What the pluck?

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Barnelby

Yeah, I guess it may have been a little extreme to assume that the digital synth world will suffer greatly as plugins get better. Obviously, digital synths will just get better, too. (Check out John Bowen's solaris if you haven't yet). However, as a producer, I feel like if my options are between a 2 thousand dollar piece of hardware and an equal or better plugin and a controller of my choice for an eight the price, the decision is a no brainer. As a performer, though, of course having a keyboard synth would be the obvious choice.

When we bring cost into the equation, software really wins.

In the case of Dune it's probably like $139 one time fee versus 3 grand for every Virus you want to match each individual DAW instance (assuming of course you have a good CPU).

Even if I subtract latency issues, I don't think there's any way I could get the same polyphony and richness as taking a great Dune patch, cloning it in the DAW and detuning or modifying slightly then layering with another instance (and even that is rarely necessary).

You cannot copy and paste a hardware synth to clone it

[feedingear]

Having a play with Dune at the moment and honestly think it sounds pretty dull... has that same soft, plasticky tone that a lot of plugins tend to have, no bite or warmth or even a sense of character to it. That could just be the presets not being particuarly well programmed however.

As far as going to the effort of cloning and duplicating a Dune patch in your project, I really dont see any difference to doing that with a TI then either letting them run together, or bouncing down to audio if you are experiencing note stealing... It is such a tiny thing to adjust as part of your workflow and the sound benefits are clearly there.

[MBTC]

I agree there are sound benefits, but I feel like once I've bounced something down, the audio clip is far less flexible. Can't do much with it in real-time after that point which for me takes away some of the inspiration/creativity.

[infraction]

Originally Posted by MBTC

I had a Virus briefly and I did not hear any mind-blowingly good plucks.

Haha that's a good joke that

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by infraction

Haha that's a good joke that

Not joking.. I mentioned before that I only went through the factory patches. I have no doubt the box is capable of good plucks, I just didn't hear them while going through factory patches.

[infraction]

Originally Posted by MBTC

Not joking.. I mentioned before that I only went through the factory patches. I have no doubt the box is capable of good plucks, I just didn't hear them while going through factory patches.

That might be the problem

[Barnelby]

Alright alright alright everybody just calm down. Maybe the best way to get to the bottom of this whole pluckin' thing would be a little show and tell. I'm not with my virus right now, but later today when I have a chance I will record a few examples of my frustrations with trying to make plucks. For now though, here is a little clip I just made in Dune:

http://www.mediafire.com/?b4j4jwkfr06vkoi

Im pretty sure you can download that even if you don't have a mediafire account, but if you guys have any problems I will upload it again another way.

So just to clarify- What is in question right now is NOT sound quality, not warmth, not body, not all the things that the virus OBVIOUSLY still has the upper hand on.

Fact of the matter is, I just clicked a random preset and effortlessly achieved a nice distinct pluck sound with ZERO tweaking. And that is my entire concern/confusion/case in point.

Like I said before, I BELIEVE that the virus can do anything...I am still fairly inexperienced with the thing, so I still have a lot to learn. It is just this strange quality of these plugins being able to excel at something seemingly so simple so quickly that has me scratching my head.

But enough talk, back to the point:

To those who say they can get some great pluck sounds with the TI series virus.....

let's hear em!

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by infraction

That might be the problem

It's a problem that's not limited to the Virus... on almost all of my favorite VSTs, I have stumbled across third party soundsets (often that were free of charge) which really blew me away.

Zebra2 is really good like that.. there is such a vast library of free sounds out there, you can almost never get bored.

Dune is such a simple beast to program that I find myself almost always creating the sound I want on demand rather than searching for one.

[Barnelby]

Alright so like I said I'm not with the virus but I did grab an audio file out of one of my tracks that I think shows my case in point well enough:

http://www.mediafire.com/?bk6d13qtntyw2d7

This may not be the best example...I'll throw something down later when I get a chance, but my concern is definitely present in this clip.

I think this was using a ramp LFO to modulate volume, so the plucks are only heard at the beginning of each chord... Its really hard for me to get any kind of pluck that isn't just kind of limp and frail like that


Someone show me the way.

[MBTC]

I threw this together quickly by tweaking the first Dune preset a bit. The point was to capture the attack characteristic of a pluck... that initial assault on the eardrums that makes the pluck what it is. Here it is going from the "dog whistle" freq zone to audible, but slowly. I put a crummy sounding kick in because I think one characteristic of a pluck should be able to slice through other elements in the mix and to illustrate the point.

http://www.mediafire.com/?y243brtgnbltfdv


Of course, as I open up the cutoff, it is no longer really a pluck anymore and becomes more of just a trance synth sound, but since the cutoff characteristic is the key element to this sound type, hopefully the point is illustrated.