NUSofting - Entity.

[Dr. Nyquist]

rlahalla, I just opened one of your presets you designed for Entity in a 4 year old version of NexSyn. I think that's what Brian means by "fishy". Fishy like the code/DSP may not have gotten a complete overhaul like stated.

Can I make the assumption that you're not a programmer?

If you're not, please dont assume that a consistency in the data structures used by two pieces of software means that the code for those software need have any interdependency.
That's the basis of how your web browser and its competitors all read web pages, after all. Or OpenOffice transparently reading and writing MS Office files.

Data used by an algorithm is not the algorithm. If you are a programmer, you should know this already.

Depending on how the data is stored, its entirely possible for the data to be parsed consistently, and produce similar results, even if none of the underlying code is the same.

c'mon dude. Leave me alone. Please. You make me feel anxious and antagonized. Did you program Entity? I think that's who we're all waiting for to comment on the programming. Not you.

[whyterabbyt]

c'mon dude. Leave me alone. Please. You make me feel anxious and antagonized. Did you program Entity? I think that's who we're all waiting for to comment on the programming. Not you.

so what your saying is that its okay for you to keep making your comments, but not for anyone to put them in a wider context?

[Dr. Nyquist]

To make explicit my position: I'm doing the documentation for Entity; I work on the docs for lots of synths, effects, and whatnot. I have no access to source code. I don't know anything about NextSyn so I'm not qualified to speak on whether any similarity in architecture corresponds to similarity in code. I thought that had already been dealt with, but maybe there's more to it. Michael and/or Luigi will have to address that.

I wrote the manual for NexSyn. I would be willing to offer you and Entity crew all my tutorials and presets I used for Nexsyn. This hopefully demonstrates my intentions here. I'm not tying to be malicious at all towards my friend MO or anyone else. I am just really curious now about this thing.

You have to remember all the drama about NexSyn, KeyToSound, Koblo, Tone2, etc. etc... it was not pretty. Like I said I'm dumfounded to see a synth that looks just like NexSyn. And to discover that it opens NexSyn presets... what?!?

http://tripl3tonestudios.com/jasonwolf/ ... Manual.pdf

[Meffy]

I remember the drama but know nothing of the synth itself.

[Dr. Nyquist]

I remember the drama but know nothing of the synth itself.

Yeah. It was ugly. Uuuuuuuugly. Check out NexSyn's manual and you'll get a sense of it right away.

[Meffy]

Better I stay out of that. I do like Entity's nasty sound but that's not ugly. :-}

[Dr. Nyquist]

Better I stay out of that. I do like Entity's nasty sound but that's not ugly. :-}

heh, I meant the drama was ugly. Fugly to be precise. The synth, well, I always thought it was dirty. Dirrrrrrrty!

[botkiller]

rlahalla, I just opened one of your presets you designed for Entity in a 4 year old version of NexSyn. I think that's what Brian means by "fishy". Fishy like the code/DSP may not have gotten a complete overhaul like stated.

Can I make the assumption that you're not a programmer?

If you're not, please dont assume that a consistency in the data structures used by two pieces of software means that the code for those software need have any interdependency.
That's the basis of how your web browser and its competitors all read web pages, after all. Or OpenOffice transparently reading and writing MS Office files.

Data used by an algorithm is not the algorithm. If you are a programmer, you should know this already.

Depending on how the data is stored, its entirely possible for the data to be parsed consistently, and produce similar results, even if none of the underlying code is the same.

Being that I just opened an Entity preset in NexSyn, and have them both side by side playing the same MIDI clip in Ableton, and they sound the same - with the exception of a little attack (the attack in Entity is a little harder), I'm not inclined to agree. Also interesting that all of the synth parameters are mapping in Nexsyn, to a T - including the notes on a preset from the author, which map into the notes section of Nexsyn's browser just fine.

