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  #21  
Old 25.04.2013, 08:37 PM
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I greatly appreciate the note, although these sound packs have been out for a while, and I do already have them. I think Novation released them around the time they released the synth itself, and they touted an ongoing commitment to sounds which they unfortunately have not really made good on. In my opinion they are sort of along the ilk of "preset material", in the sense that they are good to have as a starting point but they do not begin to exploit the possibilities of the synth.

The Daniel Fisher sounds are kind of an exception, because there are what I would call some seriously fun novelty patches, like a redo of the intro riff from Fly Like an Eagle (Steve Miller Band), that unique boing sound from Life's Been Good (Joe Walsh) and other 70's analog fun. He really is quite good at understanding what makes a sound and recreating difficult ones.

I did exchange emails with Rob Lee some time back, and he said he is currently on the road traveling but when he gets back, he will resume work on his UltraNova sound set which is due out in July. That's exciting if you're into EDM sounds because he has done some fantastic work on soundsets for other synths. He has had a love-hate relationship with the UltraNova. He liked it better than his Virus Ti2, enough so to buy two of them and send them off to have them recolored (complete with letter screen prints) in black and white (the blue did not work with his studio color coordination apparently)! Then he got frustrated with them because of no unison spread feature (with the Ultranova you can accomplish similar using other mechanisms, but it upset him anyway) so he sold both those boards. He then decided he missed them and the great VST editor so he ordered two more So, not being able to be 100% the release of his sound pack will happen, I'm just crossing my fingers but at the same time not holding my breath. This synth is one that most folks will be able to start with a preset as a starting point and create lots of great sounds themselves. Still, I'd like to see at least one great soundset so it will be fantastic if Rob decides to complete that project. I know of at least one other prominent sound designer that is considering doing a soundpack for it, but he has not yet purchased one so I'm not counting my chickens on that one until I hear more from him.
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  #22  
Old 25.04.2013, 09:51 PM
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Sorry about that, as the Novation email certainly made it seem as if those were *brand new* and on another note, in same email they touted a brand new Novation Forum here;;;http://forum.novationmusic.com/?utm_...ce=Emailvision

*BUT* they state if you had signed-up before March 26, your sign-in credentials were no longer valid. I certainly do not recall finding a Novation Forum to glean tips from fellow Supernova 1 users a few years ago and what I have compiled came from various forum searches. We must keep in mind that the internet is in all honesty, rather young in mass access and no longer in the "modem age", and technology is vastly evolving faster than the human condition, which at times almost seems devolution when one watches local news anywhere and see 12 thru 16 year olds shooting people over a cell phone or stealing copper, parts of cars--all to feed drug habits, of which, in the 80's you never heard of a pothead killing anyone for their box of twinkies...we were always PREPARED for the inevitable next morning of waking up with melted M&M's and bright colored spots on body from falling asleep with the feedbag of M&M's !!
Sorry, a bit of a digression there!
Anyway, it's a reminder of how tech and modem days used to be when looking through the Waldorf FTP Server Archives hosted on electro-music.com, and on that note, Waldorf has absolutely no interest in hosting an official forum and although they DO make some awesome synths, they are not so much into the communicative thing or customer service thing at all...weird!
I digress a lot lately! The M&M thing DID happen to me once !
On a viral note, has their been *any* peep or hint at what or even if people at Access are up to now that the Kemper Amp Simulator project is finished and retailed? Please let it be they had a bonfire of everything USB 1.1
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  #23  
Old 25.04.2013, 10:37 PM
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About forums -- to me it hasn't really changed that much. I used to run (non-music related) BBS systems back in the days of the Atari 8-bit, then MS-DOS based forums in the early-mid 80s, and we had things like CompuServe, The Source, etc. where vendors would create discussion forums. To me, not much has changed except the way we access them.

Funny but true story... Back when I used to run one BBS, there was a screechy voiced 12 year old kid who would dial into my board every day, and incessantly ring the sysop chat buzzer to chat with me. He was a bright kid but could be annoying at times (actually I was kind of a kid too, I was only a little bit older than him). I talked to him on the phone more than once (dont remember why, probably computer troubleshooting stuff). His handle on the board was Dave the Wave. We never really talked music, I didn't know he was into it.
Well, he grew up to be Dave Dresden of the famous duo "Gabriel and Dresden", who are considered two of the most successful North American born DJs/producers of electronic music during the last decade. He even kept the name "Dave the Wave" as a DJ!! I really like some of their work, I think they split up for a while and did solo projects and are now back working together. I did not keep in touch with Dave but I'm quite sure he mellowed out after puberty

