NewSonicArts - Freestyle ...

[newsonicarts]

Awesome update James!

Re 'But at least you can now access those AudioDamage presets...'

the problem is this depends....you can now access any presets that are 'loaded' into the plugin already (if it is a plugin that has a default set of presets pre-loaded and exposed to the host) but not all plugins that rely on the host have such a built-in list (not just Audio damage btw, there is also Softtube and many older plugins such as the Waldorf edition plugins and on Windows anything made with Synthedit) and they all also need the host to be able to load and save presets and banks (ie fxp and fxb) as they lack that functionality as well. Otherwise all you can do in Freestyle is access whatever is there already, if anything.. but not anything beyond the fixed factory preset list or load/save new ones or presets created previously (which would be a huge problem for something like Softtube Modular for example).

Ok I see, makes sense. I have added 'import FXB and FXP files' to our internal backlog and the public voting system.

[Liero]

This is a very interesting plugin, just demoing it now.

IMO what it needs to completely win me over: Modulators, modulators, modulators!

The possibilities if this thing could have envelope followers, lfo's, drawable envelopes and step sequencers you could use to modulate any parameter (like macro knob destinations) is immense...

[newsonicarts]

This is a very interesting plugin, just demoing it now.

IMO what it needs to completely win me over: Modulators, modulators, modulators!

The possibilities if this thing could have envelope followers, lfo's, drawable envelopes and step sequencers you could use to modulate any parameter (like macro knob destinations) is immense...

The plan for Freestyle v1.1 is to add a new EventPlayer module (a step-sequencer / piano roll more-or-less), adding a timeline dimension to Freestyle. Its already quite far in development. LFO's and wireless modulation will probably come after that. Its definitely on our radar!

[aMUSEd]

Cool - will the player also be able to record and playback stuff?

[newsonicarts]

Cool - will the player also be able to record and playback stuff?

That's the idea, yes. If all goes well, the initial feature set for the EventPlayer module will be (1) mouse based programming (2) MIDI file import and (3) MIDI recording. But cant say for certain at this point if we get all three things done for v1.1. Only (1) is a certainty because that is implemented already.

[Liero]

Good news, then!

Another thing I was missing, and which seems an odd omission from your list of feature request ballots, is a sidechain input for the fx plugin.

Anyway, I'm very glad to see this being developed! Will most likely buy it down the line.

EDIT= Ok the ideas just keep coming now that I'm demoing even more, but it'd also be nice if there were separate VST plugin versions according to how many macro modulators you want enabled in the VST parameters (now there are always 8, even tho you can have many many more macro knobs in freestyle), like "FreestyleFX (8 macros).dll", "FreestyleFX (16 macros).dll" etc etc.



EDIT2= The macro knob UI can't handle simple words like compression because of the 8-9 character limit. Second row for more text? There's so much room in the UI for the structure view.

[TabSel]

Suggestion:

Export the greates number of parameters possible (VST2:1023?, VST3:unlimited+hierarchical structured) to the DAW.

Expand the Macro logic inside Freestyle:
Let the user build Macro PAGES, switchable via Parameter/MIDI, dec/incrementally and directly addressable
Macro logic not only per Freestyle Rack, but for individual Rack modules (Plugins), with support for VSTXML
interchangeable Macro assignment, to have different Macro setups per Track/Plugin, for Plugins like Reaktor, where each "preset" may have a completely different parameter setup.
Parameter Morphing support
Macro setups stored in a database, dynamically tagged, as well as Freestyle presets.

And soon we have a worthy Kore2 successor

[himalaya]

Hey new SonicArts maestros!

There is an opportunity here with Freestyle and your sampling technology. I'd be very interested to see an auto-sampler included in Freestyle, it just begs for it. Now you have all the layering afforded by Freestyle, a natural extension of this would be to allow sampling of the output in order to create multi-samples. There are apps on the market that do it, sure, but each one has some issues, or is platform dependent (Extreme Sample Converter, EMU X3) or has been bought by Apple and crippled (Redmatica).

