ACE vs. The Rest of u-He‘s portfolio

[mickeyl]

Having purchased all of the other uHe synths, I wonder whether ACE could offer anything new to my sonic arsenal. What do you think?

[ghettosynth]

Having purchased all of the other uHe synths, I wonder whether ACE could offer anything new to my sonic arsenal. What do you think?

If you like the way Bazille works in terms of patching workflow, then yes. While they have a lot of overlap, I find it much easier to work with the classic analog wavesshapes in ACE. If you don't do a lot of patching in Bazille, then it might not be enough to be worthwhile for you.

[j wazza]

ace is prob my favourite uhe synth, its modular like bazille but warm and analog like diva

[martinjuenke]

ace is prob my favourite uhe synth, its modular like bazille but warm and analog like diva

Yes, so true!

[mickeyl]

Thanks! Got it now… and you‘re all right! ACE is great.

[Ploki]

I use ACE differently than bazille, more like a VA although it's modular.
Bazille is different.
Also Bazille eats more CPU i think.

Also i think one major difference is that ACE has osc hardsync, and bazille doesnt

[Blogbert]

While both synths are advertised as having "analogue-style" filters, only ACE's filters really deliver on this when in HP and BP mode -- in that their HP and BP filters can handle overdriven signals. Using Bazille's filters, only the LP filters can handle overdriven signals. By 'handle', I mean the filters continue to do their job at cutting the relevant frequencies. Once you start cranking the gain, Bazille's HP filters stop cutting low frequencies. I hope someday Bazille can be updated to have true "analogue-style" HP and BP filters.

I think ACE's "circuit bending" options on the Tweak page are also a notable difference. I haven't investigated them thoroughly, but they seem to offer a kind of randomness, mushiness, which could be helpful for experimentation.

And of course, ACE offers Pulse Width Modulation. (There are various ways of approximating this using Bazille, but I'm not really a PWM-head, so I don't know how accurately they produce a similar result).

[Urs]

I hope someday Bazille can be updated to have true "analogue-style" HP and BP filters.

Hehehe, any non-linear output mixing filter will lose its characteristic when driven sharply, analogue or digital. It's a matter of topology, one needs a filter that's inherently multimodal.

[MitchK1989]

I think ACE is incredibly unique even compared to the other u-he synths. The only thing it really has in common with bazille is the cable UX (and even then ACE is only "semi" modular) as the oscillators and filters are definitely not the same DSP.

[lunardigs]

I like using ACE for percussion and tom drum sounds. The user contributed presets are really good too.

[Blogbert]

I hope someday Bazille can be updated to have true "analogue-style" HP and BP filters.

Hehehe, any non-linear output mixing filter will lose its characteristic when driven sharply, analogue or digital. It's a matter of topology, one needs a filter that's inherently multimodal.

Hehe, well played.

Allow me to rephrase. ACE's HP filter continues to cut low frequences even when the filter gain is turned all the way up, and when the input signal's amplitude increased before going into the filter by being duplicated eight times using the multiplexes. Bazille's HP filter stops cutting low frequences as soon as you turn up the filter gain, no duplication required.

I hope someday Bazille can be updated to have a HP filter that cuts low frequencies from a wide variety of signals, similar to ACE's (if someone knows the pedant-proof way of expressing this idea, that would be helpful )

[Urs]

Hehehe, I know what you mean. I hope I'll find the time to ponder about it one day.

[twal]

Ace reminds me of san francisco in the 80's. Anyone using this for something particular? It's not mentioned very often and I think (still) it's awesome.

[bartok2112]

I have had great fun using it for Prog-Rock sounds. It also is really great for crazy, weird sounds (check out soundsets by KYHON).

[zerocrossing]

ace is prob my favourite uhe synth, its modular like bazille but warm and analog like diva

I don’t think of ACE as being very “analog.” Definitely not the analog type behavior of Diva or Repro. I always felt it was a totally different animal, like Bazille.