Amaranth audio Cycle, your impressions ?

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If the tracing could be automated that would blow the roof off. Mutating the waveforms via vertices is so incredibly powerful, but the ground work to get to that point is kind of tedious and fussy. It's also in stark contrast to the 'mutating' work flow, which is so straightforward and easy to grasp. That part of Cycle is very accessible, it's the first step, unfortunately the ground work, which is intimidating.

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I can see the point of tracing the wave... it reminds me of Welsh's Cookbook with the harmonic building. However I agree with Wasi that it is fiddly and tedious at the moment. I still don't entirely understand how the synth works but I like what it does, and the way it does it, better than PPG Wavegenerator.

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secretkillerofnames wrote: I still don't entirely understand how the synth works but I like what it does, and the way it does it, better than PPG Wavegenerator.
That's what i felt too...

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The thing is it's a new way of doing things and not immediately gratifying. We haven't figured out how to use it yet. It's beautiful to look at and the sound is there it's just a matter of learning how to control it. I was never able to get the kind of control I wanted out of it. If i wanted to extend the release of a certain partial, or the pitch of a certain partial...the ability to do that was there but i didn't know where to go, or how to do it.

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Dasheesh wrote:The thing is it's a new way of doing things and not immediately gratifying. We haven't figured out how to use it yet. It's beautiful to look at and the sound is there it's just a matter of learning how to control it. I was never able to get the kind of control I wanted out of it. If i wanted to extend the release of a certain partial, or the pitch of a certain partial...the ability to do that was there but i didn't know where to go, or how to do it.

Do you mean you want a per-partial envelope? That sounds quite ambitious in terms of processing. Does Harmor do that? I remember it having envelopes for almost everything.

There may be a way to offer something similar, a fully designable release part of the sound, but I need to solve the issue of keeping the timbre coherent when you release the note. Jumping quickly to a different release timbre from any part of the sound would usually be unwanted - you want it to be smooth!

The detuning of partials is done through the phase domain. When the curve offsets partial(s) more at the end of the note than the beginning, it sounds detuned.
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Well, that is what granular synthesis is about isn't it? What you have here is a little different than that though. It's less granular and more of well...a cycle domain kind of thing right? That's just it...people don't really know what to call it yet because it is new...and those that understand the concept haven't gotten to a point where they can work it in a reliable and repeatable manor.

This means...if I go... "well, this sound could go into a brass direction...if only I could get it to sound a little brighter, or a little further into this or that timbre". Well, I have no idea how to get it to do that. I'm just making a guess at it and seeing what pops out. I have no knowledge of the exact point I want, or how to move it to get it where I want. That was frustrating to me. I know how to use semi modular designs and they are quick and efficient for me.

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so i havent had a chance to play with the demo yet. ill do that tomorrow (if the woman and the baby let me). i did watch a few of the tut. videos though. i have to say i really really dig the concept of this. it just seems like you can do so much.

with that said...watching those videos was like listening to ben stein read a tax law text book. there was so much technical talk and phrases not used by anyone else that after the first couple of minutes i was totally lost...and mostly tuned out (more audio along with the explanations would have helped i think...a little...maybe).

the videos made this synth look more complicated than flying the enterprise.

dont get me wrong...i dont think theres anything wrong with the videos, im just saying they make it look a tad intimidating. but, im a tactile learner anyway, so ill just have to play with it.

it sure do sound purdy tho'
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Other than deformers, I think I undestand this synth \o/.
It crashes S1 for me though. Dumps sent to dev.

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As a TL;DR...

This can be used as a 1-osc, 1-filter, 3-env (amp, mod, tune) synth. And as an additive synth at the same time. You have drawable envs, osc, and filter.
Similar synths:
Zebra (drawable osc and env)
Spectral (drawable osc and filter)

You can import a sample and 'trace' it (drawing all those things till you match the spectrogram). It doesn't do it for you, like say Harmor or razor.

Hitting 'play' will show you the spectrogram moving in time for your sound. This was key for me to understand how it works.