As far as where the Virus is headed, I'm really not sure. I would like to see them come out with a mega-powerful Virus that really justifies the price point and breaks the current polyphony barriers, but the TI line uses dual Freescale 56321 DSP processors, and to my knowledge Freescale hasn't even made a more powerful chip, so it could be Kemper is waiting for a major advancement from his chip supplier before he can provide a major advancement in the Virus line? I'm only guessing here. It could be a potential challenge, for example, to fully utilize a third or fourth DSP and still retain backward compatibility with existing Virus patches. I don't think a non-backward compatible Virus would do well these days against a softsynth market that has evolved tremendously since the Virus line (even the current models) were introduced.
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  #24  
Old 25.04.2013, 11:26 PM
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Yeah, but I don't think most plug-ins can compete with even the Virus C, let alone the range of options (and quality of them) in the TI. But I think their problems are twofold: first, they probably have to deal with bandwidth over usb connection, and probably the capacity of the chips to. But I'm one of the few who actually thinks that the changes between the C and TI - specially considering the additions on the latest updates - is huge and added many more possibilities to the Virus. Maybe so. But two extra envelopes, extra filters (the comb filter sounds very good), extra oscillators, character, cabinet emulations, reviewed distortion algorithms - all of that assignable as modulation destinations. The Nord Lead 4 has just been announced. It doesn't even have two filters you can use in series, it has less polyphony than the Virus C, envelopes are unipolar, just two previously assigned, and a simpler one for modulation - like on previous versions. And I don't see people bashing on that synthesizer as much as they do to the Virus. With just user drawable waves for oscillators and lfos, the Virus would be able to do what Massive does in terms of modulation (which is why it's so famous) and so much more. They're not far behind anything out there. LFO into audio range, selectable for FM usage would be nice to. Fade in and out on all of them to.

I'd like to see them implement better analogue emulation in the likes of Diva as well - if the extra power becomes available for more complex algorithms that are more demanding.
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  #25  
Old 25.04.2013, 11:40 PM
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Maybe it's that Nord Lead and some other hardware synths seem geared toward the live performer, and that while the Virus is probably never in doubt as a live synth, as a studio synth it boasts "total integration" even in the product name itself, and therefore I guess expectations are that integration is what it says it is. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the Nord Lead even tries to have the same level of integration, and is roughly 30% cheaper. I really don't remember hearing much bad press about the Virus C and prior models. It wasn't until "TI" came along as a feature, and I guess many felt that they were slow in delivering on what was promised or at least in some cases flippant toward the customer about it. Maybe "it's there" in terms of stability these days? I am certainly keeping one eye on the Virus and can see myself potentially caving in and buying one. Every now and then I look around for a good deal on a used C or KC so that I can re-enter the Viral waters with a little less of a money commitment.

I can't be sure this explains the bad press with the Virus, but I will say that during my career in software development, I've learned whenever you add a new feature, you have to make sure it works and works well. If it works some of the time or doesn't work as advertised, it would have been better to not add it at all and keep the feature set lean.

Now that I'm on Cubase for Windows, with a USB 3 card that I'm sure is not limiting the throughput, I'm very tempted to get another Virus and see how the integration works after some years of maturity.
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  #26  
Old 03.05.2013, 04:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by namnibor View Post
Hey! I thought of you right away when firstly opening an email from Novation today (I own a Supernova 1 Rack), and this link I am posting will take you to the first of two FREE SOUNDPACKS for both Ultra/MiniNOVA and they are actual patches from the pretty awesome still IMO, of the mighty SUPERNOVA!!! You had mentioned the lack of soundpacks and Novation seem to be in full gear...http://us.novationmusic.com/soundpacks
I have to apologize, when I saw this post the first time, I went to Novation's page and saw the existing soundpacks only (might have had a cached version of the page maybe?) I read the reference to SuperNova sounds but did not see the reference on the page to the new soundpacks.

This is indeed new so I stand corrected! I will also be downloading this of course (have not yet done so).

Great to see they are still moving forward with support for the product line! (Now only if I had a Supernova to compare so I could A/B the sounds to be sure they're authentic
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Old 03.05.2013, 05:34 PM
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Update - sounds downloaded and they are VERY worthwhile! Much better than presets, more fun but also form useful basis for new patches and do a better job of showing the UltraNova off. There are only 64 sounds, but most are very good and there's supposedly more SuperNova sounds on the way. The default presets do tend to exploit the new features like touch knob animation better than the SuperNova patches, but it makes sense that this would be the case as the SuperNova didn't have that feature.

