Gforce Software Oberheim SEM

[vertibration]

Gforce did an amazing job with this. I much prefer their SEM gui to cherry audio’s eight voice.

Hoping someone will one day emulate something different like the SunSyn

Just a heads up in case you don’t know; UVI has it;
as ‘px sunbox’ . But maybe not exactly what you want as it’s sampled/synth.

It's pretty good as an attempt (and I have px sunbox) but it doesn't seem to get much attention in forums or in the press.
Comparing the hardware SunSyn to the px sunbox shows that the software doesn't quite do the legendary hardware synth justice, but it's not far off and it sounds good overall

UVI....not a fan.

[BONES]

The only thing hardware has over software is how it sits in the stereo field depending on the hardware. Thats it....Software has come a long way. I still happen to think Dave Smith synths when both inputs are active for stereo, obliterate software.

Every hardware synth I own, analogue or digital, only has stereo because of the digital effects at the end of the signal path. The actual synth engines are all mono and I imagine it's the same with the DSI/Sequential stuff. OTOH, synths like Proclethya have quite handy stereo tools within their synth engines and Obsession lets you place each voice card, individually, wherever you want it in the stereo field.

[BONES]

Anyway, the reason I popped in here was just to say that I spent last night playing around with SEM, trying out more of the presets, and I reckon it is just about the most playable softsynth I have. On top of that, the range of timbres it does really well is incredibly impressive. It really is a cracking synth that you'd be crazy not to pick up while it's so damned cheap.

[mholloway]

I really wish I could route Velocity to Filter Envelope depth instead of just directly to Filter Cutoff. Makes for much more responsive, playable results imho. Given how many Velocity destinations they've provided, I'm surprised it's not one of them, but this is hardly the only synth to miss it. Some manufacturers (U-He comes instantly to mind, as well as every TAL synth) always provide velocity scaling to (filter) envelope depth as a standard control. Others, like SEM, only provide the direct velocity > cutoff, which is annoying because when you play 'harder' you lose your envelope shaping -- the cutoff value triggered by velocity is absolute, and the filter envelope shape is ignored. Whereas when you use Velocity > Filter Envelope Depth instead, you can still open and close the filter with dynamic playing, but you also retain the envelope shaping as well; so your Sustain level, for example, is still your actual sustain level no matter how hard you hit the key.

OK, I'm rambling now, but it's important to me, since I tend to be a 'hands on keys' performer-type musician. I realize these old synths didn't have ANY velocity modulation whatsoever (well, the CS-80 did indeed, but that was a bit of an exception at the time) so <shrug>, but if you're going to add it, I wish they added it via envelope depth

It's a great sounding synth, for sure. Fast and fun, with a very nice filter and an awesome step sequencer. Still loving hitting the 3rd and 5th buttons on the fly on my sequences for instant Berlin School-style transpositions.

[BONES]

I really wish I could route Velocity to Filter Envelope depth instead of just directly to Filter Cutoff. Makes for much more responsive, playable results imho.

That would depend how it was done. If I was doing it, I'd just be summing the values so it wouldn't make a difference but I suppose if you multiplied them you'd get a different result. It wasn't something I ever really thought about when I was doing the SynthEdit thing but it would definitely give better results most of the time. And I have definitely noticed that it's an issue in SEM, because you can't always just turn down the cutoff to compensate, so maybe there is more going on here than that?

[vertibration]

The only thing hardware has over software is how it sits in the stereo field depending on the hardware. Thats it....Software has come a long way. I still happen to think Dave Smith synths when both inputs are active for stereo, obliterate software.

Every hardware synth I own, analogue or digital, only has stereo because of the digital effects at the end of the signal path. The actual synth engines are all mono and I imagine it's the same with the DSI/Sequential stuff. OTOH, synths like Proclethya have quite handy stereo tools within their synth engines and Obsession lets you place each voice card, individually, wherever you want it in the stereo field.

Dave Smith Evolver is a True stereo signal path with separate Curtis analog low-pass filters in each channel

[Friendly Noise]

The oberheim sem in the comparison video is a new version with a filter that can self oscillate .
Gforce sem is modelled after the original sem ( which doesn’t s.o.)
He also stated in the video that the new sem has a much faster lfo ( going into rate ) , he could have easily used the gforce third osc as a mod source but he didn’t
Missed opportunity .
The filter fm and osc fm on gforce sem sounds fantastic .

Sorry, but I don’t think I missed the opportunity you mentioned. I used VCO3 in two examples as modulation source (example 22 and 23). In example 10 I decided to show the differences, not the similarities. As stated in the video description, sometimes it’s about what sounds the same, sometimes about what’s different. I could have made a video with all-extremely-close sounds or with all-sound-different sounds. Both extremes would be a little unfair, imho.

Plus, the video is not a demo for the Gforce, just a comparison between the basic sound of the original SEM parameters. I insist on this: original SEM parameters. VCO3 is not in the original SEM. Tbh, I shouldn’t have used it and I could have marked this as a minus point for GForce, but I did included in the examples to be as honest as possible with the incredible GForce SEM.

Plus, I have the SEM panel edition, which is nothing short of a real modular synthesizer. Using the patch points I could have made sounds the GForce can’t simply not dream of, but then again, that would have been unfair, don’t you think?

