UADx Opal Morphing Synthesizer

[vitocorleone123]

Tried them both today. Lovely sounding synths. Clean but analog character. I actually like PolyMax a little more due to its simplicity and stereo unison.

If it had LFO per voice to imitate the poly mod on the prophet, it would be the perfect analog emu soft synth. Polymax I mean. Just beautiful.

Yes, I personally find both of them a little lacking in features and that’s especially frustrating given how good their character is. But seems to be a common trend and they are still very useful.

At least with Opal (as with Twin3) you can "make" a few useful features with the mod matrix. PolyMax is more like... PolyMin. I like it, but it's definitely more for basic synth sounds.

[Lbdunequest]

So why is this ting cannot do prophet 5 style poly mod? It would be the perfect software synthesizer. Sounds so good. But no poly mod? Am I missing something?

You can't mod cutoff and OSC freq with any of the oscillators fair enough. But sometimes you can do it with the LFO - Massive X for instance. However the LFOs in Opal are so primitive. You can't do key tracking? CAn't do per note modulation? You can set the waveform to random and then the beating goes out of note sync, but it's not like poly mod

Maybe Twin3 is for you? That’s another great sounding synth.

But polymod is just an FM...Opal hs that option. And for other options you have mod matrix. So whats the problem?

2:20 and then 4:40

If you show me how you do it in Opal I buy you a beer.

You can only do 2:20 if you use the random shape on LFO/ in Opal but that is not the same as the triangle shape LFO per voice on the Prophet. It doesn’t even work on LFO1 in Opal for some reason, I mean the random shape will always be mon opposed to LFO per voice, perhaps a bug. It won’t do per voice just a mono LFO even with random shape on LFO1
In the filter section there is FM to LFO2 but again not per voice.

You can prepeare the money for the beer

You can do polymod in Opal by setting LFO to Filter/Pitch as usual and then add another modulation by setting the source - Note Pitch and then LFO rate as destination

[audiouser720]

So why is this ting cannot do prophet 5 style poly mod? It would be the perfect software synthesizer. Sounds so good. But no poly mod? Am I missing something?

You can't mod cutoff and OSC freq with any of the oscillators fair enough. But sometimes you can do it with the LFO - Massive X for instance. However the LFOs in Opal are so primitive. You can't do key tracking? CAn't do per note modulation? You can set the waveform to random and then the beating goes out of note sync, but it's not like poly mod

Maybe Twin3 is for you? That’s another great sounding synth.

But polymod is just an FM...Opal hs that option. And for other options you have mod matrix. So whats the problem?

2:20 and then 4:40

If you show me how you do it in Opal I buy you a beer.

You can only do 2:20 if you use the random shape on LFO/ in Opal but that is not the same as the triangle shape LFO per voice on the Prophet. It doesn’t even work on LFO1 in Opal for some reason, I mean the random shape will always be mon opposed to LFO per voice, perhaps a bug. It won’t do per voice just a mono LFO even with random shape on LFO1
In the filter section there is FM to LFO2 but again not per voice.

You can prepeare the money for the beer

You can do polymod in Opal by setting LFO to Filter/Pitch as usual and then add another modulation by setting the source - Note Pitch and then LFO rate as destination

Don’t want to take the credit away and definitely deserved the beer! But I kinda figured this out in the meantime and yes it actually works bug I think there is bug. Which LFO did you use? To me it only works with LFO2, if you do the same with LFO1 so do the normal LFO1 to filter cutoff and another mod for note pitch and LFO1 rate it will still be mono LFO when doing a chord, not LFO per voice.
But when you switch to LFO2 and LFO2 mod rate in the second mod lane, then it works as expected l. Is this a bug? Did you do it with LFO1? I don’t see documentated that there should be a difference between the two LFOs.

Also when you do this with LFO2 and then switch sync on LFO2 and switch back to free, it will be mono again regardless the 2 modulation you set up. Not always, but sometimes. Sometimes when it works I save the project and when I reopen it’s mono again, so weird. I did this in Ableton Live. Would be curious if you can replicate the same issue or it’s just my system that is fckd.

Anyhow, appreciate it DM your addreess will send you a beer from amazon haha!

[idoru97214]

It is illegal for Amazon to ship alcohol, sir. The LFO trick works. Nice.

[audiouser720]

It is illegal for Amazon to ship alcohol, sir. The LFO trick works. Nice.

Not where I live

[rod_zero]

Downloaded this thing just to try it, the GUI is all weird, it is bigger than the window for it, so the FX section is not visible. I also downladed thh Ravel piano. Is really this the famous UAD quality? quite disappointing to be honest. i did like the browers that opens to the left.

As for the synth, sounds good, not sure it is worth for me, i did like the filters more than the ones in Serum.

[zerocrossing]

Downloaded this thing just to try it, the GUI is all weird, it is bigger than the window for it, so the FX section is not visible.

That’s not right. I’d report that as a bug. Fits the window perfectly here.

I also downladed thh Ravel piano. Is really this the famous UAD quality? quite disappointing to be honest. i did like the browers that opens to the left.

I didn’t even know they did a piano.

As for the synth, sounds good, not sure it is worth for me, i did like the filters more than the ones in Serum.

