Is Equator 2 worth it? And is it safe to buy it from splice.com?

[BONES]

yeah, i stand by everything i said. but will let all the pros who use macs know that they're 'stupid'... and that you said so

I tell them myself, all the time. ThIng is, though, that in the last few years, most of them have made the switch. And I'm talking real professionals here, people who earn their living on a computer and the companies that employ us.

apple moves its tech forward, and i for one appreciate that... as do many other mac users.

This is a perfect example of the utter stupidity of the Apple side of the argument. Everybody moves their f**king tech forward!! That's how Intel retook the lead with their 12th gen processors and why Iris XE outperforms a lot of discrete GPUs. It's why my 12th Gen Core i5 is more powerful than the 11th gen Core i7 in my 18 month old laptop.

The big difference, of course, is that tech moves on in the Wintel world without f**king anyone over. (Well, not f**king too many people over, at least.) That's why I can still run all my 32 bit software alongside my 64 bit software and why every USB peripheral I have ever bought will still work with the latest Win 11 beta build. It's why I can happily run the latest beta builds on all my PCs without having to worry that something I rely on might stop working. Microsoft learned their lesson with Win7, they won't make that mistake again.

otherwise we'd all be running old OSes, and waiting for our 32-bit-software printers to finish that one page, so we can open our DAW again...

Not all of us, only people on your side of the argument. The other 94% of the world just keeps doing what they've always done with barely a thought about whether or not any given thing might or might not be compatible with everything else. In the Wintel world, everything just works.

[Jac459]

This is a perfect example of the utter stupidity of the Apple side of the argument. Everybody moves their f**king tech forward!! That's how Intel retook the lead with their 12th gen processors and why Iris XE outperforms a lot of discrete GPUs. It's why my 12th Gen Core i5 is more powerful than the 11th gen Core i7 in my 18 month old laptop.

The big difference, of course, is that tech moves on in the Wintel world without f**king anyone over.

Bones yelling at clouds in another thread, lol.

I understand that you are blindly lead by your hate of apple to a point you desire to discuss it on every forum, but this is not about apple, it is about transitioning from x86 architecture to arm architecture. This is a topic you don't seems to understand anything about and I highly suggest you start to read about it before you continue making yourself look like a fool...

And as it was already told to you, Microsoft already tried the transition to ARM with Windows RT 12 years ago and is trying again slowly with windows on ARM as we speak (or as you yell).

I happen to not be a fan of Apple but I am quite sure that their recent success with much better sales of laptops compare to PC is due to ARM transition, nothing else.

[fisherKing]

yeah, i stand by everything i said. but will let all the pros who use macs know that they're 'stupid'... and that you said so

I tell them myself, all the time. ThIng is, though, that in the last few years, most of them have made the switch. And I'm talking real professionals here, people who earn their living on a computer and the companies that employ us.

apple moves its tech forward, and i for one appreciate that... as do many other mac users.

This is a perfect example of the utter stupidity of the Apple side of the argument. Everybody moves their f**king tech forward!! That's how Intel retook the lead with their 12th gen processors and why Iris XE outperforms a lot of discrete GPUs. It's why my 12th Gen Core i5 is more powerful than the 11th gen Core i7 in my 18 month old laptop.

The big difference, of course, is that tech moves on in the Wintel world without f**king anyone over. (Well, not f**king too many people over, at least.) That's why I can still run all my 32 bit software alongside my 64 bit software and why every USB peripheral I have ever bought will still work with the latest Win 11 beta build. It's why I can happily run the latest beta builds on all my PCs without having to worry that something I rely on might stop working. Microsoft learned their lesson with Win7, they won't make that mistake again.

otherwise we'd all be running old OSes, and waiting for our 32-bit-software printers to finish that one page, so we can open our DAW again...

Not all of us, only people on your side of the argument. The other 94% of the world just keeps doing what they've always done with barely a thought about whether or not any given thing might or might not be compatible with everything else. In the Wintel world, everything just works.

this is the thread about equator 2. perhaps stay on topic?

[Ah_Dziz]

If you want realistic MPE sounds I'd suggest going with kontakt. You can add more to many sounds with a quick script. There are very nice libraries that already support it as well. Equator has one of the best MPE implementations around but it's still mostly a synth with a fairly rudimentary sampler.
The short version of this is that you will need to learn to at least heavily modify synth patches to get a good selection of "realistic sounds" that are also MPE ready. This is just not a big area in most synths. If you are going with one of the current synths I'd recommend pigments over equator. It has a pretty decent sampler (kinda) but tons of options for sort of hybrid acoustic / synth sounds. Also you'd be amazed at how "alive" many synth patches can sound when performed live with lots of MPE articulation. I do very much dig equator, but aside from everything I've mentioned so far it also has a pretty noticeable difference in workflow from most of the synths I've used so if you're just getting started into synthesis, you may not find the things from Equator translating to other stuff.

I just saw that you're using Bitwig. Honestly using the built-in sampler in there with some decent "real instrument sample sets is a great (and free) option. You also have all of the other included synths and they all support MPE (expressions is their word for it).

[pdxindy]

I just saw that you're using Bitwig. Honestly using the built-in sampler in there with some decent "real instrument sample sets is a great (and free) option. You also have all of the other included synths and they all support MPE (expressions is their word for it).