I haven't encountered many softsynths by two different developers that will open another softsynth's presets and have them map perfectly, so that both synths sound the same - and I've been softsynth sound designing for about fifteen years.

I'm just curious, is all.

[Dr. Nyquist]

rlahalla, I just opened one of your presets you designed for Entity in a 4 year old version of NexSyn. I think that's what Brian means by "fishy". Fishy like the code/DSP may not have gotten a complete overhaul like stated.

Can I make the assumption that you're not a programmer?

If you're not, please dont assume that a consistency in the data structures used by two pieces of software means that the code for those software need have any interdependency.
That's the basis of how your web browser and its competitors all read web pages, after all. Or OpenOffice transparently reading and writing MS Office files.

Data used by an algorithm is not the algorithm. If you are a programmer, you should know this already.

Depending on how the data is stored, its entirely possible for the data to be parsed consistently, and produce similar results, even if none of the underlying code is the same.

Being that I just opened an Entity preset in NexSyn, and have them both side by side playing the same MIDI clip in Ableton, and they sound the same - with the exception of a little attack (the attack in Entity is a little harder), I'm not inclined to agree. Also interesting that all of the synth parameters are mapping in Nexsyn, to a T - including the notes on a preset from the author, which map into the notes section of Nexsyn's browser just fine.

I haven't encountered many softsynths by two different developers that will open another softsynth's presets and have them map perfectly, so that both synths sound the same - and I've been softsynth sound designing for about fifteen years.

Well, I think we're all hoping that it's the same developer holding the copyrights accordingly.

[Michael_Olsen]

Hi,

it is week-end, and consequently I will make this short; otherwise my wife will kill me ; - )

I will reply to all your questions on monday.

First, next time you have such questions, please do mail me or Luigi instead of theorizing on the web. It does seem a bit odd to do it this way, I am sure you will agree.

I am not going into a detailed discussion publicly about who had the rights at what points in time, etc. etc.
What I can tell you is that when we started this project a year ago or so, I had full permission to use the source code I used.
However, as it turned out, Nexsyn was not half as good as I remember it, and as the project progressed, I ended up replacing most of it.

You might not be able to hear the difference, but in that case I suggest you do a binary comparison. There is no (or very little at least) way you can make those 2 synths produce the same output.
As an example, the original Nexsyn had horrible aliasing in the saw and pulse oscs, and a bad noise floor... The noise floor is now around -140dB (if I remember correctly), and there is basically no aliasing.

The code was replaced part by part. And when I replaced each part, I made it in a way which sounded kind of like the Nexsyn (only "better", example above). So yes, it does have the same "feel" to it.
And yes, for this reason it will "almost" load the same presets. Besides the obvious (no sample support), there is a different in the matrix. A preset which in Nexsyn loads as 10%, will in Entity load as 1.0%, etc. You can even see it on the screenshots which were posted here.

Then we removed some things: The sample library was horrible, out it went. The net features we did not really want, out it went.
Then we added a niiiice 4-pole filter, a comb filter, and a few other things, changed to phaser to use the old Sonic Timeworks one (yes, I have the rights for that : - ) ), and no, we actually did not change the reverb (someone mentioned this), because I was happy with it already. It is one of the few things that were not changed at all.

Oh, and we added physical modelling, made by Luigi. He rocks. His modelling rocks. Now suddenly Entity came alive, in my opinion, in a completely different way. Instead of boring static samples, we now had a living synth.

And yes, we removed the shitty copy protection, and added a simple key file (not locked to a computer), because we do not believe in bothering our users with wild copy protection schemes.

Well, I think that is basically it. We kept the way of working, the way the modules are arranged, because we like it, and find it to be a good way of working, and a good way to learn about modular synths.
We were not allowed to use the graphics, so those were replaced (we would have done that anyway).

That is the story short. It really is quite simple. Everything is legal and legit of course. It does seem a bit odd to me that anyone would suggest otherwise, because why would you get such an idea?

