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RMI softsynth


Post Posted Thu Feb 18, 2016 8:19 pm
1906


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Post Posted Sat Feb 20, 2016 1:12 am
Analog-Umph


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Your synth?
Without faith nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.
Post Posted Sat Feb 20, 2016 7:49 am
flux


Posts: 18

Analog-Umph wrote:Your synth?

Not good. This sounds NOT like the RMI.

What a bullshit.

Why are fans so stupid peoplel, who believe everething?

Maybe low on educatien.

Fans are mostely low educated and ugly people.

Nobody here have a good and attractive charisma. Most of the Jarre fans looks stupid and ugly. Typical for Jarre his fans.

I have managed for the most of the fans to track there down. And believe me, this forum is filled with the most ugly people ever,...

Sorry again for my negativity. But face it, it is the reality.


Jarre did it again, old fashion music. Nobody likes it.
Post Posted Sat Feb 20, 2016 8:26 am
Finaero


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No one on the Internet is impressed if you make insults that are about as scathing as a YouTube comment and follow it up with "that is the reality". A four-year-old is already taught how to say that, flux. And a four-year-old professional actually can do better. ;)

And no, you can't score any points if you've read about IP addresses from a "Computers for Beginners" book either.

Better luck next time, and please, make your post in Dutch and re-edit it a couple of times as usual. :)
Post Posted Sat Feb 20, 2016 10:56 am
computerhythm


Posts: 44

I found the demo section on the website a bit lacking, that's why I only listened to the O4 rendition. In this case, the RMI didn't quite sound like the real thing -- there are better virtual instruments around that nail the sound but, perhaps, it was just poor programming. The sweep demoes were okay but nowhere near as raw-sounding as the original unit.

Liked the graphic user interface although the developers have obviously decided to stick with the non-standard ADSR envelope section which is a modification -- the original envelope section is switchable between two rather limited A/R or R-only envelopes, which can be a bit limiting.

The owners' manual is hilarious. Looks exactly like the real thing :).

Stephen
"If we have an enemy at all, the Control Process is that enemy. It is vital to short-circuit this Control Process." (Genesis P-Orridge)
Post Posted Sat Feb 20, 2016 6:27 pm
johans


Posts: 5
Location: 127.0.0.1

It really does not sound like the real deal. I also know the creators mistake from a post he wrote thats why it sounds somewhat like the real RMI HS but not quite. I know my ensemble is only so good as well but it sounds way better than this one.

JP made it look exactly as JMJ's RMI HS because JP is a big fan of JMJ thats why there are Reason REs of the 310, X-705, minipops and now the 'HS'.

J.
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RIP GeeJee
Post Posted Sun Feb 21, 2016 6:41 am
Analog-Umph


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Well if this guy could get THIS look out into the plugin format vst/au they'd do much better business. Everyone knows Reason is a dying platform. It's userbase has decreased exponentially since the early to mid 2000's.

Besides, one could do a proper job of modeling with a plugin. Though that'd require making extensive tests and re-testing with a real unit. It'd be worth it in the long run, as this is a very rare synth in the first place, and preserving it would be quite something. Not to mention every Jarre aficionado on the planet who's into making music themselves would find it as a rite of passage to own one.
Without faith nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.
Post Posted Mon Feb 22, 2016 12:03 pm
computerhythm


Posts: 44

Analog-Umph wrote: [...] Besides, one could do a proper job of modeling with a plugin. Though that'd require making extensive tests and re-testing with a real unit. [...]
I'd be happy to oblige.

If they feel so inclined, that is.

Stephen
"If we have an enemy at all, the Control Process is that enemy. It is vital to short-circuit this Control Process." (Genesis P-Orridge)
Post Posted Mon Mar 07, 2016 4:00 am
Billy Bunt


Posts: 15

Thanks for the comments! It has been fascinating to see the responses, even the, um, wackier ones. The generally positive feedback we've had from the wider audience of synth fans has been exceptional.

Plugin designers can't please everyone, of course; we've had nearly all positive feedback about the JPS Harmonic Synthesizer, and some of which has been utterly overwhelming to me, including from a couple of industry players (just this past Friday, a producer who has worked with the likes of Bjork, Editors and Tears for Fears wrote to me saying it's one of the best synth plugins he'd seen in years).

The fact is I can't argue with someone who actually owns an original machine—like Stephen above does—as to whether it does or doesn't sound exactly like his, as I know I'd lose that argument. However, that's simplistic and perhaps even naive argument to make anyway, imho. So I will defend it against some of the attacks above, because the truth is not so simple as an arbitrary "Does it sound exactly the same in a side-by-side comparison? No? Then it must be crap" comment. The reality is more complex, and it seems that a few people have become obsessed by notions of literal accuracy over usability and pure enjoyment. Whether the JPS HS or any other emulation softsynth doesn't sound exactly like the product they are based on doesn't change the fact it might produce a great sound worth having in its own right! And the truth is all such virtual softsynths invariably don't sound like exactly like their real-world counterparts, regardless of what their marketing guy writes.

