Absynth Crtyptotronix

[dnekm]

Thanks...

I just want to mention that due to the response from the sale, it is extended until September 10th...

[Bassballjg]

For the benefit of any of you who have been on the fence about this and who may have some familiarity with Dangerous Bear, I can state that the work being done by Daniel with both Cryptotronix and Anomaly far excceeds any expectations of the musical potential of these samples I may have had. Any person who is a user of Absynth, or of any of the formats for which Anomaly is available, owes it to themself to make Daniel's brilliant creative vision a part of their sonic arsenal. There is simply nothing else like his work anywhere in the sampling world.

[Sickle]

The new Kore 2 software will supposedly be out next month (at least for Kore 1 owners). Do you know if the .ksd format is being extended along those lines? I seem to remeber reading something about that, especially in the categorization area.

Yes.

[Sickle]

For the benefit of any of you who have been on the fence about this and who may have some familiarity with Dangerous Bear, I can state that the work being done by Daniel with both Cryptotronix and Anomaly far excceeds any expectations of the musical potential of these samples I may have had. Any person who is a user of Absynth, or of any of the formats for which Anomaly is available, owes it to themself to make Daniel's brilliant creative vision a part of their sonic arsenal. There is simply nothing else like his work anywhere in the sampling world.

No need to underrate yourself, John, but yeah, these are some pretty shnazzy patches. Gotta give em the Official Sickle Stamp of Approval.

[Bassballjg]

For the benefit of any of you who have been on the fence about this and who may have some familiarity with Dangerous Bear, I can state that the work being done by Daniel with both Cryptotronix and Anomaly far excceeds any expectations of the musical potential of these samples I may have had. Any person who is a user of Absynth, or of any of the formats for which Anomaly is available, owes it to themself to make Daniel's brilliant creative vision a part of their sonic arsenal. There is simply nothing else like his work anywhere in the sampling world.

No need to underrate yourself, John, but yeah, these are some pretty shnazzy patches. Gotta give em the Official Sickle Stamp of Approval.

And the Sickle Stamp of Approval is like a Oscar and the Medal of Honor rolled into one. Thanks!

CryptoTronix is also available for Kontakt, so we have a pretty cool 1-2 NI punch going on with this soundset.

[dnekm]

Thank you both....

There are only five days left for this sale....

[dnekm]

This is the final weekend of the sale on Cryptotronix.....

[loachm]

CryptoTronix is also available for Kontakt, so we have a pretty cool 1-2 NI punch going on with this soundset.

..as an owner of both Absynth and Kontakt I wonder how these patches possibly differ from each other. Are these basically the same patches for different formats or is it a bunch of samples that Daniel uses as a source for new patches for Absynth, Kontakt, Wusikstation, Dimension, Rapture whatsover? Kontakt can mimic a lot of Absynth's fx and modulation features and I'm a bit unsure if you're dealing with two seperate products here (and what about Anomaly 1/2?). That said, I would also like to see some demo patches for Kontakt (I liked the ones for Absynth very much - that's why I bought it already ) and also generally more audio demos at dangerousbeat.com. Sometimes I find a product interesting, but there aren't any audio demos available...

[vespers75]

Each instrument format uses the same set of original samples created by Daniel, though the presets are unique to each individual instrument format. I make the presets for the Rapture and SampleTank versions of the Anomaly soundsets....for example, the presets are different for both, as each sampler has its own unique functions. And Anomaly 1 vs. Anomaly 2...these are two different original sample sets created by Daniel. Anomaly 1 is a set of Fx/Atmospheres, and Anomaly 2 is a set of Drones. I'm sure Daniel can explain a little more

[dnekm]

Absynth Cryptotronix was created by using samples provided by Dangerous Bear. The sample sets were DB_Cryptotronix and DB_Cryptotronix2.

Due to the fact that you cannot map multiple samples across the keyboard in Absynth, only the C samples were used for Absynth Crptotronix.

The presets, both .glo and .ksd, were made by programming with these samples in Absynth 3 and 4.

I have not yet done any work on the Kontakt version (though I may in the future and that would be released as a free preset update), but I can tell you that each instrument in the DB_Cryptotronix set I was sent had about 22 samples per instrument, sampled as A, C and F, 0 through 6.

