Rob Papen Blue 3 up

[JamminFool]

i don't work for them, etc.
just trying to help by relating my experience, in case that might help you to resolve the issue.
good luck.

No, I get that, was just trying to be clear as to why I was doing it that way. As per your post Ive now sent them a support request, so I do appreciate your post, cheers.

got a response, and my serial number, in about an hour, so even more appreciative.

good to hear. i have been very impressed with their product support. i don't think i have ever waited overnight.

[zerocrossing]

I may risk this statement: Rob Papen explorer bundle is better sounding than Arturia V Collection.

That’s a really weird comparison, because V Collection is a suite of vintage emulations and the Papen stuff is all modern and forward thinking. I love them both, but for different reasons.

[dune_rave]

I may risk this statement: Rob Papen explorer bundle is better sounding than Arturia V Collection.

That’s a really weird comparison, because V Collection is a suite of vintage emulations and the Papen stuff is all modern and forward thinking. I love them both, but for different reasons.

Hi! Imho the comparison is not that weird.
Rob Papen has BIT, that wants to emulate the vintage sound.
And the Arturia stuff is rather 'inspired by' the vintage stuff and each synth in it contains modern stuff and nowadays they including this augmented plugins that is nothing to do with the other part of their collection)
Both Rob and Arturia created their own version of dx7 and expanded its features.
Both has a "wrapper plugin" to create combi presets.

BUT I MAINLY, WANTED TO COMPARE THE SOUND DESiGN QUALITY OF SYNTHS BETWEEN THE TWO.

And I feel Rob Papen synths are better.
For example in Predator theres a preset thats a recreation of the guitar solo from "I can get no". And this is just one example.
On the other hand, nowadays Arturia really improve its synths, and in my books the distance is getting smaller from other quality synths (like RP).

[zerocrossing]

I may risk this statement: Rob Papen explorer bundle is better sounding than Arturia V Collection.

That’s a really weird comparison, because V Collection is a suite of vintage emulations and the Papen stuff is all modern and forward thinking. I love them both, but for different reasons.

Hi! Imho the comparison is not that weird.
Rob Papen has BIT, that wants to emulate the vintage sound.
And the Arturia stuff is rather 'inspired by' the vintage stuff and each synth in it contains modern stuff and nowadays they including this augmented plugins that is nothing to do with the other part of their collection)
Both Rob and Arturia created their own version of dx7 and expanded its features.
Both has a "wrapper plugin" to create combi presets.

BUT I MAINLY, WANTED TO COMPARE THE SOUND DESiGN QUALITY OF SYNTHS BETWEEN THE TWO.

And I feel Rob Papen synths are better.
For example in Predator theres a preset thats a recreation of the guitar solo from "I can get no". And this is just one example.
On the other hand, nowadays Arturia really improve its synths, and in my books the distance is getting smaller from other quality synths (like RP).

I don’t own BIT. I just listed to a demo, and it does sound very good, but is it trying to actually emulate anything? Not really. That’s fine, of course, but when Arturia is making their direct emulations, they’re ham strung by having to get it to sound like a specific synth. Prophet 5 V sounds scarily like a Prophet 5 and I can get it to fool me into thinking it’s my Prophet 6. It’s extra features are very primitive compared to what BIT can do. I’m thinking that you just don’t really like the sound of vintage instruments, which is fine, but BIT is not an emulation of a vintage instrument. Nothing Rob does really is.

[dune_rave]

I may risk this statement: Rob Papen explorer bundle is better sounding than Arturia V Collection.

That’s a really weird comparison, because V Collection is a suite of vintage emulations and the Papen stuff is all modern and forward thinking. I love them both, but for different reasons.

Hi! Imho the comparison is not that weird.
Rob Papen has BIT, that wants to emulate the vintage sound.
And the Arturia stuff is rather 'inspired by' the vintage stuff and each synth in it contains modern stuff and nowadays they including this augmented plugins that is nothing to do with the other part of their collection)
Both Rob and Arturia created their own version of dx7 and expanded its features.
Both has a "wrapper plugin" to create combi presets.

