SWAY - a synth modeled after the Yamaha SY77

[Compyfox]

You really do keep coming back and put words into the mouth of people, "bird" !


I never said that the synths I mentioned are "superior" than SWAY (except for maybe Steinberg/Yamaha HALion, which is a totally different beast with a way different focus).

Also, the synths I mentioned are not "VA". (Zenology at it's core is PCM based - overall it's a workstation with multiple synthesis forms, the M1 is definitely a PCM based synth, microQ is half a Wavetable synths, and Waldorf Attack is a drum synth/subtractive synth hybrid --- but who is really paying attention, right?)

The topic/conversation shifted to the question of whether or not multi-timbral synths make sense in this day and age. It is once more you trying to convince others that it's "useless these days" (paraphrasing), and everyone is completely wrong, while such setups still do have their usage.



You're obviously passionate about certain equipment. We can not and will not deny that. To each their own.

However, you keep on coming back with purposely rage baiting, derailing, trolling and twisting words. Just to show how much superior you are than "we others" (air quotes on purpose). While at the same time fighting tooth and nail with people that correct your various statements.

And if (and only "if") you are a beta tester for this synth - you're not doing a great job at convincing us users to "make a purchase" at this point. In fact, it's detrimental.

You don't want to read the room, you don't stop your behavior. And sadly, the mods ain't doing sh#t about your abuse towards others.

If KVR Audio had a "please remove me from conversation" function (which phpbb sadly doesn't, the optional "subscribe to thread" option is not the same), I would use it at this point. Thank you for proving my point of why as to why I am no longer as active in here.




Bottom Line

Whenever SWAY arrives... let's hope it is not more expensive than 69 EUR to 79 EUR, VAT included.
And let's hope it doesn't have some nonsense/punishing copy protection.


Have fun, everyone.

[Uncle E]

You can unsubscribe from the topic.

[Old Norse]

I've found that the most effective way of removing myself from a conversation is to stop conversing.

[planetearth]

I agree with almost everything you have there, but I was speaking more to modern ROMplers/synths like Kontakt, SampleTank, UVI Workstation, and others. By the devs' own admissions, these aren't multi-core aware

Kontakt IS multicore aware, up to 16 cores, and has been for ages (since Kontakt 3 or so).

Yes, you're right, of course. I meant to take "Kontakt" out before I posted this, since it was actually related to a different point I was going to make. (So much for trying to edit this stuff on a phone.)

As a side note, I believe the Korg M1 plug-in allows up to 4 outputs, like the original hardware, though I think that's what you're also saying.

Actually it has 8 stereo outputs.

I saw that mentioned by someone, but I couldn't find any examples from Korg, or any posts where someone had assigned sounds to outputs other than 1 – 4 (or the headphone output). The Korg manual only shows and mentions 4 outputs, plus a stereo headphone output. I don't know if you're counting that as "outputs", but if you have something showing 8 stereo outputs, I'd be interested in seeing it. Even the rackmount M1R only has 4 outputs.

Steve

[Weasel-Boy]

As a side note, I believe the Korg M1 plug-in allows up to 4 outputs, like the original hardware, though I think that's what you're also saying.

Actually it has 8 stereo outputs.

Really? Where are the other 4. I'd love to know.

IMG_0592.jpeg

[kingtubby]

As a side note, I believe the Korg M1 plug-in allows up to 4 outputs, like the original hardware, though I think that's what you're also saying.

Actually it has 8 stereo outputs.

Really? Where are the other 4. I'd love to know.

That was referring to the plugin which does have 8.

[Weasel-Boy]

As a side note, I believe the Korg M1 plug-in allows up to 4 outputs, like the original hardware, though I think that's what you're also saying.

Actually it has 8 stereo outputs.

Really? Where are the other 4. I'd love to know.

That was referring to the plugin which does have 8.

Oh. The plug-in. Well that’s certainly true. Sorry for the confusion.

[gearwatcher]

Multitimbrality makes a lot more sense in DSP56k emus from a performance standpoint as well, because from experience each of those ROMs burns a bit of CPU just idling. And it makes sense - even if the emulator is perfect in relinquishing control, each ROM is still a minimalist RTOS on top of which the actual synthesizer code runs, the "inner platform effect" is inevitable in bare-metal code, so there's always things running occasionally on idle.

Not saying multitimbral plugins don't generally have their place in modern DAW setups. They make much more sense than people give them credit, it's the routing in hosts that is hostile to such setups that makes them inconvenient to use, much more so than the paradigm itself.