The filter does not only sound great, but it does the pole morphing thing that I learned to really love on my 002. In fact, in some ways it reminds me of the Model 002. The real beauty is the filter effects section, which is probably the best sounding per voice saturation effects I’ve heard on a software instrument.

[Pyramidz]

Man, i have the Uad opal and what i can say is it's really really good, love it for chords, bass, leads, actually for everything hahahah, analog sounding soft synth like this one is pretty rare to find, uad has a bright future doing these native plugins!

[audiouser720]

After the honeymoon period, I'm still loving Opal.

It may be stopping me to buy into Softube Model 80. Completely different animals of course.
I'm constantly trying to find substitutes to my hardware. Not to ditch the hardware, just to have alternatives when the hardware is not accessible. Also, some light mental illness and OCD involved in having to have a backup alternative for everything, I guess, lol.

Anyway, since Model 80 came out I have been eyeing with the idea of grabbing Model 80 as an ITB substitute to my Prophet 5 rev4. But the thing is that Opal kinda gets me there. Differentthing entirely, but has that hardware like tonality and I can imitate most Prophet 5 esq things on it.
The only advantage of Model 80 would be the more immediate interface, I guess.

If any UA rep happens to be around, please, Opal desperately needs:

1) Reset by double click
2) Proper voice panning ala oscillator panning

[zerocrossing]

After the honeymoon period, I'm still loving Opal.

It may be stopping me to buy into Softube Model 80. Completely different animals of course.
I'm constantly trying to find substitutes to my hardware. Not to ditch the hardware, just to have alternatives when the hardware is not accessible. Also, some light mental illness and OCD involved in having to have a backup alternative for everything, I guess, lol.

Anyway, since Model 80 came out I have been eyeing with the idea of grabbing Model 80 as an ITB substitute to my Prophet 5 rev4. But the thing is that Opal kinda gets me there. Differentthing entirely, but has that hardware like tonality and I can imitate most Prophet 5 esq things on it.
The only advantage of Model 80 would be the more immediate interface, I guess.

If any UA rep happens to be around, please, Opal desperately needs:

1) Reset by double click
2) Proper voice panning ala oscillator panning

3) Filter FM (a well known feature of the Prophet 5
4) MPE and polyphonic aftertouch support.

[audiouser720]

After the honeymoon period, I'm still loving Opal.

It may be stopping me to buy into Softube Model 80. Completely different animals of course.
I'm constantly trying to find substitutes to my hardware. Not to ditch the hardware, just to have alternatives when the hardware is not accessible. Also, some light mental illness and OCD involved in having to have a backup alternative for everything, I guess, lol.

Anyway, since Model 80 came out I have been eyeing with the idea of grabbing Model 80 as an ITB substitute to my Prophet 5 rev4. But the thing is that Opal kinda gets me there. Differentthing entirely, but has that hardware like tonality and I can imitate most Prophet 5 esq things on it.
The only advantage of Model 80 would be the more immediate interface, I guess.

If any UA rep happens to be around, please, Opal desperately needs:

1) Reset by double click
2) Proper voice panning ala oscillator panning

3) Filter FM (a well known feature of the Prophet 5
4) MPE and polyphonic aftertouch support.

Is Filter FM not possible in Opal with LFO rate pushed up to audio rate?

[zerocrossing]

After the honeymoon period, I'm still loving Opal.

It may be stopping me to buy into Softube Model 80. Completely different animals of course.
I'm constantly trying to find substitutes to my hardware. Not to ditch the hardware, just to have alternatives when the hardware is not accessible. Also, some light mental illness and OCD involved in having to have a backup alternative for everything, I guess, lol.

Anyway, since Model 80 came out I have been eyeing with the idea of grabbing Model 80 as an ITB substitute to my Prophet 5 rev4. But the thing is that Opal kinda gets me there. Differentthing entirely, but has that hardware like tonality and I can imitate most Prophet 5 esq things on it.
The only advantage of Model 80 would be the more immediate interface, I guess.

If any UA rep happens to be around, please, Opal desperately needs:

1) Reset by double click
2) Proper voice panning ala oscillator panning

3) Filter FM (a well known feature of the Prophet 5
4) MPE and polyphonic aftertouch support.

Is Filter FM not possible in Opal with LFO rate pushed up to audio rate?

Sure, but not as powerful as being able to modulate it from one of the oscillators, like a Prophet 5 or even Model D.

[audiouser720]

This was quite interesting, with the product designer of PolyMax / Opal. Some interesting background info:

[Vortifex]

..

[JoeCat]

That was about that fastest I've gone from demo to purchase (don't want to miss the discount) - at $49 it was pretty much instant.

Don't need another wavetable but after a quick browse of the presets I was pretty hooked. I don't use a lot of presets directly but IMHO there were a lot of usable starting points that really showed off the awesome sound without just catering to trends. I think of "big" softsynths usually in terms of features rather than having much of a specific sound, but this is a gorgeous sounding synth. Seems like a good choice of useable wavetables too (which is important since no import), and the filters are awesome.

Could quibble about a few things (no osc. panning, some minor UI issues), but I think at $49 USD this is a great buy even if you already feel like you've got the wavetable bases covered. It's a 14-day no-annoying-sound demo.

(Caveat - UA Connect is an ass pain - I'm just caving into this bs from Adobe and everyone else who thinks they're the only company on your PC so why auto-run and stay running? If you can get beyond that...)