I will now enjoy my week-end and check this thread again monday. Hopefully I have answered some questions, and not raised too many new ones.


Best,

Michael Olsen
PhonoXone

[ATS]

Hi,

it is week-end, and consequently I will make this short; otherwise my wife will kill me ; - )

I will reply to all your questions on monday.

First, next time you have such questions, please do mail me or Luigi instead of theorizing on the web. It does seem a bit odd to do it this way, I am sure you will agree.

I am not going into a detailed discussion publicly about who had the rights at what points in time, etc. etc.
What I can tell you is that when we started this project a year ago or so, I had full permission to use the source code I used.
However, as it turned out, Nexsyn was not half as good as I remember it, and as the project progressed, I ended up replacing most of it.

You might not be able to hear the difference, but in that case I suggest you do a binary comparison. There is no (or very little at least) way you can make those 2 synths produce the same output.
As an example, the original Nexsyn had horrible aliasing in the saw and pulse oscs, and a bad noise floor... The noise floor is now around -140dB (if I remember correctly), and there is basically no aliasing.

The code was replaced part by part. And when I replaced each part, I made it in a way which sounded kind of like the Nexsyn (only "better", example above). So yes, it does have the same "feel" to it.
And yes, for this reason it will "almost" load the same presets. Besides the obvious (no sample support), there is a different in the matrix. A preset which in Nexsyn loads as 10%, will in Entity load as 1.0%, etc. You can even see it on the screenshots which were posted here.

Then we removed some things: The sample library was horrible, out it went. The net features we did not really want, out it went.
Then we added a niiiice 4-pole filter, a comb filter, and a few other things, changed to phaser to use the old Sonic Timeworks one (yes, I have the rights for that : - ) ), and no, we actually did not change the reverb (someone mentioned this), because I was happy with it already. It is one of the few things that were not changed at all.

Oh, and we added physical modelling, made by Luigi. He rocks. His modelling rocks. Now suddenly Entity came alive, in my opinion, in a completely different way. Instead of boring static samples, we now had a living synth.

And yes, we removed the shitty copy protection, and added a simple key file (not locked to a computer), because we do not believe in bothering our users with wild copy protection schemes.

Well, I think that is basically it. We kept the way of working, the way the modules are arranged, because we like it, and find it to be a good way of working, and a good way to learn about modular synths.
We were not allowed to use the graphics, so those were replaced (we would have done that anyway).

That is the story short. It really is quite simple. Everything is legal and legit of course. It does seem a bit odd to me that anyone would suggest otherwise, because why would you get such an idea?

I will now enjoy my week-end and check this thread again monday. Hopefully I have answered some questions, and not raised too many new ones.


Best,

Michael Olsen
PhonoXone

thanks for that. I wish people would not accuse others unless they are sure because I started to believe it was not a good product because it was stolen. Obviously it was not and I know that now.

[ATS]

Just tried the 64 bit demo is FL Studio, all I get when I load it is a black box, I cannot see anything. I do get the message that it is a demo but I cannot see the synth.


tried the 32 bit, sounds wonderful, hopefully will beta test the 64 bit some more.

[projectdan]

Well its nice that this at least brings more attention to this synth, which is still on introductory price of $48/£30 ish.

[ATS]

Well its nice that this at least brings more attention to this synth, which is still on introductory price of $48/£30 ish.

it sounds great but honestly the font and look, fo not look very professional to me. I know it is only sound that matters though and it sounds great but this will for sure put many people off who are used to very pro looking synths. A shame because it sounds so awesome.

[projectdan]

it sounds great but honestly the font and look, fo not look very professional to me. I know it is only sound that matters though and it sounds great but this will for sure put many people off who are used to very pro looking synths. A shame because it sounds so awesome.

It is due to get a new look, partly why its still on introductory offer, a new GUI and a few refinements, such as grouping filters for modulation are on the way. I also think the GUI at present looks under par, mentioned it when I first demoed the synth.