johnchop

I’m thinking more about music tech as creative tools here, although I recognize that there are still a lot of products and innovations specifically aimed at the performing musician.

JamPro … AI isn’t the only thing that produces crap for cheap. Ever hear me play? SMcD… points for inscrutability. Okely dokely.

Absolute brain melt from all these product drops in the past week. The sheer range of cool sh*t — especially relatively affordable cool sh*t — is continually mind-blowing to someone who wandered music stores (remember those?) in the 80s and wondering if the Korg M1 or D50 was just the end-all-be-all. (There was also a Matrix 12 on the display floor, and that thing was from outer space and sonically crushed everything in its path.) Even the stuff that’s spendy, e.g. Polybrute or Iridium, is still so gobsmacking potent. What a time to be alive. Anyone else feel this way? Perhaps not if you don’t like soft synths, or iLok, or external power supplies, or lack of expression pedal inputs, or any of the other things we tend to whine about. I just know that 11-year old me would fall over at what’s available. Just me?

Got the demo. Presets hint at some cool stuff, but a lot reflect some pretty standard VA sensibilities. It’s new to me. What should someone coming from Prophet/Juno programming mindset seek out in the Chroma?

Every bit as good as the original, and way easier to use with the updated UI. Something about GForce synths… they can pump out some absolutely thunderous low end. And subtle harmonic distortion (“warmth”) is uniformly well executed. To my (admittedly crappy) ears, they don’t sound midrange-y and muffled like competitors can. Worth your time to demo!

4K on the street. sounds right for what you get love the color! holy moly what a time to be a synth nerd

I saw it more “when” than “if”, as they were blowing out version 2 a few months ago. Anyway, glad to see it’s here! Happily upgraded and about to install. One of my faves.

Right, as of now, not legal unless you own the hardware, which I’m fortunate to have. (I’m also a donator to the project, which gave me access to the pre-release versions.) Given that it’s not just the synth that’s discontinued but the actual Motorola chips, I’m likely hosed if anything goes seriously awry with the hardware. I think of this software as a handy backup. And given that the TI software is no longer developed, leaving newer Mac users in a lurch, this is effectively “total integration” without actually integrating anything.

That WAS good, wasn’t it? I was hoping the PHA4 would be more like that, and it’s fine (I have an FP30x), but the FP4 was just smoother. I’m going to throw the Kronos 61/M361 action up there, too. The newer Korgs don’t have it, do they?

Absolutely remember the Origin … talk about flying close to the sun! I do like the suggestion that owning Astrolab should come with some entitlement to Vcollection, or rather a Vcollection bundle that contains the currently supported Astrolab instruments. That makes the pricing much easier to swallow, and brings in a host of new users. Even having that bundle locked to hardware is better than nothing, provided there’s an “upgrade to full” collection should you ever sell the keyboard. Maybe they are working on something like that.

Most fun: Korg M3 Most useful: Kurzweil PC3 I think my days of workstation keyboards are behind me though.

I now realize how out of touch I’ve been about current keyboard pricing. 1700 for Juno X. Less for a MOD-X. So 1600 is a tough sell for this for customers doing feature-by-feature comparisons. I like the overall design, and it has most of the features I’d want, except that it feels underpowered.

Aaaaaand the website is down 😀 I got as far as the 2k price tag. About what I expected.

That was an unfortunate patch choice, and the B3 doesn’t shine yet either. But…the whole package is pretty nuts. Especially having pigments on there.

IT’S HAPPENING. Breath unheld. Take my money.

Apologies for neglecting to mention that.

Certainly a matter of taste, but I find modeled acoustic pianos have a narrow sweet spot. A metallic, dulcimer-like tone can be really hard to avoid. I do think they upped their game in the latest version, especially in the genre-focused presets. As for EPs, for me they are very plenty vibe-y and adequate in a group context. Likewise the B3 is serviceable but needs some love. If their sounds end up in a contained instrument that isn’t totally CPU-starved that could be a hell of a thing. Would it compete with the Crumars, Studiologics, or the big 3? Hard to say, but even if it’s a preset player — with sounds managed/loaded from a computer — with controls to tweak stuff (at the level that Analog Lab allows)… hot damn. No breath held here.

AI feels off-brand for them. I certainly have zero interest in it. I could see them offering a subscription option (to include sound libraries) but not a sub-only model. Would love to see a keylab mk3 with a firmer action and controls, maybe MIDI 2.0 if that can be a thing. I’m with whoever said 61-key, higher polyphony Freak synth. That could be fun. I’ll hand it to Arturia, they are good at NDAs. 😂

OP - which Mac laptop are you running? Patch complexity could bring your system to its knees. I have Gig Performer, and it sure does a lot, but a single instance runs on one CPU core. That could get hairy with dense multilayered patches. I think MainStage spreads channels across cores? I know the answer is a web search or smart forum member away. Anyway, as for sounds, I was always impressed by the included MainStage content. Third-party instruments may give you that extra 10% of mojo, but perhaps at increased CPU usage (not to mention $$$) or license hassles or some other annoying technical thing. For $30 MainStage comes out swinging hard.

Belated birthday wishes. Hope it was a good one!

The same team has a micro Q option, although I understand it’s a pretty different beast than the Q, which is something they’d like to be able to run as well … along with the Novation Supernova and old Nord stuff! Some addenda: - I was wrong about the CPU hit. The DSP emulator does chew up a thread pretty heartily. - There’s legal gray area around use of ROMs, so interested parties should tread carefully.

For the curious, I tried the DSP emulator over the weekend. It’s what you’d expect: it is exactly the same sound, because it’s Virus firmware, and I have the real thing to compare to! As for specs, I’m running Win 11 on a 13th gen Intel. Barely hits the CPU. Incredible!

oh I have no illusions about the fact that I’m the product. User data, eyeballs for ads, etc.

I don’t know about you guys, but I pay exactly zero dollars for YouTube, and I get what I pay for. The only thing I lose is time, and I get the occasional nugget of wisdom or knowledge. I do not demand an outcome, because … zero dollars. And if the experience is triggering the bad brain juices, I close my browser. As for RB, he reminds me of my musician friends from my high school and college days who would clue me into various bands. He’s the “you gotta check this out!” guy. It seems the real pant-wadding thing here is that he’s a professional YouTuber. Doesn’t that require you to embrace crass, engagement-is-everything, slave-to-the-algorithm hucksterism while also promoting your membership/Patreon side hustle, to have even a shot a paying the mortgage? Eesh, that gig would just feel effing awful and weird to me.

Very cool. Not to derail … but what is to the right of it?