Luxonix Purity reduced to $49.00!

[HaganeSteel]

My experience has been that. Though I too dream of the one huge library that fits all I'm reaching for single well modelled instruments over rompler libraries

This is the thing. I don't need a huge library to do this. I just need a library where, if I go to a certain sound, I don't find my music playing out of sync because of imperfect attack transients.

Windows GM/GS is still my favorite software soundset for this reason.

It's not even that Windows GM/GS is perfect because it isn't. It's got problems, but not with the most important sounds to me.

A lot of people only listen to sample quality, rather than mix quality, and that's where Windows GM/GS shines. The Hyper Canvas is also overlooked because its instruments are largely weak, but it's secretly strong because those instruments mix together very, very well.

Purity is kind of like this too, and you've sort of mentioned this before, tapper mike, about how Purity's strength is in layering, and I agree.

Oh! But wait!

Tonight, I've been rediscovering GPO!

I never liked the sound of GPO, but I'm inclined to give it another try because its attack transients are immaculate.

GPO already sounds like my Roland anyway. I bet I could make it sound like a MIDI synth.

GPO + Dimension would work, but I would risk losing my MIDI sound. Oh well.

Number 2 and 4 sound terrible to me, number 3 inconsistent (the A# sounds pretty good), I guess I would take number 1 if I had to take any of those four...

Thanks. The one you chose is the Violins patch I was talking about above.

When you said 3 (the Emu patch) was inconsistent, you sort of confirmed my fears too.

They're minor issues, but...

[tapper mike]

Okay!

Here's what I did! Maybe you guys can help me with this and decide if this is a problem or not.

I recorded this little test:

https://soundcloud.com/dimensionprotest ... dirol-test

Sorry I didn't mean to ignore this post. I was posting while you were then hit reply later.


I agree and ....Different Violin, though properly edited and processed.
Violins are like guitars in that each one will sound uniquely different. Player strings, bowing motion, mic'ing will all effect the final outcome.

Here is a funny story completely unrelated to soundware. I used to work for this very small chain (four stores) restaraunt that was part of a mega conglomerate. The parent company had it's hands in so many different fields it's hard to think straight. We used Tide to mop the floors. It was crap on quarry tile. One day we switched brands to something that was both cheaper and more effective. Hell rained down on us from above. Some VP (and we had hundreds of VP's) had made the decision that Tide had to be used everywhere by everyone forever. You may be familiar with the saying "You make your decisions then your decisions make you"
Well our little store didn't have the right to choose which detergent to mop our own stores floor with. Politics.

Politics may be why Roland developers had to use that particular violin sample over the multitudes of different violins and samples the world has to offer.

Homogenization may be the other. All brands have vested interest in brand identity. Yamaha's sound like yamaha's. Rolands sound like Rolands and Korgs sound like Korgs. Granted the quality within that frame work increases as the price increases. But no one wants'a roland that doesn't sound like a roland.

.....more.....

[tapper mike]

I hope GPO works for you better then it did for me.

[HaganeSteel]

Sorry I didn't mean to ignore this post. I was posting while you were then hit reply later.


I agree and ....Different Violin, though properly edited and processed.
Violins are like guitars in that each one will sound uniquely different. Player strings, bowing motion, mic'ing will all effect the final outcome.

No problem.

I have to disagree, though. I still hear it in the first 3, less so in the second, but it's clearly a very small problem, and for the most part, people should take what I say about it with a grain of salt.

I tend to use strings to help establish the rhythm in songs that don't use a lot of percussion.

Here is a funny story completely unrelated to soundware. I used to work for this very small chain (four stores) restaraunt that was part of a mega conglomerate. The parent company had it's hands in so many different fields it's hard to think straight. We used Tide to mop the floors. It was crap on quarry tile. One day we switched brands to something that was both cheaper and more effective. Hell rained down on us from above. Some VP (and we had hundreds of VP's) had made the decision that Tide had to be used everywhere by everyone forever. You may be familiar with the saying "You make your decisions then your decisions make you"
Well our little store didn't have the right to choose which detergent to mop our own stores floor with. Politics.

