Sonic Reality

Squids · Post by **Squids** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 7:44 pm

telebunke wrote:Actually, for an ST2 user. Would there be a reason to use the SS2 interface at all? I received ST2 and SS2 yesterday and didn't even bother to open the SS2 interface. I assume it has nothing you wouldn't have in the ST2 interface as well?

tele

Well, besides that it looks nice, there are some benefits too. You can have each one browse to a DIFFERENT area of your hard drive(s) is one. The other is that the more sounds you have browsed to by one ST2 the longer it takes to load (not a big deal but...). There may be a few other benefits etc. Eventually though there may be some extras in SS2 that are more proprietary (let's say maybe for the Combi patches so the main parents stay compatible but the combis become an SS2-only thing... prelim talk here though because for now it is all compatible).

Prefab doubt · Post by **Prefab doubt** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 9:28 am

Hi, dunno much about ss2 developments in progress, but after trying the demo the first thing I can say is:
is that "database alike" presets' browsing style a programmer's joke?
come on guys... do you really play your instruments or do you just look at the screen with the mouse constantly in the hand?

Make musician's life easier. Make us love (y)our instruments.

pheeleep · Post by **pheeleep** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 9:43 am

How would you prefer the presets to load?

I think it's a great system, having each category of sounds, with sub-categories...

Granted, there is no mouse wheel support. That is a bummer, but aside from that I am very content. Being able to use the up and down arrows on the keyboard to scroll through the presets would be nice as well, but I really don't see how one could access all those GB of sounds without such a browser.

Mallory · Post by **Mallory** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 9:53 am

Don't forget you can map 3 midi note numbers (of your choosing) to the browse-next/prev/load functions thus making it possible to browse all patches in SS2 without your hands leaving your keyboard

Prefab doubt · Post by **Prefab doubt** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 12:57 pm

Well, not useful if you have 2/3 octaves midi keyboard. Anyway the preset browsing seems to be an overlooked feature for many important brands.
I agree that's not an easy task, especially with huge libraries.
I feel we're still in a "transitional" point between the classic hardware instruments and the future interfaces. And it's not funny or enjoyable, in my opinion.

telebunke · Post by **telebunke** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:31 pm

On some (many?) controller keyboards you can programm a key of your choice to send a MIDI message of you choice, so that could be used on small keyboards.

tele

Mallory · Post by **Mallory** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 3:21 pm

tele is right. On my MIDI controller I can program some of the buttons to send all sorts of MIDI messages - including NOTE ON's. In fact this is what I did and I chose to send C9,C#9 and D9 - given there's little chance I would use those notes for musical purposes

But I also agree that remote browsing and patch selection should ideally be improved on all products by all companies - including all those Kompakt based instruments for example

Of course, Sampletank 2 is actually somewhat better in this area (than SS2) as it will let you define relationships between the program changes numbers and the patches you have loaded in the current combi. Well at least I think it will - actually it doesn't seem to be working as I expect right now?

chisel · Post by **chisel** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 5:48 am

I really wish there was a global set of MIDI controller mappings instead of having to map every preset separate. I might be nice for performance, but in the studio, I don't even use my controllers because it's too tedius to map them for every preset I load. But most of all, I'd really like to have a way to tweak ALL of the presets loaded into the parts at one time. Meaning, I'd like to be able to load synth wave elements into the different parts and then adjust the filter on ALL parts simultaneously -- just like a real synth. I wouldn't expect this feature of any simple rompler, but SS2 has so many amazing synth elements that it deserves to have an interface that works more like a synth. Okay, enough ranting.. back to making music

telebunke · Post by **telebunke** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 8:01 am

Are you sure that there is no possibility to have "global" controller assignments for all patches? I'd doubt that that ST2 is missing that possibilty.

tele

telebunke · Post by **telebunke** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 8:58 am

telebunke wrote:Are you sure that there is no possibility to have "global" controller assignments for all patches? I'd doubt that that ST2 is missing that possibilty.

tele

Can someone confirm my assuption? That wouldbe nice.

tele

Kim Lajoie · Post by **Kim Lajoie** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:00 am

There's no custom global MIDI controller assignment. The global MIDI CCs are for volume, pan, and the four macros. All other custom assignments can be saved with a child preset.

Sorry about the wait.

-Kim.

telebunke · Post by **telebunke** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:31 pm

Kim (esoundz) wrote:There's no custom global MIDI controller assignment. The global MIDI CCs are for volume, pan, and the four macros. All other custom assignments can be saved with a child preset.
Sorry about the wait.
-Kim.

I understand that there is no custom MIDI controller assignment, but the 6 that you mentioned and that's fine with me.

But custom assignments to be saved with a child preset? I can't load a new sound without loosing my controller assignments? In this case we'd need a global controller setup save function and a lock/unlock function for the global CC assignments, so that one could override them for a single patch, if wanted...

tele

blades · Post by **blades** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 3:37 pm

Maybe someone could help clarify this for me...

I usally see that there are macro knobs that correspond to SampleTank2 things, but I don't think I've ever even seen the macro knowbs in ss2 even become "un-grey". Am I just missing the patches that have macros programmed? or are they screwed up in my install? or are there just no uses of the macros at present?

Squids · Post by **Squids** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 4:27 pm

blades wrote:Maybe someone could help clarify this for me...

I usally see that there are macro knobs that correspond to SampleTank2 things, but I don't think I've ever even seen the macro knowbs in ss2 even become "un-grey". Am I just missing the patches that have macros programmed? or are they screwed up in my install? or are there just no uses of the macros at present?

Originally macros came from the ST1 engine and were used for the ONLY synth editing. Now you have 50 synth edit parameters so Macros are either for convenience if they were programmed that way or they are for proprietary things which takes more time to do on our side programming but can be interesting. For instance, in Miroslav Philharmonik we have the macros controlling other features such as real-time level expression (smooth curve), Aftertouch to filter/amp amount, various pitch control or real-time scaling, velocity to attack amount and velocity to sample start amount (4 of those anyway depending on the sound). This was something that took a while to figure out so it is just right. We'll probably add some of these more proprietary macros to SS2 in a future update.

To answer your question, the macros are programmed into the sound. If they are greyed out then there were no macros assigned to the sound. But, you have 50 other parameters to tweak plus the effects. The important thing to know is that it is not a problem with the install or anything like that.

As to the global CC assignement thing, you can also do it in the combi. It would be good if it could have a "retain CC assignments when switching sounds" feature. Perhaps it will in the future.

blades · Post by **blades** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:27 pm

Hey. Thanks for the reply and sorry for the pseudo-hijack!

So, just for the final level of qualification...

Do any of the presets in SS2 have those knobs available? - I know that there are plenty of other things to control and I honestly don't really CARE if the macros are there - it was just a curiosity if any of the sounds had any of that sort of thing programmed into them - kinda like a cello or two in ST2 has the mod wheel mysteriously linked to the expression or whatever.

Again, not an issue, just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything

Sonic Reality

KVR Audio

Enhancement suggestion for SS2