KVR Audio

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 3:49 pm

Andywanders wrote:
Halma wrote:You guys know that you can RMB the tabs to get floating ones?
RhythM & Blues..?

RuM & Bacardi !

Tricky-Loops · Post by **Tricky-Loops** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 3:56 pm

RMB = Ride My Bike!

garryknight · Post by **garryknight** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 6:00 pm

RMB = Right Mouse Button. You young 'uns, honestly!

I was thinking of getting MPowerSynth after reading the two-part review in SoundBytes magazine. The effects section is just crazy. The wave design is crazier. As for the UI, well, I'm not surprised.

http://soundbytesmag.net/mpowersynthreviewpart1/
http://soundbytesmag.net/mpowersynthreviewpart2/

tanabarbier · Post by **tanabarbier** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 6:24 pm

Lots of love for this synth here too, I am not bothered by the interface, but I allmost never am.

Like said before, the sound is what makes it interesting. Modulation and FXs heaven too, for shure.
The only thing that I sometimes miss is the range of the frequency in the filters, 8 octaves up or down is a lot but not allways enough, specially since the OSCs have that really krispy cream sound.
It really is a beast in its own category, not for everybody maybe but really fun and really good sounding.
Having its own character is something I value a lot, I would not want an other version of something I allready have, with a slightly different flavor. I like my tools to have (original) personality and it has plenty!

Have a good day!

dmbaer · Post by **dmbaer** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 8:11 pm

zerocrossing wrote:The effects as well. Great. Hands down the best effect section of a software synth. Maybe that's what I'm digging on. The way the synth functions seem to meld (pun intended) into the rest of the synth's features and not just a "I tagged on some reverb, chorus and delay" kind of thing. Perhaps it's this (oh I'm going to hate myself for using this word) synergy that makes it special. Somehow it comes together in a way I don't think many other digital instruments do. Most seem like a bunch of features stacked on top of each other rather than a stew of elements that work together.

I couldn't agree more with this assessment. MPowerSynth has the most amazing effects design/architecture I've ever seen. I don't think the factory presets begin to do them justice. But then I don't think those preset sound designers have yet figured out just what to make of this wealth of functionality. There are some tantalizing modules, like the channel matrix (whatever the hell that is) that aren't used in any of the presets, so just what can it do? I very much look forward to seeing how this all evolves.

SLiC · Post by **SLiC** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 8:46 pm

Ditto

It realy realy needs a best of soundbank with about 30 killer presets, it has the potential to do amazing things, but it sounds very ordinary at the moment- it's better to just have 150 realy good presets rather than 1500 that sound like every other synth- it's way to complex for anyone to program themselves to get a feel for the thing (unlike say Diva that was easy to hear/see what was going on) so it realy needs a strong hook to get people to want to learn it....take a synth like Serum. It had half a dozen great sound banks within a few months of release because it was joy to program.

I downloaded the demo, got board looking through the 1500 sounds looking for what this obvious powerhouse was capable of, and when I tried to program a patch I felt like I was programing rather than playing!

Great potential, personally I have yet to be convinced that the complexity is worth the learning curve from what I have heard.

mike the mental · Post by **mike the mental** » Sun Mar 15, 2015 12:37 am

SLiC wrote:Ditto
It realy realy needs a best of soundbank with about 30 killer presets, it has the potential to do amazing things, but it sounds very ordinary at the moment- it's better to just have 150 realy good presets rather than 1500 that sound like every other synth- it's way to complex for anyone to program themselves to get a feel for the thing (unlike say Diva that was easy to hear/see what was going on) so it realy needs a strong hook to get people to want to learn it....take a synth like Serum. It had half a dozen great sound banks within a few months of release because it was joy to program.

Personally, I'll take the 1500 presets as I'm a bit of a preset slut.

150 presets is nowhere near enough for a synth capable of producing bass, leads, pads, keys, organs, fx, etc...

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sun Mar 15, 2015 5:27 am

Funny, I started using Mpowersynth before there were many... Any? Presets. I thought straight off that the basic oscs, filters and effects were special and I was sold when I heard that overdrive. I think because I was forced to make my own sounds I picked it up pretty quickly. It's not that difficult to figure out and the presets are good starting points for exploring. Also, there are tutorials. I haven't watched them all yet, but I will.

rustman · Post by **rustman** » Sun Mar 15, 2015 5:50 pm

I have all of the Melda stuff, so at least I've begun to see some common threads in funtionality as far as the GUI goes. I will say that I don't love it (their GUI concept, not the synth) and I've spent a lot of time searching for how to do some simple things in their effects, but that's just my ignorance. This synth is a monster in terms of the sheer number of things that can be tweeked.

As stated, I think the effects section is so flexible that it's a whole world to itself. Routing effects back into effects...recursion? That needs to be tapped. That is going to open some doors. I'm no purist- I think that effects are as much a part of a sound as anything else. Afterall, what are filters? I'd call them effects.

BTW- I tried MSpectralDynamics yesterday to clean up some field recordings. Wow! Was I surprised just how well it works for noise removal...but I digress...

bailees7irish · Post by **bailees7irish** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 2:32 am

The interface is awful to me. The numerous tabs and pages reminds me of Rhino. The sound may be great but it seems like such a chore to use.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 9:17 pm

bailees7irish wrote:The interface is awful to me. The numerous tabs and pages reminds me of Rhino. The sound may be great but it seems like such a chore to use.

This probably doesn't belong in this thread, but I think I'll put a feature request in the correct thread to ask for a "overview" screen. If I were to do a redesign of this synth, what I think I'd do is put most things on a single screen in a simplified way and then do pop up menus so users could then dig into the more in depth functionality when they need it. Truth be told though, in a synth this complex, there's no good way to do a single one screen UI. Hell, even the famous Fizmo which I mentioned earlier has functions only accessible though software. This ain't no Minimoog.

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 10:30 pm

The interface is a real hurdle for me. I'm trying to work out how to remove velocity to amp modulation from the basic INIT preset... and not having much luck. Skimmed the entire manual, and none the wiser, though there were some really pro and complex ideas going on in there. Thumbs up for that, brave move.

Anyone know how to turn off velocity to amp envelope?

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 10:38 pm

I found "velocity shape" in the advanced settings. If I change the graph to an all maximum block I can defeat velocity articulations, but now I don't think I'll be able to use them to modulate the filter, etc?

rustman · Post by **rustman** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 11:42 pm

I'm going to have to sell my mint Fizmo to you one day Zero. Who knows? Maybe I'll clean up on ebay someday.

Nightpolymath · Post by **Nightpolymath** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 11:59 pm

Sendy wrote:I found "velocity shape" in the advanced settings. If I change the graph to an all maximum block I can defeat velocity articulations, but now I don't think I'll be able to use them to modulate the filter, etc?

If you go to the Filter tab for instance, and double click "By Velocity" you can modify parameters such as resonance (percentage above the resonance that has been set by the user which varies according to velocity). Is this what you were after? The same applies to filter frequency as well.

I love MPOWERSYNTH