Blamsoft and eXode present: eXpanse - Hyperwave Synthesizer

[selig]

While I understand, and to some extent agree with, some of your points (the idea of "rendering" quality as a single switch), we approached the CPU switches from another perspective, and that was letting sound designers have greater control per patch, since as we've mentioned before, there isn't really a universal setting for everything (well 2/2/2 could be that setting).

Bottom line though is that it's unlikely that we'll change anything at this point because it would probably be too much of a headache to mess around with it as is, not only related to the switches themselves but also regarding existing patches and how sound designers intend patches to sound, etc.

However, I have gotten some other ideas related to this, and will take this feedback with me for the future!

Can I suggest at least putting some indicator LEDs on the front panel that show the status of the over sampling switches on the back?

This would allow you to at least see the status of the back panel switches without flipping the rack!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

It's just not a question of throwing in some LED's imho, we have to think about aestethics as well.

Figured that part was assumed, no?
No comment on the possible usefulness of knowing the back panel Over-sampleing settings without having to flip the rack around? Especially considering they are saved as a part of the patch but are the only part not visible from the front panel?



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[eXode]

However, I have gotten some other ideas related to this, and will take this feedback with me for the future!

I have a simpler suggestion: Add a fourth switch for "lock quality settings." When enabled, the current states of the other three switches will persist through any other patches that are loaded in that instance of the device. When disabled, everything works as it does now.

Yeah, this is one of the 'other' ideas I had already, but regardless it's a question whether it's worth the effort. As always there's more than just one thing to take in consideration.

[eXode]

No comment on the possible usefulness of knowing the back panel Over-sampleing settings without having to flip the rack around? Especially considering they are saved as a part of the patch but are the only part not visible from the front panel?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Useful? Yes. Important? I don't know.

Predator also has patch dependent oversampling and drift settings on the back with no hint on the front.
Antidote has other (imho more important) patch dependent settings such as velocity and pb range on the back, with no hints on the front
ReDominator has patch dependent aftertouch settings on the back, again no hint on the front.

Those are all arguably more important settings, yet I haven't seen a lot fuzz about them.

[TritoneAddiction]

While I understand, and to some extent agree with, some of your points (the idea of "rendering" quality as a single switch), we approached the CPU switches from another perspective, and that was letting sound designers have greater control per patch, since as we've mentioned before, there isn't really a universal setting for everything (well 2/2/2 could be that setting).

To me it's fine the way it is. No need to change anything. Like you said it's up to the patch designer to find the best setting for the patch. After flipping through the settings myself I found it's not always optimal for every sound to have the same setting. Sometimes the higher setting fit better and sometimes it was the opposite.

[VHS]

the quality switches are perfect, love em.

However, please consider:

-Direct out button (bypass fx/filter) for one or all of the oscillators. Unless Im unaware of a workaround?
-bend +/- and FM from oscillators in mods section
-A couple more Tables (I have suggestions if this is a possibility)
-more filters (again I have some suggestions if possible)
-OTT multiband button for compressor(no extra knobs needed), slap the button on the back maybe?

I figure these are very unlikely and not at all easy to do, but wanted to ask. I also don't mean to imply the synth is lacking features as it's fantastic already.

[Carly(Poohbear)]

-Direct out button (bypass fx/filter) for one or all of the oscillators. Unless Im unaware of a workaround?

FYI: The filters can be set to Bypass and you can turn off all the FX's..

[VHS]

-Direct out button (bypass fx/filter) for one or all of the oscillators. Unless Im unaware of a workaround?

FYI: The filters can be set to Bypass and you can turn off all the FX's..

lol, of course you can, but you cant have 3 Osc, all filtered and fx'd out, and have a clean sub. I have to layer two expanse as is, which is taxing on cpu.

