U-he repro vs phase plant

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pdxindy wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:27 pm
ghettosynth wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:49 pmThe reason not to buy it is the irritating business model.
Yup... just charge me a price and that is the entire synth. Having a bunch of in-app purchases is annoying.
They do have a price for the 'everything' bundle (that what I got in the sale, under £300 and you get the band splitting fx plug as well as a ton of other stuff). When they added the new non-linier distortion snap in (which I can use in PP and the fx plugs) it was about 5E to update and get it! :clap:
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SLiC wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:53 pm
pdxindy wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 6:27 pm
ghettosynth wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:49 pmThe reason not to buy it is the irritating business model.
Yup... just charge me a price and that is the entire synth. Having a bunch of in-app purchases is annoying.
They do have a price for the 'everything' bundle (that what I got in the sale, under £300 and you get the band splitting fx plug as well as a ton of other stuff). When they added the new non-linier distortion snap in (which I can use in PP and the fx plugs) it was about 5E to update and get it! :clap:
Which is falcon money, or even more than Zebra, both of which, for different reasons, are better choices.

Fundamentally the problem with uber synths is that the swiss army knife mentality affects everyone involved. "It does more, so it's worth more" says the marketing department. "It does it all, so I won't need anything else" says the deluded consumer. The problem is, that, like a swiss army knife, it does many things in an adequate way.

This is why I avoid them. It's been true since the days of the rompler "workstation." Even the K2000, which wanted to be a synthesizer first, was, in my view, a failure overall with respect to my own music. Too many pieces of it are just adequate.

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ghettosynth wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:18 pm The problem is, that, like a swiss army knife, it does many things in an adequate way.

(....) Too many pieces of it are just adequate.
Inadequate?
Tribe Of Hǫfuð https://soundcloud.com/user-228690154 "First rule: From one perfect consonance to another perfect consonance one must proceed in contrary or oblique motion." Johann Joseph Fux 1725.

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TribeOfHǫfuð wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:28 pm
ghettosynth wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:18 pm The problem is, that, like a swiss army knife, it does many things in an adequate way.

(....) Too many pieces of it are just adequate.
Inadequate?
I could have been more clear there, I was trying to convey adequate vs exceptional, but it comes across poorly. Replace adequate with ok.

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ghettosynth wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:18 pm
Which is falcon money, or even more than Zebra, both of which, for different reasons, are better choices.
Own both of those synths as well as Phase Plant. They are not better choices, they are different choices. As someone who owns and uses the synths you mention a great deal (and Omnisphere!) I can only say that I find them all very different in both UX and sound, and more importantly I really enjoy owning and using them.
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ghettosynth wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:38 pm I could have been more clear there, I was trying to convey adequate vs exceptional, but it comes across poorly. Replace adequate with ok.
Like mediocre the not so flattering way or okay: Swiss army knifes do the job but other tools could do it better?
Tribe Of Hǫfuð https://soundcloud.com/user-228690154 "First rule: From one perfect consonance to another perfect consonance one must proceed in contrary or oblique motion." Johann Joseph Fux 1725.

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TribeOfHǫfuð wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:38 pm
ghettosynth wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:38 pm I could have been more clear there, I was trying to convey adequate vs exceptional, but it comes across poorly. Replace adequate with ok.
Like mediocre the not so flattering way or okay: Swiss army knifes do the job but other tools could do it better?
Pretty much. The focus with a Swiss Army approach is cramming all of those tools in, so the tools themselves are compromised in favor of the whole.

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Makes sense. Just wanted to be sure.
Tribe Of Hǫfuð https://soundcloud.com/user-228690154 "First rule: From one perfect consonance to another perfect consonance one must proceed in contrary or oblique motion." Johann Joseph Fux 1725.

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SLiC wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:27 pm
ghettosynth wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:18 pm
Which is falcon money, or even more than Zebra, both of which, for different reasons, are better choices.
Own both of those synths as well as Phase Plant. They are not better choices, they are different choices. As someone who owns and uses the synths you mention a great deal (and Omnisphere!) I can only say that I find them all very different in both UX and sound, and more importantly I really enjoy owning and using them.

