KVR Audio

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Mon May 10, 2021 5:54 pm

A little tip:

Explore the notch filter. I specifically asked for both a notch and an all-pass filter (unfortunately I didn't get the all-pass wish) so that when it's modulated fast you will be completely messing with the phase of the signal in the feedback path. This can be abused to create all kinds of strange wishy/woshy delay stuff.

Hope we get an all-pass filter at some point. Would be really cool for warping the phase while it being modulated. I also wish they'd allow for even quicker times than 5ms, which would open it up for phasers (if we get that all-pass filter type)

Another tip:

If you run a simple arpeggiated plucky synth line into Timeless, you can then use an envelope follower in transient mode to boost the input gain so that each loud pluck transient drives the filter section or the drive section harder. Then you can compensate with the exact same EVF on either the wet level knob or the mix knob to remove the actual volume boost. This way you can exaggerate the saturation on the transients of the incoming signal.

Also, it's a lot of fun to use a transient driven EVF to modulate the feedback knob.. or an LFO timed to your track. This way you can sort of "choose" what timings get amplified into the feedback path and thus they will stand out. Combine this with subtle EQ boosts at specific target frequencies and you have a lot of control on how exactly the feedback path will "feel" in a rhythmic sense.

Fleer · Post by **Fleer** » Mon May 10, 2021 5:56 pm

All-pass would be even more icing on the already deliciously frosty cake.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Mon May 10, 2021 6:00 pm

Fleer wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 5:56 pm All-pass would be even more icing on the already deliciously frosty cake.

It would indeed! Hope other people think the same way and spam them with that request!

I don't think the FF guys fully realize how powerful that would be. Especially now that we can insert up to 6 bands of EQ/filter nodes into the feedback path.

OzoneJunkie · Post by **OzoneJunkie** » Mon May 10, 2021 6:47 pm

I think FF has a separate download with all of their plugins' presets somewhere anyway... yup, found it:

https://www.fabfilter.com/support/downloads/

link for factory presets on that page.

Harry_HH · Post by **Harry_HH** » Mon May 10, 2021 7:08 pm

What is the max discount for the upgrade? My price seems to be
€ 38,15.

functionform · Post by **functionform** » Mon May 10, 2021 7:33 pm

I'm surprised I'm not thrilled. I agree with Jens in that it sounds very digital and inorganic to me, especially the drive and pitch and diffusion. I'll have to watch a few more videos, maybe it just hasn't hit me yet.

jens · Post by **jens** » Mon May 10, 2021 7:54 pm

bmanic wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 2:35 pm
jens wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 1:46 pm I got Saturn 2 at some point when it was discounted (~33€) but tbh I have yet to use it...
With version 3 Timeless still has that boring digital (i.e. unorganic) Fabfilter sound that is a lot of work to get rid of
- e.g. the preset "Beautyful Vintage" chorus is a bad joke - it's like they never used any analog chorus in their entire life...

I think it may perhaps be a great tool if you wouldn't touch anything vintage with a bargepole.
Ouch.. that is some classic jens constructive critique right there alright.

I did spent about an hour on that preset, trying to get it close to an old Eventide H3000 preset that a friend of mine made long time ago. It always worked really nicely on clean guitars when combined with a delay (on the chorus, so you feed the chorus signal into a delay send together with the clean guitar).

But yeah, each to their own.

I do hope FabFilter creates a new preset system though where we could write a short note on how the preset is best used or what it's purpose is.. combined with tags for optimal source sounds etc. That would make it more streamlined.

As for calling Timeless "unorganic", I would have agreed with you on version 2 but not any more with version 3. Now we have proper control over the input vs output drive, which internally affects a lot of the different components. Almost all of the different filter types are non-linear ('clean' being the only exception) and have now more advanced built in oversampling. This means that the feedback path is directly affected by how hard a signal goes into the delay. Then there is the additional 'drive' control which is another saturation algorithm within the feedback path and helps if you want to go past 100% feedback and play with it while it goes on forever. This was not possible in version 2.0 without going into some severe aliasing/digital mess.

Then you have the Lo-Fi knob which is a pretty complex system behind the scenes but presented to the user as a "one-knob" solution. It's a really flexible and characterful knob that does everything from sample rate reduction, subtle pitch instability to bit crushing.. again, it too is affected by the incoming audio level.. thus pretty organic and non-linear in it's behavior.

Personally I think Timeless 3 is pretty deep and capable now of doing almost anything you can imagine. Does it replace your favorite delays? Hell no.. it operates completely differently and especially the Valhalla stuff is too unique to be "replaced" by anything (in my opinion). But is it a solid delay plugin in it's own right? Yes, definitely. It too being unique and not really possible to be duplicated by other plugins.

Oh, sorry, I only now realized it's one of yours...

I always try most things with a completely dry DI-ed electric... was that a real H3000 or the plugin by the way?
But either way I now get that you meant vintage digital... and "beauty" is certainly in the eye of the beholder.
It's not neccessarily so easy to be constructive with criticizing these things as it may mean having to thoroughly analyze it - and I usually prefer knee-jerk reactions instead.

