CM Dominator dev

[xalama qo]

Hi guys, I had a little play with Computer Music's old Dominator synth just now. It's a really solid bit of software, sounds great.
Does anyone know who the dev was and if they have done any other synths or effects since then? I'd love to check out their other work. Seems too good to just be flying under the radar.
(I know the "official" dev is Computer Music, but that's kinda meaningless)
Any insights would be appreciated!

[poonna]

I might be wrong as it's been many years since I heard this, but if I remember correctly, it was Antti Huovilainen, who had developed some free synths, like Asynth, and published many papers on VA filters and DSP stuff. I believe he is probably more active as a researcher than a DSP developer.

[JerGoertz]

I heard it's Antti as well.

[xalama qo]

Ah, thanks guys, that connection does sound familiar. I remember checking out ASynth way back when and being impressed with it too. I wonder if I still have the installer or zip on a drive somewhere.
It was unfortunate how CM marketed Dominator as a one trick hoover and distortion noise-synth. It actually has a very classy sound which is right at home in synthwave territory. Just no internal preset management.
WinXP forever!! Hehe.

[Danilo Villanova]

Any way to get it now?

[JerGoertz]

Ah, thanks guys, that connection does sound familiar. I remember checking out ASynth way back when and being impressed with it too. I wonder if I still have the installer or zip on a drive somewhere.
It was unfortunate how CM marketed Dominator as a one trick hoover and distortion noise-synth. It actually has a very classy sound which is right at home in synthwave territory. Just no internal preset management.
WinXP forever!! Hehe.

Yeah, that goddamn hideous GUI does it no favors... Just close your eyes and pretend you're playing a Juper 8 or something.

[Teksonik]

Any way to get it now?

I just checked a couple of old Computer Music magazine disks and it's no longer included in the 32 bit folder.

Maybe if you could get a hold of a really old CM disk.

EDIT: I just found Dominator on CM #178 from June 2012 so see if you can find a disk from that time period.

[Danilo Villanova]

Any way to get it now?

I just checked a couple of old Computer Music magazine disks and it's no longer included in the 32 bit folder.

Maybe if you could get a hold of a really old CM disk.

EDIT: I just found Dominator on CM #178 from June 2012 so see if you can find a disk from that time period.

Thanks a lot!

[xalama qo]

It's possible that there's a downloadable zip on vstplanet. But u didn't hear that from me.
I got mine with a CM magazine.
I wonder why they discontinued offering Dominator. It should be an evergreen in the CM Vault. I'm sure some talented graphics dude could whip up a decent GUI. Or tweak the current one to look similar to the Valhalla plugins.
Mmmm Dominator into VVV or Supermassive
Let's petition CM to bring it back.

[JerGoertz]

It's possible that there's a downloadable zip on vstplanet. But u didn't hear that from me.
I got mine with a CM magazine.
I wonder why they discontinued offering Dominator. It should be an evergreen in the CM Vault. I'm sure some talented graphics dude could whip up a decent GUI. Or tweak the current one to look similar to the Valhalla plugins.
Mmmm Dominator into VVV or Supermassive
Let's petition CM to bring it back.

I think CM discontinued it because they didn't think it was worth the effort to port it to 64-bit, or they couldn't get Antti to do it. (Just speculating.)

[AnX]

Any way to get it now?

ask someone to send it to you

[xalama qo]

I think CM discontinued it because they didn't think it was worth the effort to port it to 64-bit, or they couldn't get Antti to do it. (Just speculating.)
[/quote]

Yup, I was thinking the same thing. Was playing it again this morning, actually tweaking and trying to design some new patches...ran into a couple of bugs/snags. There's no midi-learn for the knobs etc, and every now and then the filter and saturation routing seem to forget what state they're supposed to be in and become unresponsive or think they're on when they should be off. Enough to make you pull your hair out if you're trying to use it seriously.

It does sound great though, and it's very easy to get into dirty funky Daft Punk territory with the BP filters and saturation modes. At high resonance the filters show their age, but respond better to LFO modulation than knob tweaks. I used that handy Oversampler VST with it this morning and it cleans things up quite nicely. Noticeably less steppy.

Anyway, it was fun to rediscover it, and I hope CM revisits it some day. Would be nice if they added some oscillator interaction, basic FM perhaps. Seems like an obvious oversight. The envelopes seemed nice and snappy to me. It's not often I want LESS attack on basses and plucks!
The chord mode is interesting too.
A quirky but rewarding synth IMO.

[JerGoertz]

It does sound great. It seems to crash Live 9 and no 64-bit is bad, but I'd snap up any update they put out.

[chk071]

I just gave it a go (works fine in Savihost x86). It's not bad, pretty good filter for that time (unsurprisingly, as it's a Antti synth). The age rather shows in the architecture. No unison on oscillator level, synth goes monophonic when you activate global unison, only one mod envelope, and overall a pretty simple synth. I like that it's so clear though, everything is very straight forward, unlike some synths these days, which really confuse you with their interface.

I found it on my CM #171 DVD (a real gem as it has Cakewalk z3ta+ on it ). Cost me a shit load of money comparatively, as it was an import from the UK. I think I paid 20 € or more for the mag... was nowhere else to get. A blessing that you can just order it digitally nowadays.

Anyway, IMO, it's not really something special nowadays. Pretty bad stepping on the filter cutoff as well. Some things simply don't age well.

[AnX]

snappy envelopes tho