ANA2 vs DUNE 3 vs similiar

[seafire]

I have to revisit why, it's one of the best sounding, very reasonable on the CPU, can go near audio rate mod...

near audio rate?

[Hyperbole]

Somehow, I was confusing Admiral Quality's Poly-Ana with Sonic Academy's ANA 2. What threw me is when people were talking about photorealistic and skeuomorphic interfaces. Poly-Ana is memorable (although I would like to forget) as it may be the worst skeuomorphic interface I have ever seen. It's such a cluttered mess with those big metal-looking "knobs" all over the place. I couldn't use it for that reason alone.

ANA 2, on the other hand, has a nice, clean UI. But the plugin name is a bit of a misnomer. It doesn't sound particularly analog to me (if that's what "ANA" is supposed to suggest). It does sound very smooth and nice, though, just not particularly fat. I already own a number of plugins in this vein, including DUNE 3, Hive 2, osTIrus, Serum 2, and Spire. And Avenger, Massive X, multi/poly, Pigments, Sylenth, and Synthmaster 3, which I also own, aren't that far off the mark.

But as is apparent, I'm a plugin hoarder. So I'll have to check out ANA 2.

[rafa1981]

near audio rate?

I remember reading that modulation can run at samplerate/4, don't take my word though.

[cytospur]

If you run it at the highest quality settings then modulation is per sample, i.e., full sample rate.

[zerocrossing]

Dune 3 has one of the better audio rate modulation capabilities of any polyphonic synth plugin. Oscillators are available as modulation sources in the mod matrix. You have to set the quality to "Audio Rate," if you want the smallest amount of artifacts, but it's OK. I feel like it used to be better... not sure what happened, but I notice that even if you've got it set to the best quality, there's still a fair amount of noticeable artifacts if you play a note above C4 and you're doing something like using oscillator 2 to modulate the filter cutoff. You can minimize it by being modest with your amounts.

[BONES]

When do you think it changed? It's something I am sure Rich would like to know about. I reckon he'll be horrified if he can reproduce it.

[zerocrossing]

When do you think it changed? It's something I am sure Rich would like to know about. I reckon he'll be horrified if he can reproduce it.

I could be wrong, but I thought that I was doing a lot of experimenting with filter FM in Dune at v3 and it sounded very clean all the way up, but now it doesn't seem as good as I remember it. I was comparing it to Serum 2, and Serum 2 sounds quite a bit better.

[JerGoertz]

Somehow, I was confusing Admiral Quality's Poly-Ana with Sonic Academy's ANA 2. What threw me is when people were talking about photorealistic and skeuomorphic interfaces. Poly-Ana is memorable (although I would like to forget) as it may be the worst skeuomorphic interface I have ever seen. It's such a cluttered mess with those big metal-looking "knobs" all over the place. I couldn't use it for that reason alone.

Fortunately there are several skins available for Poly-Ana which are pretty uniformly rated highly. So you can de-uglify it, if that's your take. Sound is still very good.

[zerocrossing]

Somehow, I was confusing Admiral Quality's Poly-Ana with Sonic Academy's ANA 2. What threw me is when people were talking about photorealistic and skeuomorphic interfaces. Poly-Ana is memorable (although I would like to forget) as it may be the worst skeuomorphic interface I have ever seen. It's such a cluttered mess with those big metal-looking "knobs" all over the place. I couldn't use it for that reason alone.

Fortunately there are several skins available for Poly-Ana which are pretty uniformly rated highly. So you can de-uglify it, if that's your take. Sound is still very good.

Not really. It was fine when it was released, but there are so many better options now. The sound is mediocre and even with better skins it's a bit of a mess. I don't even bother keeping it on my computer any longer, plus, the developer has issues which are well known.

[Hyperbole]

ANA 2, on the other hand, has a nice, clean UI. But the plugin name is a bit of a misnomer. It doesn't sound particularly analog to me (if that's what "ANA" is supposed to suggest). It does sound very smooth and nice, though, just not particularly fat. I already own a number of plugins in this vein, including DUNE 3, Hive 2, osTIrus, Serum 2, and Spire. And Avenger, Massive X, multi/poly, Pigments, Sylenth, and Synthmaster 3, which I also own, aren't that far off the mark.

