KVR Audio

penguinfromdeep · Post by **penguinfromdeep** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 7:50 pm

+1 .. It is a pretty ok sounding synth but it's not accurate 101 emu

metrosonic · Post by **metrosonic** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:03 pm

penguinfromdeep wrote:+1 .. It is a pretty ok sounding synth but it's not accurate 101 emu

This was also my initial impression but as is often the case I decided to reload the demo and have a further explore and I think the D16 guys have done themselves a disservice with the default settings on the synth. Once I'd changed the quality setting to high, the envelope behaviour to SH-101 and most importantly of all there's a little switch in the filter section to change it's character to SH-101. All of a sudden I found I was able to program sounds very similar to those I'm able to get out of my hardware 101. Yes the CPU hit is big but for for my money worth every cycle.

The thing I don't get is why market something that does in fact sound very close to the Roland hardware but then ship it with defaults that make a mockery of it's true capabilities.

Really glad I dug a little deeper though, it looks like D16 will be getting my cash after all!

JM
------------
https://soundcloud.com/leftside-wobble

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:14 pm

dexterbella wrote:
JimmiG wrote: The advantage of doing it the traditional way rather than the "two-finger song" way, is that once you've set it up, it's much easier to work with. You can have parts fade in and out, change effects (use third-party effects), swap out the synth in one of the tracks for a completely different one (or even send the MIDI to a hardware synth), set up different sends for different parts, slightly tweak the sequences as the song progresses etc.

I understand the "WOW-factor" of hitting a couple of notes and having a whole song come out, but personally, I prefer to build the song myself in the DAW.
For me it's not so much about WOW-factor as FUN-factor. LuSH has enough flexibility in it's architecture to allow automating fading in layers and so on but I'm not going to be using LuSH to replace Reaper any time soon. It just provides a fun, easy, intuitive interface to mess around with ideas in a different way to my usual workflow - often these things can lead to exploring artistic avenues that I might not otherwise have explored. It is a very long time since I had this much fun playing with a VA synth.

I mainly use Live's racks for layering... They are also exceptionally fun and so easy to layer different synths (with independent effects chain if desired), split the keyboard, fade etc... then I just drag the rack to the browser and it is saved... they also have the macro controls so I can easily control parameters of multiple synths with one controller knob or my X/Y pad...

I suppose for Daws that do not have an equivalent to Live's Racks a multi-timbral synth with good layers function is more noteworthy.

That said, D16 did a fine job on the Lush101 layers system. It is sweet how you can lock a layer and/or arp and load a new preset and keep the locked layer. The mixer is top notch. Copy/Paste of layers is a snap... Of the other recent multi-timbral synths, I think they did the best job in layers implementation.

The main limitation of the Lush101 layers is it needs multicore support... But then Live Racks are not multicore either. Developers are still catching up in that area... Lush could use some performance controls too... like a 4th page with some macro knobs or X/Y controls.

One thing that I wondered about are the global effects (reverb delay chorus). The order seems odd with reverb first, then delay, then chorus

Lush seems like a well developed synth and does not feel like an initial release. The only inexplicable thing is the GUI size. On my monitor it is hard to read the text and the led switches are so tiny to click on. My eyes hurt from using it and the tiny controls make me concentrate on mouse precision more than I would like.

The sound quality is excellent and even with the short demo time with constantly popping up demo screen, I was able to get some pleasing sounds. The filter is lovely...

K-Slash · Post by **K-Slash** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:22 pm

metrosonic wrote:Once I'd changed the quality setting to high, the envelope behaviour to SH-101 and most importantly of all there's a little switch in the filter section to change it's character to SH-101. All of a sudden I found I was able to program sounds very similar to those I'm able to get out of my hardware 101. Yes the CPU hit is big but for for my money worth every cycle.

Good catch, gotta be a "must-try".

metrosonic wrote:The thing I don't get is why market something that does in fact sound very close to the Roland hardware but

Well said ! Strange marketing indeed.

Echoes in the Attic · Post by **Echoes in the Attic** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:27 pm

Why aren't parameters automatable? Is there a setting to enable them somewhere?

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:36 pm

Echoes in the Attic wrote:Why aren't parameters automatable? Is there a setting to enable them somewhere?

A demo limitation I think...

dexterbella · Post by **dexterbella** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:36 pm

pdxindy wrote:... D16 did a fine job on the Lush101 layers system. It is sweet how you can lock a layer and/or arp and load a new preset and keep the locked layer. The mixer is top notch. Copy/Paste of layers is a snap... Of the other recent multi-timbral synths, I think they did the best job in layers implementation.

The main limitation of the Lush101 layers is it needs multicore support... But then Live Racks are not multicore either. Developers are still catching up in that area... Lush could use some performance controls too... like a 4th page with some macro knobs or X/Y controls...

Totally agree with all of this.

