Gforce MAP
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- KVRist
- 102 posts since 3 May, 2021
Sound and presets are really nice as always but the preset browser is a little laggy yet with 1.1 version. Hope they will fix it soon.
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- KVRAF
- 20938 posts since 22 Nov, 2000 from Southern California
You mean it got slower than Version 1?
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- KVRian
- 1451 posts since 1 Jun, 2008
I do wish GForce would focus on more regular updates and bugfixes for their products. I assume they use contractors for coding most of their plugins. Took more than a year for them to fix the stereo-bug in VSM4.
MAP has a lot of potential, but the UI is too inconsistent and quirky, and there are a myriad of strange bugs and design decisions like how LFOs routed to global parameters will retrigger with note played even if they're set to free-running and no keytrigger.
They also need to improve the overall sound quality. This thing sounds harsh like old VST synths. Reminds me of Massive. No anti-aliasing and the bass and treble get choked really easily. Aalto, which is even more true to Buchla, still sounds incredible, with so much detail and depth, and that synth is 15 years old.
MAP has a lot of potential, but the UI is too inconsistent and quirky, and there are a myriad of strange bugs and design decisions like how LFOs routed to global parameters will retrigger with note played even if they're set to free-running and no keytrigger.
They also need to improve the overall sound quality. This thing sounds harsh like old VST synths. Reminds me of Massive. No anti-aliasing and the bass and treble get choked really easily. Aalto, which is even more true to Buchla, still sounds incredible, with so much detail and depth, and that synth is 15 years old.
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- KVRian
- 849 posts since 21 Jan, 2017
It's funny b/c I love Halogen, their first original non emu synth (and every other synth they've ever made). MAP though does not appeal to me so much.
As for bugs, I've come across none that I recall. Other than the tempo sync on Imposcar3, maybe that's one exception if you can call that a bug.
As for bugs, I've come across none that I recall. Other than the tempo sync on Imposcar3, maybe that's one exception if you can call that a bug.
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- KVRist
- 399 posts since 17 Oct, 2005
Here is a quick demo of MAP with Bleass Spectral Resonator on it:
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Duality without regard to physicality
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- KVRist
- 63 posts since 19 Aug, 2012
Tried it out this weekend. I like the approach of the one page GUI which invites experimentation. At first it seems contradictive to the "west coast" marketing language to have a fixed basic structure (3 OSCs > Mixer > Filters > FX) that very much looks like any subtractive synth. The modulation section however brings a lot of flexibility in an intuitive way. All in all I would still think it is a synth with a keyboard players approach, rather than a west coast one which would include keyboardless generative patching as well.
A few points that might be helpful improvements:
- Linear FM: Currently there seems to be exponential FM only, which is ideal for crazy FX but rather cumbersome when trying to dial in harmonic sounds. Once at it, why not add through-Zero FM as well?
- The modulation OSC seems to be 10 cent sharp, compared to the two main OSCs. This is probably intentional for a more organic feel. It is confusing however, when trying to set up an FM patch from scratch. Also the increment/decrement for fine tuning is 10 cent, or 1 cent when using the shift key. I think it would be more intuitive to have a fader law with a finer scaling around the center point, where one usually needs a fine resolution. For broad steps there are coarse frequency controls already (50 cent steps).
- LFOs: In polyphonic patches each voice has it's own set of LFOs running either independently or synced to keypress. Often it would be helpful to have a global LFO which affects all voices in the same way. Imagine a rhythmic modulation of the Filter cutoff. With individual LFOs per voice the result is unpredictable unless one chooses to start notes only at times fitting the LFO rate. Switching off keysync will result in the first two voices behaving as if they shared a global LFO. From the third voice on the LFOs are running at a different phase.
- Switching Presets and also oscillator Waveforms takes almost a full second. This seems very slow compared to other GForce synths.
A few points that might be helpful improvements:
- Linear FM: Currently there seems to be exponential FM only, which is ideal for crazy FX but rather cumbersome when trying to dial in harmonic sounds. Once at it, why not add through-Zero FM as well?
- The modulation OSC seems to be 10 cent sharp, compared to the two main OSCs. This is probably intentional for a more organic feel. It is confusing however, when trying to set up an FM patch from scratch. Also the increment/decrement for fine tuning is 10 cent, or 1 cent when using the shift key. I think it would be more intuitive to have a fader law with a finer scaling around the center point, where one usually needs a fine resolution. For broad steps there are coarse frequency controls already (50 cent steps).
- LFOs: In polyphonic patches each voice has it's own set of LFOs running either independently or synced to keypress. Often it would be helpful to have a global LFO which affects all voices in the same way. Imagine a rhythmic modulation of the Filter cutoff. With individual LFOs per voice the result is unpredictable unless one chooses to start notes only at times fitting the LFO rate. Switching off keysync will result in the first two voices behaving as if they shared a global LFO. From the third voice on the LFOs are running at a different phase.
- Switching Presets and also oscillator Waveforms takes almost a full second. This seems very slow compared to other GForce synths.