Scope VS VST's

[yayajohn]

Last January, or maybe it was in December I succumbed to some really "good" deals on vst bundles and stuff. Had only a handful of synths and effects and never really thought I'd need anything other than my Scope Xite and PCI cards. So lately I have been doing some A-B comparisions and it has made me once again realize how great the Xite and Scope platform is. There really is no comparison to the thickness of the sound. This was comparing the Arturia Oberheim SEM to the Scope Prodyssey.
I opened up the Prodessey and selected 16 voices and immediately without hesitation the Xite loaded it and I was able to switch presets without glitches. I know that the Scope synths that can do this is only a select few but I hope that more will come that have been so excellently optimized for the Xite like that. (btw Prodyssey is not the only thing open in my project, Optimus, CWM248,Spacef Fat etc)
The only way i could get the SEM to sound even close to the sound of the Prodyssey was to pump it thru an external Fireworx. Thanks dawman for the great tip on that piece of gear. My conclusion: Most VST's do not fill a room with sound unless they are "helped" by hardware.

Of course I haven't tried ALL of the vst's, I know that and some are much better than others but Arturia sure does suck!.

Dan

[zerocrossing]

Well... to be fair, Arturia isn't really lighting the world on fire with their quality emulations. Put Minimax up next to Monark and... hm, close but Monark sounds a bit more natural to me. Of course, it's mono and I can play Minimax polyphonically, so that's something. Put Prodyssey up next to Oddity 2 and it's a damn close race.

[astroman]

I watched some demos of Arturia's Jupiter VA - with regard to advertizing blurb it's really lame
my favourite VSTs are Sean Costello's Valhalla reverbs and special fx plugins (no PCI bus blues anymore)
recently added the Zynaptiq ZAP Bundle - eats CPU cycles for breakfast, no Scope counterpart

here's me as a fake cowboy tracked by just the internal mic of an iPad Air2, 20" away on the table
processed by Unveil/Unfilter, dynamic adjusted with SAW-Studio's Levelizer + a few % of Valhalla Room
afterwards the raw take follows for reference
https://soundcloud.com/anshoragg/ipad-a ... l-mic-test
most sucks in VST land, but there are some true gems...

cheers, Tom

[hubird]

Great sound and mix. Well sung!
A good mike would make your voice more full, or is it just your voice?

[astroman]

thanks, Huub - there isn't really a mix - it's just what the tablet's mic captured in one take
(2nd half is the raw, untouched sound)

the Unveil Plugin controls perceived distance, Unfilter eliminates/reduces resonances
here both are used to cleanup the sound to something one would expect from a regular microphone setup
after that a bit of controlled room reverb was added and dynamics were adjusted with the Levelizer
I frequently apply those 2 steps as final treatment of a track
(and hardly use compression anymore unless I want it to sound 'compressed')

this test was out of curiosity about the result if a great idea shows up and there's nothing but a smartphone to record
the room actually isn't too bad, but certainly not studio-grade - but it worked out quite well (imho)

cheers, Tom

[jksuperstar]

Wow, ZAP isn't a cheap bundle, I hope it would do what it was supposed to (as opposed to the many canned VSTs that sound like yet another SynthEdit experiment). And, it sounds like it does it pretty well

I've been a long time fan of CoolEdit Pro, even after Adobe bought it. I've never strayed from it for audio clean up, probably because I understand it in & out at this point, and what it can or cannot clean up. And I have the book from the author of CoolEdit, which includes a pile of code for many of the effects...someday, I'll see if they can be transitioned to SCOPE. It would be helpful to have on-DSP FFT though. It's really what DSPs are very good at!