MFXxx · Post by **MFXxx** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:44 pm

dexterbella wrote:
pdxindy wrote:... D16 did a fine job on the Lush101 layers system. It is sweet how you can lock a layer and/or arp and load a new preset and keep the locked layer. The mixer is top notch. Copy/Paste of layers is a snap... Of the other recent multi-timbral synths, I think they did the best job in layers implementation.

The main limitation of the Lush101 layers is it needs multicore support... But then Live Racks are not multicore either. Developers are still catching up in that area... Lush could use some performance controls too... like a 4th page with some macro knobs or X/Y controls...
Totally agree with all of this.

Absolutely I nearly bought this then realised no multicore. When I started playing with the parameters and beefing up chords the CPU was hogging and clicking like castanets.

I really want Lush, I like the sound and its a good emu of the 101s (although I would prefer a 101 irl) but it needs some serious fine tuning to get the cpu overhead down, or are we now in a world where we need to buy latops per vst instrument? (Actually not a bad idea if you can afford it along with midi controllers per laptop!

Trying running this alongside Saurus, Diva, The drop and a few comps....nasty screwface sounds from my rig*.

Going to keep my eye on D16's updates. Love the sound, like what they are doing let down by practicalities.

Peace

*i7 2.6ghs/12GB Triple Ram/ Fireface800 @ 256

angelremington · Post by **angelremington** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:45 pm

Originally, I was excited about this and if it was reasonably priced I was going to get it even though i have all the synths I'll ever need.
Now, I think I'll pass.

It costs more than say: sylenth, Synthmaster, Oxium, etc while in my opinion not offering anything more or better.

I am not impressed with the demo limitations either, I mean if they want me to try it / demo it properly (especially considering the high price tag) what's this all about, all the crippling and limitations... come on.

KBSoundSmith · Post by **KBSoundSmith** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:52 pm

After playing around with this, aside from the impossible to read GUI and screen-stealing keyboard, I really like this synth.

It's pretty quick and easy to get nice sounding results (the filter needs a little extra attention to get where you want it, although I like its character overall--edit: never mind).

The oscillators have a unique sound, and I think the included effects are great and really help to establish an overall unique character for the synth. The insert effects I've especially liked are the Vowel Filter, Phaser, and Flanger. The Hard Sync is okay, but I've found that Sync, as well as the Filters, can be a bit too "zippy" for my tastes. However, with more subtle modulation, it can still sound really nice; I've really liked the sound you get stacking and detuning oscillators.

The Layer system I think is really successful, you can get some nice results. Normally better to do that sort of thing separately in a DAW, but there definitely some scenarios where it's useful.

Overall, I give it some high marks. I think the sound is very characterful, and is a nice complement to something like Diva.

Probably not going to buy it as I'm not really in the market at the moment, but maybe I'll sell some stuff off and consider it down the road -- I don't believe I get any intro discount, so I'm in no rush.

hakey · Post by **hakey** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:52 pm

Discovered a trick for extending the effective demo in Live. When the demo times out, duplicate the track. This starts a new instance of Lush but duplicates the settings from the previous one.

KBSoundSmith · Post by **KBSoundSmith** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:55 pm

hakey wrote:Discovered a trick for extending the effective demo in Live. When the demo times out, duplicate the track. This starts a new instance of Lush but duplicates the settings from the previous one.

Wish I had thought of that with a couple of instances!

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 8:58 pm

hakey wrote:Discovered a trick for extending the effective demo in Live. When the demo times out, duplicate the track. This starts a new instance of Lush but duplicates the settings from the previous one.

sweet! good find!

Aiynzahev · Post by **Aiynzahev** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 9:00 pm

pdxindy wrote:
Echoes in the Attic wrote:Why aren't parameters automatable? Is there a setting to enable them somewhere?
A demo limitation I think...

I don't think this is a demo limitation. I have a copy and all I get for parameter automation is parameter 1 - 100. No labels. Furthermore they don't seem to do anything.

I wish I had the time to play some more presets. When you have more than 15 minutes (and it took me a good few weeks to really get used to it) you can come up with some really nice sounds.

Keef Baker · Post by **Keef Baker** » Fri Oct 19, 2012 9:04 pm

BDeep wrote:
Keef Baker wrote:
bld wrote:...to the question somewhere above: yes, we hear you
thanks for all suggestions and feedback. Have a nice 'tweakend'

Przemek/d16
For me, as always you guys have done a great job. I bought it without even demoing it as I've not been let down before.

Do you think you guys are going to do something about the envelope not triggering on consecutive notes without a gap?
As I said a while back:
It took me a while to figure that one out, but actually you can have the envelopes retrigger on every note. Next to the envelopes you'll find a bunch of LEDs under Reset, select "trig" instead of the default "gate" and you're good to go.

Aaaaaah.... I am an idiot.

LuSH-101