It's important, then, to note I called it the JPS Harmonic Synthesizer rather than the RMI Harmonic Synthesizer. I'm aware it won't sound exactly like an original machine but I can confirm it was developed using the exact technical specifications as the starting point, unlike any previous attempt at an RMI HS.

The wave generators and presets of the JPS are, to the best of our knowledge, what the original machine was designed to have produced, disregarding any otherwise unintended artifacts created elsewhere in its electronics. I don't need to have one next to me to know what the intended output of the harmonics and presets was. There are compromises, some behavioural gaps like potentiometer curves we had to fill in with best guesses based on practicality or what we thought just sounded good, and some other deliberate choices made to suit a modern sensibility and others to extend its usefulness (like the release trigger mode) for commercial viability and getting an RoI. So while the Oxy IV/V patches do use the harmonic slider settings Jarre uses as seen in various video and photo resources, the RMI potentiometer curve might have been just different enough that a side-by-side comparison of the same settings for the DHG's and presets may not sound entirely alike; but result I don't believe will be that far off the mark in raw harmonic terms. Fortunately the sliders move so either can be tweaked to sound more like the other!

So the JPS HS is both technically modelled on, and more generally inspired by, Rocky Mount's. It's not a like-for-like clone of an actual HS, I have made no suggestion or claim that it is, nor do I apologise that it isn't. One can talk about "modelling the electronics" as suggested above like it's some necessary gold standard and anything less is substandard, but in reality such modelling is largely, again, just marketing BS.

It seems to me though, that some people would prefer to be upset that something that sounds pretty damn close to what they need for just $79 doesn't sound exactly like the something they want but they'll never have: the alternative is they can wait until one of the few still working pops up on eBay for £7,000+! ;) But unless it's one of perhaps as few as a dozen worldwide that are still actively used and serviced, it'll have an SNR so low you can drop the S entirely, and spend another 7k restoring it and praying the FedEx guy doesn't take too many speed humps on its journey home.

So it can be a tad disheartening that a few people are instantly dismissive of it simply because one demo doesn't sound exactly like the original recording of Oxygene part IV.

Because of course it doesn't. Jarre created that in a kitchen in 1976 using the fairly basic tools he had to hand, all of which influenced the sound you heard on the album. There's a certain amount of AC hum from the synth itself, there's the choice of tape it was recorded to, there's whatever compression and eq and particular peculiarities of his Electric Mistresses, and harmonic filtering though track bouncing etc, etc. Real synths sound different as virtual synthesizers. Unless they're sampled. It's also likely that no two Jarre performances used exactly the same settings anyway once those performances were actually live. But if you add models of his exact tools to the chain, I see no reason that one can't make it sound as close as you want. Or you can free yourself from those kinds of self-imposed, artificial limitations and use it to create something entirely new in whatever way you want.

When I first posted the O4 demo someone said it was rubbish purely because it didn't sound exactly like the original. Song cloning doesn't interest me, I don't have the patience for it. If that person wants to hear Oxygene IV sounding like the original then he should just play the original ... the original vinyl at that. (A cynic might argue that by the latest official remastered releases, Jarre's Oxygene Part IV sounds more fake than my cover! ;) So I'd ask that person, what is the "real" sound? Even for Jarre, it's changed with the times.)

For me, a cover version that sounds exactly like the original is not a cover version, but merely a rote exercise with no intrinsic artistic value (although it has a technical, experimental, and archaeological merit), so I opt to find play with the feeling of his music with my Jarre covers, rather than absolute recreation, whether it's my vintage-pop take on the Equinoxe 1968 album or RendezVous IV, or a cheesy sniff on the already Camembert-laced Last Rumba. Other people, like thedk or EditEd, are far better at the literal recreation stuff. Thus someone with more patience, and better mixing expertise than I, could get all the Jarre-related tones much closer I expect, but since my intention of creating the JPS was to bring the RMI to a wider audience, not merely to a group of Jarre fans, of which I remain one (for my sins, I used to write for COTM in the early 90s), covering the same two or three tracks, I chose not to get too hung up on the fact that I'll never get closer to a real RMI than I did at the 02. We produced a number of original demos in other styles to appeal to a wider demographic.