[astroman]

indeed... it took me quite some time to consider if it's worth the investment
when I finally ordered it end of last year - surprise: they threw in UnMix-Drums and Morph as a bonus

the software is pretty smart: Unveil can tell a real room reverb from an artificially added software reverb
if applied simultaneously the Unveil/Unfilter combo needs 85% of an i5 at 3GHZ for 1 stereo track...
I haven't used it too much though, and need to refer to the manual for additional background of the filter process
it doesn't come as a click and forget solution - you really have to know what you're tweaking
GUI operation is very convenient, few dials and some curves, mostly consisten between the plugins

it fits my workflow, as I use to preprocess my recordings anyway and apply it at that stage to continue with the rendred results
main application is removing the room's soundprint and compensate recordings of instructions in front of the screen
the haven't used the Pitchmap part yet, but that's perfect to enhance to sampling stuff
bottom line:
the plugins are focussed on tasks and combined they are much more efficient than tweaking EQs, compressors, reverbs, levels...

regardin plugins in general:
usually they either are an emulation of some famous stuff - or just offer a million options of whatever
(nice if one has the time to explore...)

cheers, Tom

ps: Cool Edit was just that: cool
pps: at least a peek in the documentation applies...
the software operates on a 2048 sample buffer - which results in extra CPU load if the DAW buffer is set much smaller
it's still a heavyweight, but increasing the buffer reduces CPU load significantly

[yayajohn]

Sorry for starting a thread and abandoning it but I ended up in the hospital for the weekend.
Now that i'm all caught up.

I think to be fair I will have to try to compare apples to apples here and really try to equal the playing field.

1. No effects first, Arturia and most vst presets are dripping in effect goo!

2. Apply the same effects slowly to each signal individually

3. I will use Scope Prodyssey as my first Scope synth since I feel that is the most optimized.


Please post here your best VST synths so that maybe I can try and get a demo and see how they compare

This sounds like a fun and interesting test for someone who has a lot of time on his hands for now being home sick for a while.

The room I am using is a very small office space so, prob not a good gauge for the real point of my topic which is:

I wonder, how would it sound if you were to go out on a gig?

If you setup for a corner in a nightclub or a quiet but busy restaurant? Will a VST cut the mustard?
Maybe only a few guys here would know, but what about the sound for bigger audiences?

When I see current popular bands and try and see what equipment they are using on stage I mostly see the top end hardware synths.

Do these guys use VST's when they are playing on stage?

Just curious is all.

btw Tom nice vocals and pretty convincing software for an ipad, I may have to look into that.

[astroman]

thanks John... but my post obviously was slightly confusing:
I just tracked the stuff on an iPad
(which I usually do with an Audient ID22 interface and proper microphones - the ID22 has great preamps)
but in this particular case I just put the iPad on the table an tracked with it's internal microphone
expecting a poor result, it turned out way better (2nd part of track is raw data) with respectable signal to noise ratio
but there's no iPad software involved in the processing

that was applied on a Windows machine (Zynaptiq Unveil and Unfilter)
Zynaptiq's special feature are neural network trained algorithms that detect acoustic patterns (in a musical way)
they don't do FFT or similiar mathematical approaches
the software distinguishes between natural and artifical reverbs
(so it will suppress room response, but still keep fx processor based reverb)
that's the reason why they deserve mentioning here - as something Scope cannot do
I used that software to compensate for room side effects and optimize the microphone response

for synthesizing and classical audio processing I prefer Scope and totally rely on it for mixing
the only 'special' VST-synth (for my taste) is the SQ8L (Ensoniq SQ80 emulation)
for anything else I'd rather prefer Scope - or the iPad (for a more 'modern' soundprint)

the iPad has an outstanding guitar amp emulation (Positive Grid BIAS) - also fit's synths very nicely
some excellent synths (PPG's WaveGenerator/Wavemapper, Apesoft's iVCS3, Waldorf Nave)
great effects (Holderness Media, Apesoft Sparkle and Apefilter)
and outstanding midi controllers (TC-Data, Oscilab)

it's actually easy to integrate with Scope (in my case via Adat IO of the ID22)
in a live context an iPad smokes any VST anytime (imho)

cheers and best wishes for recovery, Tom

[yayajohn]

some excellent synths (PPG's WaveGenerator/Wavemapper, Apesoft's iVCS3, Waldorf Nave)
great effects (Holderness Media, Apesoft Sparkle and Apefilter)


it's actually easy to integrate with Scope (in my case via Adat IO of the ID22)
in a live context an iPad smokes any VST anytime (imho)

cheers and best wishes for recovery, Tom

I actually have all 3 of those synths on my Ipad thanks to your previous recommendations on an earlier thread and they are very very nice sounding and fun to play with.
Although the iVCS3 is perplexing at times but some unique sounds can be had.

