Softube CS-80 ? - Model 77 Dual Layer Synth

[D-Fusion]

Holy hell, not only did they not keep a bunch of annoying stuff on the original exactly as-is, they even improved upon the original by modifying the layout! Sacrilege!

...but the good kind.

Looks like they Choose the best layout from the CS Series and used the CS70M as a template for their Gui.

[D-Fusion]

yep it's a cs-80

really wish they would do a OB X and a Arp Solina

Arturia sounds like s***

There's already a really great Arp Solina from) Fullbucket.

And a Excellent OB-X From Gforce

[Vortifex]

The GUI looks good. I love that oldschool reverb. I wish they'd added a button to enable the programming of both layers at the same time. You can hold shift to do it but that means taking your hand off the MIDI controller. The presets are mostly underwhelming. CPU performance is similar to Model 80, in that just loading the synth adds almost 30% to FL Studio's CPU on my i7, but playing it or adding more instances only increases the CPU usage by a small amount.

Teasing good sounds out of the quirky filters and envelopes is not easy, IMO. This is not a synth with a wide sweet spot. Its character comes from its expressivity rather than its raw sound. As I discovered with the ME80, this is not a synth I enjoy programming. Give me a Prophet or an Oberheim and I can rustle up something decent in seconds. This one takes work.

[beely]

Yep - as a synth the CS80 is just not that amazing. (Actually, I find this to be true for me of pretty much all the early Yamaha synths.) The strength of the CS80 is in it's physicality and expressiveness, rather than it's raw sound.

Having said that, because it does have it's own character that's quite different from most other contemporary analog synths, it might just have a place to fit in for some. I'll give it a demo, but I've never been a CS80 fan...

[db3]

Agree. The CS80 has some delicious sweetspots but overall it's not overly thrilling me. I might pick it up cheap in a future sale for the pads.

DUALDISCOUNT gives 15% off intro price.

[hey212]

Found a quick shoot out of the obligatory Blade Runner-ish preset, obviously not identically programmed presets but the Softube sounds much nicer here.

[mi-os]

CPU performance is similar to Model 80, in that just loading the synth adds almost 30% to FL Studio's CPU on my i7, but playing it or adding more instances only increases the CPU usage by a small amount.

No thanks then. But thanks to you for reporting CPU usage.

[rasmusklump]

That's a wrong assumption.
The cpu consumption stays the same when you play notes or add another instance

[Deisss]

I dont understand why they dont allow to edit the 2 layers together, I prefer to program the CS80 in a single go rather than this up/down system.

While I was completely uninspired by the Arturia one, this is much better. At least the age button gives that weird sine waves that I recall from the real deal. As far as the CS80 itself, I only got the deckard's now, and for me, this is the first close enough CS80 emulation out there in software to me, so thats a keep...

[zvenx]

I own more than 25 Softube products and not even a special price for customer ?

Email came with a code which takes 15% off.. You should have it by now.
rsp

[Echoes in the Attic]

It's too bad they didn't add mpe. I feel like that is the natural evolution of the CS-80 and as far as I know only arturia has added that. But this one clearly sounds better.

[Vortifex]

That's a wrong assumption.
The cpu consumption stays the same when you play notes or add another instance

I've found that if I initialize both layers and increase the VCO and VCF modulation it passively adds about 4% to the CPU. Reducing the LFO speed reduces the CPU a little bit. Playing with a long release will add about 2% at most.

I dont understand why they dont allow to edit the 2 layers together, I prefer to program the CS80 in a single go rather than this up/down system.

You can if you hold down shift. Bit annoying because you have to stop playing your MIDI controller but it's there at least.

[beely]

I had a quick play, and honestly I liked it more than I was expecting to.

It's not the widest sweet spot synth or the most flexible but it does have some nice tricks (albeit some of them a little cliché now), but other than it generally sounding really good as all the Softube analog emulations do, I think I liked it because of the vintage character - all those lonely simple vintage analog leads drenched in reverb instantly take me back to those '70s TV shows about the Bermuda Triangle or mysterious lost Inca cities. (Not that I have a lot of call for the 70s in my music, generally, it's a nostalgia thing mostly...)

I like to think of it (somewhat to annoy CS80 fans ) as "just a big CS01" (and the voices do share a lot of similarity apparently in terms of the electronics) and that was my first "real" synth I played with back in the actual 80s. It would be nice to play with with a poly aftertouch keyboard just to get some more expression, but I can't do that right now.

So while it's not something I'd want to pick up now, I probably will one day when it starts hitting sales prices.

[zvenx]

Not easier to put the mixer on one layer, edit that, then do a copy layer to the other?
rsp

[mi-os]

That's a wrong assumption.
The cpu consumption stays the same when you play notes or add another instance

???

Please think about it, does it really makes sense to you? Not to me. Why should playing no notes hog the CPU as much as actually playing the max 8 notes or even multiple instances of that? It would only make sense (albeit a questionable interpretation of resource saving coding) if one instance reserves (calculates while idling) all its possible voices, but not also instances that aren't even instanced. That would be impossible.