operator naysayers, I'm throwing down the gauntlet

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 1:38 am

Poster wrote:
Airbase wrote:The operator sucks.
let me translate for the little viewers back home:
he means he can't program it..

thanks for the translation. because i really couldn't comprehend what he was saying.
in my country, sucks means not capable, not good, not okay, not agreeable, etc.

wow, that means by my countries definition that user sucks.
language is wierd.

udp · Post by **udp** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 2:34 pm

Poster wrote:
Airbase wrote:The operator sucks.
let me translate for the little viewers back home:
he means he can't program it..

Apparently it doesn't come with enough presets for his tastes.

Honestly, it's the easiest synth I've ever programmed. Since getting Operator I find very few vst synths useful. I'm getting great results just using Live's instruments and effects. Maybe I'm just a suburbanit snob, but some people(myself included) spend $149 a month on beer and various other expressions of freedom.

LOFA · Post by **LOFA** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 4:52 pm

So I just got finished merging two parallel tracks of demo-moog au basslines, cutting/pasting around the periodic HSSSSSSSSSSH sound. No matter what I did I couldn't get Operator or any of my Logic Plug-ins to do what I needed. Of course, in the process I accidently discovered some amazing stuff in operator, that my song would never have been complete without!

My point is that depending on how much time or money you have, it is more about whether or not you desire the sound the plug-in can produce. Operator can do a lot, but once 5 comes out?... the chances are that more people will "Need" it.Of course the CPU issue will probably still be around, but who knows.

Operator+Live 5= macintel laptop in my future, and an end to my free-time for along while.

OT: adhmzaiusz, that Zillion image rocks the house! That video game was so cool.

adhmzaiusz · Post by **adhmzaiusz** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 6:27 pm

LOFA wrote: OT: adhmzaiusz, that Zillion image rocks the house! That video game was so cool.

why thank you..........that game constituted about 75% of my childhood...i was mad the day my dad almost beat the game before i did(the sad part is i have that whole game memorized inside and out...and its still taking space in my brain)

d2 · Post by d2 » Sat Jun 18, 2005 7:02 pm

Operator is a nice little 4-operator FM synth. It sounds decent, and it's easier to program than most FM synths.

And that's about it.

I think what gets a yawn from old FM-heads like myself is that it really isn't anything special in it's own right, and certainly not when compared to other FM hardware/software available. In a world where 6 operators are somewhat "standard", and the Yamaha FS1r set a quality standard with 8 operators + filters, what does Operator really offer that is unique and special?

It's just not a great value at $149 when you consider all of the other FM options out there.

Robert Henke · Post by **Robert Henke** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 7:30 pm

okay, my voice may not count since i made that thing. But I made it because
I was not satisfied with the software FM synths on the market. FM-7 does not sound brilliant at all to me, turn off all filters and effects take two sine wave oscillators and modulate them with each other. Now do the same with operator and play with the Tone control. Compare the sound. The Tone control is _not_ a filter at any of the outputs. I should better have labeled it as "adaptive anti aliasing filter, and it allows to morph between the sound of a freeware FM synth with heavy aliasing and beyond the very conservative aliasing of FM-7.
Compare the livelyness of the sound if you apply a bit of low frequency noise from
the LFO with what you can get from the "analog" or "digital" humanise parameters of FM-7. Please don`t get me wrong, this is no FM-7 bashing, but if the other soft synths would have given me the sound and user interface I was looking for there would not be an Operator.

Comparing it with hardware is pointless, since there is MIDI with all problems and there is a user interface we need not talk about. Just for the record: I have been working ( and creating some records ) with
DX-7, DX-27, SY 77, and some more exotic FM synths and I checked the FS1-R. There are a lot of details in Operator which are the result of working with these.

How much FM sounds really make use of six or more operators which cannot be done by stacking two or three synths with less operators and therefor allow for much more control ?

Robert Henke / Ableton

LOFA · Post by **LOFA** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 8:32 pm

Thanks for the insight (and the synth! Another amazing thing you have helped give the world!)