Minimal Audio Current…subscription

[Ou_Tis]

I'm listening to the Youtube video I linked to. Is the quality degraded, or similar to what you're hearing that you like?

YouTube is encoded in low quality MP3 ... It is better to try a demo.

And yet other synths and reverbs---that I like---sound fine on Youtube. Not as good, but still very good. This does not. I'm not keen on installing junk on my hard drive and wasting my time demoing it if they can't even manage to post decent audio examples.

[jules99]

Then it might in fact be the case that this particular VST here might actually not, in fact, be for you.

[kraster]

199 Euros puts it at the price level of Serum, Pigments and Phase Plant, sales excluded.

Current's effects supersede just about every software instrument I have ever used or tested. They sound far better than just about any effect in Serum or Phase Plant, with some of Pigment's effect on par. There is a built-in limiter you can trigger both on every effect and globally, how genius is that!

The included presets sound amazing but at times a bit overproduced. It's almost as if you're playing loops. But given Current's workflow and sound quality I wouldn't be surprised if we soon get a lot of third-party presets that match your genre.

Is this an adequate presentation of the presets, or is the audio quality severely degraded?



Listening on studio monitors in a partially treated room... most of these sound like crap. The effects do not sound very impressive.

The reverb sounds subpar, the filter sweeps or whatever those are sound ugly and awkward, the saturation sounds severely lacking in fullness, depth, and brightness (though it manages to still be excessively harsh)....

Compared to listening to the Synth in a DAW everything in the Youtube video sounds much more band limited, Squashed and grainy/fizzy.

There's much more bloom from the bass presets "in person", for example and it doesn't sound anything as harsh

Having said that...having used the full version, I do think that the presets are kind of narrow in how they represent the synth's capabilities

Lots of Dubstep, neurofunk, techno, psytrance, progressive house presets. EDM genres basically.

So that's lots of distortion, wavetable sweeping, buzzy filters, PWM, Squashed output etc.

The synth itself is more than capable of producing any genre you can think of (outside of super realistic instrument emulations.)

I do think the Reverb is the least impressive aspect. Sounds a little boxy/crowded to my ears but it's more than usable and you can always put an EQ after it to rein it in.

Certainly not a deal breaker but a convolution effect would be nice to see.

The rest of the effects are superb.

The filters are great and there are tons of them. The filters appear in the effects section as well as the synth itself.

Chorus is beautiful. Phaser is great.

The Delay is Minimal's Cluster Delay which was already a fantastic delay.

Morph Eq is excellent as both an EQ and a creative effect.

As for distortion, it's essentially Minimal's Rift which is one of the best creative distortion effects out there.

Then you have the Fuse compressor to tie it all together.

The fact that you can use more than one iteration of each effect is fantastic and the effects section itself is really well integrated into the synth in terms of being able to modulate the parameters.

[c0nsilience]

I'm listening to the Youtube video I linked to. Is the quality degraded, or similar to what you're hearing that you like?

YouTube is encoded in low quality MP3 ... It is better to try a demo.

And yet other synths and reverbs---that I like---sound fine on Youtube. Not as good, but still very good. This does not. I'm not keen on installing junk on my hard drive and wasting my time demoing it if they can't even manage to post decent audio examples.

Minimal Audio has no control over that. It's not like they posted it.

[Echoes in the Attic]

So I received an email saying that they are relaunching and they've introduced the new all access plans. They said that anyone on a current subscription would be automatically switched over to one of the all access plans. But which one? The monthly is $15/month and yearly is $10 per month.

As I read it, it makes very little sense to buy Current outright for $200, since you can instead sign up for the year all access plan and get $120 towards Current while also having access to everything for a year. Then I guess you could do another year for $120 or do monthly 5 or 6 months to cover the remaining 80 dollars. Am I reading that right?

I know I want to purchase Current somehow but don't want to be switched to the 15/month plan, that doesn't make sense.

[simmo75]

199 Euros puts it at the price level of Serum, Pigments and Phase Plant, sales excluded.

Current's effects supersede just about every software instrument I have ever used or tested. They sound far better than just about any effect in Serum or Phase Plant, with some of Pigment's effect on par. There is a built-in limiter you can trigger both on every effect and globally, how genius is that!

The included presets sound amazing but at times a bit overproduced. It's almost as if you're playing loops. But given Current's workflow and sound quality I wouldn't be surprised if we soon get a lot of third-party presets that match your genre.

Is this an adequate presentation of the presets, or is the audio quality severely degraded?



Listening on studio monitors in a partially treated room... most of these sound like crap. The effects do not sound very impressive.

The reverb sounds subpar, the filter sweeps or whatever those are sound ugly and awkward, the saturation sounds severely lacking in fullness, depth, and brightness (though it manages to still be excessively harsh)....

It sounds great in my treated and tuned studio, are you listening to the previews, or loading each patch one by one?

I'm listening to the Youtube video I linked to. Is the quality degraded, or similar to what you're hearing that you like?

There lies the problem.
YouTube is mp3.

[Karbon L. Forms]

That video is Opus 251 ((VBR) <=160 Kbps) (Right Click -> Stats for Nerds)

[gondii]

Hm, I can upgrade to the "Current Bundle" for 139€. Seems like it's similar value to doing the annual plan and paying the difference. Do I keep the expansions of the first year after a subscription expires?

