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VST, AU, AAX, CLAP, etc. Plugin Virtual Instruments Discussion
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mlt wrote:
loungepanda wrote: Tried finding some of the heavier patches to see what load is like on my 4970k (stock 4.0, turbo not on):

PD Big Minor Seventh Pad [SN], 2 OSC with 10 Unison on both: 18-19% holding one note.

Other unison pads/sequences were around 8-12% s

Mine reaches around 26% on the same sound, but 19% is quite a lot (especially if you have i7 4790k).
are you meaning 26% of one thread (out of 8 on the i7)? I tried the same patch in reaper and it's about 3% of total cpu (or about 25% of one thread watching it via resource monitor) on an i7-4770. No higher than other well know cpu hungry vstis

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jdnz wrote:
mlt wrote:
loungepanda wrote: Tried finding some of the heavier patches to see what load is like on my 4970k (stock 4.0, turbo not on):

PD Big Minor Seventh Pad [SN], 2 OSC with 10 Unison on both: 18-19% holding one note.

Other unison pads/sequences were around 8-12% s

Mine reaches around 26% on the same sound, but 19% is quite a lot (especially if you have i7 4790k).
are you meaning 26% of one thread (out of 8 on the i7)? I tried the same patch in reaper and it's about 3% of total cpu (or about 25% of one thread watching it via resource monitor) on an i7-4770. No higher than other well know cpu hungry vstis
As I mentioned earlier I have an older system (quad Opteron), and the CPU usage in the task manager is 26%.
Most probably I'll do an upgrade this year so it is good to know that with a 4770 the CPU load is much lower.
Serum works fine for me for anything other than pads so I'll probably buy it this week.

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With my i7 3770 this patch (Big Minor Seventh) needs about 5,8% CPU holding one note (task manager) on Windows 8.1 /Cubase 7.5. With the Cubase VST performance meter it shows something about 18 to 20% with 512 Samples ASIO buffer (with 256 samples it goes up to 6,5% and a bit over 20% ASIO performance). IMO a typical value and not so different compared to other CPU hungry synth.

Btw... playing a bit with this baby ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJrBq1xbF_A

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Just wanted to express my appreciation for the UX & UI (user interface and the user experience).
This sets the bar higher for small/medium developers. The sound isn't that amazing IMO. Just tried the Pad
patches only, which is the first section I usually try in any new synth and apart from 4-5 sounds I found nothing
out of the ordinary. Maybe they are just uninspired presets and maybe you can actually do much much more with it...

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4damind wrote: Btw... playing a bit with this baby ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJrBq1xbF_A
Very nice, sweet sounding demo 4damind.
Seeing that you use Eventide Ultrareverb here, what do you think of it's sound?
I find the modulation a bit hard to control and some times it sounds like the reverb tail goes completely out of tune. Are there any types of sounds that you think it excels from other reverbs?
(I already have tsar-1 and was looking for x-verb, but then this came with that low price and I am not sure if I should buy it.)
Anyway, thats off topic from serum but i would like to know your opinion.

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bitcrusher wrote:
This is a bit similar to Dune 2, right?
I've had people compare it to a whole bunch of synths, obviously there is overlap between a lot of synths. I'm not versed enough in Dune2 to make the comparison, though I'm confident both are their own instruments. I believe you can use Serum to make WT's for Dune2 as well :)
Can anyone confirm this? I don't actually need another synth right now, but I could definitely go for a Wavetable "generator" that just so happens to also be a synth.