[stratatonic]

if I have more than 3 or 4 instances running on my desktop, my laptop can only run one instance with fairly low poly counts— literally the first thing I have to do is tab the rack and reduce the quality in order to play it, and nearly all the patches use higher quality settings. So, while patches do sound at their best, which is great for marketing and trialing, conversely, it actually makes them less usable and less fun out of the box for a lot of people. As much as we'd all love an i7 6950x or E-2699v4... You know what I'm sayin'!

eXode - a possible compromise - instead of changing code in the RE like has been suggested in the past few posts - could be to simply have an alternate folder that has all existing sub folders and current patches - but in a "lo DSP" mode.
Just a suggestion, as I just recently opened up an FX VST which had a parallel folder structure, having one patch as a Send and the same patch as an Insert.

[joeyluck]

Saw this...

voice-stealing.jpg (13.17 KiB) Viewed 2261 times

Thought of this...

[selig]

No comment on the possible usefulness of knowing the back panel Over-sampleing settings without having to flip the rack around? Especially considering they are saved as a part of the patch but are the only part not visible from the front panel?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Useful? Yes. Important? I don't know.

Predator also has patch dependent oversampling and drift settings on the back with no hint on the front.
Antidote has other (imho more important) patch dependent settings such as velocity and pb range on the back, with no hints on the front
ReDominator has patch dependent aftertouch settings on the back, again no hint on the front.

Those are all arguably more important settings, yet I haven't seen a lot fuzz about them.

Great points all around. As a side question, how many patches did you develop where high quality was required for them to sound best/right? Are most of the sound bank patches saved with med quality on all three switches? Do any patches sound best at low quality? Or put another way, how much of the provided sound back deviates from the default settings?

[eXode]

As a side question, how many patches did you develop where high quality was required for them to sound best/right? Are most of the sound bank patches saved with med quality on all three switches? Do any patches sound best at low quality? Or put another way, how much of the provided sound back deviates from the default settings?

I can't answer for the other sound designers obviously, but short answer: I tweaked the switches for many of my patches - To get a good balance between performance and sound quality.

Like I have already said many times. I don't think that anyone can claim that my near 4 year old desktop CPU can be considered top of the line, or a performance monster. This makes me wonder how ancient some other users systems are, and what kind of expectations those users have when trialing a cutting edge soft synth released in 2016. It is a little discouraging to be completely honest.

And like I have also said before. There are Pads in Serum (since it comes up as a comparison) that consume nearly 30% of my CPU. I don't understand why people would expect to see a synth of comparably quality in Reason and at the same time expect it magically lower it's CPU use considerably?

But perhaps that is another topic entirely.

[svenh]

Like I have already said many times. I don't think that anyone can claim that my near 4 year old desktop CPU can be considered top of the line, or a performance monster. This makes me wonder how ancient some other users systems are, and what kind of expectations those users have when trialing a cutting edge soft synth released in 2016. It is a little discouraging to be completely honest.

It's so easy to focus on possible improvements solely, and what you don't like...

Don't forget that this is a GREAT addition in the RE shop! I find it great fun to create patches and just play around with eXpanse and I am sure I am not alone!

[kuniklo]

I think the CPU usage is reasonable considering how much this synth does and at what sound quality. Having some overrides to tweak CPU usage per-patch is a nice bonus.

Overall I'm very very happy with this synth and think it very neatly fills the same shoes of something like Spire or Serum. With this, Antidote, and Nostromo in my rack I don't feel like I'm missing anything from the VST world.

[electrofux]

if I have more than 3 or 4 instances running on my desktop, my laptop can only run one instance with fairly low poly counts— literally the first thing I have to do is tab the rack and reduce the quality in order to play it, and nearly all the patches use higher quality settings. So, while patches do sound at their best, which is great for marketing and trialing, conversely, it actually makes them less usable and less fun out of the box for a lot of people. As much as we'd all love an i7 6950x or E-2699v4... You know what I'm sayin'!

eXode - a possible compromise - instead of changing code in the RE like has been suggested in the past few posts - could be to simply have an alternate folder that has all existing sub folders and current patches - but in a "lo DSP" mode.
Just a suggestion, as I just recently opened up an FX VST which had a parallel folder structure, having one patch as a Send and the same patch as an Insert.

This is a very good suggestion.

