XILS, a reflection on their "analog" sound

[Lotuzia]

It seems to me that their synth sound has lots of imperfections which makes it great to me... gives it that unique character so each note will never quite be the same. I am enjoying this. I could be wrong and this could just be the sound patch programmer, but this is what seems to strike me right off the bat with every preset, the same note never sounds exactly the same regardless of my velocity.

There is a unique warm, musical feeling and instability... makes loops more interesting, melodies more melodious and my brain less fatigued.

I like it... I just never thought I would find a worthy Zebra competitor... but alas... they also work in harmony together very well.

Is this essentially what OSC Drift does?

Cheers XILS, I have been ignoring you... Nice to meet you.

Welcome Vata44.

Well, vast subject. Depending on the synths, there are various parameters modelling analog behaviour. Some have only one target, like OSC drift, while other, like Oxium "Vintage" Knob, adress a whole serie of parameters and variables. Then, the oscillators themselves are modelled, as the 0df filters etc. All in all, when you had all this, you get *this* organic Xils sound. Then, by programming things a bit further, you can add a lot of life, motion, singing, etc with the polyphonic freerunning LFOs for example, or depending of the units, multiple different and unique sophisticated blocks that add to the sound. I could speak about all that for ages, but well, just thank you for for your nice words.

[Lotuzia]

I really liked the PolyKB but I just can't get my head around the modulation in the GUI. I'm used to grokking GUIs very quickly, even something unusual like Cyclop only took me half an hour to suss everything out, but this just has me running into a brick wall. It's not that I can't do stuff with it, but more that it just feels very unintuitive and it takes me too long to get anywhere.

But yes, the Xils stuff has a very good sound overall. Their oscillators can be a bit samey from product to product, but they sound good.

I never tried it, but I just had a look at the user interface, it does look a bit "unorthodox" to put it mildly
But since it is an emulation, Xils is probably not to blame for that.

The user interface looks good, but a bit dark, and those 3D knobs seem to hide the upper part of the scales, while their shadows seem to hide the labels below the knobs.

The area in the upper left corner looks like an empty cpu socket Is that any indication of how much cpu that synth consumes?

yes, the emulation side of the GUI was a bit challenging when we added all the features of the version II. Places for modulations are everywhere, some are harwired, some semi hardwired, and the others are completely free.

Opening the trap, ( Or the CPU slot ) you can find two additional modules of very powerful modulation, the dynamix and the PolyMix. Each of these modules is a small world in itself. Dynamix tsets the stereo place of each note, with dynamic real time possible movement ( think evermoving pads, or larger than life keys ), while the Polymix is a kind of Vector modulator, where each "voice" can be modulated according to the 4 parameter targets located at each corner of the XY pad.

You can also see the Arpegiattor extended parameter, or the PolySequencer lines under the trap.

Poly KB GUI is my all time favorite for all VSTIs, each time I look at it, I think its a pure beauty, but beauty is really a personal parameter, so I can understand some people beeing less into that kind of GUIs. I should also probably make some more video tutorials for it. Its really a powerfull synthesizer, once you get into it.

LtZ

[electro]

I don't know about Xils "analog" sound but those VP-330 contest examples were so close I couldn't pass the A/B test.

When it starts getting difficult to distinguish between analog and virtual synths, you know the virtual synth is adequate, even though it may not be perfect.

[fluffy_little_something]

I really liked the PolyKB but I just can't get my head around the modulation in the GUI. I'm used to grokking GUIs very quickly, even something unusual like Cyclop only took me half an hour to suss everything out, but this just has me running into a brick wall. It's not that I can't do stuff with it, but more that it just feels very unintuitive and it takes me too long to get anywhere.

But yes, the Xils stuff has a very good sound overall. Their oscillators can be a bit samey from product to product, but they sound good.

I never tried it, but I just had a look at the user interface, it does look a bit "unorthodox" to put it mildly
But since it is an emulation, Xils is probably not to blame for that.

The user interface looks good, but a bit dark, and those 3D knobs seem to hide the upper part of the scales, while their shadows seem to hide the labels below the knobs.

The area in the upper left corner looks like an empty cpu socket Is that any indication of how much cpu that synth consumes?

yes, the emulation side of the GUI was a bit challenging when we added all the features of the version II. Places for modulations are everywhere, some are harwired, some semi hardwired, and the others are completely free.

Opening the trap, ( Or the CPU slot ) you can find two additional modules of very powerful modulation, the dynamix and the PolyMix. Each of these modules is a small world in itself. Dynamix tsets the stereo place of each note, with dynamic real time possible movement ( think evermoving pads, or larger than life keys ), while the Polymix is a kind of Vector modulator, where each "voice" can be modulated according to the 4 parameter targets located at each corner of the XY pad.

You can also see the Arpegiattor extended parameter, or the PolySequencer lines under the trap.

Poly KB GUI is my all time favorite for all VSTIs, each time I look at it, I think its a pure beauty, but beauty is really a personal parameter, so I can understand some people beeing less into that kind of GUIs. I should also probably make some more video tutorials for it. Its really a powerfull synthesizer, once you get into it.

LtZ

Yes, it does look beautiful, very solid, like the Bentley of synths

But I wonder if it is not too much for many people, just like Zebra etc. Even those who buy it probably use only few of all those features available. It takes just too much time to program patches on such a synth, a lot of people are not patient enough, except maybe professional sound designers or musicians that focus on synths as the pillar of their music.

[electro]

I really liked the PolyKB but I just can't get my head around the modulation in the GUI. I'm used to grokking GUIs very quickly, even something unusual like Cyclop only took me half an hour to suss everything out, but this just has me running into a brick wall. It's not that I can't do stuff with it, but more that it just feels very unintuitive and it takes me too long to get anywhere.

But yes, the Xils stuff has a very good sound overall. Their oscillators can be a bit samey from product to product, but they sound good.

I never tried it, but I just had a look at the user interface, it does look a bit "unorthodox" to put it mildly
But since it is an emulation, Xils is probably not to blame for that.

The user interface looks good, but a bit dark, and those 3D knobs seem to hide the upper part of the scales, while their shadows seem to hide the labels below the knobs.

The area in the upper left corner looks like an empty cpu socket Is that any indication of how much cpu that synth consumes?

yes, the emulation side of the GUI was a bit challenging when we added all the features of the version II. Places for modulations are everywhere, some are harwired, some semi hardwired, and the others are completely free.

Opening the trap, ( Or the CPU slot ) you can find two additional modules of very powerful modulation, the dynamix and the PolyMix. Each of these modules is a small world in itself. Dynamix tsets the stereo place of each note, with dynamic real time possible movement ( think evermoving pads, or larger than life keys ), while the Polymix is a kind of Vector modulator, where each "voice" can be modulated according to the 4 parameter targets located at each corner of the XY pad.

You can also see the Arpegiattor extended parameter, or the PolySequencer lines under the trap.

Poly KB GUI is my all time favorite for all VSTIs, each time I look at it, I think its a pure beauty, but beauty is really a personal parameter, so I can understand some people beeing less into that kind of GUIs. I should also probably make some more video tutorials for it. Its really a powerfull synthesizer, once you get into it.

LtZ

Yes, it does look beautiful, very solid, like the Bentley of synths

But I wonder if it is not too much for many people, just like Zebra etc. Even those who buy it probably use only few of all those features available. It takes just too much time to program patches on such a synth, a lot of people are not patient enough, except maybe professional sound designers or musicians that focus on synths as the pillar of their music.

I think you can use it in a limited emulation fashion if you choose. The d16 Phosycon is like this, you just have to ingore all but 6 knobs.