BUT I MAINLY, WANTED TO COMPARE THE SOUND DESiGN QUALITY OF SYNTHS BETWEEN THE TWO.

And I feel Rob Papen synths are better.
For example in Predator theres a preset thats a recreation of the guitar solo from "I can get no". And this is just one example.
On the other hand, nowadays Arturia really improve its synths, and in my books the distance is getting smaller from other quality synths (like RP).

I don’t own BIT. I just listed to a demo, and it does sound very good, but is it trying to actually emulate anything? Not really. That’s fine, of course, but when Arturia is making their direct emulations, they’re ham strung by having to get it to sound like a specific synth. Prophet 5 V sounds scarily like a Prophet 5 and I can get it to fool me into thinking it’s my Prophet 6. It’s extra features are very primitive compared to what BIT can do. I’m thinking that you just don’t really like the sound of vintage instruments, which is fine, but BIT is not an emulation of a vintage instrument. Nothing Rob does really is.

yOU SOLVED IT : ) I'm not a fan of vintage instruments (Though I reall enjoy Korg collection and Gforce synths). My first fave plugin synth was Albino, I also like Camel Audio stuff, then Native Instruments stuff, Sylenth1, U-he , etc. So mainly I like the modern things.

[grandmasterbird]

So is anyone working with the full version of Blue 3? Any reports of stability issues?

I've gotten several crashes so far in three different DAWs so I don't know if it's system specific here or if there are some widespread stability issues.

All the crashes came while I was deep into making patches and using samples heavily (even the built in sample content). There doesn't seem to be a pattern I can establish as of yet. At some point simply clicking on a parameter will crash BLUE 3 and take the DAW down with it (except Bitwig due to its sandboxing). I have not had any issues while just browsing through patches and Blue 2 has always worked fine without any issues.

I love BLUE 3 as it's a glorious sounding synth but obviously stability issues make it harder to enjoy here. I just need to figure out if the issues are confined to my studio system or are there bugs that need to be addressed.

Still on the demo version, using the 'copy sample to all' function by right clicking on the sample waveform window, Blue3 crashed and took down the whole DAW. (Ableton 11)

Have also noticed that the HQ reverb in the FX section introduces some low end noise- this was discovered by looking at the spectrum analyser in Fabfilter proQ. Bypassing the effect module silenced the noise.

Also increasing/decreasing the volume of the HQ reverb module with the mouse cursor introduces clicks and pops to the audio.

Damn damn damn damn........

[JamminFool]

So is anyone working with the full version of Blue 3? Any reports of stability issues?

I've gotten several crashes so far in three different DAWs so I don't know if it's system specific here or if there are some widespread stability issues.

All the crashes came while I was deep into making patches and using samples heavily (even the built in sample content). There doesn't seem to be a pattern I can establish as of yet. At some point simply clicking on a parameter will crash BLUE 3 and take the DAW down with it (except Bitwig due to its sandboxing). I have not had any issues while just browsing through patches and Blue 2 has always worked fine without any issues.

I love BLUE 3 as it's a glorious sounding synth but obviously stability issues make it harder to enjoy here. I just need to figure out if the issues are confined to my studio system or are there bugs that need to be addressed.

Still on the demo version, using the 'copy sample to all' function by right clicking on the sample waveform window, Blue3 crashed and took down the whole DAW. (Ableton 11)

Have also noticed that the HQ reverb in the FX section introduces some low end noise- this was discovered by looking at the spectrum analyser in Fabfilter proQ. Bypassing the effect module silenced the noise.

Also increasing/decreasing the volume of the HQ reverb module with the mouse cursor introduces clicks and pops to the audio.

Damn damn damn damn........

have you submitted these bug reports to them? because i am sure they will fix them if they know about them. i don't know if they follow these threads.

[SLiC]

Just got a very good price on upgrading from a few things I had picked up in sales or free over the years to Explorer 8, so I have a lot of new things to play with! Blue 3 was the main driver, but Predator 3 seems pretty cool as well and it looks like I will get BIT 2 as well when its released.

