Arturia SQ 80 V

[mholloway]

In the advertising Arturia state that they've implemented some kind of variation algorithm, could that be the issue? From their site: "Dispersion: When it comes to classic synths and keyboards, the true charm often lies in the details. We went a step further than emulating the SQ80’s sound and interface by introducing dispersion - meaning subtle variations and inconsistencies in the behavior of its emulated circuitry. No two notes will ever be exactly the same, bringing a truly unmatched organic sound. "

I suppose that's a possible cause. I'm still looking for what's different between the SQ8L and SQ80V's attack behavior on some patches. The values seem to match and it doesn't appear to be modulation related at least so far.....

The dispersion feature is a hidden menu on the right side of the hardware screen interface, which allows per-voice variations to occur dynamically. You can easily turn it off to see if it's causing something unwanted. But you have to click in the 'empty' space on the right side of the hardware screen to make it appear (on mouse-over it will dimly appear).

They really should make these 'hidden' panels more obvious. It's the same on the OB-Xa V.

[Aloysius]

I noticed today ... Opened a set in Live 11 that had a DEMO (still awaiting License) instance of SQ80V in it. The piano preset I had selected and saved with the set had changed to a completely different preset all by itself.

I've written to Arturia.

[mholloway]

Edit: The patch I'm testing is 33 Chime 1 from the esqx08.syx file. After further testing, on first note the attack in SQ80V is comparable to the SQ8L but subsequent notes don't have the same attack so it seems like a re-triggering issue. The SQ8L triggers each note the same. I'll keep looking....

I'm finding the same behavior and so far it really appears to be velocity related. If I play the patch repeatedly hitting the key hard each time, the attack is the same on every hit. But softer velocities result in a dulled attack. But so far, I haven't found any modulation assignment in the synth that accounts for the effect velocity is having !!!. The two 'pink' velocity assignments (vel and vel exp) are not mapped to anything in the patch I'm testing ('klunks', loaded from one of the online free banks of classics sq-80 patches). The envelopes have a Velocity setting in the top-right corner (separate from the 'pink' midi velocity modulator) but these are all set to 0.0....

So, insofar as I can tell at the moment, i'm getting unexpected / unaccounted for Velocity modulation that effects attack (among other things, I think) and I really want to know where it's coming from....

Will keep looking....a mystery....

EDIT / UPDATE -- ok, I found the control that is causing this behavior (for me, for this patch, anyway) -- each SQ80 Envelope has a V. ATTACK setting in the top-left of the envelope window. This was set to various values across all four envelopes on the patch I was using, causing all kinds of Velocity - (env) Attack results! The mouse-over tip describes it as "SQ-80 Velocity Attack: Makes the attack time responsive to Velocity."

So that at least solves MY mystery. The behavior of it is kinda, strange, though: setting it to 0.00 screws up the patch and makes everything dark / slow on the attack, which is the opposite of what I was expecting -- but I think this has to do with the specific programming of this patch in particular. I'll mess with this setting while starting from INIT and I imagine I'll get more predictable results.

[zerocrossing]

The keybed, feel, and action of my Akai is better than any Ensoniq keyboard I've ever owned or played and it doesn't suffer from the infamous Ensoniq key clack like my VFX did.

I’ve owned a SQ-80 and a TS-10. Actually owned the TS-10 twice. Same exact unit. I recognized the ding where something hit it. Here’s my take. The TS-10 felt beautiful. Really beautiful. The aftertouch felt perfect, IMO. However, when I purchased it the second time, the ravages of time had taken its toll. The action still felt very good, but the aftertouch was next to impossible to use. I looked into what it would take to fix it, and it appears that there were these rubber bushings that harden with time. They’re no longer made, and NOS ones would probably suffer the same issue, or would after a short time. I didn’t feel like dealing with a big restoration job, so I sold it. My nostalgia for that sound just wasn’t that strong and while the programming scheme was pretty good for a synth with few knobs or sliders, it wasn’t really fun.

Sandwiched in between my TS-10s, I owned an SQ-80 for a short time. The seller listed it as “Mint” and it most certainly wasn’t mint in any way. Not only did it have a bunch of dings and a large dent not shown in his photos, the keyboard, that I specifically inquired about, suffered from that “Ensoniq clack” and the aftertouch was unusable. So I sent it back. I paid a bit over what they had been going for because it was described as being so great with nice and soft aftertouch, so f that.

I landed on a GEM (General Music) S2. This time, the keyboard was as described. Mint, aside from a few slider caps. The aftertouch and overall action feel amazing. I was happy to have that checked off my list… until it crapped out. That’s what you get when you buy a nearly 20 year old synth. So, my $375 deal on an S2 went to a $700 not such a deal after the repair was done, not to mention that I was without it for 3 months.

The moral to my story? Nothing lasts forever, but the earth and sky… oh wait, those things don’t last forever either. The GEM is doing just fine, but now that ASM has released the Hydrasynth Deluxe, I’ll probably sell it and get one of those because I know it’s only a matter of time before the S2 is in the shop again, and frankly I’m not even using it’s internal ROMpler at all. It would be more fun to have a keyboard with even more keys and a cool engine. What I really want is a 61 key Osmose, but they can’t even seem to get their 49 key model out the door.