Anomaly - the first volume was created by morphing, mangling and torturing drum/beat samples to turn them into atmospheres and FX.

Volume 2 - Drones, was actually made from the sounds of Volume 3 - Pads. Because the Drones are all single samples, I decided to release that first - as a stereo/mono set.

Volume 3 is multisampled, also stereo/mono.

The sounds of both Volume 2 and 3 were created by a variety of means. Some of which involves drawing on the very large pool of dBu samples and combining, morphing and generally doing strange things to them again, but not quite as tortuous as Volume 1...

Sometimes these sounds were combined in various instruments, saved as presets and then those presets sampled to create new sounds.

Regarding the different formats for the Anomaly releases - all presets for each different instrument start with an init patch and are built from there. No presets are duplicated across different instruments because each instrument has different features and even character. I generally make all presets for each instrument separately. Usually start with Wusik, and then Dimension Pro. Then Absynth and then Kontakt. I prefer to only work with one instrument at a time.

So each format is different. The only similarities that may exist are do to the fact that all presets are programmed from the same base sounds.

Does that help?

[Bassballjg]

CryptoTronix is also available for Kontakt, so we have a pretty cool 1-2 NI punch going on with this soundset.

..as an owner of both Absynth and Kontakt I wonder how these patches possibly differ from each other. Are these basically the same patches for different formats or is it a bunch of samples that Daniel uses as a source for new patches for Absynth, Kontakt, Wusikstation, Dimension, Rapture whatsover? Kontakt can mimic a lot of Absynth's fx and modulation features and I'm a bit unsure if you're dealing with two seperate products here (and what about Anomaly 1/2?). That said, I would also like to see some demo patches for Kontakt (I liked the ones for Absynth very much - that's why I bought it already ) and also generally more audio demos at dangerousbeat.com. Sometimes I find a product interesting, but there aren't any audio demos available...

Daniel's explanation is good, and I will add the following, discussing the big picture of what we're doing as soundware developers.

First, we can and will put up more audio demos on dangerousbear.com. That seems to be a sensible and right thing to do to help potential users make their decisions. There are several excellent audio demos for the Anomaly series on Daniel's website:

http://www.westgatenecromantic.net/Anomaly/index.html

http://www.westgatenecromantic.net/Anomaly2/

http://www.westgatenecromantic.net/Cryptotronix/

Here is some audio from the Dangerous Bear Kontakt libraries:

http://www.dangerousbear.com/audioexamp ... audio1.mp3

http://www.dangerousbear.com/audioexamp ... audio1.mp3

http://www.dangerousbear.com/audioexamp ... ion2-1.mp3

http://www.dangerousbear.com/audioexamp ... ion2-2.mp3

We do have some freeware, but none to date for Kontakt. That is because we have until very recently been selling some Kontakt sets for as little as $5. As development for that platform continues, there probably will be a demo.

In terms of Cryptotronix(CTX), the difference between the versions is essentailly the difference in the capacities of the different engines, and what users need and expect from them. With the Absynth version you get (some of) the samples as the input source for the programming of sounds for that platform. With the Kontakt version, you get the full multisampled instruments more or less straight up, so in this way the 2 sets compliment each other.

There's also a Wusikstation Edition of CTX, by the way, but it's a limited time product that has already been extended and will probably go away soon. We have further plans for this soundset, which will become clear soon.

Others who know Absynth better than I can address what it does in detail, but I think that it is very different that Kontakt as a synth engine, and that the two different editions are complimentary rather than redundant, as I'd be inclined to see any Kontakt vs Absynth versions of the same sample library

From a business point of view, because different people own different synths, we release various editions to address users of those different formats. The users of Wusikstation, Absynth and Kontakt all have use-value potential from the CTX soundset, but obviously different use-values, differences which, based on the user's own reasons for owning the different synths, justify buying the set in multiple formats.

In creative terms, the Dangerous Bear philosophy has always been that the samples are largely a means to an end, that of being the input for the insrtuments we develop for. What matters is how you use the engines of Absynth or Kontakt or Wusik or Sampletank as synths, as systems for processing audio to some musical purpose.

