Roli: Equator 2 is here !

[himalaya]

The only reason to buy Equator, IMO, is because you have a Roli controller and they do a fantastic job making sure the synth engines are designed to take advantage of their type of MPE, and the presets all display it,

Equator2 actually goes all guns blazing towards the non-MPE side too. Equator2 is a very different beast to Equator 1 both in terms of the features and the sound palette.

[WasteLand]

How is Biotek 2? I seemed to remember listening to a demo and thinking it sort of sounded like a ROMpler with a lot of nature sounds, but I never really explored it much. Is it worth trying?

it isn't a ROMpler, on the contrary.
a full fledged sounddesign bottomless pit... modulations possibilities, overwhelming, but still very easy to control and to assign. as mentioned, full MPE.

can have 12 layers, with 4 oscillators each, 4 oscillator slots for: sample, sine, saw, triangle, pulse, spinal saw, white noise, pink noise and granular (MPE controllable, quite good granular osc), filters/drive/amp, effects, arp. etc. 4 lfo's (with slots..), 4 envelops (/MSEG).
o yes the 4 oscillators have 11 FM algorithms.. and more, stuff..

o well. worth trying.

[Echoes in the Attic]

i like equator (1) with all it's quircks, but i can get complex sounds out of it, i make presets from scratch, the visual feedback is great, for the curves, and yes! curves! pretty handy...

Me, too. It also has the benefit of sounding really, really good. I'd kind of forgotten about it a bit in recent times so this is just what I need to get back to it. I'll let you know how I think v2 compares in a day or so.

Being the filter critic that you are, I'm surprised you're ok with the equator filters. Up towards max resonance they turn into hot digital garbage. But hey at least they don't loose volume with resonance.

Note: This is in reference to V1, but I was told they didn't change the filters in V2. Surprising given the ground up re-write that they kept all the same filter models?

I think the filters are fine, though I’ve not really kicked the tires in v2 quite yet. I’m not looking for a high quality analog modeled filter in a plugin like Equator. I’ll go to Strobe or Obsession for such things.

Yeah I don't mean to sound too harsh, I still like Equator and did purchase the upgrade. The filters do the job for the most part, you just don't wan to go to max resonance for some of them.

[jancivil]

I've done one project using Equator and the 24-key controller by ROLI, whatever it's called, extensively. This part was all about pitch bend, and lacking the controller it simply doesn't happen. The most recent project I used a couple of the patches but it wasn't about pitch bend or a lot of MPE, and I could have drawn all the CC74 aspect that I used in this part in Cubase Key Editor [in MPE mode].

I wouldn't buy Equator 2 with no continuous pressure control physically, however (on top of the emphasis on extremely fine pitch control etc). I think it's a fair price, only I've bought a lot lately and I'm just tightfisted with $ so it would have to be something I really use. It's very tempting, and it's going to 149 in a minute.

[BONES]

The only reason to buy Equator, IMO, is because you have a Roli controller and they do a fantastic job making sure the synth engines are designed to take advantage of their type of MPE, and the presets all display it, even if sometimes it takes a bit of time to “learn” how to play a patch. It’s not like you’re sitting down with a vintage analog synth emulation with a standard MIDI controller that’s got all the features needed to fully control the plugin. I mean, most vintage synths didn’t even have aftertouch or velocity. So having all those “hooks” for all those data streams, and having the ability to sculpt those hooks to your playing style, really makes them worth the cost of admission.

Can't agree. I pretty much never use Equator with MPE, it's just a fantastic sounding synth that's really easy to work with. I'd probably take it over DUNE or Serum or anything in that $150-$250 price range. The 5D stuff is a lot of fun to actually play but I use Equator in songs where the sequencer is doing all the work so I can automate anything I need to (except I never need to). I buy hardware synths to play, I buy softsynths to sequence.

[macmuse]

When does the price increase go into effect?

[LoveEnigma18]

After 3rd December I think.

[ChamomileShark]

Yes, it's 3rd December.

[Ou_Tis]

Roli announced a new version of Lumi today (with per-key pitch bend). They're offering a $50 voucher for Roli products if you preorder (product expected to ship in late January 2021). Is the voucher available as soon as you preorder? Or only after it ships?

The Seaboard Block is the first instrument (not counting voice---or tapping out rhythms) I really spent a large amount of time practicing. Not sure trying to learn standard keyboard (beyond the basics) as an adult is worth it---and Lumi's keys are smaller than a standard keyboard iirc, so motor skills wouldn't necessarily carry over well to most other keyboards (with possible exception of other smaller-key keyboards, like Akai, if they're about the same size). OTOH I guess most virtual instruments are designed to be played with keyboards.

Being able to get the Equator 2 upgrade for $50 with the voucher would be tempting though.

[Ploki]

i was so hoping for a transparent backlit Seaboard.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Good thing they have a 30 return policy. They released lumi studio edition with key pitch bend right after I order a lumi, and are offering a 50$ voucher with it as well that I could use towards equator, which I jut bought? Yeah they're both getting returned then!

[Echoes in the Attic]

I do not understand sampler or granular oscs that don't have a visual playhead. That's one of those things that everybody knows is just what you do.

[Ou_Tis]

i was so hoping for a transparent backlit Seaboard.

I hope they announce a similar (or better) deal on Seaboard Blocks for Black Friday... and a new batch of them, since they've been sold out for so long. But because they've been sold out I guess a good deal is unlikely.

I am a little concerned that they may eventually go out of business / new Seaboard Blocks may stop being produced. The rubber on my first Seaboard Block is already loose on the areas I've played the most / most intensely and it's negatively impacting playability, particularly Slide (the loose rubber bunches up). I don't want to put 10,000+ hours of my adult life into practicing an instrument that gets discontinued (with functioning used instruments becoming increasingly rare / expensive). Though I'd suppose some company will probably keep producing them for a while so long as there's enough demand to be profitable.

But back on topic... do the multisampled instruments include round robins as an option? If so, is it easy to turn them off/on? I imagine sometimes I'd want to turn them off for more control over the sound, but other times I'd want the added "realism" or variety. Or map different samples of the same note to different absolute slide positions to get full control over the round robins?

[jancivil]

They've been out of those since at least June. I was somewhat surprised to see this, I was anticipating them going out of business.

[Watchful]

So far I've had some issues with playback. Some sounds work, and they're glorious. Quite a few are not playing at all (MPE via Seaboard Rise), or are "skipping." I'm also getting issues with popping noises when changing sounds. I'm planning to recalibrate the Seaboard (haven't played it in a while, and I think it needs a good cleaning).

Can't confirm what's going on with the erratic behavior (it's consistently the same patches, though), but haven't ruled out something I'm doing. Over time, I'll mess with it further.