Politics may be why Roland developers had to use that particular violin sample over the multitudes of different violins and samples the world has to offer.

Homogenization may be the other. All brands have vested interest in brand identity. Yamaha's sound like yamaha's. Rolands sound like Rolands and Korgs sound like Korgs. Granted the quality within that frame work increases as the price increases. But no one wants'a roland that doesn't sound like a roland.

.....more.....

You are 100% right.

Basically, here's how the Hyper Canvas strings were made.

-Go to what I suspect is the Miroslav library and take some stereo violin and cello section samples, and map them according to the keyboard.

-Merge both stereo channels to make the sound mono.

-Remove about 1/3 of the multi-samples.

-Make the sample offset something crazy like 10,000.

-Set the attack and release envelopes a smidge upwards.

-EQ it, compress it accordingly.

-Add a tiny amount of lowpass filter and resonance.

Roland seems to be bedfellows with Miroslav.

And I believe the guys behind the SC88 Pro and Hyper Canvas, the Sound Canvases with that really terrible string patch (that's example #4 in the demo I gave you), thought that sound was brilliant because it mixed well, had less noticeable loop points, and came from the Miroslav library, as opposed to the other string sample that I don't believe did.

It could certainly be politics, and it can also be a matter of suggestion and opinion. "Oh, this is from the Miroslav library, so it must be better than the previous string sound we had!" - Even though it really isn't. That sort of thing.

It's also a matter of... okay: The string sound I like is actually the stock string sound on the Roland JV/XP/XV's.

They had this really awful loop point, though, in about the C4 range. It's unusable to me.

The funny thing is: This string sound is the same one used in the original SC88 and the newer SD-50, but on these synths, the sample is shorter, and so the loop point doesn't have the annoying bowing sound like in the bigger synths, and the sound is actually better for it.

Just things like that. Generally flawed decision making, or decisions that just can't please everyone.

[HaganeSteel]

I hope GPO works for you better then it did for me.

It won't.

The thing is a mess, honestly.

I'm just going to keep banging my head into a wall until I find a Roland I can use.

[HaganeSteel]

Oh my lord.

I have to bump this thread because I have to correct myself and I feel bad now (Sorry, Sky Cha!)

Okay so, I was having problems with certain sounds in Purity being delayed.

This seems to be a bug!

A few days ago, I whipped out Purity and noticed this behavior happening to a piano patch.

I thought that couldn't be right, so I did some testing.

Sure enough, it wasn't - today, after numerous testing, I've discovered the piano patch to be fine.

No idea what causes this bug, but I do know it does seem to be avoidable. I have a theory that this is related to the other bug that occurs with the drums on MIDI channel 1, but I'm not sure.

There's another theory that this bug is related to the "Setup" page like the other bugs, and there's a way to set it up to avoid this.

These are just ideas. I don't really know.

I want to troubleshoot this and see what the heck is going on here.

Either way, it's a small issue, and I have Purity back now.

[tapper mike]

That has to feel good.

If only I could have Proteus back. The standalone works fine but the plugin doesn't respect the admin and refuses to load the files. While VX won't run stream from disk combinations it will load individual mso files just fine along with many others.

The proteus/emulator virtual environment works in ways that other environments don't. Most days I wish a DAW or plugin developer would buy emu's environment from Creative and rebuild it for compatibility with current operating systems.

[BBFG#]

I hope GPO works for you better then it did for me.

It won't.
The thing is a mess, honestly.
I'm just going to keep banging my head into a wall until I find a Roland I can use.