For most sample developers, the idea is that the value of the samples is in the simulation of the object recorded, be it a grand piano or a breaking glass. Call that the "literal" approach. In such libraries, then, the value of the preset is to get realistic performances. This approach is all good, and we'd be nowhere as musicians without it, the vast majority of us who have no access to grand pianos, string sections, traditional "world" instruments, etc. But that's not what we do. We are much more interested in the manipulation of recorded audio, by means of diverse off-line processing and by synth-engine processing at the preset level.

Actually, CTX is probably the most "literalist" thing we've ever done, insofar as the instruments themselves are complex stacked-layered sounds, ends in themselves to be played as-is. The Absynth Edition is where the CTX samples get the processing-fodder treatment.

In general, the Kontakt material we have out now is all fairly "literalist" compared to the rest of the work we've done to date. What you get are the instruments: multisamples+.nki files. There is some filtering and effects. Then we do some multis, more traditional layering type sounds. There are two reasons for this one practical, and one somewhat philosophical.

The practical reason is that Kontakt is the platform of choice for sample playback for a very large segment of the VST user market, so it must be addressed. But at the same time, we're less fluent in the use of it's advanced features than we are of, for example, Wusikstation. K2 is a deep, deep instrument, which we only got serious about very recently. To become a Kontakt power user and advanced sound designer requires a lengthy, steep learning curve. But as a platform for sample playing, there is a far lower barrier to entry, so we begin with that first step and are working our way up. Which brings me to the philosophical reason for the way we're doing Kontakt.

A few months back, we did a closeout-blowout of our one Kontakt library, Vision. No sales, no time to really get into learning K2. The response to that sale was huge(by our standards) and totally positive. So, it turns out that not only are Kontakt users a large market segment, but some of them actually wanted our material for that platform. So we have begun to address that, and also begin the process of learning the instrument, by doing some small releases leading up to a major library. This is not unlike the approach taken 3 years ago when we began working with Wusikstation and Fuel began to evolve from a series of smaller libraries.

If we have been to date a company culture that is about manipulation of samples inside the synth engine, why not try and see what would happen if we did some releases that were about the samples, and let folks do what they will with a basic set of instruments and fewer creative presets. Kontakt seemed to be the best paltform for this, because our initial observation of Kontakt users is that they are more about the samples and less about the prestes, vs, say, Wusik users.

In any case, we are working on a major Kontakt library, called Konnektions. It's called that, complete with cheesy K spelling, because it will be an integration of our current material for Kontakt with all-new recordings. You'll get new instruments and the current instruments, plus new multis using the new stuff and the current stuff. We're trying for a fall 07 release, but it's going to take as long as it needs to to to be as good as it can be.

Anyway, that's our story and we're sticking to it. I hope that this lengthy post has provided some enlightenment and insight as to what we are doing.

[loachm]

...thanks for the explanations, Jim & Daniel. It made things clearer. I already thought that the different versions would have different features, but I was a bit unsure about the Absynth and Kontakt versions since both instruments can do similar things. In fact, since Kontakt is my main instrument I always check if I can make a similar preset in Kontakt once I have made one with samples in Absynth...

Due to the fact that you cannot map multiple samples across the keyboard in Absynth, only the C samples were used for Absynth Crptotronix.

...I think you can - if I'm not wrong you can define root key and key range per oscillator like this. This way you could use one sample per oscillator, one at a time for the low, mid and high ranges...



...but I could be wrong and right now I'm too tired and lazy to try it out...

[dnekm]

If I understand what you are saying, you can map, say, C3, C4 and C5 - one to each OSC to give you a kind of multisampled instrument?

What would be nice is if in the future Absynth could load .sfz files... thus having multisamples mapped across the keyboard per OSC...

Anyway, glad to provide an explanation on how I work

Last two days for the Cryptotronix sale....

[loachm]

If I understand what you are saying, you can map, say, C3, C4 and C5 - one to each OSC to give you a kind of multisampled instrument?

...that's what I think...

[dnekm]

Tonight is the final night of the Cryptotronix sale. When I get up in the morning I am taking the sale page down....

Absolute last chance to get in on this...