U-he appreciation

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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agent314
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by agent314 » Fri Sep 07, 2012 8:08 pm

Finally spent some time playing with Bazille the other night, and it's a great recreation of a modular synth, but I'm curious what utility it offers over something like DIVA, etc.

Is it the increased flexibility FM/modulation options? Or just the familiarity/affection some people have for working with modular systems?

It was lots of fun to play with, but in terms of practical usefuless in my music workflow, it seems like it would slow me down or otherwise be more of a challenge than a solution

Am I missing something, or is it just a different flavor of doing similar things, one that some people prefer?

moscom_musik
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by moscom_musik » Fri Sep 07, 2012 10:03 pm

agent314 wrote:Finally spent some time playing with Bazille the other night, and it's a great recreation of a modular synth, but I'm curious what utility it offers over something like DIVA, etc.

Is it the increased flexibility FM/modulation options? Or just the familiarity/affection some people have for working with modular systems?

It was lots of fun to play with, but in terms of practical usefuless in my music workflow, it seems like it would slow me down or otherwise be more of a challenge than a solution

Am I missing something, or is it just a different flavor of doing similar things, one that some people prefer?
Bazille is different from DIVA in many aspects. The most important is probably that it does not claim to be a faithfull recreation of any of our old beloved dinosaurs ;) The second one lies in the oscillators: they implement mostly frequency modulation à la DX7 and phase distortion à la casio CZ. Moreover, you have this fractal resonance stuff, which gives you other possibilities in terms of what you can do just on the oscillators. And because, as in other U-He synths, every single modulation is evaluated at audio rates and resampled many times, you can modulate pretty much everything by everything, and not get really ugly afterfacts (although they are what people look for sometimes).
Macbook Pro Retina 2015, Live 9 Suite, Push, and a bunch of plug-ins I like :)

deva
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by deva » Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:24 am

agent314 wrote:Finally spent some time playing with Bazille the other night, and it's a great recreation of a modular synth, but I'm curious what utility it offers over something like DIVA, etc.

Is it the increased flexibility FM/modulation options? Or just the familiarity/affection some people have for working with modular systems?

It was lots of fun to play with, but in terms of practical usefuless in my music workflow, it seems like it would slow me down or otherwise be more of a challenge than a solution

Am I missing something, or is it just a different flavor of doing similar things, one that some people prefer?

Bazille is entirely different than Diva. Completely different featureset. Fairly unique altogether and Bazille can make many sorts of sounds you are unlikely to match with most other softsynths. Whether that is of interest to you depends on your own musical inclinations.

crystalmsc
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by crystalmsc » Thu Sep 13, 2012 2:39 pm

tintala wrote:And this was my next question, comparing Alchemy,as it appears to be a capable synth.. but from what I have read , zebra is a bit more conducive to my sounds.... I mean why not have all if you can afford it..
because one of that synth can be anything already for some people, depending on their needs :)
Kaossilatron - Voicillator
Station: Ableton Live 10 Suite, Obscurium, Push 2, Ultranova, MS-20m, Wavedrums

deva
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by deva » Sat Sep 15, 2012 9:23 pm

a new Bazille preset sound I made

http://draigathar.org/sounds/Bazille32.mp3

agent314
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by agent314 » Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:34 pm

Way cool, deva. That sounds great. It's like a cross between a Chinese hammered dulcimer thing and a sitar

ze2be
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by ze2be » Mon Sep 17, 2012 2:40 pm

I finally got some time to try out Diva last night.
Heres how it sounded: http://youtu.be/uIcShdcRmoU

Keep in mind its set to "low quality" aka draft settings because of cpu limitations. Also im only capable of modulating one track at the time, so all these midi loops exept the one in focus, are very static. Usually I record velocity, volume envelopes, filters, and effects on every track into the Arrangement. But this is a pre-arrangement jam played "live" from Session, and Session will not record automation into the clips. I would almost sell my left leg for this future.


To my ears it sounds really good even on draft settings. Lots of love -> Diva and U-He. <3

tintala
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by tintala » Mon Sep 17, 2012 3:39 pm

" Session will not record automation into the clips. I would almost sell my left leg for this future."



DITTO!

ze2be
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by ze2be » Mon Sep 17, 2012 5:47 pm

deva wrote:a new Bazille preset sound I made
http://draigathar.org/sounds/Bazille32.mp3
Very nice! Sounds like physical modeling, like Tension sort of.

merges
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Location: san francisco

Re: U-he appreciation

Post by merges » Mon Sep 17, 2012 9:30 pm

deva wrote:a new Bazille preset sound I made
http://draigathar.org/sounds/Bazille32.mp3
AWESOME sound. Nicely done. I am completely baffled by the decision Urs made to go with the UI he chose for Bazille. I feel like it's going to be held back so much by that slow, slow UI.

How are you finding it?

agent314
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by agent314 » Mon Sep 17, 2012 9:51 pm

I agree that it's slower than an alternative interface might be, but thinking about all the different parts there, I can't think of a better way to implement the patch-cord idea

ze2be
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by ze2be » Mon Sep 17, 2012 10:35 pm

Regarding interfaces: for me, time is money.

