Roli: Equator 2 is here !

[Noumena]

Thanks bones for just indicating that everything I say is wrong and/or based in idiocy. I’m on seaboard rise 49 #3 at present, with two replacements on my GC warranty, one of which was past ROLI’s warranty period, which would have resulted with my paying for a repair or replacement as well as waiting.. instead I had a new unit shipped overnight, feels like a good deal and which is why I recommended it to people making the $1200 investment. I don’t generally buy these warranties, either. I had to send my block back when it was DOA because they were on back order at that time, so a replacement was not available. I think people reporting their history with the product when it is so expensive and may have issues and is supported by a company that has demonstrated some problems as well is a good thing to do.

I’m glad that your device is working for you. Always a pleasure.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Can somebody point me to the "user" directory?

For presets or samples? Ive been trying to ask how we can manage user directories of samples but not getting any answers.

I’d ask support but I’m still waiting after a month about the loop retrigger bug after I've sent three emails....

[SteinyFritz]

I’m also on my third Rise 49. Both replaced by Roli, but I am in Europe where warranties don’t require an extra purchase. My Rise 25, however, has held up flawlessly. And I’m loving Equator 2, runs great on my touchbar Macbook Pro.

[Rabid]

After the Roli Blocks fiasco I cannot see ever buying from them again. I bought three. One had an issue and refused to work. All I got from customer service is I must be doing something wrong. They ended up in a closet never to be used to their "promised" level of creation.

[Ou_Tis]

I had thought Equator2 content could be accessed from a secondary hard drive using symbolic links, but it looks like it probably won't work in Windows. "Hard links" can't be made between different drives, and '"symbolic links' in Windows are a shell (ie. Windows Explorer) artefact. they will only work when applications make use of the shell namespace (which most do not)." I guess Equator2 doesn't use the shell namespace?

[aMUSEd]

So now Roli Studio is updated to include a selection of Equator 2 patches is there any way for me to ad all of them since I own the full product? tbh apart from deep editing/sound design I prefer to play them in Roli Studio as it comes as a VST2 so is supported by more hosts, Equator 2 is only VST3 and AU for some reason.

[gofer]

@aMUSEd
Here all my Equator 2 patches are available in Studio Player v1.3.0. They just appeared with the update, no action on my part needed. I didn’t need to download the EQ2 Fundamentals soundpack for Studio Player.
RSP adds some CPU cycles though. Even loading Equator2 into Pluginguru’s Unify is cheaper on CPU - and you can tweak/save patches.

[aMUSEd]

@aMUSEd
Here all my Equator 2 patches are available in Studio Player v1.3.0. They just appeared with the update, no action on my part needed. I didn’t need to download the EQ2 Fundamentals soundpack for Studio Player.
RSP adds some CPU cycles though. Even loading Equator2 into Pluginguru’s Unify is cheaper on CPU - and you can tweak/save patches.

Hi thanks - I did download and install that as I didn't know it wasn't needed and got the impression it could only access patches deliberately converted but I see now if I deselect the pack but select Equator 2 as a filter it does show more - wondering now if I've just added 2 GB more of content I didn't need

[gofer]

wondering now if I've just added 2 GB more of content I didn't need

Yes. Just uninstall it.

[eivind]

Have anybody managed to get Equator 2 to run under Win7/64?

(I’m still on that old OS, and will not upgrade until next time I am building a new music computer. Got too much nice hardware depending on it. And it still works as good as the day it were built.)

Normally software for win10 will work on earlier versions - no support of course..

I tried it - it did install, but it would not run - so Roli refunded me. For now this leaves me stuck with my Rise49 and Equator 1.

[Echoes in the Attic]

They were finally able to confirm the looping note cutoff issue in Bitwig after I sent a simple project, so hopefully there will be a fix there. I also requested custom folders for samples. It kind of ruins the cool index modulation when all user samples are forced to go in the same "uncategorized" folder.

[Ou_Tis]

I've been getting really impatient waiting for Roli to allow Equator2 content to be installed on a secondary hard drive, so I was happy at first to see some Equator2 presets available for Roli Studio in a mere 2.56 gb download size. I read it won some award for "best presets" so I had extremely high hopes. Thought there would be significant improvements in playability (with the Seaboard) and in preset quality.

First, it actually takes up 5.12 gb of hard disk space even after clearing system data, because the 2.56 gb is redundantly stored in two different locations, a rpkg file in C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\ROLI\ROLI Connect\downloads\ and Roli Audio files in C:\Users\Public\Documents\ROLI\Soundpacks

[Edit: I looked into this some more and found out I can probably delete the rpkg files without any issues. At least that's what the instructions for Equator2 say---but Equator2 isn't Roli Studio. Deleting msi installer files is usually perilous since they're required for un-installing, but these are rpkg... I guess I'll just move them for now and make backups.]

The presets are extremely underwhelming.

For most of them playability seems significantly worse than Equator, with sudden jumps instead of (quasi-)continuous variation, badly integrated pitch bends, excessive release time for many of the pads, and/or bad responsiveness. Perhaps it's better in the actual Equator2 engine, but I doubt it. Granted, it may partly be a matter of getting used to it, and one preset mapped Press to a formant shift (rather than volume) in an interesting way.

Most of the presets sound hokey or staid, and the vibrato effect is particularly cheesy and cheap-sounding. There are some usable sounds, but few I really liked.

Some are outright bad, like the Dark Amped Lead Guitar, which has an awful sounding (but not in a good way) attack, and crappy distortion effect (nowhere near as good as what I set up very quickly with one of the Studio Rock sounds and a decent amp sim).

I'd give it the award for biggest disappointment of the year (so far...). I definitely would not buy this based on the Roli Studio pack. I'll play around with it some more, but I'll probably uninstall it soon. What an immense waste of disk space.

[machinesworking]

They were finally able to confirm the looping note cutoff issue in Bitwig after I sent a simple project, so hopefully there will be a fix there. I also requested custom folders for samples. It kind of ruins the cool index modulation when all user samples are forced to go in the same "uncategorized" folder.

I hate that I sent that in and confirmed it with Roli support months ago. Makes me wonder about their database, or the lack of one for bugs, that they obviously don’t have at tech support....

[Ou_Tis]

Getting rid of the Roli Studio rpkg files would free up more than 5 gb of disk space, which still puts Equator2 at 3 gb more than I'd like to spare on my primary SSD. But since I clearly don't like a lot of the presets, and there are many others I'm unlikely to use, I guess there wouldn't be any issue with just moving the presets I probably won't use to my secondary drive, to be moved back if I want to try them again? Could free up 3 gb easily I'll bet.

[Ou_Tis]

On second thought, that might be difficult if different Equator2 presets use the same sample files. Do they? Is it easy to tell which presets are associated with which sample content by looking at the file folders? Or would I have to make sure that samples associated with presets I get rid of aren't also associated with ones I want to keep?