Well I spent my fair share in Alchemy 2 as well and I probably look at it in a very different light than you. It's obvious you are very keen about the sampling aspect of things (or the actual sound source). I'm more of a "lets make this patch interesting to play and mess around with" type of guy so for me it is all about subtle and not so subtle modulation possibilities (and it's one of the things I consider "the core" of any kind of synthesis. Sound sources are basic building blocks while the modulation makes it come alive.. that's my philosophy on synthesis).Sampleconstruct wrote:I just worked 2 months with the much improved Alchemy 2 and it's by far more limited than Falcon due to it's 4 source-architecture where you can play sample maps within a source now also spectrally re-synthesized sample maps (or additive) or sampling or granular, but all samples in that source will always share the same envelope, the same filters and so forth. In Falcon you can assign a different filter/envelope/modulation setting to each sample/keygroup of a complex map or even mix different oscillator types on a single key, hundreds of keygroups with different oscillators and filters in a single patch if you dare, nothing Alchemy could ever do. The modulation system and snapshot morphing in alchemy is still unique though.
In this area Falcon is nowhere near as flexible as Alchemy/Alchemy 2. Not even in the same universe.
You're right. Purely technically it's not hybrid as it's only sound source is the sample stuff.Sampleconstruct wrote:And Kontakt is just a sample player with a nice time-stretching function, so i don't understand the comparison at all. There is nothing hybrid in Kontakt.
For me Kontakt is primarily a sample player but I can treat it as a synthesizer due to it's flexibility of being able to assign envelopes, LFO's and other modulators to almost anything (including the effects) and have pretty high amount of control how that modulation works.. but yeah, you are right. Kontakt is not a good comparison (though it wouldn't be far off if they added a VA synth osc, a wavetable osc and some other goodies).
The start of the sound source is much less important to me. The way I can treat it afterwards is what makes synthesis interesting for me. It's the way I create stuff. So yeah, this is all down to personal preference and purely subjective.
Anyhow, so to make it clear: From MY perspective, Falcon is actually severely limited in a multitude of ways.. It seems that to get things working the way I need it to, I have to go through a setup that feels like a work around to me.
) but it doesn't end there. All of the oscillators sound pretty damn good too and I've had no problems creating really snappy envelopes either. LFO at 20kHz sounds good (why can't we go higher? If it sounds this good at 20kHz then a bit higher would bring us into the pseudo ring mod territory for some interesting additional effects).