Good suggestion... The Bitwig Sampler is underrated. It's excellent for MPE, and when it is not flexible enough, the same Sampler is a module in the Grid

There is also Plasmonic. It is good for MPE and has various instruments that sound acoustic if you are not trying to get absolute realism and are highly expressive.

Hive has the comb filters which give some of my favorite plucked string type sounds. Good for various percussions too. And it has a CLAP version (still in beta) which means you can use all the per voice Bitwig modulators with it.

Since the OP has decided not to buy Equator, these 2 are my next recommendations.

[Ah_Dziz]

There also that granular > resonator synth from the Aalto guy. I can't think of the name. It leans pretty hard into "realistic" sounds while still being weird. I'd forgotten plasmonic as well. The problem may just end up being that there aren't many folks making presets that try to be "realistic" and there are very few that are doing MPE presets like that. I guess "realistic" covers a ton of ground and I don't recall the OP really narrowing down what he wants. Can the Bitwig sampler import SFZ or soundfont or any other slightly complicated and standardized format? That would open up a huge variety of pretty okay sounding sampled instruments that could be brought to life with some cool modulation and processing.

[raincole]

I just saw that you're using Bitwig. Honestly using the built-in sampler in there with some decent "real instrument sample sets is a great (and free) option. You also have all of the other included synths and they all support MPE (expressions is their word for it).

Good suggestion... The Bitwig Sampler is underrated. It's excellent for MPE, and when it is not flexible enough, the same Sampler is a module in the Grid

Is it possible to import, say, Spitfire's BBC orchestra samples into BitWig sampler, instead of using Spitfire LAB as a VST?

[pdxindy]

I happen to not be a fan of Apple but I am quite sure that their recent success with much better sales of laptops compare to PC is due to ARM transition, nothing else.

My Apple Silicon laptop is freakin awesome! Powerful enough for my needs and never gets hot or makes noise. My previous Intel laptop got hot enough to cook on and the fan was constantly annoying.

[Jac459]

My Apple Silicon laptop is freakin awesome! Powerful enough for my needs and never gets hot or makes noise. My previous Intel laptop got hot enough to cook on and the fan was constantly annoying.

+1

[Jac459]

Hive has the comb filters which give some of my favorite plucked string type sounds. Good for various percussions too. And it has a CLAP version (still in beta) which means you can use all the per voice Bitwig modulators with it.

What kind of per voice modulation can you do with CLAP?
I tried voice stacking but hive 2 doesnt support yet.

[BONES]

I understand that you are blindly lead by your hate of apple

If you actually bothered to read what I'd written, you'd understand that I hate Microsoft way more than I hate Apple. In fact, I don't hate Apple at all, they've never f**ked me over, even once, where Microsoft have f**ked me over several times. It's the self-righteous wankers who drink the Apple Kool-Aid I really hate. People are far easier to hate than corporate entities.

but this is not about apple, it is about transitioning from x86 architecture to arm architecture.

You have clearly lost the f**king plot, mate. This is a thread about Equator 2 and how you'd have to be a sad, little loser not to buy it because the company has been through a few financial problems.

This is a topic you don't seems to understand anything about

I wouldn't be too sure, I've been using Equator for 5 or more years now. I daresay that's a lot longer than you.

And as it was already told to you, Microsoft already tried the transition to ARM with Windows RT 12 years ago and is trying again slowly with windows on ARM as we speak (or as you yell).

It's not "trying" anything. It's offering products to a specialised group of customers who are never going to be it's core market. It's what they call a "niche" product.

Of course, your timeframe is completely wrong, Microsoft were making Windows for ARM devices as far back as 2000, when they released the first version of the Pocket PC operating system, which was based on Windows CE and evolved into Windows Mobile in 2003.

Even earlier than that, Windows was running on RISC architecture way back in the early 1990s, with servers and workstations running DEC Alpha. DEC lost out to Intel in the end.

I happen to not be a fan of Apple but I am quite sure that their recent success with much better sales of laptops compare to PC is due to ARM transition, nothing else.

Last time I looked, Apple was no. 4 in the PC sales ranks, selling less than half as many machines as the no. 3 company (Dell).

[Jac459]

Blah blah blah blah.

I see finally you read Wikipedia, good for you.
Anyway, if you want a conversation about that, I suggest you create your own thread instead of polluting other threads with off-topic comments.

[raincole]

Lol is this forum not moderated or something

[pdxindy]

Hive has the comb filters which give some of my favorite plucked string type sounds. Good for various percussions too. And it has a CLAP version (still in beta) which means you can use all the per voice Bitwig modulators with it.

What kind of per voice modulation can you do with CLAP?
I tried voice stacking but hive 2 doesnt support yet.

Not the voice stacking... but the Bitwig modulators... say Steps or ParSeq-8 can be per voice with Hive and some other CLAP plugins. One of the exciting capabilities of CLAP (assuming developers implement it). In the next couple months should be the first RePro CLAP beta. Then you will have RePro and unlimited per voice modulation!

[billcarroll]

Has @kodra (the OP) mentioned an MPE MIDI controller?

So many variations on advice here. At least everyone seems to agree on Bitwig.