Dune 2 is one of my most-used synths at the moment and I'd love to be able to create some custom wavetables. All the other Serum awesomeness would be a great bonus too! :)

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mlt wrote:
4damind wrote: Btw... playing a bit with this baby ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJrBq1xbF_A
Very nice, sweet sounding demo 4damind.
Seeing that you use Eventide Ultrareverb here, what do you think of it's sound?
I find the modulation a bit hard to control and some times it sounds like the reverb tail goes completely out of tune. Are there any types of sounds that you think it excels from other reverbs?
(I already have tsar-1 and was looking for x-verb, but then this came with that low price and I am not sure if I should buy it.)
Anyway, thats off topic from serum but i would like to know your opinion.
Hmm.. it's a transparent reverb and I like in some cases more than Valhalla. It's a good option for people searching for a more transparent (and sometimes a bit "invisible") reverb.
I played with low modulation rates about 10%... but for this more modulated reverbs IMO Valhalla is a better option. Yes, it's not expensive and for $63 it's a good additional tool in the toolbox ;)

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sonictechtonic wrote:
bitcrusher wrote:
This is a bit similar to Dune 2, right?
I've had people compare it to a whole bunch of synths, obviously there is overlap between a lot of synths. I'm not versed enough in Dune2 to make the comparison, though I'm confident both are their own instruments. I believe you can use Serum to make WT's for Dune2 as well :)
Can anyone confirm this? I don't actually need another synth right now, but I could definitely go for a Wavetable "generator" that just so happens to also be a synth.

Dune 2 is one of my most-used synths at the moment and I'd love to be able to create some custom wavetables. All the other Serum awesomeness would be a great bonus too! :)
You can't use them directly. A Dune2 wavetable consists of up to 64 slots with 2048 samples each. Dune2 *.WT files hold the basic wavetable, followed by 23 bandlimited copies of that wavetable (for every 4th semitone of the keyboard) + a special header with information about file/data type, the number of slots used and some other parameters I haven't analysed yet.

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Interesting synth. I really don't like the presets, though. They aren't very expressive, responding little or never to pressure, velocity, modwheel, etc. Occasionally a filter will open a bit, but rarely anything interesting. Even if you've created a static preset sound you want, it's always a good idea to add some morphing stuff to the modwheel, and make pressure do vibrato (essential for expressive leads!), or vice versa.

I love the French filter. I'm guessing it's something like the Scream from Massive, but it sounds great. The oscillators are also monumentally clean and sharp, which is cool. Something about the actual wavetable sweeps - either how they're executed, or the motions/waveforms chosen for the built-in wavetables doesn't grab me, though. Not sure why.

If I didn't already have this area covered, it would be a no-brainer, especially at the intro price :) As it is, I need more time with it.
http://sendy.bandcamp.com/releases < My new album at Bandcamp! Now pay what you like!

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cocoazenith wrote:Just wanted to express my appreciation for the UX & UI (user interface and the user experience).
This sets the bar higher for small/medium developers. The sound isn't that amazing IMO. Just tried the Pad
patches only, which is the first section I usually try in any new synth and apart from 4-5 sounds I found nothing
out of the ordinary. Maybe they are just uninspired presets and maybe you can actually do much much more with it...
You are correct! You won't find that sound that no man with or without ears has ever hearded and that is also usable as a musical intrument. (lot of cool sounds are not usable for chords or melodies because of conflicting harmonics, or something like a 7th chord pad limits the chords you can use when composing a progression)

But the power of this synth lays in it's simplicity and how visual and intuitive it is. When I opened Sylenth and Massive for the first time I basically saw a whole bunch of knobs and buttons and sliders. So you load a preset and try to find that one knob that changes the sound the most. 99% of the time it's the mod wheel being linked to a filter with cutoff. When you play with the rest of the knobs the sound change is always very subtle and the trick is to figure out the subtle combinations that combined together give a intressting sound with lots of stuff going on.

When I opened Serum for the first time I was amazed at how much the sound changes with almost ANY of the knobs. And for the first time I have visual feedback to what's going on because I can see what the ADSR and LFO's are doing! And I can even see the waveform's themselves change in real time! That's massive! I mean, it calls even the biggest newb to sound design and it will probably become the standard education tool in explaining synthesizer engineering to people.

I am one of these sound design newbies. I bought Omnisphere to be inspired by more sounds then one can explore in a lifetime. Later I learned how to mix patches together and use starting sounds as a solid base to my own sounds. But to build something from scratch ... I have never gone trough the trouble of doing that. Until Steve Duda build his dream synth. Now it's not trouble anymore. It's fun!

