Chromaphone. Any competitors?

[peterdh]

There's a bunch of diverse sounds for free in my Chromatones bank if you want to try that https://www.dropbox.com/s/vp58ejxxdibac ... p.zip?dl=0

Thanks

[peterdh]

There's a bunch of diverse sounds for free in my Chromatones bank if you want to try that https://www.dropbox.com/s/vp58ejxxdibac ... p.zip?dl=0

Thanks

Just auditioned some sounds. Heard some nice ones. Instantly made a ringtone (I usually make ringtones and notification sounds) with preset 4, a really nice guitar patch

[muki]

yes! nice guitars!
great sounds!
thank you!

[aMUSEd]

Funnily enough I prefer Chromaphone over String Studio for guitars - in String Studio they always seem to sound mushy to me.

[Ingonator]

I got Ableton Live 10 Suite and this includes the "Collison" plugin which is made by AAS and seems to have a more or less similar feature set than Chrompahone.

Other AAS made plugins included in Live 10 Suite are Analog, Electric and Tension which are related to the AAS plugins Ultra Analog, Lounge Lizard and String Studio.

[aMUSEd]

I got Ableton Live 10 Suite and this includes the "Collison" plugin which is made by AAS and seems to have a more or less similar feature set than Chrompahone.

It lacks the ability to couple the 2 resonators though which significantly reduces the range of physically modelled sounds you can get with it. As the manual explains:

'In parallel mode, both resonators are excited by the sources and the output signal from the resonators is a simple mix between the output of both resonators, the balance between the sources being determined by the position of the Balance slider. In coupled mode, resonator A is excited and energy is transmitted to the second resonator at their junction point. At first sight this configuration could appear like a simple series configuration in which the signal from Resonator A is sent to Resonator B but Chromaphone really takes into account the bidirectional nature of the energy flow that occurs in real life when two objects are coupled. In other words, once energy is received by Resonator B, it starts to vibrate which in return influences the motion of Resonator A. The modeling of these complex interactions results in tones and timbres that reproduce the richness of sounds from real acoustic instruments. The amount of coupling between the two resonators is controlled with the help of the Balance slider.'

[David]

Wow:

[aMUSEd]

Oh wow!

[cthonophonic]

Wow, Substantia does look really neat, but Mac only (like all of the developer's stuff, I guess), which is a pity.

[Cinebient]

Substantia sounds really very good. I like it.
Would happily pay 5 x tge asked price for an AU plug-in. But still great instrument if you explore it. Very versatile.

[magmagwa]

SWAM for faithful instrument emulation.
Respiro for brass to industrial noise, it's amazing.

AAS Strum2 is simply amazing. If you're a guitarist you will see an incredible faithful emulation complete with inter string modulation. That undulating sound based on harmonic or inharmonic concurrent string strikes is stunning and endlessly variable. It truly captures the chaotic nature of the electric guitar.

[gentleclockdivider]

My ensemble (just 32 partials using the modal bank module )
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/r ... show/7735/

[pottering]

I got Ableton Live 10 Suite and this includes the "Collison" plugin which is made by AAS and seems to have a more or less similar feature set than Chrompahone.

It lacks the ability to couple the 2 resonators though which significantly reduces the range of physically modelled sounds you can get with it. As the manual explains:

'In parallel mode, both resonators are excited by the sources and the output signal from the resonators is a simple mix between the output of both resonators, the balance between the sources being determined by the position of the Balance slider. In coupled mode, resonator A is excited and energy is transmitted to the second resonator at their junction point. At first sight this configuration could appear like a simple series configuration in which the signal from Resonator A is sent to Resonator B but Chromaphone really takes into account the bidirectional nature of the energy flow that occurs in real life when two objects are coupled. In other words, once energy is received by Resonator B, it starts to vibrate which in return influences the motion of Resonator A. The modeling of these complex interactions results in tones and timbres that reproduce the richness of sounds from real acoustic instruments. The amount of coupling between the two resonators is controlled with the help of the Balance slider.'

But note that Chromaphone 2 doesn't actually have that "simple series configuration in which the signal from Resonator A is sent to Resonator B" mode, it has Parallel and Coupled, while Collision has Parallel and Series (which maybe is how Chromaphone 1 worked [edit: no, seems Chromaphone 1 also had Coupled mode]), so in theory there are some sounds that Collision can do that Chromaphone 2 can't do too.

Though Collision manuals describes: "Mallet and Noise output to Resonator 1. This resonator’s output is then mixed down to mono and routed to Resonator 2, as well as to its own mixer (in stereo.)"

So with Chromaphone 2 and Objeq Delay you could replicate it to a level (not sure how/íf the resonators in Collision and Objeq Delay respond to MIDI, in terms of envelopes, retrigger and such).

But yeah, the AAS synths in Live are based on the older version 1 of the AAS plugins, not v2 or v3, the current AAS VSTs have several things that the Live devices don't.

The thing non-Live users seem to sleep on is the Corpus effect, which is one of the Chromaphone resonators as an audio effect.

With the Rack system in Live, it means you can have all kinds of sounds (synths, samplers,etc.) in serial or parallel working as exciters for any number of Chromaphone-like resonators also in serial or parallel.

Corpus even has MIDI input via sidechain, which can control frequency (from notes) and resonance decay (from note off).

Simple example, I just put an Operator with a single noise Osc (much like Chromaphone's noise exciter) and perc-like short ADSR, with a Corpus after it, sounds pretty much like Collision/Chromaphone.

[EDIT: Collision/Chromaphone basically have 2 exciters right? A "mallet" exciter and a "noise" exciter. Basically, any noise Oscillator works pretty much like Chromaphone's Noise exciter, but usually more flexible (in terms of envelope). For the Mallet, I found a sine-wave Osc with very-short ADSR sounds very close to the Mallet exciter. At first I thought noise would work better, but a pure sine-wave sounded more similar.]

I own Modelling Collection v2 (plus loads of their preset packs), bought when I was trying to use only Live Standard. In the end I got Suite with the renamed Live devices, but I don't really regret buying the VSTs.

Anyhow, IMO Chromaphone closest competitor is actually String Studio. Reaktor has some impressive ensembles, and the Madrona stuff is really cool too.

[ahanysz]

I'm looking forward to seeing how plasmonic will stack up against other physical modeling synths.

...string videos on the indiegogo page sound so typically karplus-strong i'm not sure there's anything i can't already do with sculpture

I emailed Rhizomatic customer support to ask about precisely this, and was pleasantly surprised to get a reply from Brian himself. Apparently, the existing demo videos lag a bit behind what Plasmonic can do now. I get the impression there's just one person trying to do the software development, marketing, business side of the operation and anything else that needs doing, so no wonder he hasn't made an updated demo video yet. Hoping we get to see more before the end of 2020!

His exact words from 26th May:

It makes nice organic sustained sounds too. I haven’t made any “photorealistic” strings or winds so far, but I haven’t tried too hard yet. I have made some nice pads that sound like raindrops on metal, kind of grainy + ringy. It’s very flexible.

I do need to make more demos, but I’ve been so caught up in development the past few months. I did make a lot of plucked string sounds in the beginning, but it’s easy to expand on them into other types of sound.

[masterhiggins]

Incredibly surprised how cheap Substantia is. Worth much more than the asking price.