If you have some old hardware that you love, good for you. I have a lot of hardware synths as well, but I know that all technology ages and has problems eventually. I’m happy not to have a big gray keyboard with clacky keys around just to get that sound from time to time. The plugin will do me just fine.

[Aloysius]

Good to know people are getting it activated. It gives me hope that one day I will too.

Same here! It's two days now and I haven't heard from them! Bit of a bummer

Still waiting

I put in a Ticket. They were quick to respond.

Confirmed Order at Arturia.

Thank you for your order, please find enclosed your licences.

[Synth Master Jedi]

I noticed today ... Opened a set in Live 11 that had a DEMO (still awaiting License) instance of SQ80V in it. The piano preset I had selected and saved with the set had changed to a completely different preset all by itself.

I've written to Arturia.

It could be that it's working as intended and perhaps that's a limitation of the demo?

Because on mine (full, not demo), my presets recall correctly when opening up a project again on my DAW.

[Aloysius]

That's good to know. I've written to them anyway, just in case.

[Synth Master Jedi]

That's good to know. I've written to them anyway, just in case.

Oh, I don't know for sure. That was just speculation on my part, so it's a good idea that you contacted them, if you want to get to the bottom of things.

I'm not sure how much Arturia limits their demos, but I've come across demos before from certain companies where many features were limited in the demo version, including save or recall functions.

[geronimo]

Demo version does not have Import / Export options, for example _

[Aloysius]

I noticed that. Anyway, I have the full version working now. Don't have time to do testing at the moment.

[planetearth]

I noticed today ... Opened a set in Live 11 that had a DEMO (still awaiting License) instance of SQ80V in it. The piano preset I had selected and saved with the set had changed to a completely different preset all by itself.

I've written to Arturia.

Arturia's demo versions don't save the preset in the project, don't allow exporting or importing of presets, and don't allow saving of presets.

If you change their default preset to another preset and then save the project, when you re-open it, it will be back to the default preset. Even if you slightly alter their default preset and save the project, it will be back to the default preset when you re-open it.

If/when you buy a license for the plug-in, it will work as expected, and all of this behavior disappears.

Hope that helps.

Steve

[planetearth]

Duplicate post.

Steve

[Teksonik]

EDIT / UPDATE -- ok, I found the control that is causing this behavior (for me, for this patch, anyway) -- each SQ80 Envelope has a V. ATTACK setting in the top-left of the envelope window. This was set to various values across all four envelopes on the patch I was using, causing all kinds of Velocity - (env) Attack results! The mouse-over tip describes it as "SQ-80 Velocity Attack: Makes the attack time responsive to Velocity."
So that at least solves MY mystery. The behavior of it is kinda, strange, though: setting it to 0.00 screws up the patch and makes everything dark / slow on the attack, which is the opposite of what I was expecting -- but I think this has to do with the specific programming of this patch in particular. I'll mess with this setting while starting from INIT and I imagine I'll get more predictable results.

Ok cool let me try that.

I just wanted to report that a lot of the .syx banks aren't importing correctly in the SQ80V but do import fine into the SQ8L.

So what I did was export a bank from within the SQ8L and then it imported just fine into the SQ80V and it seems like the patches or at least the patch "Klunks" sounded much closer in both plugins. The attack issue seemed to be fixed in that patch but I'll have to try a bunch more to be sure. Maybe someone else can try export from SQ8L to see if they get the same results.

Oh and the Pan issues reported earlier are due to modulation on the DCA 4 Pan knob.

So the .syx import in the SQ80L is a bit wonky at least with some of the old .syx files that were linked in this thread. Loading a bank will only load a single patch which is what others have reported as well. But again that same bank will import all the patches into SQ8L although some banks report as "non Ensoniq" files in SQ8L and I'm guessing those are either files for other synths or corrupted.

There is room for some tweaks in the SQ80V but this is an initial release. As long as Arturia is aware of the issues and are willing to work on them I think they'll be worked out in time.

[Aloysius]

I noticed today ... Opened a set in Live 11 that had a DEMO (still awaiting License) instance of SQ80V in it. The piano preset I had selected and saved with the set had changed to a completely different preset all by itself.

I've written to Arturia.

Arturia's demo versions don't save the preset in the project, don't allow exporting or importing of presets, and don't allow saving of presets.

If you change their default preset to another preset and then save the project, when you re-open it, it will be back to the default preset. Even if you slightly alter their default preset and save the project, it will be back to the default preset when you re-open it.

If/when you buy a license for the plug-in, it will work as expected, and all of this behavior disappears.

Hope that helps.

Steve

That's good to know. Thank you.

[Basspartout]

Good to know people are getting it activated. It gives me hope that one day I will too.

Same here! It's two days now and I haven't heard from them! Bit of a bummer

Still waiting

I put in a Ticket. They were quick to respond.

Confirmed Order at Arturia.

Thank you for your order, please find enclosed your licences.

That's good to know. It's been more than two days now and I still havent heard from them. So I also opened a ticket and hope they'll reply soon.