Roli: Equator 2 is here !

[aMUSEd]

Did you see the directory Appdata/roaming/ROLI/ROLI Connect/downloads? I just looked and saw a whopping 14.5 GB worth of files in there. Pretty sure those can be safely deleted?

Hope so - mine has 19GB in there

[gofer]

Hope so - mine has 19GB in there

I just moved the files from inside that folder to elsewhere and rebooted the pc. No complaints and everything seems to work as before. Off they go, I say.

[Ou_Tis]

Did you see the directory Appdata/roaming/ROLI/ROLI Connect/downloads? I just looked and saw a whopping 14.5 GB worth of files in there. Pretty sure those can be safely deleted?

Edit: ah, I figured you probably mean the same files

Yeah. Since no one's confirmed here that I can delete them without messing up uninstall (as it would with msi), I asked Roli support... but of course they're AWOL.

[dunohearno]

Bit disappointing this update. I get it's mostly workflow improvements, which are great additions, but they seem to have neglected the core functionality that everyone's requesting...

Still no looping, reverse, or anything other than offset on the sampler. Really missing a trick there.

Not being able to relocate the samples, or organise our own samples and wavetables better is disappointing.

Seems odd that they've added the utility with the same non functioning meter as the compressor. Why put the meter there if it doesn't do anything?

And you still can't see any kind of animation on the waveforms, or envelopes.

Really really want to love this synth, but it seems as though they've ignored what people are actually asking for on here and other threads, and added in some basic stuff that should have really been there from the get go. Crazy frustrating. Has the potential to be so good this synth, hope they get it together on it soon.

[himalaya]

Development takes time and the implementation of features is prioritised. Equator2 is already an amazing resource of really deep sounds, even without animated waveforms or envelopes, and there is more to come!

Still no looping, reverse, or anything other than offset on the sampler. Really missing a trick there.

Stay tuned on this one....again development takes time...

In the meantime, have you tried to modulate the position of a bunch of samples from the granular folders with an envelope or an LFO? Instant 'wave-sequenced-like' sound! A rare feature, that gives startling results. Try it. It's so much fun!

[Echoes in the Attic]

In the meantime, have you tried to modulate the position of a bunch of samples from the granular folders with an envelope or an LFO? Instant 'wave-sequenced-like' sound! A rare feature, that gives startling results. Try it. It's so much fun!

It's too bad this feature is useless with user samples since we can't make our own folders.

[dunohearno]

Development takes time and the implementation of features is prioritised. Equator2 is already an amazing resource of really deep sounds, even without animated waveforms or envelopes, and there is more to come!

Still no looping, reverse, or anything other than offset on the sampler. Really missing a trick there.

Stay tuned on this one....again development takes time...

In the meantime, have you tried to modulate the position of a bunch of samples from the granular folders with an envelope or an LFO? Instant 'wave-sequenced-like' sound! A rare feature, that gives startling results. Try it. It's so much fun!

Yeah, totally understand. Didn't mean to sound moody, just a bit disappointed. I'm hesitant to fall in love with it and reach for it every time, as it feels a bit undercooked at the moment. Suppose I'm a bit confused as to why it's been released with so many unfinished aspects of it.

It's the best granular engine I've ever heard, so smooth. Would love to be able to be confident in it enough to reach for it every time. Quite a few of us are also desperate for the sampler to improve, and just for the animations on the waveforms to show us what's going on. The animations are there on the mpe windows, hard to understand why they are missing from everywhere else.

And the organisation of the user samples / waveforms etc, it's an absolute killer this isn't up to scratch. It's a nightmare working with it. And things like why can't you just drop a sample onto the module, rather than having to open up that window? Just all feels undercooked. It's frustrating.

I use Slate and Ash's Auras a lot, but wish I could add my own samples. You could easily do that in Equator if the sampler allowed. Also being able to sample hardware and external instruments and then turn it to mpe would be a dream, but it's not possible at the moment in Equator because you have no flexibility in the sampler.

Again, not trying to be moody, just really want to love this synth. Understand it takes time, but releasing it with all this missing is just asking for frustrated customers. It's hard to give your trust to a company that seems to be continually shooting themselves directly in the face.