So the JPS HS isn't there merely for people to recreate one classic tune, it has to be usable in other contexts, hence why I went with options like ADSR rather than ASR and AD (although note I do go to great pains to highlight to users how to achieve the original RMI shapes, especially since I've included curve adjustments), and added numerous extra features, including the ability to change the waveform shape: some people might prefer to ramp up the Shape to max and lower the bit-rate from 5 to 4, others might prefer a more Kawai-like 80s sound by increasing the bit-rate and lowering the Shape.

I really did agonise over whether to include more than one LFO, I know Jarre had the second added (though I'm unclear about whether it's the entire Osc 1 chain, or just the Osc 1 Trem), but in the end the ease and flexibility of Reason's routing from external LFO's I opted to stick to just the one rather than risk cluttering the GUI.

So at the end of our journey, we enjoy what it is and what it can do and how it does sound, rather than worry too much about what it isn't. Even RMI stated different tonalities may exist between their own synths!

On a personal note, I'd always wanted a Harmonic Synthesizer; it's a fascinating curio, and surprisingly versatile. While I accept there will always be criticisms, some valid, some not, I am really proud of this one.

regards
JP/Matt
Post Posted Mon Mar 07, 2016 1:02 pm
Analog-Umph


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Well whatever they say, I say you made one really damn good lookin' gui.

Some people hate the photorealistic look, but I love it.

Currently there's this fashion/move towards vector graphics in the plugin world, i.e. very simple plain one colour background and simple knobs, cartoonish looking at best.

The good thing about it is is that it allows everyone to resize the gui on the fly and to use it on their very high resolution touch screen monitors. More CPU intensive than raster, but the photorealistic look depends on a lot of well rendered images, which takes up memory.
Without faith nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.
Post Posted Mon Mar 07, 2016 5:01 pm
Billy Bunt


Posts: 15

Analog-Umph wrote:Well whatever they say, I say you made one really damn good lookin' gui.

Some people hate the photorealistic look, but I love it.

Currently there's this fashion/move towards vector graphics in the plugin world, i.e. very simple plain one colour background and simple knobs, cartoonish looking at best.

The good thing about it is is that it allows everyone to resize the gui on the fly and to use it on their very high resolution touch screen monitors. More CPU intensive than raster, but the photorealistic look depends on a lot of well rendered images, which takes up memory.
Thanks.

Yes, as well as simple vector, I understand a few VSTs also now include multiple bitmaps at different resolutions users can select, as the trend in the next two years is now firmly high res, I'm not really up to date on the VST world these days, though; I'd rather spend an afternoon in a Mos Eisley bar than a KVR forum. ;)

Reason uses the png format for RE, so the bitmaps actually aren't that large in the grand scheme of modern computing - probably around no more than around 10MB for both front and back views at 4096px for full height (9U) device and folded views. The next version of Reason is, imo, highly likely to support high resolution displays. All RE's already support high resolution displays.
Post Posted Thu Mar 10, 2016 2:04 pm
computerhythm


Posts: 44

No need to justify yourself here.

I for one can't program a computer so who am I to judge whether or not a lot of time, attention, and energy went into a major enterprise as this one. Be it as it may, I think you deserve lots of kudos for attempting it at all.

Like I said, maybe the sounds in the demo section were not accurately reproduced :).

Stephen
"If we have an enemy at all, the Control Process is that enemy. It is vital to short-circuit this Control Process." (Genesis P-Orridge)
Post Posted Sun Apr 03, 2016 6:58 am
SebAudio


Posts: 26

Analog-Umph wrote:Well whatever they say, I say you made one really damn good lookin' gui.

Some people hate the photorealistic look, but I love it.

Currently there's this fashion/move towards vector graphics in the plugin world, i.e. very simple plain one colour background and simple knobs, cartoonish looking at best.

The good thing about it is is that it allows everyone to resize the gui on the fly and to use it on their very high resolution touch screen monitors. More CPU intensive than raster, but the photorealistic look depends on a lot of well rendered images, which takes up memory.
I don't know if you're using Reason but today that is their modules that look cartoonish. Vector graphics can be very good, have a look at Madrona Labs Aalto for exemple.
Reason rack emulation is just no more good nowaday. A lot of modules don't belong to a rack such as grooveboxes or organs. When you look at a typical Reason rack today you don't understand why it looks like that. Too bad : it was such a nice looking software in the 2000's !
Post Posted Tue Apr 05, 2016 6:27 am
Analog-Umph


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SebAudio wrote:have a look at Madrona Labs Aalto for exemple
I like that synth and its look overall, but it does not compare to rendered graphics.
I like the vector look when it is a metaphor for electronic displays, but in other cases, it and our CPU power have far to go yet.

Vector is far away from looking beautiful, the way I want it to look. At least right now.
Without faith nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.







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