matt

I just saw that. Holy crap, a very nice gesture, God bless! I do realize that my initial post came off as unnecessarily petty or blunt, but in the world of sound software, it's very easy to get burned by price drops again and again and feel like you get shafted for being an early adopter.

I don't think the developers should feel guilty about someone buying their plugins two weeks before the black friday sale. The difference in price about $20, not so much. You knew that November is a "hot" month. It's a free market, after all.

Although I understand the indignation of those who buy Izotope plugins at full price, but there is a completely different case. The full retail price of Surreal Machines plugins is affordable from any view.

Sorry for the off top, I'm not interested in discussing price policy further, just speaked out Cheers.

Of course, it's a free market and that's why I ultimately wrote I can suit myself for not holding off. It's just that the frustration was compounded after one too many feelings of "burns" in my case, price point nonwithstanding. Either way, the Surreal Machine gesture quoted above is above and beyond either way, which is extra considerade in these troubling times.

[dionenoid]

Demoed, not impressed.

Bad detection, bad crossover, no volume per band, mediocre sounding saturation/clipper/limiter etc.

Definately not worth the money.

Volume per band? It has an equalizer, that can lower the volume in certain areas of the spectrum. For what do you need volume per band That would overlap. Disqualified for further discussion

Volume per band because when you use saturation per band (Impact has that option), the volume differences become huge. So why put in the option to saturate per band yet leave out volume ?

Also because the individual bands change in volume when you alter their attack or sustain, basic knowledge really. Weird that i even have to explain this.

[plexuss]

I just spent some time with Impact working on patters from Sugar Bytes drumComputer. I didn't feel like I needed band gain control - The transient and sustain controls adjust gain for their respective parts. Further the I was using the EQ to balance gain across the full bandwidth. I think if there was a band gain control it would feel redundant. Makes me wonder if in an earler non-release version they may have had band gain and realized it was redundant and removed - it does make sense, on first glance, to have it but in practice I feel it's not needed and/or I can do without it. YMMV of course.

[audiot]

Volume per band because when you use saturation per band (Impact has that option), the volume differences become huge. So why put in the option to saturate per band yet leave out volume ?

Also because the individual bands change in volume when you alter their attack or sustain, basic knowledge really. Weird that i even have to explain this.

Not sure what your problem is Even if i crank the agressive saturation mode to maximum on the low band, i can still bring down the volume in the lows with the EQ. So can the EQ be used as per band volume control? For me it works well!

The developer could for sure implement volume per band, but conceptually it would overlap with the EQ. The EQ acts as a volume control. Lets say you had per band volume control and would turn up (or down) the volume on the middle band, how would that look like? It would look like a peak EQ, because you need slopes as a crossing between the bands!

I think there is a reason why the dev puts the sliders for the transient bands and the graphical EQ into the same window.

And thanks for the lesson about basic knowledge! I really couldnt hear that during my tests

I dont wanna argue or something, but saying that it's not worth the money is a bit rude. If it's not working on your material, it doesnt mean that this is the case for everyone. And i also cant see myself using it like a hammer on every drum group. It's a tool that will get it's use (dependend on the source material).

[soma]

We tried band volume briefly when we added the saturation per-band but found it to be a little too complex and distracting from “getting to the point” but that’s where the idea for the EQ came from (if I remember correctly).

It makes sense and not surprised to hear it asked for but when we tried it, it felt like something that would be fiddled with instead of moving on to make great music, especially considering there EQ. It’s not a bad idea.

I just spent some time with Impact working on patters from Sugar Bytes drumComputer. I didn't feel like I needed band gain control - The transient and sustain controls adjust gain for their respective parts. Further the I was using the EQ to balance gain across the full bandwidth. I think if there was a band gain control it would feel redundant. Makes me wonder if in an earler non-release version they may have had band gain and realized it was redundant and removed - it does make sense, on first glance, to have it but in practice I feel it's not needed and/or I can do without it. YMMV of course.

[plexuss]

We tried band volume briefly when we added the saturation per-band but found it to be a little too complex and distracting from “getting to the point” but that’s where the idea for the EQ came from (if I remember correctly).

It makes sense and not surprised to hear it asked for but when we tried it, it felt like something that would be fiddled with instead of moving on to make great music, especially considering there EQ. It’s not a bad idea.

I just spent some time with Impact working on patters from Sugar Bytes drumComputer. I didn't feel like I needed band gain control - The transient and sustain controls adjust gain for their respective parts. Further the I was using the EQ to balance gain across the full bandwidth. I think if there was a band gain control it would feel redundant. Makes me wonder if in an earler non-release version they may have had band gain and realized it was redundant and removed - it does make sense, on first glance, to have it but in practice I feel it's not needed and/or I can do without it. YMMV of course.

I could tell this was thought-out. I win 1 UX point!

[monophonK]

Exist a changelog for Impact?

[soma]

Exist a changelog for Impact?

This is the first version so there’s no real changes. We made one patch to fix for Big Sur and one for a bug in the demo with reloading. If you mean compared to the Max version, we have this info on our FAQ

What is the difference between the old (M4L) Impact and the new (VST/AU) Impact?
Compared to the Ableton M4L version, the new VST/AU plugin has been completely rewritten from scratch in C++ for better performance.
Most obviously, as a VST/AU the new Impact can be used in any plugin host as a mono or stereo effect or insert.
Also, the new Impact:
has saturation parts improved with resampling changes
has dynamics sections improved with better detection algorithms
has the same array of unique internal routing options, but switchable in real time without any clicks, as well as dynamically managing it’s CPU load
has new and improved metering and displays that render on the GPU
has a brand new modern interface (that can be resized)
has additional plugin features like AB compare
and more!…