[machinesworking]

I'm away from my set up, but is the Bitwig looping cutting off release times of live input notes and chords issue solved?
That's the big one to me. The worlds premier MPE DAW and Equator 2 is released with a crippling bug in it.

[gofer]

What exactly is the “Bitwig looping cutting off release times of live input notes and chords issue”? Asking, because they had a few sample sets where some notes would not play their loops. Those are fixed, but it hadn’t to do with release times and wasn’t restricted to live input or Bitwig though.

[machinesworking]

What exactly is the “Bitwig looping cutting off release times of live input notes and chords issue”? Asking, because they had a few sample sets where some notes would not play their loops. Those are fixed, but it hadn’t to do with release times and wasn’t restricted to live input or Bitwig though.

The release and hold times cuts off held notes if you are looping the timeline in bigwig. At the end of the loop it abruptly cuts off. This isn’t the case in any other DAW, or the case in Equator v1, definitely a big in Equator 2, not Bitwig

[Echoes in the Attic]

What exactly is the “Bitwig looping cutting off release times of live input notes and chords issue”? Asking, because they had a few sample sets where some notes would not play their loops. Those are fixed, but it hadn’t to do with release times and wasn’t restricted to live input or Bitwig though.

The release and hold times cuts off held notes if you are looping the timeline in bigwig. At the end of the loop it abruptly cuts off. This isn’t the case in any other DAW, or the case in Equator v1, definitely a big in Equator 2, not Bitwig

Sadly it has not been fixed. Can't say I'm surprised.

The only two things I care about were not included - Fixing this bug and letting us put samples in folders. They are slight deal breakers for me currently.

[Noumena]

Predictably, an update that benefits preset creators and doesn’t answer engaged, creative end user’s considered requests and long-standing bug reports... followed by posts from ROLI associated accounts explaining away the user’s asks with a hand-wave.

[himalaya]

In the meantime, have you tried to modulate the position of a bunch of samples from the granular folders with an envelope or an LFO? Instant 'wave-sequenced-like' sound! A rare feature, that gives startling results. Try it. It's so much fun!

It's too bad this feature is useless with user samples since we can't make our own folders.

It's not useless if you use SFZ files, which is what Equator2 works with at the moment.

If you want to use your own samples with this feature (this dynamic sample triggering in the Granular engine), then create an SFZ file with all samples that you want to use. Put the SFZ file in the user samples folder, and Equator will see it. Then, it's just a matter of selecting your chosen SFZ folder in Equator2 (Choose the Granular engine, then click in the file name display window in the oscillator module, you will get a browser pop-up where you can navigate to your folder). From this point on, simply try the Position dial in the 'INDEX' mode and you will be able to go through all the samples in your SFZ file. Assign an LFO to the Position dial, to get dynamic sample modulation. This will trigger all samples in that SFZ folder smoothly one by one, if you use a sine wave, or in any other way, if you use a custom shape in the Multi-Mod.

If you don't know how to create an SFZ file manually and have no tools that do it automatically, then use my simple template that I have attached in this post. In a nutshell, all you need to do is copy the sample names that you wish to use into the SFZ file. A step by step guide:

1. collect a bunch of samples with unique names into a folder and copy the template SFZ file into the same folder (the samples and the SFZ file need to be together).

2. The SFZ template has the usual .sfz file name extension, simply rename it to .txt to open it.

3. Copy the name of your first sample into the SFZ template by pasting it immediately after:

sample=

so as an example, you should see:

sample=heavenly texture.wav

Repeat as many times as you wish. There are 14 slots/lines you can fill like this in order to use 14 samples, but you don't need to use all 14. Or you can add more yourself. Try it with random samples, if you want to use this SFZ in the Granular engine with that dynamic sample triggering.

4. Once you finish copying the sample names into the SFZ file (or the text file, which is what it is currently), you will need to save it, and rename it back to .sfz again.

