DUNE 3 is now available!!

[PatchAdamz]

As an owner of Dune v2, would my money be better spent upgrading to Dune v3 or buying something else entirely, in particular thinking about Hive or Viper?

Get demos of each one, set them up side by side and do a shoot out.
Really, its only your opinion that matters.

[wagtunes]

Does anybody know where I can find the release notes for the 3.02 update?

[antic604]

Get demos of each one, set them up side by side and do a shoot out.Really, its only your opinion that matters.

I know, but this way I'll end up getting all three...

[ckam03]

As an owner of Dune v2, would my money be better spent upgrading to Dune v3 or buying something else entirely, in particular thinking about Hive or Viper?

Get demos of each one, set them up side by side and do a shoot out.
Really, its only your opinion that matters.

That's the problem, I can't decide which one I like better. I'd be happy with either Dune or Hive.

[cytospur]

Ok I'm open minded about the Formulas. I'd love to be shown that they indeed push D3 as much as say my request for the Zampler .sfz Osc in Dune.....

I think this would be a great addition

[recursive one]

As an owner of Dune v2, would my money be better spent upgrading to Dune v3 or buying something else entirely, in particular thinking about Hive or Viper?

I think I'm asking if the added features really make so much difference? I d/l the demo, but I guess the very limited palette of presets available there make it difficult to compare to Dune v2, because they all use v3 features, so the comparison isn't really fair and simple. They sound great though, but so do Hive and Viper.

Well, I'm biased in favour of Viper, but I'll try do make a more or less fair comparison. You may see Viper as a subset of Dune3. E.g. the Viper's FM modes can be approximated by fiddling with osc-to -osc audio rate modulation in Dune's mod matrix (I also had to use lowpass or notch filter effects to get them closer). But in Viper it's just one knob. I remember my first impression when I found this knob in Virus (there was no Viper back then but I already had Dune 2) - "wow, this is how all these darkpsy/hi-tech leads are made ". Same with the unison, there are many algos in Dune but you have to haunt for sweet spots, in Viper it's just another knob but it always sounds great

In short, Dune 3 is more flexible, Viper is tuned to sweet spots, it's one of these "hard to make it sound bad" synths, and it emulates a famous hardware synth and its famous sounds (if you still like Cosmosis, you may find recreations of some of his Virus B presets in Viper factory bank 3).

On the other hand, Dune 3 has some really important improvements in filters, FM, effects which I think are worth the upgrade pice (I was in doubt at fisrt but the more I play with the demo the more I like it). The new AM and vowel filters sound very good and it now has dual filters per a layer (like Viper)

Can't comment on Hive since I don't own it but it's a solid synth by a solid developer. Still it misses some of the functionality , like FM, vowel filters, but probably the factory wavetables compensate this somehow. Dunno, I keep myself from demoing the latest update.

@Hink: I'm sorry

[SynthRatings]

Also (sorry for a lot of posts), Dune tends to hard crash to desktop when I try to open the wavetable editor. Also happend when i just closed the vst window. I use the latest version of Reason.

Make sure you update to 3.01, that fixed the wavetable editor here. The undo function in Reason is still causing hard crashes though

Edit: What is new in 3.02 I wonder?

[Teksonik]

Does anybody know where I can find the release notes for the 3.02 update?

I can't seem to find anything either. I think it got out before Synapse had a chance to post what changers were made.

(No, drag and drop is not there...... )

[SynthRatings]

As an owner of Dune v2, would my money be better spent upgrading to Dune v3 or buying something else entirely, in particular thinking about Hive or Viper?

I think I'm asking if the added features really make so much difference? I d/l the demo, but I guess the very limited palette of presets available there make it difficult to compare to Dune v2, because they all use v3 features, so the comparison isn't really fair and simple. They sound great though, but so do Hive and Viper.