[HannesHagebuch]

I got a tip from Rob Papen support that fixed my issues. And of course they are working on an update.

So in Blue 3, in the options menu at the top right hand contner (the 3 lines), turn off

• Dial / Slider Animation
• Tool-Tips
• Midi Preset Change
• Midi Bank Change

and then restart Blue 3

[SynthRatings]

I have made a video review of Blue III - as far as I'm aware it's the first and only independent video review available:

[Teksonik]

Still on the demo version, using the 'copy sample to all' function by right clicking on the sample waveform window, Blue3 crashed and took down the whole DAW. (Ableton 11)

Thanks for the report.

Sadly I have to label this first release of Blue 3 as fairly unstable.

It just randomly crashes here while making patches. I was going to try to replicate your crash by selecting "copy sample to all" but it crashed Reaper on this system before I could even run the test. Just clicking to load a sample brought Blue 3 and Reaper down. So that's crashes on two different systems for me.

I know Rob and Jon are responsive to reports made through their contact form it's just that I don't have any concrete information to give them. Me reporting that "it's crashing" doesn't really help them at all without giving them steps to reproduce the crashes. You should report the copy sample crash though.

I'm going to work more with BLUE 3 today and see if I can get some solid information they can use to chase down the bugs.

I still think BLUE 3 is a great synth and for the current sales/upgrade price a steal and I'm sure the guys will get things sorted. I don't regret purchasing the upgrade at all.

[grandmasterbird]

I got a tip from Rob Papen support that fixed my issues. And of course they are working on an update.

So in Blue 3, in the options menu at the top right hand contner (the 3 lines), turn off

• Dial / Slider Animation
• Tool-Tips
• Midi Preset Change
• Midi Bank Change

and then restart Blue 3

Thanks I will try this, although they suggested something to this effect previously which didn’t cure it unfortunately.

[quote=grandmasterbird post_id=8560460 time=<a href="tel:1668980739">1668980739</a> user_id=134988]
Still on the demo version, using the 'copy sample to all' function by right clicking on the sample waveform window, Blue3 crashed and took down the whole DAW. (Ableton 11)

Thanks for the report.

Sadly I have to label this first release of Blue 3 as fairly unstable.

It just randomly crashes here while making patches. I was going to try to replicate your crash by selecting "copy sample to all" but it crashed Reaper on this system before I could even run the test. Just clicking to load a sample brought Blue 3 and Reaper down. So that's crashes on two different systems for me.

I know Rob and Jon are responsive to reports made through their contact form it's just that I don't have any concrete information to give them. Me reporting that "it's crashing" doesn't really help them at all without giving them steps to reproduce the crashes. You should report the copy sample crash though.

I'm going to work more with BLUE 3 today and see if I can get some solid information they can use to chase down the bugs.

I still think BLUE 3 is a great synth and for the current sales/upgrade price a steal and I'm sure the guys will get things sorted. I don't regret purchasing the upgrade at all.
[/quote]

—————————————-
Agreed it seems to be a killer synth, I’m just personally struggling with buying it as it is. No doubt it will become more stable over time….?

I have submitted my findings to support and Rob replied to say that he can’t replicate the behaviour in cubase or logic , suggesting it was perhaps because of running the demo version which has sample saving disabled.

[Teksonik]

I was afraid of that. "We can't reproduce it" (obviously or they wouldn't have released it that way). That's why I'm working to find the steps to reproduce the crashes.

A demo that crashes because it has a feature disabled is not a good look.

At any rate I'm confident that Jon and Rob will fix any issues....if they can track them down. The more information we can provide the easier it will be for them to fix.

[WatchTheGuitar]

What pc/mac specs, DAW version and o/s do those getting the issues have?

[grandmasterbird]

What pc/mac specs, DAW version and o/s do those getting the issues have?

Apple macbook Pro 14inch M1, 16gb Ram, OS Monterey 12.5, Ableton Live 11.1.6 this is using the AU version, not tried VST.

It’s been an absolutely rock solid setup so far, no previous crashes or bugs ever.

And this is using just Blue3 in isolation not alongside any other plugs