Having said that I am pretty sure it's mostly the LFOs which are simply too sterile. Just quickly setting up some random modulation for them already seemed to improve things (for my taste) a bit.

When I think of "vintage chorus" I have something analog in mind and in that case nothing is ever completely regular and some slight oscillator drift and what not is imo what makes chorus actually endurable to the ear in the first place. Keep in mind that it seeks to emulate two (or more) violins, guitars or whatever else playing the exact same thing - and that is a completely irregular thing by definition.

And digital chorus is not something that imo is ever going to sound "beautyful" if it's completely regular because you use LFOs that very quickly repeat the same short cycle over and over again. That's going to make me nauseatic rather sooner than later.

Was that constructive enough?

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Mon May 10, 2021 8:34 pm

That was perfectly constructive!

I do not however agree with you about vintage always having to be analogue. There are so many awesome vintage digital units, for instance the H3000 (the preset was based on the hardware.. the plugin H3000 is a bit strange sounding in my opinion) or some of the old TC and Lexicon units.

Still, point well taken and I suspect your way of thinking about the word "vintage" is probably the majority's way of thinking of it. I better learn to add "digital" as an extra descriptor in the future.

Randomness is indeed useful in a chorus but it's not always desired. Some of the periodic "always same" modulation thing is what gives these old choruses the flavor. There are some older digital guitar choruses that are very periodic but that sort of periodic movement can be sort of synced to the playing and thus actually add to the performance. That's why I added the Speed and Depth controls to the preset so that you can set it up to be periodic to the playing.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Mon May 10, 2021 8:37 pm

Oh, and a little random tip about the FF XLFO. There is an undocumented feature for it. You may have noticed that the LFO when set to random only does bipolar modulation (-1 to +1). If you ever want only unipolar modulation but still keep it random, you need to do a "double" modulation.. meaning first you modulate the target with the random LFO. You then use the same LFO to modulate the modulation slot that modulates the target. This for some strange reason switches the random modulation into unipolar mode.

Very strange but very useful!

pekbro · Post by **pekbro** » Mon May 10, 2021 9:15 pm

ahh so bmanic is the bm guy from the presets? nice job, yours have always been the presets i tended to use the most. never made the connection before.

Fleer · Post by **Fleer** » Tue May 11, 2021 3:01 am

Yeah, like that shimmer verb under Special FX

Orbit-50 · Post by **Orbit-50** » Tue May 11, 2021 4:39 am

jens wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 1:46 pm I got Saturn 2 at some point when it was discounted (~33€) but tbh I have yet to use it...
With version 3 Timeless still has that boring digital (i.e. unorganic) Fabfilter sound that is a lot of work to get rid of
- e.g. the preset "Beautyful Vintage" chorus is a bad joke - it's like they never used any analog chorus in their entire life...

I think it may perhaps be a great tool if you wouldn't touch anything vintage with a bargepole.

I agree. I also can't stand...no...let me be more diplomatic about this...loathe the "new look". Gimmicky, and just flat out weird might be my perception here. It's like watching a horror movie. Upgraded too quickly to Saturn 2, used it once, went back to the real Saturn. I just couldn't drink the kool-aide. Fed up with this dark theme crap as of late from developers. I might have overlooked some new features here, but whatever, I'll survive. Great company Fabfilter, but...no.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Tue May 11, 2021 6:28 am

While I am perfectly fine with the Saturn 2 interface (it's not perfect but definitely usable and easy to navigate) I actually have a bit of a hard time with the Timeless 3 UI myself. I've voiced my opinions about it on the beta forum and some emails already quite a while ago so unfortunately I suspect this is what we get.

IMHO the visual "tap" portion of the delay should be user toggleable. I don't see any real use for it and would instead like to have the full width given to the EQ/filter section.

I dislike how the floating modulation windows sometimes go on top of other important windows when dragging to modulation targets. You can of course move them with the mouse but this gets cumbersome quickly. I also wish all the main relevant knobs were bigger and in general everything be larger and easier to grab. There are so many controls that are so tiny now. Lastly I'm not exactly fond of the color scheme. Yes I know it's suppose to mimic the old Timeless primary color of poison green but I didn't even like that green on Timeless 2. Wish they had given this the nicer Pro-R blue instead.

Hopefully FF gets some constructive critique on this part and perhaps they will update it at some point. This is definitely the weakest interface in their plugin lineup, in my opinion.

GNXT · Post by **GNXT** » Tue May 11, 2021 7:00 am

I have to agree although this is a very nice update and a great creative delay plug-in, but it has the weakest interface. Not a big fan of Saturn 2 looks either. Pro-R and Pro-C2 knobs size would be perfect. Also a lot of empty space on T3.

nirm123 · Post by **nirm123** » Tue May 11, 2021 7:03 am

saw it being mentioned in this thread a couple of times so I thought I should ask as I have no idea, what's an "inorganic sound" ?

Fabfilter announce TIMELESS 3 !!!!!!!