[lolilol1975]

Live sound design session with Current

[martiu]

Yeah. I think this Jac459 is a name to remember and despise.

I don't think I deserve such a strong feeling my friend. I personally will have forgotten your name in .... Oh no, wait I already did.

oh just get a room you two, i can feel the tension

My love life has been such a desert, and all of a sudden I feel as if I have just had two whirlwind romances (albeit rather brief ones that I seem to have slept through).

Hoping the relaunch of Current goes well for Minimal Audio.

you can now be sure, you are loved by many here

[liquidsound]

Streaming. Ambient music though…

[db3]

I'm not keen on installing junk on my hard drive and wasting my time demoing it if they can't even manage to post decent audio examples.

You can browse presets here: https://www.minimal.audio/stream/current_presets

[Ou_Tis]

I'm not keen on installing junk on my hard drive and wasting my time demoing it if they can't even manage to post decent audio examples.

You can browse presets here: https://www.minimal.audio/stream/current_presets

Those definitely sound a lot better; the reverb doesn't sound so bad. But I still don't like the presests I've listened to so far very much. The second half of Shards is okay.

Granted, it might not be difficult to tweak these so I like them more---the filter sweep in Rebel March gets too abrupt around the midway point, the basses generally don't have enough bass, Ladder Arp is too harsh while simultaneously lacking in the upper mids, the (wavetable?) sweeps in Color Cannon are too fast and the distortion needs to be adjusted, Chrysalis and some other pads sound *too* full, Alert Me is almost good but the growly part isn't growly enough, etc. But even after tweaking I probably wouldn't use any of them.

One thing that's not clear in these demos is how much is being controlled via automation vs modulators vs sequencing---sequencer can be turned off I'd assume but editing complex modulation can be a huge hassle. OTOH I do like being able to control complex modulation and sequences via 5D MPE.

[pizzatime1]

I'm not keen on installing junk on my hard drive and wasting my time demoing it if they can't even manage to post decent audio examples.

You can browse presets here: https://www.minimal.audio/stream/current_presets

Those definitely sound a lot better; the reverb doesn't sound so bad. But I still don't like the presests I've listened to so far very much. The second half of Shards is okay.

Granted, it might not be difficult to tweak these so I like them more---the filter sweep in Rebel March gets too abrupt around the midway point, the basses generally don't have enough bass, Ladder Arp is too harsh while simultaneously lacking in the upper mids, the (wavetable?) sweeps in Color Cannon are too fast and the distortion needs to be adjusted, Chrysalis and some other pads sound *too* full, Alert Me is almost good but the growly part isn't growly enough, etc. But even after tweaking I probably wouldn't use any of them.

One thing that's not clear in these demos is how much is being controlled via automation vs modulators vs sequencing---sequencer can be turned off I'd assume but editing complex modulation can be a huge hassle. OTOH I do like being able to control complex modulation and sequences via 5D MPE.

Fascinating.

[kraster]

I'm not keen on installing junk on my hard drive and wasting my time demoing it if they can't even manage to post decent audio examples.

You can browse presets here: https://www.minimal.audio/stream/current_presets

Those definitely sound a lot better; the reverb doesn't sound so bad. But I still don't like the presests I've listened to so far very much. The second half of Shards is okay.

Granted, it might not be difficult to tweak these so I like them more---the filter sweep in Rebel March gets too abrupt around the midway point, the basses generally don't have enough bass, Ladder Arp is too harsh while simultaneously lacking in the upper mids, the (wavetable?) sweeps in Color Cannon are too fast and the distortion needs to be adjusted, Chrysalis and some other pads sound *too* full, Alert Me is almost good but the growly part isn't growly enough, etc. But even after tweaking I probably wouldn't use any of them.

One thing that's not clear in these demos is how much is being controlled via automation vs modulators vs sequencing---sequencer can be turned off I'd assume but editing complex modulation can be a huge hassle. OTOH I do like being able to control complex modulation and sequences via 5D MPE.

I agree with you on the presets. I think they're too processed and don't really let the actual sound of the synth through a lot of the time.

Take for example. the ladder arp preset you mentioned. I had a look at that and in the effects section you have a chorus on the "glass" mode followed by a fuse compressor with +5db boost from 2k up with a 12:1 ratio and a very low threshold.

The net effect is quite harsh, cold and metallic sounding with a very excited top end at the expense of the high mids. The glass mode on the chorus is well...very glassy and having the whole thing boosted is going to lead to what you describe.

Just to see, I replaced the Chorus with Cluster delay with a short delay rate and tamed the output a little with delay's low pass filter. I also adjusted the fuse compressor upper band to be less grabby and turned the band down and it's far more balanced to my ears.

But, to be fair, that kind of clangerous quality to sounds is part of some EDM genre's aesthetics nowadays.

In Current pretty much all the automation and sequencing IS modulation. Step sequencing is done with the curve modulator (multi stage envelope) and each modulator's depth can be modulated with another modulator.

There's also an arpeggiator and chord generator.

It takes a leaf out of Pigment's book in how you identify what's modulating what. Just hover the cursor over any modulator and it will show the destination and conversely hover over any destination to see what's modulating it.

You can reset any modulator's depth to zero by double click and remove all modulation on a destination by right clicking the knob/slider and select reset.

One thing I would like to see is the ability to deactivate each modulator. As it stand you can only reset it to its defaults.