Here's my summary of it (from a video thay may or may not be made):
UPGRADE
- If you just want the latest synths and money is no object
- You can imagine yourself getting lots of enjoyment from editing your own wavetables
- If you loved DUNE 2 but thought it was “too clean/soft” or weak in the filter department
- If you prefer using on-board effects in synths and want the new algos and EQ

DON'T
- If you’re happy just importing wavetables then DUNE 2 can do that just fine
- If you’re upgrading just for new presets (buy soundbanks instead)
- If you rely mostly on outboard or plugin chains for your effects anyway
- If you use many DUNE instances and need to conserve CPU

[pdxindy]

As an owner of Dune v2, would my money be better spent upgrading to Dune v3 or buying something else entirely, in particular thinking about Hive or Viper?

Get demos of each one, set them up side by side and do a shoot out.
Really, its only your opinion that matters.

That's the problem, I can't decide which one I like better. I'd be happy with either Dune or Hive.

Take a few couple weeks and really put some time into each of them. Usually doing that one or the other will step forward for you.

[Teksonik]

Ok I'm open minded about the Formulas. I'd love to be shown that they indeed push D3 as much as say my request for the Zampler .sfz Osc in Dune.....

I think this would be a great addition

Sadly, Synapse did not share your enthusiasm.

Oh well I know there are possible technical issues and perhaps even legal issues with adding the .sfz Osc. I know it's not really the vision and purpose for Dune but I can't help hearing sounds in my head as I dream of being able to use full size multi-samples in D3........

[Teksonik]

- If you use many DUNE instances and need to conserve CPU

Are you saying you find Dune 3 more CPU intensive than Dune 2 on the same patches?

I'm not finding that here.....

[RobertH2]

One of the things that is really interesting in Dune 3 is interactively editing a wave table while looping some notes. I had no idea at first that this was possible, but you can get some really cool sounds doing this.

[antic604]

Here's my summary of it (from a video thay may or may not be made):
UPGRADE
- If you just want the latest synths and money is no object
- You can imagine yourself getting lots of enjoyment from editing your own wavetables
- If you loved DUNE 2 but thought it was “too clean/soft” or weak in the filter department
- If you prefer using on-board effects in synths and want the new algos and EQ

DON'T
- If you’re happy just importing wavetables then DUNE 2 can do that just fine
- If you’re upgrading just for new presets (buy soundbanks instead)
- If you rely mostly on outboard or plugin chains for your effects anyway
- If you use many DUNE instances and need to conserve CPU

That's a pretty great way to put it and I'm falling more in the 2nd category. Thanks!

[antic604]

Well, I'm biased in favour of Viper, but I'll try do make a more or less fair comparison. You may see Viper as a subset of Dune3. E.g. the Viper's FM modes can be approximated by fiddling with osc-to -osc audio rate modulation in Dune's mod matrix (I also had to use lowpass or notch filter effects to get them closer). But in Viper it's just one knob. I remember my first impression when I found this knob in Virus (there was no Viper back then but I already had Dune 2) - "wow, this is how all these darkpsy/hi-tech leads are made ". Same with the unison, there are many algos in Dune but you have to haunt for sweet spots, in Viper it's just another knob but it always sounds great

In short, Dune 3 is more flexible, Viper is tuned to sweet spots, it's one of these "hard to make it sound bad" synths, and it emulates a famous hardware synth and its famous sounds (if you still like Cosmosis, you may find recreations of some of his Virus B presets in Viper factory bank 3).

On the other hand, Dune 3 has some really important improvements in filters, FM, effects which I think are worth the upgrade pice (I was in doubt at fisrt but the more I play with the demo the more I like it). The new AM and vowel filters sound very good and it now has dual filters per a layer (like Viper)

You're incredibly helpful, as always! Thanks!

I'm gonna have to give Viper a go once more. For some reason it appears limited and inflexible to me - the oscillators, filter models, even the mod matrix all this looks somewhat dated. Perhaps it is meant to be that way, being inspired by Virus? Also Adam was promising a sale early next year, so maybe I'll wait for that... Thanks!