[cslevine]

After that, this can be more confortable in the mix console to have 1 or 2 VSTi mix slots with 16 midi channels, ... than having 16 VSTi mix console slots. But... well... there are "groups" and so on.

[EvilDragon]

Also, you had to share effects in multitimbral mode on the original hardware. With separate instances in DAW you don't have to.

[beely]

Also, generally those multitimbral setups all had to go through the main stereo outs - to separate them, you'd have to record them individually to "tape" and then mix/process afterwards (if you had the spare tracks available). If you were lucky, like the M1/Wavestation or some hardware modules etc, you might get a second (or third) pair of outputs to work with. With separate plugin instances, they get their own independent audio outputs inherently, and you don't have to faff around with creating new mixer channels for each set of outputs, and then routing each part to the set of outputs you need it to go to etc.

Multitimbrality was great at letting you use a single constrained resource as flexibly as possible (eg, no more "I'm using my DX7 for a bass sound in my sequencing setup, but I then have 15 wasted voices I can't do anything with" type resource wasting), but with software plugins, we can simply spool up as many DX7's or M1s etc as we need, without polyphony or effects constraints, and without having to setup up multitimbral modes and outputs all the time. Big win, imo.

The only real thing multitimbrality gets you these days is to make one instrument channel do more - for example, if your 1000+ available instrument tracks just can't house all your Kontakt libraries in your template, you can use them multitimbrally to get more instruments going in your projects if you really need to.

That, and some plugins had sets of performance patches to create splits and layers which are often not implemented in the plugins. That doesn't apply to the M1 plugin (it has Combi mode), the Wavestation (it's general play mode is Performance, which allows all that as part of every sound anyway), but for things like the Roland JV-1080/XV-5080 plugins, the loss of the multitimbral modes mean you lose access to those split/layered patches - not a huge loss imo as they were mostly combinations of preset patches anyway, but a loss all the same. But I totally get why devs aren't necessarily prioritising multitimbral modes in emulations - it's a lot of extra work, and is probably something only a tiny subset of users would even use.

But people can use whatever workflows they prefer, of course. For me, having to go to multi mode with my hardware almost always meant significant compromises in terms of sound (etc sharing/losing effects etc) and a bit of a pain to set it up - but we had to, to maximise our sequencing setups. I'm glad it's not something that's an issue for me these days.

[cslevine]

one other thing multitimbrality can bring would be... "MPE". MPE" is a new MIDI standard for expressivity, dealing with channels, and multi notes playing with MPE keyboards controllers, which separate MIDI channels by fingers, + expression + filter + pitch bend, as with "Seaboard" for example, or Linn instruments, or others things.

But this is Out of topic here, because SY77 was not built for this and can not take expression controller for volume control, for example.

[EvilDragon]

Multitimbrality does not preclude MPE, you don't need to have multitimbrality to support MPE.

MPE is not new, it has existed for 10 years (in a different form, it has existed since MIDI guitar synths in the 80s).

[IvyBirds]

one other thing multitimbrality can bring would be... "MPE". MPE" is a new MIDI standard for expressivity, dealing with channels, and multi notes playing with MPE keyboards controllers, which separate MIDI channels by fingers, + expression + filter + pitch bend, as with "Seaboard" for example, or Linn instruments, or others things.

But this is Out of topic here, because SY77 was not built for this and can not take expression controller for volume control, for example.

MPE as it currently exists as an extension of MIDI 1 is an absolutely terrible choice for Multi-timbrality

MPE works because each note gets its own MIDI channel. So when you press down on Middle C that key press will trigger its own MIDI channel and send MIDI CCs in the traditional way just for that channel, press another key and get another channel

Because MPE is a clever work around using standard MIDI 1 protocols from the early 1980s it has limited polyphony of just 16 voices as you run out of channels

Why do you want an entirely different timbre and output for each keypress? I suppose if your goal is a bunch of monosynths it might be cool but would still make no real sense

A better solution (once again) for a DAW based workflow using plugins is to have a new track in your DAW for each MPE enabled timbre you want. That way each timbre can have 16 voices of polyphony. Also makes it significantly easier to program DAWs with MPE capable sequencers

MIDI 2.0 largely eliminates the limitations however

[Tj Shredder]

If any emulation of an old fashioned multitimbral synth running from an original rom would load a copy of the same patch into all slots, it would be a voice per channel synth and thus could be played with any MPE controller expressively.
Any other multi timbrality is complicating everything in a DAW context.
I wonder what exactly and how this could be an advantage in any workflow imaginable. For me its mostly an annoyance…
Certainly it had its use case 40 years ago…