AAS Ultra Analog VA-2

[ATS]

OK, tried the demo. Many presets seem way too loud, and with too many effects on them. It does sound nice, but I did hear some noise occasionally. CPU usage is modest, though.

I can't read any of those control value readouts, just too small for my eyes. The markers on the knobs are not visible enough. The whole GUI is a bit smallish, I guess after half an hour my eyes would pop out.

No thanks...

What do you mean they seem too loud? They don't seem any different than any other synths presets.

[clif321]

Updated v.2.01 with facility to import and convert .axf banks exported from v.1 is now available for download on the AAS site.

[fluffy_little_something]

OK, tried the demo. Many presets seem way too loud, and with too many effects on them. It does sound nice, but I did hear some noise occasionally. CPU usage is modest, though.

I can't read any of those control value readouts, just too small for my eyes. The markers on the knobs are not visible enough. The whole GUI is a bit smallish, I guess after half an hour my eyes would pop out.

No thanks...

What do you mean they seem too loud? They don't seem any different than any other synths presets.

Sorry, I did not get any notification earlier, that KVR feature doesn't seem to work properly. Hence my belated reply.

Anyway, many of those factory presets hit right to the top of my DAW's level meter. Since I never really change the default settings in the mixer and other synths are not that loud, it obviously has to do with AAS UA VA 2 (hehe).

Anyway, kicked the demo off of my computer pretty fast...

[Gosh]

Updated v.2.01 with facility to import and convert .axf banks exported from v.1 is now available for download on the AAS site.

fantastic, so this means that we can import our third-party ua-1 libraries now? may i ask where you found that information since on the aas website i couldn't find such an annoucement.
anyway, thanks a lot for the heads-up and cheers

[Sendy]

Still not sure what to make of this. I've quite enjoyed faffing around with the demo. I think I really like the filters. If the oscillators were more interesting (really, how many synths do most of us have with an oscillator feature set something like this?) I'd be tempted. As it is, it's a neat synth, but I'd prefer it if it had an option for single page layout, and some more interesting oscillator options such as alternate waveforms.

[Spitfire31]

… I'd prefer it if it had an option for single page layout, and some more interesting oscillator options such as alternate waveforms.

+ 1 for a wider selection of interesting oscillators!

/Joachim

[Bronto Scorpio]

It has always been a mystery to me why so many digital synths are restricted to the classic Saw/Pulse/Tri/Blah setup. There is absolutetly no reason for that imo.

A flexible oscillator section has always been way more important for me than the latest and greatest 0dfb hyper edition 3000 filter.
There are only so and so many variations of a filtered saw wave, no matter how good the filter sounds and how many modulation sources there are.

Cheers
Dennis

[Sendy]

Yeah, it's pretty funny that we now have cheap analog gear that can actually make more interesting oscillator shapes than the standard VA synth

Sure, analog circuits are 'limited', but that doesn't mean they can't be combined to create complexity, or that VA synths shouldn't have the option to switch to digital designs for the oscillator. At the very least give us a variable saw/triangle wave! C'mon!

[kelvyn]

Can we please have a larger GUI... VA-2 looks like a little toy on my screen...

[Davias]

… I'd prefer it if it had an option for single page layout, and some more interesting oscillator options such as alternate waveforms.

+ 1 for a wider selection of interesting oscillators!

/Joachim

+2

and since they are tabbed, why not 4 oscillators ? to make VA-2 a true revolution comparing to VA-1 ?

[ENV1]

At the very least give us a variable saw/triangle wave!

What i would like to see (i got that idea whilst playing around with the wavedrawer in Oatmeal) is an Oscillator that allows you to split the cycle into say 4 different parts (or 'windows' if you will) which can then be modulated independently from each other in various ways. Lots of unusual stuff would be possible that way since the cycle itself would now be a 4-fold dynamic element rather than just a static Saw or Square, etcetera.

Id call it the 'DynaOsc'.

[Gosh]

just a short note for those interested: the import of third-party soundbanks (.axf banks) works fine. now a bigger gui in the next update and everything would be perfect (at least for me).

[Sendy]

At the very least give us a variable saw/triangle wave!

What i would like to see (i got that idea whilst playing around with the wavedrawer in Oatmeal) is an Oscillator that allows you to split the cycle into say 4 different parts (or 'windows' if you will) which can then be modulated independently from each other in various ways. Lots of unusual stuff would be possible that way since the cycle itself would now be a 4-fold dynamic element rather than just a static Saw or Square, etcetera.

Id call it the 'DynaOsc'.

That would be cool. You can already do stuff like that in a good digital synth which allows phase-locking of oscillators, AM, and at least 4 oscillators (to give you two windows), but the idea of packing and parameterizing complex setups into pre-made oscillator algorythms is something I'd like to see more of in modern synths. (The Mutable Instruments Shruthi-1 is a good example of this)

Something else overlooked is pitched noise and fixed formant noise. The latter is available on the Nord Modular and basically produces a noisy wave which has a fixed spectrum which doesn't transpose with pitch. Changing the noise seed gives a wide variety of musically useful tones.

[clif321]

Updated v.2.01 with facility to import and convert .axf banks exported from v.1 is now available for download on the AAS site.

fantastic, so this means that we can import our third-party ua-1 libraries now? may i ask where you found that information since on the aas website i couldn't find such an annoucement.
anyway, thanks a lot for the heads-up and cheers

AAS announced it on their FB page. I don't know why not elsewhere yet. It seems to convert anything exported from v.1 as an .axf file, though the revised manual notes as follows:

"While the great majority of programs should be recuperated without noticeable differences, the conversion program is not infallible which means that some programs might need some readjustments after the conversion. This is due to the fact that the mapping of the parameters from Ultra Analog VA-1 to Ultra Analog VA-2 is not direct as a result of changes in the architecture, modules and the effect section between the two versions."

Also, the conversion doesn't preserve any subfolder organization within the v.1 preset bank. I suspect this facility is intended mostly to enable conversion of self-made v.1 presets, though it will certainly work on third party expansion banks. But it wouldn't surprise me to see the developers of some of those banks releasing updated versions with presets tweaked and organization restored for v.2, like AAS did with its own expansion banks.

[aMUSEd]

Updated v.2.01 with facility to import and convert .axf banks exported from v.1 is now available for download on the AAS site.

fantastic, so this means that we can import our third-party ua-1 libraries now? may i ask where you found that information since on the aas website i couldn't find such an annoucement.
anyway, thanks a lot for the heads-up and cheers

Cool but why didn't they do that for Lounge Lizard too?