The other day SeamlessR released a video "How to bass". I was watching it while following a long in Serum on my second screem. Al I did was select one of these monster wavetables and link the Wavetable position to my mod wheel. That's where I stopped the video and for the first time build a bass from scratch. After it was starting to really come alive and starting to sound, forgive me the bad pun, massive ... I got inspired to make a song with my newborn bass. I love that chain of how getting excited about sounds and music leads from watching a video to immediately drop everything I had planned and loose myself in Serum and in my song. Those are the moments I enjoy life to the max.

Here is the demo version of the song: I call it SuperBbDonkadonk butt the b is silent.

https://soundcloud.com/matthijsbos/demo ... -is-silent
Last edited by Kain on Mon Sep 22, 2014 11:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Sendy wrote:Something about the actual wavetable sweeps - either how they're executed, or the motions/waveforms chosen for the built-in wavetables doesn't grab me, though. Not sure why.

If I didn't already have this area covered, it would be a no-brainer, especially at the intro price :) As it is, I need more time with it.
Same here. I love everything about Serum except the oscillators. Since the wavetables are spectral/additive they will sound completely different from any wavetable synth with sample based oscillators like Massive or Wave. It's a really neat concept, but the mathematical timbres of it doesn't grab me.

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bitcrusher wrote:
It's showing. Usually when you click browse parameters and move a knob, the linkable object is brought up in the browser. Nothing happens when I move the pitch wheel for some reason. There isn't a Pitch Wheel listed in the browser CC's either
Pitch wheel is dedicated to CC#1. Pitch Bend is dedicated to Pitch Bend MIDI messages. I would expect this is how many (if not most?) softsynths operate.
Nope, CC #1 is the mod wheel . The pitch wheel doesn't seem to be in the list >>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eThZao-Olss

Maybe it's something on my end..anyhow

I know it's probably not at the top of your list right now with the release and all but.. yeah.. :ud:
Last edited by swamiill on Mon Sep 22, 2014 11:46 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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BBFG# wrote:
Robmobius wrote:
BBFG# wrote:This thread has me more suspicious of this product than intrigued now.
Low posters chumming and all.
I don't see any 'chumming', it's more excitement about a new product and it's a good one. Have you actually tried the demo?
I downloaded, got the virus warning and saved anyway as a possible 'false-positive'.
However, after noticing how many threads have popped up about this, and the number of posters with less than ten posts to just a couple of hundred, I do consider there to be some 'chumming of waters' going on here.
I also tend to see anything claimed as 'the best and superior to all others' as a possible indicator of cognitive distortion that never ends up worth dealing with in the long run.
So once this fervor subsides, it may have a more rational outlook and output is all.
And that could mean giving the developer time to also submit it to the AV people to quash 'false-positives' in scans.
Far too many 'flags' here.
I'm merely adopting a wait and see on this one.

That's funny cause I installed Serum and something tells me that some Viruses are not going to do much more work in the future. So Serum can definitely be called Anti-Virus.

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Sendy wrote:................They aren't very expressive, responding little or never to pressure, velocity, modwheel, etc. Occasionally a filter will open a bit, but rarely anything interesting. Even if you've created a static preset sound you want, it's always a good idea to add some morphing stuff to the modwheel, and make pressure do vibrato (essential for expressive leads!), or vice versa.
..........
Not all the patches are like this, but a significant number of them, and I too was disappointed by those. It is almost as if beta users submitted them not professional sound designers......some of them like those by jl, sn and 7skies and I am sure a few others, do respond to these real time expressions, but yes I too was disappointed all didn't.
rsp
Last edited by zvenx on Mon Sep 22, 2014 11:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.
sound sculptist

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I thought the quality of the presets was quite mixed as well. The JL/PluginGuru ones were generally among my favorites, good sounds with full macro controls and so on. Preset-only folks may want to hold off until some additional preset packs become available (but just grab the demo and see for yourself). I'm sure there will be a slew of them.

Great synth though, will be making the purchase this week.

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