Ableton Forum

tedlogan wrote:the world between Diva and Zebra - not quite the warm fuzz of Diva, and not the crispyness of Zebra - a very solid tone inbetween those two

Running it through Satin for added warmth, just bloody lovely.

well said, It has a tone that I always want to get from the DX and CZ line of synths.

hmm..sounds tasty!

XSIMan wrote:u-he Bazille and The Drop finished in the same week it's a good week
Those bazille presets made me realise there's far more types of sound from Bazille. I've been using it for bass arps but it can do everything.

Great week indeed. Bazille filled many missing spot from my current synths.

At some point Urs wants to make a modular plugin with ACE and Bazille inside it and it lets you connect patch cables from ACE into Bazille. Even if he has plans to do it it's such a long time off and he might change his mind by then. The price of Bazille and ACE will be deducted from Berlin Modular.

u-he compressor is next after Bazille called Presswerk after that it's Zebra 3. After Zebra 3 we might see a supersaw synth based on DIVA's JP-8000 emulation it's called Hive One. I think it's a cut down DIVA with less CPU and less price so nothing for DIVA owners to get exited about.

urs posted up a pic of 'hive' in the bazille thread earlier after someone was bitching about how bazille wasnt as good as sylenth (whatever that was all about )

Hive is looking a lot better than the last version. thanks for the pic.
Bazille compared to Sylenth 1? he needs to learn about what a synthesizer's job is.

XSIMan wrote:At some point Urs wants to make a modular plugin with ACE and Bazille inside it and it lets you connect patch cables from ACE into Bazille. Even if he has plans to do it it's such a long time off and he might change his mind by then. The price of Bazille and ACE will be deducted from Berlin Modular.

I really like their business model. Made me feel like a part of the company rather than just as a buyer. So glad to own both already.

XSIMan wrote:after that it's Zebra 3

can't wait for the big day, specially since owner of the Dark Zebra and will get it as a free update.

I hate hyperbole and yet it strikes me as impossible not to feel / say in this thread that Urs Heckman is the greatest living software synth developer on the planet. There's just no comparison!

bought Bazille and have been staying up way too late all week now learning it / playing with it / being impressed by it.

I think it's hilarious + awesome that he's making a Sylenth killer with "hive." Can't wait (especially since sylenth still doesn't run 64bit on Mac).

-M

mholloway wrote:I hate hyperbole and yet it strikes me as impossible not to feel / say in this thread that Urs Heckman is the greatest living software synth developer on the planet. There's just no comparison!

you might well be 1000000000000% correct...

When it comes to sound Urs get it's right, what I am not liking about the synths is the GUI, way too much skeumorphism. Zebra was about right. Diva main section works, but I fond the LFO and FX section clutered.

Maybe I am spoiled by Aalto and fabfilter stuff, but I think urs is taking the easy path with gui's.

You were just dying to use the word "skeumorphism", and you probably don't mind the GUIs

Kidding aside, I don't mind it as long as it doesn't impede functionality. Zebra's is good, though I would prefer all the little modules/MSEGs/Arp/Matrix in one window. There's a user skin that's recently been made called Redux on the KVR forums, looks and works really well for this, although on smaller screens it might be a strain on the eyes.

Diva looks quite pretty, but I would also like everything to show at once. I do like the chunky oscillator and filter knobs.

Satin is very pleasing to the eye, but I don't like having to open the service panel all the time, and browsing for presets obscuring the central pane sucks.

I love Bazille's whole GUI/look. The Gearporn version with everything on one screen is great.

Haven't really used ACE or UHBIK so can't comment.

I think Bazille has a fantastic looking UI, weird to me that others don't like it... well organized, nice symmetry of elements, and I really dig the aesthetics of it.

DIVA i think is frankly ugly.. it's huge and a weird wine-purple color.

Zebra is ... functionally great, visually so-so, but what kind of bugs me in a trivial way is that it just doesn't in any way look or 'fee' like a musical instrument. That said, it's the best synth ever

mholloway wrote:I hate hyperbole and yet it strikes me as impossible not to feel / say in this thread that Urs Heckman is the greatest living software synth developer on the planet. There's just no comparison! ).

-M

Have to agree. I'm probably biased though as I used to chat with him on the osxaudio.com forums back when the only commercial product he had was More Feedback Machine, OS X only and shareware. I've used zebra on way more than half the songs I've done since v1. He's also a super decent guy, in person the real deal as well!

mholloway wrote:I think Bazille has a fantastic looking UI, weird to me that others don't like it... well organized, nice symmetry of elements, and I really dig the aesthetics of it.

Plus, if you are using the Gearporn skin, everything is on one page. For such a powerful and flexible synth to have everything all on one page without having to switch tabs is fantastic.

login wrote:When it comes to sound Urs get it's right, what I am not liking about the synths is the GUI, way too much skeumorphism. Zebra was about right. Diva main section works, but I fond the LFO and FX section clutered.

Maybe I am spoiled by Aalto and fabfilter stuff, but I think urs is taking the easy path with gui's.

I don't particularly care if something looks like a knob or not. I like a variety of GUI styles. Valhalla plugs are great gui's. I quite like Aalto too... I think the Gearporn skin for Bazille is as good as any GUI available. It is more densely packed than something like Aalto, but that is because it has far more controls and wire connections. Still the controls are easy to see, and the signal paths are well presented.

I prefair GUIs that look like hardware from the 60s and 70s but not over keen on tem adding rust and poo stains like some plugin makers do. u-he used to be very inexperienced with GUI design so kept it simple. Then Urs learned how to use Lightwave 3D rendering then he hired a GUI designer. Bazille has in perfect look sclean and hardware I prefair it over DIVA's and Zebras. I really like Cytomic and Soundtoys designs.

XSIMan wrote:I prefair GUIs that look like hardware from the 60s and 70s but not over keen on tem adding rust and poo stains like some plugin makers do.

I like the Moog Modular V concept, pity that they didn't release any new module or upgrading the UI for high resolution display. I view Berlin Modular as a fresh concept, with a vintage flavor. Also something like the Scope Modular, the amount of modules (including Adern Flexor add-on) is amazing. Hopefully Berlin Modular is heading to such direction one day.