Ultra Audio - Ultra (A fancy Vital-style synth that popped up out of nowhere)

[bmanic]

Does it support as deep of a modulation matrix as Vital? In Vital you can modulate the modulators which then modulate the modulating modulators.. etc. Here in the video I can only see a single Aux modulation slot. Is that it? Or is it possible to do more deep modulation chains?

EDIT: Having watched the other video, of the clarinet emulation, I have to say the UI and usability seems to be absolutely TOP notch. Like seriously, at the very very top of all soft synths _ever_ created.

[Benjamin923]

There is a GUI screenshot that looks the same or similar to the final one on one of the social media channels that’s from like 2023. It looks like there may have been an intention to release this a year ago (or longer). It’s just a bit weird to set up the user accounts and payment systems (including a 25 month rent to own plan) and run a launch discount but not publicize the product anywhere or make any announcements, I hope this is a reliable business that will get good support, would be really nice to hear from the dev

[bmanic]

The author of this classic video is the developer of Ultra.



.. and according to an instagram post, the synth has been in development since 2017. So it feels like the talent behind the plugin is on really solid ground here. Hopefully it didn't price itself out of the market. The lack of any advertisement is really strange though.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDa24gPPMdj/

[bmanic]

Does it support as deep of a modulation matrix as Vital?

Quoting myself here and answering, as I just tried the demo.

Answer: NO.

The mod matrix in Ultra is very simplistic. It allows for one single auxiliary modulation and what's even worse is that there is no way to control the amount of that auxiliary modulation. This makes the synth virtually unusable for me as I love to pile up keyboard tracking and note velocity all over the place to create organic, very playable synth patches that react to how you play.

This is very unfortunate and immediately deletes this from my "must have" list.

Other negatives:

- Lots of stepping various knobs when moving them with the mouse. It's not a huge deal but it's something that shouldn't happen on any synth released in the past decade.

- CPU usage compared to sound quality is a bit of a mixed bag. A quite basic pad sound with just a single analogue oscillator and some basic filtering, 8 voice polyphony, eats up a fair chunk of CPU compared to the competition.. not a huge amount more but noticeably still. Yet the actual sound itself is what I'd describe as rather sterile. The sound aesthetic is clearly and perhaps proudly digital. Not always a bad thing but here it's bordering on "boring".. based on my initial impressions.

- Even at the High Quality setting, there is a lot of aliasing on oscillators.. much more so than I hear from Vital for instance.

- Price.. obviously. This is absolutely nowhere near the same league as Serum 2, Avenger, Nexus, Zebra etc. It's a skin deep synth with a few very well done "modules" and a superb UI.. but in terms of actual deeply programmable synthesis, this is not it. I'd price this in the 69 to 99$ bracket.

[morphex]

The author of this classic video is the developer of Ultra.



.. and according to an instagram post, the synth has been in development since 2017. So it feels like the talent behind the plugin is on really solid ground here. Hopefully it didn't price itself out of the market. The lack of any advertisement is really strange though.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDa24gPPMdj/

This slick video was created with a very cinematic style, and I can dig it! I love working with Cymatics, and experimenting with frequencies to see different patterns. It's fascinating to me!

[kraster]

Does it support as deep of a modulation matrix as Vital?

Quoting myself here and answering, as I just tried the demo.

Answer: NO.

The mod matrix in Ultra is very simplistic. It allows for one single auxiliary modulation and what's even worse is that there is no way to control the amount of that auxiliary modulation. This makes the synth virtually unusable for me as I love to pile up keyboard tracking and note velocity all over the place to create organic, very playable synth patches that react to how you play.

This is very unfortunate and immediately deletes this from my "must have" list.

Other negatives:

- Lots of stepping various knobs when moving them with the mouse. It's not a huge deal but it's something that shouldn't happen on any synth released in the past decade.

- CPU usage compared to sound quality is a bit of a mixed bag. A quite basic pad sound with just a single analogue oscillator and some basic filtering, 8 voice polyphony, eats up a fair chunk of CPU compared to the competition.. not a huge amount more but noticeably still. Yet the actual sound itself is what I'd describe as rather sterile. The sound aesthetic is clearly and perhaps proudly digital. Not always a bad thing but here it's bordering on "boring".. based on my initial impressions.

- Even at the High Quality setting, there is a lot of aliasing on oscillators.. much more so than I hear from Vital for instance.

- Price.. obviously. This is absolutely nowhere near the same league as Serum 2, Avenger, Nexus, Zebra etc. It's a skin deep synth with a few very well done "modules" and a superb UI.. but in terms of actual deeply programmable synthesis, this is not it. I'd price this in the 69 to 99$ bracket.

Appreciate your candour, bmanic.

There's a ton of box appeal from the synth but it's unfortunate that its looks don't live up to its ergonomics or feature set.

It is a tall order to beat the likes of Serum 2, Avenger, Zebra and friends at their game.

[Benjamin923]

The price is a super high ask at the full $250 mark, I think it’s too much for the market honestly. It seems cool, it has some nice features, but especially for a brand new dev that’s a ton of trust to ask for from new customers

[MillerSam]

It's like Synthmaster 2 feature-wise but with a fancier UI and a steep price tag

[MillerSam]

The video was posted on May 10, 2024. So it's flying since then under the deepest radar, strange

[Weasel-Boy]

- Price.. obviously. This is absolutely nowhere near the same league as Serum 2, Avenger, Nexus, Zebra etc. It's a skin deep synth with a few very well done "modules" and a superb UI.. but in terms of actual deeply programmable synthesis, this is not it. I'd price this in the 69 to 99$ bracket.

I have to agree. Even with the current discount, $149 seems way too high for this thing. The ‘regular’ price of $249 borders on wishful thinking.

[bmanic]

It's like Synthmaster 2 feature-wise but with a fancier UI and a steep price tag

Synthmaster 2 is 1000000 times more capable, synthesis wise. They are not even in the same universe.

[MillerSam]

I mean, from the oscillator side, it has VA, wavetable, multi-samples, and noise. Okay, the vector and additive part is missing. Of course, Synthmaster 2 wins the battle

It's like Synthmaster 2 feature-wise but with a fancier UI and a steep price tag

Synthmaster 2 is 1000000 times more capable, synthesis wise. They are not even in the same universe.

[MillerSam]

But regular $249 for a new company, where we don't know how intensively they will update it, and in a massively crowded softsynth market, is way too much. $149 regular would be more okayish

[dune_rave]

Well, in my book, this is a brand new synth release and usually its the time of discovering bugs. Bye.

[bmanic]

I mean, from the oscillator side, it has VA, wavetable, multi-samples, and noise. Okay, the vector and additive part is missing. Of course, Synthmaster 2 wins the battle

It's much more than that. A synthesizer, in my opinion, is only as powerful as it's modulation capabilities. Doesn't matter if it has an ultra sophisticated oscillator or some new technology if you can't properly modulate it with precise control over HOW and when it does what. Modulation, aka "changes" is what makes music interesting.

The amount of control you have over changes, in real time, while playing is what separates simple instruments from more complex ones. For example, a violin is inherently a more complex and nuanced instrument than a piano, which at the end of the day is just a percussion instrument when you boil it down to the tiny details.