You have the sampling technology already, it just needs to be integrated into Freestyle with new sample-making tools, like set the keys which you want to sample, sample duration, truncation with user specifies fades, etc.

You could develop a class-leading product here!

[Liero]

Another question:

What's the return policy?

Since the demo restarts so frequently I'm completely unable to test this plugin in a true work situation where I'm likely using tens if not hundreds of instances with lots of VST's hosted inside. If Freestyle turns out to be unstable in that context the product will be totally useless to me... Is there a 14 day money back guarantee or something similar to alleviate this?

[newsonicarts]

What's the return policy?

Since the demo restarts so frequently I'm completely unable to test this plugin in a true work situation where I'm likely using tens if not hundreds of instances with lots of VST's hosted inside. If Freestyle turns out to be unstable in that context the product will be totally useless to me... Is there a 14 day money back guarantee or something similar to alleviate this?

The demo will time out after 30 minutes of usage (unless you try to recall a patch which was saved in demo mode, which will cause timeout immediately). Given your feedback, we are considering to increase it to 60 minutes for the next build.

Generally, we do not give refunds as we offer demo versions. If a user reports a serious technical problem (ie a crash or something) that we cannot provide a solution for, then we do give a refund. But just for the record, that happens extremely rarely.

[Liero]

Thanks for the information.

In general if a plugin like Freestyle is unstable I'm inclined to be believe that the reason is actually in the plugins themselves that are being hosted by Freestyle rather than Freestyle itself. This easily leads to situation where the host developers, in this case NSA, are unable to fix a problem and the developers of the unstable hosted plugins aren't interested debugging it as they already have a handful of DAW's they have to make sure their plugins are working on. Hence the worry about instability ruining everything.

A 60 minute timer would be a lot better. 30 minutes isn't enough to build up a full template, much less actually start making music on it.

Just as a sidenote if you're interested, I'd like to mention that I would use a plugin such as freestyle to replace most of my "normal" plugin usage in the studio. For example whenever I use a reverb I want to have pre and post eq. Instead of loading up all those plugins natively I'd just load a Freestyle preset in every single reverb use scenario. The same would actually apply for most plugin types I use, so Freestyle would account for ~80% of all my plugin usage. I love the macro controls, which for me are the main selling point and I wish their flexibility is extended. At the moment you can't dial in negative modulation, i.e. you can't have a situation where turning up a macro knob would turn down a parameter.

[Chandran]

The reason Im not interested by freestyle is the 8 macros knobs limitation...With plogue bidule or vst fork (very cheap) you dont have this kind of limits, you choose the number of macros you like, very usefull if you want to program automations quickly from your daw instead of loosing time assigning stepped midi cc...There is people like me using livid code2 or behringer bcr wanting more than 8 macros? Frankly if you have one channel strip with eq gate compressor you need more than 8 macros...It's unbelievable developers copy one of the most stupid ableton live limitation (the first software whith macros knobs concept). Same problem with mux-modular...

[newsonicarts]

A 60 minute timer would be a lot better. 30 minutes isn't enough to build up a full template, much less actually start making music on it.

Ok I am convinced We will increase the demo timeout period to 60 minutes in the next build. Should be available in a few days.

...I love the macro controls, which for me are the main selling point and I wish their flexibility is extended. At the moment you can't dial in negative modulation, i.e. you can't have a situation where turning up a macro knob would turn down a parameter.

This is a good point, I agree. FWIW I would also like to see some kind of non-linear shaping added too.

[newsonicarts]

The reason Im not interested by freestyle is the 8 macros knobs limitation...

Multiple Macro pages were added in a update a few weeks ago

[newsonicarts]

FYI Freestyle Suite is now available, with additional discount until November 15th.

There's also 20 EUR off on the upgrade path for the same time period.