5. Now, rename the SFZ file name into something of your choice. This name is what Equator2 will see in the browser.

6. Now, make sure to place this folder (with the samples and the SFZ file) in the Equator2 user samples folder. On Mac it's: ...documents/ROLI/Equator2/Samples/ HERE
On Windows it's: C:\Users\[User]\Document\ROLI\Equator2\ HERE

7. Refresh the Equator browser, or restart it, and you will be able to access your newly created folder with all your samples.

Please note: this template is really created for use with single shot samples that we can use in the Granular engine.

Try it. It looks more complex than it is. An SFZ file like this with lots of random samples can give some very startling results/sounds, like this one (single sample source, multiple samples triggered and mangled). One for horror soundtrack fans:

https://soundcloud.com/electric-himalay ... tor2-demos

[himalaya]

Predictably, an update that benefits preset creators and doesn’t answer engaged, creative end user’s considered requests and long-standing bug reports... followed by posts from ROLI associated accounts explaining away the user’s asks with a hand-wave.

All requests are always put in a list and worked on according to priority. Even before there were any user requests, the list of to-do items was very long. It is even longer now. I can assure you that user requests are always looked at and prioritised, but features simply can not materialise 'just like that'. It all takes time. I don't see anyone from ROLI explaining away users questions. Myself, I have provided some practical info and simply reassured that features and bug fixes are being worked on. Also I would've thought that this update benefits all users? No?

[himalaya]

Development takes time and the implementation of features is prioritised. Equator2 is already an amazing resource of really deep sounds, even without animated waveforms or envelopes, and there is more to come!

Still no looping, reverse, or anything other than offset on the sampler. Really missing a trick there.

Stay tuned on this one....again development takes time...

In the meantime, have you tried to modulate the position of a bunch of samples from the granular folders with an envelope or an LFO? Instant 'wave-sequenced-like' sound! A rare feature, that gives startling results. Try it. It's so much fun!

Yeah, totally understand. Didn't mean to sound moody, just a bit disappointed. I'm hesitant to fall in love with it and reach for it every time, as it feels a bit undercooked at the moment. Suppose I'm a bit confused as to why it's been released with so many unfinished aspects of it.

It's the best granular engine I've ever heard, so smooth. Would love to be able to be confident in it enough to reach for it every time. Quite a few of us are also desperate for the sampler to improve, and just for the animations on the waveforms to show us what's going on. The animations are there on the mpe windows, hard to understand why they are missing from everywhere else.

And the organisation of the user samples / waveforms etc, it's an absolute killer this isn't up to scratch. It's a nightmare working with it. And things like why can't you just drop a sample onto the module, rather than having to open up that window? Just all feels undercooked. It's frustrating.

I use Slate and Ash's Auras a lot, but wish I could add my own samples. You could easily do that in Equator if the sampler allowed. Also being able to sample hardware and external instruments and then turn it to mpe would be a dream, but it's not possible at the moment in Equator because you have no flexibility in the sampler.

Again, not trying to be moody, just really want to love this synth. Understand it takes time, but releasing it with all this missing is just asking for frustrated customers. It's hard to give your trust to a company that seems to be continually shooting themselves directly in the face.

Hey,
Really appreciate your feedback.

Just to answer some specific points. Animations actually use the CPU a lot. That's why there is a global 'Animations' by-pass switch, in case you need to reduce the CPU consumption. Equator2 can be very heavy, unsurprisingly, so we need to watch the CPU here. I think it's helpful to have visualisation on the MPE Expresion Curves as it helps users see how they interact with the data, so this has always been there right from the beginning of Equator1.

I hear you about the sampler. It's coming. However, when it comes to Equator2 actually sampling hardware, external instruments and turn such samples into MPE sounds - I know it would be a dream, and I guess it's an excellent feature request, but not even some of the industry standard 'samplers' do this. Still, it would be great to have. You could do it in Sample Robot, which also supports SFZ, if I remember correctly, so you could create Equator2-compatible SFZ files very quickly and easily, I think.

It's the best granular engine I've ever heard, so smooth. Would love to be able to be confident in it enough to reach for it every time.

Thanks! Why do you lack confidence in using it? Nothing should break. Just go for it. Even exploring the factory content will takes ages, so there is a lot to explore and enjoy. If you require some tips and tricks, give me a shout via PM.