But as is apparent, I'm a plugin hoarder. So I'll have to check out ANA 2.

I checked out quite a few ANA 2 presets this evening. I was pleasantly surprised at how good they sounded. I might even prefer the sound of ANA 2 over DUNE 3. Right now, ANA 2 is on sale for $91. Given that I own quite a few similar plugins, I probably wouldn't buy it at the regular price of $180.

Regarding the ANA 2's UI, I was slightly put off by how inline "panels" will cover different portions of the interface when clicking various buttons. It's sort of a tab system but not quite. I suppose it's easy enough to get used to. But it does seem a bit non-standard. I think the UIs for all the other plugins I mentioned in my post above (except for Avenger which is way too cramped with tiny fonts, IMO) are better than ANA 2's UI. ANA 2's UI isn't bad. It just seems less polished than some of these other VA/wavetable plugins.

[Gam456]

I checked out quite a few ANA 2 presets this evening. I was pleasantly surprised at how good they sounded. I might even prefer the sound of ANA 2 over DUNE 3. Right now, ANA 2 is on sale for $91. Given that I own quite a few similar plugins, I probably wouldn't buy it at the regular price of $180.

$90, really? I bought mine for $56 in 2023

[JerGoertz]

Not really. It was fine when it was released, but there are so many better options now. The sound is mediocre and even with better skins it's a bit of a mess. I don't even bother keeping it on my computer any longer, plus, the developer has issues which are well known.

Guess we'll have to disagree about the sound, tho I can understand why you would think that as a lack of onboard FX and a somewhat lackluster factory library might make one's initial impression underwhelming. Poly-Ana's raw sound is still one of the best in the business, especially in the bass range. E.g., I have yet to hear another synth get such a powerful Tom Sawyer pad/bass ("Huck Finn" in the factory library). If you can find one, be sure to let me know.

[BONES]

I could be wrong, but I thought that I was doing a lot of experimenting with filter FM in Dune at v3 and it sounded very clean all the way up, but now it doesn't seem as good as I remember it. I was comparing it to Serum 2, and Serum 2 sounds quite a bit better.

OK, I'll pass that on via the beta forum and we'll see what happens. If it further delays Prestige, though, I'll be very unhappy with you.

I was slightly put off by how inline "panels" will cover different portions of the interface when clicking various buttons.

I find it infinitely preferable to Hive or DUNE's tiny, cramped centre screen. I see it as a big advantage of ANA's GUI.

[zerocrossing]

Not really. It was fine when it was released, but there are so many better options now. The sound is mediocre and even with better skins it's a bit of a mess. I don't even bother keeping it on my computer any longer, plus, the developer has issues which are well known.

Guess we'll have to disagree about the sound, tho I can understand why you would think that as a lack of onboard FX and a somewhat lackluster factory library might make one's initial impression underwhelming. Poly-Ana's raw sound is still one of the best in the business, especially in the bass range. E.g., I have yet to hear another synth get such a powerful Tom Sawyer pad/bass ("Huck Finn" in the factory library). If you can find one, be sure to let me know.

My main problem with it is that even with the updates he did with oversampling, you can hear aliasing pretty obviously on a lot of sounds. Maybe not so noticable on low notes, but as soon as you start getting a bit aggressive with it, it starts sounding pretty harsh. It's just not up to par with modern equivalents.

[zerocrossing]

I was slightly put off by how inline "panels" will cover different portions of the interface when clicking various buttons.

I find it infinitely preferable to Hive or DUNE's tiny, cramped centre screen. I see it as a big advantage of ANA's GUI.

I'll never quite understand the "let's emulate an LCD screen on a GUI" philosophy. I mean...

ANA's menu doesn't bug me, but I think they should also let you right-click in the waveform window and get a drop down menu, for the times when you don't care about what a full browser overlay shows.