Vital - Released

[pdxindy]

Another good use of mod remapping is to adjust the timbre by note in a non-linear way. This can help extend the usable range of a patch.

Funny,
Im working on some thing like this now. Its amazing how many synths cant accomplish the sound because the modulations cant be changed across the keyboard.

(begging pre-forgiveness for not reading back through the thread if I'm duping):

This would be similar to the mapping generators in some (all?) of u-he's synths, correct? I think it started with ACE, and Bazille has 2 (which of course can be applied to a variety of targets).

They have different modes and sources available. A typical application would be using a step mode (up to 128) with a key-track source and various target parameters for a round-robin affect.

The first time I saw it in ACE I had no idea how to use it; watched a video and now it's hard to live without in other synths.

Yep! The mod mappers from Zebra, Bazille and ACE are essentially the same thing as the remappers in Vital

With a few differences... the remappers cannot set a specific value per key

the u-he mod mappers aren't a full on MSEG type curve.

[mtytel]

This was one of the first things I made when I added mod remap to Vital:
https://twitter.com/matttytel/status/11 ... 53024?s=20

[The Nerdy Music Guy]

This was one of the first things I made when I added mod remap to Vital:
https://twitter.com/matttytel/status/11 ... 53024?s=20

Haha, that's amazing!

[bmanic]

It absolutely blows my mind that so few people have realized this. As far as I know the first one to implement this was Camel Audio in their Alchemy synthesizer. Ever since that I've been suggesting it for synth developers.. but most of them just didn't "get it"

Perhaps if you could explain what practical use such a feature might have, developers could see the value in it? Personally, I can't think of a single application of a feature like that in a DAW environment. If I want to have the same synth play two or three different patches, I just add two or three instances. Much tidier.

The most useful and common application is simply to balance a preset's volume over the keyboard range. Some sounds will have naturally multiplying output amplitude at certain key intervals due to resonance buildup in various places of the preset, thus making it difficult to play it over the full range of the keyboard in a natural way. This can be countered with modulation mapping extremely easily.

Add to this the ability to precisely control the cutoff frequency of any filter over the keyboard range, not just a simple % or common keyboard tracking.

In general it allows you to create sounds that play more consistently over the wanted keyboard range without having to do that manually with velocity or automation (the latter being impossible to do when playing live). With mod mapping you get a kind of control over the difference between a good and a bad acoustic instrument (violin, piano, guitar etc), one of the common traits being the even/uneven response and tonality of the instrument.

This is partially why some classic digital workstation synthesizers have presets that sound so even and well balanced. They are purposefully and carefully internally "mapped" (usually at the sample level) out to play as well as possible. Mind you, this is not always desirable. If the mapping is done too thoroughly the end result can be rather unengaging.

Another cool thing with mod mapping is that you can precisely control the exact range and thus the "feel" of your modulation wheel/aftertouch/whatnot. For instance manipulating the cutoff filter at the same time as for instance some frequency modulation (or something else that creates a lot of harmonics), with a single controller (cc1, after touch etc) can sometimes lead the sound to be "misaligned" in such a way that it will not smoothly transition to the end result over the modulation range. This is where mod mapping will help a lot in making sure the modulation wheel doesn't have any weird spots in the middle that makes the operation of the performance controller suffer.


In short: Modulation mapping lets the sound designer carefully tune the exact ranges of everything, most notably and most importantly (in my opinion) anything that affects the playability and live performance aspects of a preset.

[bmanic]

.. and that's just the non-crazy sound design stuff that I mentioned, which would benefit _any_ synthesizer out there, be it simple as a rock.

[BONES]

The most useful and common application is simply to balance a preset's volume over the keyboard range. Some sounds will have naturally multiplying output amplitude at certain key intervals due to resonance buildup in various places of the preset, thus making it difficult to play it over the full range of the keyboard in a natural way. This can be countered with modulation mapping extremely easily.

Or a compressor.

Add to this the ability to precisely control the cutoff frequency of any filter over the keyboard range, not just a simple % or common keyboard tracking.

That's another thing I've never found a use for. I always turn key tracking off, it does nothing but annoy me.

In general it allows you to create sounds that play more consistently over the wanted keyboard range without having to do that manually with velocity or automation (the latter being impossible to do when playing live).

That's not true at all. You can put automation into a track without notes. If you know what you're going to play, you can do some very sophisticated stuff that way. I only use it so I can fade a song out while I'm still playing but there would be plenty of other stuff you could do if you wanted.

With mod mapping you get a kind of control over the difference between a good and a bad acoustic instrument (violin, piano, guitar etc), one of the common traits being the even/uneven response and tonality of the instrument.

You mean stuff that virtuosos spend a lifetime trying to eliminate from their performance? I like to annoy them by making all my stuff perfect without any practice at all.