As to Exodes "frustration" over the CPU issue and Reason users whinig around. I guess there are many Reason users with "ancient" Systems like me. Reason used to be very efficient with its stock devices which was very convenient and a huge selling point. Adding 20 Thors? No Problem. Now with RE we get access to stuff that is different. Extremely good quality sound at the cost of high CPU use. People like the sound but are not used to the CPU consumption and the workarounds like bouncing it brings along. Sure there are people who always used VSTs alongside Reason who are used to it but my guess is there are alot who only use Reason. For these low cpu versions of the patches really makes sense and that wouldnt need any code changes to the device.
But honestly this could also be done by the users too.

[TritoneAddiction]

Man I love this synth. The more I try it the more I like it.
This is the first time in a LONG time I'm actaully reading the manual for a product. That just doesn't happen in my world. But since I've gotten great results with my very limited synth tweaking abilities I've decided I'm gonna learn this synth.
I'm sure learning any synth really well will improve your sound design skills and knowledge in synths overall, but if I'm gonna choose one synth to master in Reason it's this one.

Big thumbs up to Blamsoft and Exode. I hope you sell a bunch of these.

[joeyluck]

if I have more than 3 or 4 instances running on my desktop, my laptop can only run one instance with fairly low poly counts— literally the first thing I have to do is tab the rack and reduce the quality in order to play it, and nearly all the patches use higher quality settings. So, while patches do sound at their best, which is great for marketing and trialing, conversely, it actually makes them less usable and less fun out of the box for a lot of people. As much as we'd all love an i7 6950x or E-2699v4... You know what I'm sayin'!

eXode - a possible compromise - instead of changing code in the RE like has been suggested in the past few posts - could be to simply have an alternate folder that has all existing sub folders and current patches - but in a "lo DSP" mode.
Just a suggestion, as I just recently opened up an FX VST which had a parallel folder structure, having one patch as a Send and the same patch as an Insert.

This is a very good suggestion.

As to Exodes "frustration" over the CPU issue and Reason users whinig around. I guess there are many Reason users with "ancient" Systems like me. Reason used to be very efficient with its stock devices which was very convenient and a huge selling point. Adding 20 Thors? No Problem. Now with RE we get access to stuff that is different. Extremely good quality sound at the cost of high CPU use. People like the sound but are not used to the CPU consumption and the workarounds like bouncing it brings along. Sure there are people who always used VSTs alongside Reason who are used to it but my guess is there are alot who only use Reason. For these low cpu versions of the patches really makes sense and that wouldnt need any code changes to the device.
But honestly this could also be done by the users too.

My suggestion was a switch on the back next to the CPU usage switches that would allow you to select between something like 'patch settings' and 'retain user settings.' That way you could set it to 'user setting' and browse patches without the CPU usage changing. Is that possible?

[Blamsoft]

There is a low CPU factory sound bank now available on the Expanse web page: http://blamsoft.com/rack-extensions/exp ... ynthesizer. The patch CPU switches have all been set at Low.

[Majestik Monkey]

There is a low CPU factory sound bank now available on the Expanse web page: http://blamsoft.com/rack-extensions/exp ... ynthesizer. The patch CPU switches have all been set at Low.

Thank's Blamsoft & Exode !

Cos, i could not figure out how to hit the tab key & turn around the Rack to adjust the Cpu switches myself '

No seriously thanks for the New FREE FSB ...............

[dana]

I kind of think this (cpu usage) is something the rack extension api should address internally, adapt the usage while composing (depending on overall load) but when exporting it would run at full cpu.

[TritoneAddiction]

I kind of think this (cpu usage) is something the rack extension api should address internally, adapt the usage while composing (depending on overall load) but when exporting it would run at full cpu.

I can see your point but I personally wouldn't like that at all, because then you would mix one way that suited the lower quality setting (especially with EQ settings) and then you would have to adjust it again to fit the higher setting. It may not be a night and day difference but enough for me to notice. I mix and compose simultaneously so if the sound changed after the export it would be a pain in the a**. I would have to go back to revisit my mixing decisions.

I prefer it the way it is, making the options open for the user to adjust the quality settings how they want and when they want.

[stratatonic]

There is a low CPU factory sound bank now available on the Expanse web page: http://blamsoft.com/rack-extensions/exp ... ynthesizer. The patch CPU switches have all been set at Low.