My questions to Daven:
- Cycle is a 1-osc synth. Would this not be a big disadvantage? Even zebra, with hand-drawn, hyperpowerful oscs, has more than one. No matter how powerful, it'd be hard to replicate the job of two or more oscs (FM, PM, AM etc)

- Envs and lfos are the same thing, because envs can loop. But there's a non-modifiable mod matrix: one env for volume, one for mod, one for pitch. Is this correct? Would you ever consider having them in independent windows? I hate when functionality is hidden in tabs.

- Do you know the work of Bret Victor? http://vimeo.com/36579366
I think his take on interfaces is brilliant, and what you are doing with cycle goes in that direction.

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well, i tried to play with the demo, but it wont open. im using fl studio, on win 7. i installed all 3 versions 64, 32 and stand alone. if i try to open them in fl studio i get the error: "there was a problem opening cycle64 (cycle) for an unknown reason. please make sure it has been installed correctly".

if i try to run the stand alone i get this error: "the application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142). click ok to close the application."

ive attempted to reinstall it multiple times (i did run the installer as administrator) to no avail.

i was really looking forward to trying this out.
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Similar synth: 1-filter, 3-env (amp, mod, tune), drawable filter and envs: straightliner.
Both lack modulations, (no lfos) but make it up by having crazy multi-stage envs that can do wavy stuff.
Not sure it's working: straightliner seems to be abandoned. I barely open Cycle.

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chaosWyrM wrote:well, i tried to play with the demo, but it wont open. im using fl studio, on win 7. i installed all 3 versions 64, 32 and stand alone. if i try to open them in fl studio i get the error: "there was a problem opening cycle64 (cycle) for an unknown reason. please make sure it has been installed correctly".

if i try to run the stand alone i get this error: "the application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142). click ok to close the application."

ive attempted to reinstall it multiple times (i did run the installer as administrator) to no avail.

i was really looking forward to trying this out.
Did you re-download? I got something like that one time and the download had been corrupted.

Also, might want to try installing the Visual Studio 2010 redist as described here:

http://www.amaranthaudio.com/forum/view ... p?f=4&t=46

http://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download ... px?id=5555

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wasi wrote:
chaosWyrM wrote:well, i tried to play with the demo, but it wont open. im using fl studio, on win 7. i installed all 3 versions 64, 32 and stand alone. if i try to open them in fl studio i get the error: "there was a problem opening cycle64 (cycle) for an unknown reason. please make sure it has been installed correctly".

if i try to run the stand alone i get this error: "the application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142). click ok to close the application."

ive attempted to reinstall it multiple times (i did run the installer as administrator) to no avail.

i was really looking forward to trying this out.
Did you re-download? I got something like that one time and the download had been corrupted.

Also, might want to try installing the Visual Studio 2010 redist as described here:

http://www.amaranthaudio.com/forum/view ... p?f=4&t=46

http://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download ... px?id=5555
thanks for the info, but re-downloading didnt work, and if i try to install that file from microsoft i get a notice that the file on my computer is newer than that one.

looking around cycle forum, it seems this is a known issue that hasnt been resolved yet. it also seems as thought the dev has given up trying to fix it seeing that the threads are unresolved and havent had new posts since december.

oh well...it looks cool, but i can live without it. if the dev cant be assed to even post about the problem since december, i cant be assed either.
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Come on. The dev posted that he was hoping v1.2 would resolve the issue. It didn't fix it for one user, whereupon he posted a suggested fix and nobody posted about it since. I for one do not have this issue, so it seems to be setup specific. Such is software development. If nobody is willing to report it and sit down and work it out with the dev, it never will be worked out.

Also, the last posting by the dev was today, the one before that the April 11, the one before that April 9, the one before that mid march. This here is not his forum. It's this odd KVR notion that if you complain loud enough here any dev will come rolling in and turn wherever you post into his temporary field hospital for bug fixing. That's simply not fair to devs in general and in particular to smaller developers that don't have an army of marketing hacks to curate their public image on whichever public forum happens to be trending.

I mean you know, suit yourself, but if you're not willing to file a bug report, don't make it look like it's the dev's fault. And stick to big devs if you expect an army of execs on your tail as soon as your post shows up on their google alerts inbox. Not that they will be any faster at fixing you up mind you.

There's a new version around the corner, maybe wait for that and if it's still not fixed, file a bug report. But yeah, it's just a synth. Life goes on. :D

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couldn;t get it working either for 2nd time in orion win7, shame cuz i like visual synths
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