[Psuper]

Did I mention that building patches with Vital is a BLOOMIN JOY-o-HAPPYNESS!? Vital's gui workflow is superior to everything, yes everything out there by miles when we're talking about a VST Synth getting out of your way and letting you just DO. I've plucked away at making my own synth sounds since the early 80s on various hardware on thru modern day tech, and Vital takes the relatively lengthy and boring (if you've done it long enough) necessity of sound design and makes it pure FUN again.

Just had to add another aspect going relatively unnoticed, especially when looking at competition -- Vital has the 'Fun" factor.

[The Nerdy Music Guy]

Did I mention that building patches with Vital is a BLOOMIN JOY-o-HAPPYNESS!? Vital's gui workflow is superior to everything, yes everything out there by miles when we're talking about a VST Synth getting out of your way and letting you just DO. I've plucked away at making my own synth sounds since the early 80s on various hardware on thru modern day tech, and Vital takes the relatively lengthy and boring (if you've done it long enough) necessity of sound design and makes it pure FUN again.

Just had to add another aspect going relatively unnoticed, especially when looking at competition -- Vital has the 'Fun" factor.

Yeah, it took me a while to get used to it, but it's just so fast to work with. Getting ideas out of your head and into the synth is super quick and easy, no matter how complex or the simple the idea may be.

Good stuff

[BONES]

Did I mention that building patches with Vital is a BLOOMIN JOY-o-HAPPYNESS!? Vital's gui workflow is superior to everything, yes everything out there by miles when we're talking about a VST Synth getting out of your way and letting you just DO.

By it's very nature that is not possible. For example, FBM's MonoFury is much easier, simply because it is so much less complicated. I don't find Vital's workflow to be superior to Pigments, HY-Poly, Equator or PhasePlant, either, and those synths are even more complicated than Vital. Pigments sets the benchmark for me.

Just had to add another aspect going relatively unnoticed, especially when looking at competition -- Vital has the 'Fun" factor.

I'm not feelin' it. I definitely get that from synths like MonoFury, bx_oberhausen and Korg's ARP Odyssey but a wavetable synth is always going to annoy me, just for being what it is. Trawling through endless folders full of wavetables, even before you start, is always going to compare badly to just selecting from Saw, Tri and Pulse waves.

[glokraw]

I got an archive of Vital presets from Discord containing several more archives each containing a folder holding dozens of author's subfolders, each containing .vital presets.
In a folder containing the author's folders, create a Presets folder.
Go back up into parent folder, and issue this command:

find . -name "*.vital" -exec cp {} Presets \;

This will snoop in all those author folders, find files
with a .vital extension, and copy them to the Presets folder you made.

From there, you can move them around as desired. Maybe do

mkdir /home/me/.local/share/vital/Presets/discord-sounds

Cheers

[PieBerger]

Did I mention that building patches with Vital is a BLOOMIN JOY-o-HAPPYNESS!? Vital's gui workflow is superior to everything, yes everything out there by miles when we're talking about a VST Synth getting out of your way and letting you just DO. I've plucked away at making my own synth sounds since the early 80s on various hardware on thru modern day tech, and Vital takes the relatively lengthy and boring (if you've done it long enough) necessity of sound design and makes it pure FUN again.

Just had to add another aspect going relatively unnoticed, especially when looking at competition -- Vital has the 'Fun" factor.

100%, definitely one of the most fun synths on the market

[Sleepwalker]

I'm not feelin' it. I definitely get that from synths like MonoFury, bx_oberhausen and Korg's ARP Odyssey but a wavetable synth is always going to annoy me, just for being what it is. Trawling through endless folders full of wavetables, even before you start, is always going to compare badly to just selecting from Saw, Tri and Pulse waves.

Fair enough, however we are talking about a wavetable synth here so would make more sense to compare with other similar style wavetable synths in that case.

[vertibration]

I can vibe with you Bones, and understand completely about WT synths. I think wavetable synths serve a purpose, much more so with DnB music for heavy bass sound design. I do find it more fun, for instance with the legend or obsession to build a patch. When I use serum, and now vital sometimes, its only for one specific thing, and its usually FM'ing wavetables.

[dupont]

i'm not found of wavetable synths, lot of time to navigate in folders and find an interesting wave and at the end they all sounds metallic and digital.

[vertibration]

I dont want to assume, but maybe most on here do not produce DnB music in the vein of Noisa, Mefjus, Emperor........?

If not, then I can understand why WT synthesis is not appealing. In fact, if I didnt produce DnB music, I would probably hate WT synthesis. As I said before, WT synths do one thing exceptionally well, and that is really heavy bass sound design. Other than that, I think its pretty useless. In fact, when I need the general stuff like leads, pads, some basses, percussion, drums, FX and so on....I always turn to other VST's