[BONES]

Dave Smith Evolver is a True stereo signal path with separate Curtis analog low-pass filters in each channel

So one DSI instrument, then, not all of them. Hardly a reason to abandon softsynths.

[Buckster]

I really wish I could route Velocity to Filter Envelope depth instead of just directly to Filter Cutoff. Makes for much more responsive, playable results imho. Given how many Velocity destinations they've provided, I'm surprised it's not one of them, but this is hardly the only synth to miss it. Some manufacturers (U-He comes instantly to mind, as well as every TAL synth) always provide velocity scaling to (filter) envelope depth as a standard control. Others, like SEM, only provide the direct velocity > cutoff, which is annoying because when you play 'harder' you lose your envelope shaping -- the cutoff value triggered by velocity is absolute, and the filter envelope shape is ignored. Whereas when you use Velocity > Filter Envelope Depth instead, you can still open and close the filter with dynamic playing, but you also retain the envelope shaping as well; so your Sustain level, for example, is still your actual sustain level no matter how hard you hit the key.

OK, I'm rambling now, but it's important to me, since I tend to be a 'hands on keys' performer-type musician. I realize these old synths didn't have ANY velocity modulation whatsoever (well, the CS-80 did indeed, but that was a bit of an exception at the time) so <shrug>, but if you're going to add it, I wish they added it via envelope depth

It's a great sounding synth, for sure. Fast and fun, with a very nice filter and an awesome step sequencer. Still loving hitting the 3rd and 5th buttons on the fly on my sequences for instant Berlin School-style transpositions.

This is where I find the Bitwig expression routers so powerful just opens up so many additional possibilities across all the synths I own

[MTorn]

I just want to agree with the idea that to have velocity control the filter envelope amount is much better than to have velocity controlling the filter cutoff directly.
It makes for a much more expressive and responsive instrument. It might not matter quite as much to those who aren't "proper" keyboard players, but the Gforce guys are players, so I find it surprising that they went the other way on this.

Take for example, a classic bass sound with a snappy decay filter envelope. At hard key hits both methods might sound the same, but for soft hits the snap of that envelope should (IMO) be lessened. On a velocity->cutoff synth, the snap stays the same at all velocities, and the whole sound just gets brighter or darker. It also makes it so that the sustain portion of soft hits easily buries the filter cutoff down into near-silence.
For me, the loss of "fun to play" factor can be make-or-break for a synth.

A related feature that I really appreciate a quick knob for is velocity->filter eg decay time. It too does wonder for keyboard responsiveness.

[MTorn]

This is where I find the Bitwig expression routers so powerful just opens up so many additional possibilities across all the synths I own

How would Bitwig routers help in this scenario?
Any modulators would be for the whole instrument, not per-note, right? Unless, I suppose, MPE.

[vertibration]

Dave Smith Evolver is a True stereo signal path with separate Curtis analog low-pass filters in each channel

So one DSI instrument, then, not all of them. Hardly a reason to abandon softsynths.

They all seem to have true stereo outputs, but I also dont mean abandon soft synths. I love Dune and Arturia

[gentleclockdivider]

hi all
Added a numeric readout for both attack decay and filt.freq .
It was a bit tricky , since all vst controls are in the range 0- 1 , the min max time between attack ,decay and filter frequency differs
I used only one numeric readout range 0-22000 which is the maximum of the filter frequency , but on the gforce gui the minimum is 40-22000
The trick was to take the output of the filter freq ( range 0-1) raised to the power of 4 , then multiplied by 21960 and adding a costant of 40 at the end >
The readout is exactly like on the gforce sem , and so is the feel of controls , 1:1 exact
Attack and decay stages are cubed , filter frequency knob range is linear (meaning range 0-1straight into the vst parameter ) but like I said raised to pow 4 for numeric readout

[RobustAmerican]

I just want to agree with the idea that to have velocity control the filter envelope amount is much better than to have velocity controlling the filter cutoff directly.
It makes for a much more expressive and responsive instrument. It might not matter quite as much to those who aren't "proper" keyboard players, but the Gforce guys are players, so I find it surprising that they went the other way on this.

Take for example, a classic bass sound with a snappy decay filter envelope. At hard key hits both methods might sound the same, but for soft hits the snap of that envelope should (IMO) be lessened. On a velocity->cutoff synth, the snap stays the same at all velocities, and the whole sound just gets brighter or darker. It also makes it so that the sustain portion of soft hits easily buries the filter cutoff down into near-silence.
For me, the loss of "fun to play" factor can be make-or-break for a synth.

A related feature that I really appreciate a quick knob for is velocity->filter eg decay time. It too does wonder for keyboard responsiveness.

This goes double for synths that offer exponential velocity as a mod source. Seems like Korg is the only one I know of offering this in their newer digital synths right next to regular old velocity. It makes a huge difference with nearly all things modulated by velocity. Should be an industry wide standard imho!

[gentleclockdivider]

In loomer architect it’s a piece of cake.
You strip the velocity from the incoming midi data , divide it by 127 so it’s range is between 0.0 -1.0 and route this value to filter env. Dec.
Voila , filter env decay controlled by incoming velocity .
Perhaps bitwig can do something similar?