Steinberg Backbone - Drum Re-synthesizer

[AcrossTheSky]

thinking about it...

it would be cool/great/useful/nice/fantastic ... to load an instance of backbone into the 16 groove agent's pads..x 8 banks...so 128 pads in total - yes - a pad would have your only 8 layers ..

...i'm reading the manual and trying to find out how the 8 layers can be direct routed into cubase ( a one click button would be nice to do just that...(in backbone),,
,anyway..
in the future backbone should be part of GA for sure....I believe..

[mike@manike]

I'd really like to buy this - though a lot of the features are in GA5 and it'd be really annoying if it was part of the absolute bundle which I upgrade to whenever they release a new one.

The decomposer feature in GA5 can take a few seconds to separate the components so they may have refined it a little in this.

[ilmai]

Sounds interesting, but no demo for a 149€ product? Pass.

[telecode]

huh.. steinberg openin' up a 'ole can of whoop ass.

[SLiC]

Sounds interesting, but no demo for a 149€ product? Pass.

Demo will probably come later...

[ilmai]

Demo will probably come later...

I wouldn't hold my breath maybe, Padshop 2 doesn't have a demo either and it's a much older product.

[deastman]

Edit:
Actually, forget what I wrote! After watching a few more demos, I don’t think there really is anything else like this. (Can’t speak for other Steinberg produces, as I don’t have them.)

I’m still not sure if it’s worth the asking price, but the ability to decompose samples into their tonal and noise components, along with everything else, is pretty powerful.

[breakmixer]

thinking about it...

it would be cool/great/useful/nice/fantastic ... to load an instance of backbone into the 16 groove agent's pads..x 8 banks...so 128 pads in total - yes - a pad would have your only 8 layers ..

...i'm reading the manual and trying to find out how the 8 layers can be direct routed into cubase ( a one click button would be nice to do just that...(in backbone),,
,anyway..
in the future backbone should be part of GA for sure....I believe..

I've thought about a product like this being needed. Where each pad can be selected to enter a dedicated new screen where you load/layer samples. Make tweaks, add Fx etc then exit back to the main pads page with the Akai 4x4 or 2 x 8 selectable layouts.
I'm no programmer or f**k all. But if I was I'd make this in VST.

[Smapti]

I picked this up yesterday and imo it's definitely worth the asking price. The thing that really makes it great is the ability to resample back into Backbone itself (with just a drag-and-drop!). In addition to the resynthesis engine, the ability to readjust tonal and noise components of each sample, and the many other sound design options, it's so cool to be able to do all of that stuff and then print it and start the process over again. You can even print the result of effects (delay, ring mod, frequency shift, etc).

Just one example: take a single sample and split it into two pieces (the tonal and noise parts). Mangle them to your liking and add a delay. Print the result of that chain to a new sample slot and resynthesize it; now you're resynthesizing a sample with a delay tail built into it. The resynthesis engine has all kinds of wild stuff built into it, eg formant shifting, spectral-domain EQ (!!), and independent time & pitch control (with a pitch envelope). There's even a time deceleration/acceleration feature. The sound design possibilities are pretty much limitless, especially since the workflow is very clean and efficient.

[functionform]

Falcon has a form of this already. Someone should make a comparison when they can.

[SLiC]

Just one example: take a single sample and split it into two pieces (the tonal and noise parts). Mangle them to your liking and add a delay. Print the result of that chain to a new sample slot and resynthesize it; now you're resynthesizing a sample with a delay tail built into it.

Sounds a bit like Physion?

https://www.eventideaudio.com/products/ ... ct/physion

[Echoes in the Attic]

How's the cpu? Low enough that you could liberally use them on their own Maschine pads for example? The idea is for all those layers to be a single hit right? Not like a drum kit?

Can it record in from a side chain? That would be cool to capture other instruments like Halion.

[Smapti]

Yes, they're meant to be used as individual hits. Backbone doesn't support multi-out audio. The CPU usage is low enough that running multiple instances isn't a big deal, but I should caveat that I have a newer computer so it may be different on old computers. The fact that you can resample back into Backbone helps to reduce the CPU; or if you're really concerned about the CPU hit you can just drag & drop sounds directly out of Backbone to your daw and then use whatever sample player you want.

As for Falcon vs Backbone -- I have both of them and I have thought about that too. There are a handful of things in Backbone that aren't in Falcon (some of the resynthesis stuff and the pitch detection) but in general, anything that Backbone can do, Falcon can also do (and obviously Falcon can do a lot more too). Having said that -- I don't at all regret getting Backbone and I will use it instead of Falcon for this particular kind of drum sound design. It has two benefits over Falcon in this particular area: (1) a much faster workflow, especially the drag-and-drop resampling; and (2) lower CPU usage (to get similar results in Falcon you'd need to use IRCAM Scrub, IRCAM Stretch, or IRCAM Granular, all of which are pretty tough on the CPU). That's not a knock on Falcon; it's a great instrument and I use it all the time, but it has way more capabilities so its workflow is naturally more complex.

(I haven't used Physion so I can't speak to it, but based on the screenshot it looks like the tonal/noise splitting part of Backbone is similar.)

[zvenx]

Yes they are single hits..
Not sure if it can record from a sidechain.
Haven't tried that.
rsp

[Smapti]

I'm pretty sure you can't record into Backbone in real time from an external source. It needs samples as a starting point. I don't see this being a flaw, though, since (at least in Ableton) you can just drag an audio clip into Backbone.