Cool. We can just agree to disagree then. I have yet to find an uber synth that I like and unless they have some value as a development platform I have little interest in them.

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I guess you could debate is what an Uber synth even is! If it was Anything with a modular structure and a choice of synthesis methods it would be a long list starting back with Zebra!
It is of course possible that a developer could make a Swiss Army knife plug in with all of the best tools! Maybe that’s why Zebra 3 is taking so long ;-)
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SLiC wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:20 pm I guess you could debate is what an Uber synth even is! If it was Anything with a modular structure and a choice of synthesis methods it would be a long list starting back with Zebra!
It is of course possible that a developer could make a Swiss Army knife plug in with all of the best tools! Maybe that’s why Zebra 3 is taking so long ;-)
No, you could debate that if you wanted. However, it's pretty clear to me what I mean. Zebra, Phaseplant, Omnisynth are all really clear examples of "uber-synths."

I don't think that Zebra 3 will challenge my perception of uber-synths. I also don't think it's as simple as just putting in "the best technology."

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I don't think zebra 2 is a swiss army knife/kitchen sink type plugin like falcon/omnisphere/phase plant and I doubt Z3 will be either - it's just a very powerful digital modular with wavetable oscs. No sampling, no snap-in loads and loads of fx. I'd say Z2 is closer to bazille than it is to phase plant personally.

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ghettosynth wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:50 pm
SLiC wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:20 pm I guess you could debate is what an Uber synth even is! If it was Anything with a modular structure and a choice of synthesis methods it would be a long list starting back with Zebra!
It is of course possible that a developer could make a Swiss Army knife plug in with all of the best tools! Maybe that’s why Zebra 3 is taking so long ;-)
No, you could debate that if you wanted. However, it's pretty clear to me what I mean. Zebra, Phaseplant, Omnisynth are all really clear examples of "uber-synths."

I don't think that Zebra 3 will challenge my perception of uber-synths. I also don't think it's as simple as just putting in "the best technology."
I think of Zebra somewhere in between. It doesn't have samples, which all the other uber-synths have. It also has a limited set of modules. There have been many user requests for more Osc's, more LFO's, more Env's etc. and Urs says no. Most of the other uber-synths are more unlimited and often also have layers.

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ghettosynth wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:41 pmThe focus with a Swiss Army approach is cramming all of those tools in, so the tools themselves are compromised in favor of the whole.
Not necessarily. Look at DUNE, for example. It started out as a fairly straightforward tool, with just a couple of sharp blades, and they added the scissors and nail file and the bottle opener in subsequent versions, always with the focus on the quality of each new part. Even something seemingly simple, like the recently added sample oscillator, was in beta for around 6 months.

Even with Phase Plant, the Snap-Ins had been around for years before Phase Plant, so PP was designed to take advantage of existing tools, where all the work on getting them right had already been done. Even DUNE took the years of work that started with TS-404 and went into Wasp, and added to that the years of development that had gone into Junglist, which had morphed into Hydra. So whilst the focus would have been integrating all those things into a single product, the quality was already there in both cases.
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You guys can debate this until you're blue in the face, your ideas with respect to this are of no moment to me. I use the phrase in a particular way, and, AFAIK, it's really understood in that sense over time. Interestingly, BONES has the earliest reference that I can find on KVR, however, I was sure that I recall the term going back further than this and, yes, there references to it on other archives where it is mentioned casually as if its been heard before going back to 2000, I think that the term goes well back into the 90s or even sooner and has been used to describe the earliest "workstations." However, BONES does sum up how little is needed to qualify for the term. It is the idea that a synth is less focused than its contemporaries.
BONES wrote: Wed Jan 07, 2004 12:18 am Seeing some of the more recent advances in SE I am tempted to get back into it for a while and see what I can come up with by combining some of the features of my existing synths into a sort of UberSynth [maybe I could call it UBERkILLER?] that I am sure would sound nothing like SuperWave.
He then released this relatively simple instrument and referred to it as an ubersynth.

https://www.producerfeed.com/2013/10/no ... ument.html

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This is a swiss army knife...

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...and so is this

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So that covers a lot of ground. We're just going to have to disagree. I think that Phaseplant and Zebra are ubersynths, full stop.

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