Ultranova - Got one! Here are my thoughts..

[MBTC]

Namnibor asked in another thread for an update, so I thought I'd post here:

I've finally downloaded the free sounsets for the Ultranova and went through them. Most of the sounds therein aren't particularly impressive, although there are some neat emulations of Supertramp, The Who, and the intro to Fly Like An Eagle (Steve Miller Band) that really show what a good sound designer Daniel Fisher is, or maybe how versatile the Ultranova can be. For a lot of people the lack of third party sounds available for this synth could be a real drawback. Its a good synth for sound designers and folks that like to come up with their own stuff, but sometimes it's nice to have a large library of starting points for any given genre. My main motivation for getting it is to see how well I can get accustomed to a hardware+software environment after having been so spoiled by the fantastic workflow of software-only. Even doing things like sysex import/exports introduce what seems like a weird workflow interruption after not having dealt with it in years. But I'm still very pleased with the purchase... some of the Daniel Fisher sounds show that the touch knobs should not be neglected when creating new sounds, as that's one of the things that makes the Nova synths unique. It also adds a greater expectation for the sound designer I think -- i.e. do something useful with the touch knobs for each sound. That could be intimidating for some designers with regard to how much extra work should be invested into perfecting each sound. The good news is that if you're the type that likes to create sounds from scratch, there's tons of fun to be had with all the modulation possibilities (and realistically you don't always really have to start from scratch, you can always start with one of the built in sounds as a starting point).

[namnibor]

Nice! Yes, I have often used an existing sound from a rom bank on Virus KC as a starting point but what's so nice on KC is with any given preset or your own sound, all the LED's make it easier to see how a sound was made and deconstruct it. Perhaps you should task yourself to make an outstanding sound bank or two for the ultra nova and then sell them since you say there's not much out there and ca$h-in?

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by namnibor

Nice! Yes, I have often used an existing sound from a rom bank on Virus KC as a starting point but what's so nice on KC is with any given preset or your own sound, all the LED's make it easier to see how a sound was made and deconstruct it. Perhaps you should task yourself to make an outstanding sound bank or two for the ultra nova and then sell them since you say there's not much out there and ca$h-in?

That thought crossed my mind, although right now I'd be happy just to find the free time to learn the beast very thoroughly, and it probably sounds more enviable than it really is but I need free time more than I need more money. Also it would be hard for me to sit down and create a bank of something like 50-60 sounds. I'd get too distracted with each individual one, and the next thing I know I will have spent the bulk of the time trying to build a track around a single sound and tweaking the sound to fit that mix rather that creating lots of good sounds.

[namnibor]

Originally Posted by MBTC

That thought crossed my mind, although right now I'd be happy just to find the free time to learn the beast very thoroughly, and it probably sounds more enviable than it really is but I need free time more than I need more money. Also it would be hard for me to sit down and create a bank of something like 50-60 sounds. I'd get too distracted with each individual one, and the next thing I know I will have spent the bulk of the time trying to build a track around a single sound and tweaking the sound to fit that mix rather that creating lots of good sounds.

Focus, Focus, Focus!!! I know what you mean because when I sit down with DSI Mono Evolver Keyboard, it's as if I create a wormhole, space/time distortion and have to force myself to get-up to drink water let alone lavatory breaks! What is that Ultravox song, "And Time Stood Still"?

[namnibor]

Originally Posted by MBTC

That thought crossed my mind, although right now I'd be happy just to find the free time to learn the beast very thoroughly, and it probably sounds more enviable than it really is but I need free time more than I need more money. Also it would be hard for me to sit down and create a bank of something like 50-60 sounds. I'd get too distracted with each individual one, and the next thing I know I will have spent the bulk of the time trying to build a track around a single sound and tweaking the sound to fit that mix rather that creating lots of good sounds.

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 think to get the second free soundpack all you have to do is LIKE them on Facebook. Marketing, you know but hope this works for you!
Lastly, I recently read that on the UltraNova, you can save with each patch rather than Globally, your expression pedal midi cc modulation assignment. I think we can do this on all strains of the Virus as well but I think it was on homerecording.com where someone's problem was answered in regard to this because that person *assumed* their expression pedal settings would carry over from one patch to another and in case you did not know, thought to toss that in the "care package of a message here" I am pretty sure they said you can set the max/min amount/values of travel of the pedal as well rather than just a 1-127 general value!!
Cheers!

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by namnibor

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

[MBTC]

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.

[namnibor]

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

[MBTC]

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.

[TweakHead]

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.