I submitted to the last Garritan sale (50%) and got JABB. So far, every complaint I hear about GPO relates equally to JABB. Plus the damn thing won't authorize properly and I still haven't received a reply from support about it.
I still like the other three libraries I have from them (although the Harps has its own quirks that have reasonable work-arounds) GIO is a quick and easy layering tool with MSO adding a good amount of body. I am finding I'm using synth modeled and sampletank ethnic instruments more than the GWI now, but again, it adds a nice layering in body to those too.
I think I was hoping JABB would be more like GIO and have preprogrammed full sections rather than groups of individual instruments all in mono on separate channels. Perhaps it does, and I haven't found them yet. But at this point, it's a little bit of a chore to use.

[BBFG#]

If only I could have Proteus back. The standalone works fine but the plugin doesn't respect the admin and refuses to load the files. While VX won't run stream from disk combinations it will load individual mso files just fine along with many others.
The proteus/emulator virtual environment works in ways that other environments don't. Most days I wish a DAW or plugin developer would buy emu's environment from Creative and rebuild it for compatibility with current operating systems.

+1!
I still hold on to my Proteus X2 with my two favorite Proteus libraries and one Emulator set. Even though they don't work on my system now, I keep holding onto the memory on how well they did work when they did.

[HaganeSteel]

That has to feel good.

If only I could have Proteus back. The standalone works fine but the plugin doesn't respect the admin and refuses to load the files. While VX won't run stream from disk combinations it will load individual mso files just fine along with many others.

The proteus/emulator virtual environment works in ways that other environments don't. Most days I wish a DAW or plugin developer would buy emu's environment from Creative and rebuild it for compatibility with current operating systems.

I wish for that too.

DSF is great, but if I had a true Proteus - one that worked - I'd be so happy.

I think the problem is with MIDI channel 1 in Purity. I've noticed other strange behavior, not just with the drums, but look:



I placed a violin patch on MIDI channel 1 and hard panned it right, and then placed the same violin patch on MIDI channel 2 and hard panned it left. I had them both playing the same melody as before in the Soundcloud demo I posted.

When the DAW tells Purity to "stop" playing the music, MIDI channel 1 has a fit and cuts out prematurely.

I'm fairly sure if MIDI channel 1 is avoided altogether, Purity will have no issues.

[HaganeSteel]

I hope GPO works for you better then it did for me.

It won't.
The thing is a mess, honestly.
I'm just going to keep banging my head into a wall until I find a Roland I can use.

I submitted to the last Garritan sale (50%) and got JABB. So far, every complaint I hear about GPO relates equally to JABB. Plus the damn thing won't authorize properly and I still haven't received a reply from support about it.
I still like the other three libraries I have from them (although the Harps has its own quirks that have reasonable work-arounds) GIO is a quick and easy layering tool with MSO adding a good amount of body. I am finding I'm using synth modeled and sampletank ethnic instruments more than the GWI now, but again, it adds a nice layering in body to those too.
I think I was hoping JABB would be more like GIO and have preprogrammed full sections rather than groups of individual instruments all in mono on separate channels. Perhaps it does, and I haven't found them yet. But at this point, it's a little bit of a chore to use.

I agree.

I don't think JABB has any ensembles. GPO's whole "thing" when 2e came out (which was just before JABB came out, IIRC) was that you could "make your own ensembles", but it's such a tedious pain in the butt to do so, especially with that 8-part Kontakt player I have to use with GPO 2e. Argh.

[HaganeSteel]

So I tried to troubleshoot this problem, but haven't found a reasonable answer yet.

What I do know is that some of the attacks on these sounds are a bit delayed, but it's a fairly minor issue. I suspect most people wouldn't really notice it.

And I think it might be compounded by a bug, possibly on MIDI channel 1, that is causing similar behavior and making it appear worse to me.

Sorry for bumping this again. I just wanted to put the issue to rest. I don't want to hurt Luxonix or any potential consumers with my words.

Luxonix is a really good company that deserves a lot of support. I don't have their newer stuff yet because I don't own Kontakt, but Toys in Wonderland sounded wonderful, and it sounds like their overall knowledge and skill of sampling has increased drastically since Ravity/Purity, and I mean that.

And issues like lazy attack transients appear in most synths I've tested.