I can create 30 - 40 good, usable presets in a day with an interface like Surge. But perhaps 5 with a modular like Zebra. Its all about one page interface and one click assigning of invisible patch cords. I hope Claes, creator of Surge, has done the same thing with his project Bitwig. Oh and Divas interface is like 1980 technology in a 2010 engine, with the benefit of saving presets and automation. Buuut its ok I guess. The sound quality alone makes it top of the line. Maybe its dificult to program one click assigning of parameters to anywhere, what do I know. All I know is a simple and fast interface is essential for my ADD brain. But people are diferent. Zebra has been and are being used on some of the highest budget Hollywood movies.

I only tried the Bazzile demo one time. After 30 minutes of trying to figure out how to patch the cords, re assign and remove them, I gave up in frustration. How do you actually patch it? :)

deva
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by deva » Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:56 pm

merges wrote:
deva wrote:a new Bazille preset sound I made
http://draigathar.org/sounds/Bazille32.mp3
AWESOME sound. Nicely done. I am completely baffled by the decision Urs made to go with the UI he chose for Bazille. I feel like it's going to be held back so much by that slow, slow UI.

How are you finding it?
Bazille definitely is a learning process unless you are familiar with hardware modulars (which I have never used). At first I didn't know what half the modules did or have an idea how to use them. That learning curve is not to do with the UI though.

Bazille is entirely different from most synths. (Lag Generators, Quantizers and Rectifiers?) Anything can be wired to anything. There is no fixed signal path at all. You can use 1 or any combination of the 4 main osc's as the sound source. But then you could also use an lfo or the step sequencer as the sound source. I have a few presets where one of the envelopes is the only sound source!

A synth with a fixed signal path is going to be easier because many decisions are out of the users hands and hardwired by the developer. Most synths do not allow feedback except in a specific and controlled instance. In Bazille, you can for example, take the output of the filter and feed it back into itself. You could take the output of the filter, run it through the quantizer or other modifier and then modulate the same filter or use that for FM on an OSC. In Bazille there is no difference between audio path and modulation path. They cross-over freely and are defined by the user.

So no regular UI could work for this sort of flexibility. Given the nature of Bazille, I think the current UI makes sense. At this point, I enjoy the interface. I am comfortable with it and know how to use all the modules and understand what a preset will sound like when I do something.

I have one preset where an env is multiplied by itself, then sent through the quantizer and lag generator before modulating filter cutoff. Try representing that in a mod matrix! :)

The UI can get cluttered looking when there are enough wires all over making it hard to follow them. But then it can get hard to figure out what is going on in a preset when you have lots of complex modulation assignments in a mod matrix.

deva
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by deva » Tue Sep 18, 2012 5:25 pm

ze2be wrote:Regarding interfaces: for me, time is money.

I can create 30 - 40 good, usable presets in a day with an interface like Surge. But perhaps 5 with a modular like Zebra. Its all about one page interface and one click assigning of invisible patch cords. I hope Claes, creator of Surge, has done the same thing with his project Bitwig. Oh and Divas interface is like 1980 technology in a 2010 engine, with the benefit of saving presets and automation. Buuut its ok I guess. The sound quality alone makes it top of the line. Maybe its dificult to program one click assigning of parameters to anywhere, what do I know. All I know is a simple and fast interface is essential for my ADD brain. But people are diferent. Zebra has been and are being used on some of the highest budget Hollywood movies.

I only tried the Bazzile demo one time. After 30 minutes of trying to figure out how to patch the cords, re assign and remove them, I gave up in frustration. How do you actually patch it? :)
Surge (which I quite like) does not actually have a 1 page interface. You have to click tabs to see each of the 12 lfo's and if you want to see what is modulating what.

Bazille actually has a 1 page interface. (until effects are added at least). No tab switching at all. That is one of the strengths of the UI...

crystalmsc
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Re: U-he appreciation

Post by crystalmsc » Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:01 am

deva wrote:
ze2be wrote:Regarding interfaces: for me, time is money.

I can create 30 - 40 good, usable presets in a day with an interface like Surge. But perhaps 5 with a modular like Zebra. Its all about one page interface and one click assigning of invisible patch cords.
Surge (which I quite like) does not actually have a 1 page interface. You have to click tabs to see each of the 12 lfo's and if you want to see what is modulating what.

Bazille actually has a 1 page interface. (until effects are added at least). No tab switching at all. That is one of the strengths of the UI...
while we are talking about a one page interface, I just got the Gladiator and it's so powerful. The sound is more into the digital sounding area, which is a nice addition to U-he synth imho.

Is there anything like that (1 page interface with such power) besides the ElectraX? The Synthmaster is as powerful, but the interface is just not as a straight one page as the above. Dune and Refx Vanguard are close, as many considered Vanguard as the Gladiator ancestor, just not as powerful.
Kaossilatron - Voicillator
Station: Ableton Live 10 Suite, Obscurium, Push 2, Ultranova, MS-20m, Wavedrums

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