Anyone demoing an UltraNova or MiniNova in a store should demand these sounds be loaded onto it before deciding!
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  #28  
Old 03.05.2013, 07:53 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MBTC View Post
Update - sounds downloaded and they are VERY worthwhile! Much better than presets, more fun but also form useful basis for new patches and do a better job of showing the UltraNova off. There are only 64 sounds, but most are very good and there's supposedly more SuperNova sounds on the way. The default presets do tend to exploit the new features like touch knob animation better than the SuperNova patches, but it makes sense that this would be the case as the SuperNova didn't have that feature.

Anyone demoing an UltraNova or MiniNova in a store should demand these sounds be loaded onto it before deciding!
Glad those are useable! If I remember correctly, you got the FIRST free sound pack and when you re-registered for their new forum and/or "liked them" on Facebook, you then received another sound pack, but I could be wrong as my synapses are snapped these past few days and because I too have been doing a complete studio ergonomic makeover, my happy blue Supernova 1 Rack is currently resting in a box. However, the best word that even Novation used to describe it's sound is pretty right-on is, "Liquid", in that very smooth/juicy filters for a VA but not the Virus' classic "Darker" sound, but again, not the violently craptasitic HAPPY sound a Korg has no matter how hard you try to make it even a tiny bit brooding. Hope that made sense!
I do not have the extended 44 voice SN but the very last OS update increased it to 24 and considering the 8 track, multi-timbre, polyphonic Arp can also drive external stuff with it's comprehensive midi specs--it's sound as well is reason I decided to hold onto it.
Sounds like the UltraNova is very programmable "under the hood" and too bad they did not offer a larger keyboard version of it and went "mini-me-keys" direction instead...I just do not understand appeal for extremely mini keys! I'd rather see innovation in having more upward near casing on each key, a touch/slider sensitive pad to go where after touch has never gone before or something
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  #29  
Old 03.05.2013, 08:51 PM
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I think it would be interesting to see a rack version of it!

Question: can it do FM? I know the SuperNova 2 could, along with multi-trimbrality with separate effects per part and more voices then this one - somehow it still feels like a more powerful beast to me...
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  #30  
Old 03.05.2013, 09:00 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by namnibor View Post
Glad those are useable! If I remember correctly, you got the FIRST free sound pack and when you re-registered for their new forum and/or "liked them" on Facebook, you then received another sound pack, but I could be wrong as my synapses are snapped these past few days and because I too have been doing a complete studio ergonomic makeover, my happy blue Supernova 1 Rack is currently resting in a box. However, the best word that even Novation used to describe it's sound is pretty right-on is, "Liquid", in that very smooth/juicy filters for a VA but not the Virus' classic "Darker" sound, but again, not the violently craptasitic HAPPY sound a Korg has no matter how hard you try to make it even a tiny bit brooding. Hope that made sense!
I do not have the extended 44 voice SN but the very last OS update increased it to 24 and considering the 8 track, multi-timbre, polyphonic Arp can also drive external stuff with it's comprehensive midi specs--it's sound as well is reason I decided to hold onto it.
Sounds like the UltraNova is very programmable "under the hood" and too bad they did not offer a larger keyboard version of it and went "mini-me-keys" direction instead...I just do not understand appeal for extremely mini keys! I'd rather see innovation in having more upward near casing on each key, a touch/slider sensitive pad to go where after touch has never gone before or something
Not sure about the Facebook "liking", but if that's the case they can shove that scam, I'll get them some other way Those marketing ruses get on my nerves, and I think I'll let some other sheep cave into them; I wont.

Not quite sure what you mean by mini-me-keys, the UltraNova has full sized keys, it just only has 37 of them like the TI2 Polar. The MiniNova has smaller keys and is designed for those that want things more portable and at a lower cost (although the UN has dropped in cost since originally released so they are now only about $100 apart at street prices). I do see a lot of newer bands with tiny key synths on stage so there may be some sort of fashion trend behind it all that you and I aren't "getting".

About the sound, I think the UN has a characteristically gritty, in-your face sound that loves to go to obscure if not naughty places in your mix. It can be tamed easily and behaves when told, but it's kind of like always knocking at the door to the cage ready to bust out. It's been a long time since I've heard a SuperNova so it's very difficult to properly compare, but the first SuperNova patch bank does invoke memories of the SN to my ear.

The touch knobs on it, I think, are actually significantly more innovative than a touch slider, because of how many of them you can manipulate at once. One of my Cubase controllers has a nice touch fader (looks a lot like the ones in the Akai Max controller), and it's really just what it says, a fader with touch (good for controlling mix volume mostly). The touch knobs on the Ultranova actually lean you toward a different playing style that I have not seen on any other synth.
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