Oh..what's this?...somebody had the solution last week?... ahem:
.

eXode - a possible compromise - instead of changing code in the RE like has been suggested in the past few posts - could be to simply have an alternate folder that has all existing sub folders and current patches - but in a "lo DSP" mode.

My Propellerhead user name is stratatonic...a free eXpanse into this account is an eXtremely small price to pay - having saved days of tedious additional coding. Many cheers!



.

[The_G]

Btw @Blamsoft and @eXode:

The fact that the song playing over the overview video is synthwave makes me so happy

(And more likely to buy it haha)

[dana]

I kind of think this (cpu usage) is something the rack extension api should address internally, adapt the usage while composing (depending on overall load) but when exporting it would run at full cpu.

I can see your point but I personally wouldn't like that at all, because then you would mix one way that suited the lower quality setting (especially with EQ settings) and then you would have to adjust it again to fit the higher setting. It may not be a night and day difference but enough for me to notice. I mix and compose simultaneously so if the sound changed after the export it would be a pain in the a**. I would have to go back to revisit my mixing decisions.

I prefer it the way it is, making the options open for the user to adjust the quality settings how they want and when they want.

Developers could just add it as another option, "automatic"

[JiggeryPokery]

Like I have already said many times. I don't think that anyone can claim that my near 4 year old desktop CPU can be considered top of the line, or a performance monster. This makes me wonder how ancient some other users systems are, and what kind of expectations those users have when trialing a cutting edge soft synth released in 2016. It is a little discouraging to be completely honest.

And like I have also said before. There are Pads in Serum (since it comes up as a comparison) that consume nearly 30% of my CPU. I don't understand why people would expect to see a synth of comparably quality in Reason and at the same time expect it magically lower it's CPU use considerably?

But perhaps that is another topic entirely.

Yes, those are fair points, Daniel; we want high quality and that takes more CPU.

On balance, though, other DAWs (or some others, I've not used 'em all) do have a proper "freeze" and that can make a big difference; it bounces down the audio, fairly quickly, and stops the device entirely. Reason doesn't do this: it renders the audio in near sodding in real-time and merely mutes the sequencer lane: the RE itself is still doing whatever the 'kin 'ell all RE's do to consume CPU when they're not actually meant to be bloody well doing anything. (That of course is a fault of the RE system, not yours or Blams). So given that eventually the only way to run such synths in Reason is to bounce them, then delete them entirely and just have the audio wave, personally I want to put that off as long as possible (without having to load a previous file save to get the device back).

Stratatonic took one of my suggestions there and refined it into an actual good idea ( ) , simply dupe the patches into a new folder with the lowest values preset. It's not even a five minute job with something like EditPad Lite, that supports multi-line search and replace.

Regarding Predator - never used it so can't speak for how they handle patches. If that's how they did it, saving the setting in patch, I think that's wrong there too!

All that said, please don't get disheartened by a bit of what I think has been constructive criticism over a bit of usability issue some of us might be having. Overall it seems to me that there's a big consensus that it's a really good device. You should be proud. IMO it's by far the best of the modern Reason wavetablers (I'm not even including the fungal infestation of IDT ROMtablers in that assessment).

[eXode]

Stratatonic took one of my suggestions there and refined it into an actual good idea ( ) , simply dupe the patches into a new folder with the lowest values preset. It's not even a five minute job with something like EditPad Lite, that supports multi-line search and replace.

All that said, please don't get disheartened by a bit of what I think has been constructive criticism over a bit of usability issue some of us might be having. Overall it seems to me that there's a big consensus that it's a really good device. You should be proud. IMO it's by far the best of the modern Reason wavetablers (I'm not even including the fungal infestation of IDT ROMtablers in that assessment).

Not sure if you saw it, but Andrew posted a link to a low quality version of the sound bank.

Also, no worries, I wasn't disheartened by the quality switch suggestions or that discussion in particular, I agree that it was constructive feedback. I was speaking about some other DSP usage comments that were made previously, I likely wrote that comment in the wrong context.