Thanks for the tips and well wishes.

Dan

[JoPo]

I'm not sure Scope's VS vst's is a really constructive debat... Sure : Prodissey will sound always better than any vst's emulating the same synth. But I think vst's interesting advantages are in what Scope devices are not able to offer. We will never have a sampler as good as Kontakt in Scope ; this has been discusted hundreds times. But some synths, also, like Omnisphere, which is to me the best vst synth ever, or Falcon (awesome !)... Those 2 vst synth are not makable in Scope or one of them would use all 1 Xite power.
We have Solaris but unfortunately, it will never work correctly in 64bit system... And this is a really very bad thing, imho, because it could be THE synth that attracts new users.

So... I use vst's when they offer thing Scope synths don't have. And I don't use anymore (since Kontakt 2.0) Scope sampler, nevertheless STS was the reason I bought my old Pulsar I... Do you know 'Sample modeling' fantasic vst stuff ?? We will never have such acoustic wind instruments in Scope !

Then there are also fx processors... And in that part of vst's, there are not much vst's that offer things that Scope fx don't have. But there are some : like the fantastic Gross Beat, or very specific and original fx processors.
And Scope has the biggest advantage for fx processor : modular ! After learning modular, you can build your own fx processor, corresponding exactly to your needs. It's certainly much more difficult to do that with vst's like Reaktor or any vst modular synth.

Scope & vst's are complementary and I always mix in Scope vst's sounds and this is, to me, the power and advantage of Scope. And I couldn't make my music only with Scope or only with vst. (I hope I don't go outside of that thread subject... )

[garyb]

yes! use whatever tools work well.
Scope was never intended to be the only audio tools used. it's always been made to be used with all of your hardware and software.

[astroman]

Scope is really good in bringing it all together
I always feel uncomfortable when not mixing in Scope - it just feels like acoustic home

cheers, Tom

[dawman]

Hey YayaJ.

Zebra2 HZ is a really decent synth with old analog treats like Poly Portamento, DuoVoice, Kick ass Osc. Glide and Looping EGs that have no equal, and of course the Diva Filters.

It's a great live synth, just disable their lame FX as they are the typical Goo and steal clarity.
Zebra2 HZ through the Fireworx is punishing.

If you get Zebra2, Zebra2 HZ is another 99 bucks.
Urs from u-He says Zebra 3 is free for guys with Z2 and HZ.

Also thinks you don't need HZ anymore since Z3 must have knock offs of the Diva Filters.

I will let you know how good Z3 is very soon, I get it for free.

Fireworx is just sick, no need for DSP or VST unless it's dynamics but even the damn Compressor in Fireworx has that burning ass sound we all love.

[yayajohn]

Yes I am slowly getting to know the worth of the Fireworx. Still going thru the presets to try and eliminate the one's I will never use but i have found a handful of really great one's in the process. The unit came with a card so i didn't have to go find one thankfully.
Great tip on that unit.

Zebra sounds excellent, I may have room for that in the future. Unfortunately all funds for this type of activity have been suspended until I get back on my feet again and start working. Hopefully in the next couple of months. (acute severe pancreatitis since Jan - pretty much right after we spoke last. Getting old it sucks!)
But the silver lining is I get to stay home and make music.

@jopo I really didn't want to make it a Scope vs VST debate. I just wondered if pro's on a stage really use things like Omnisphere and what do they have to do to "beef up the sound" like what dawman does by running the sound thru an external effects box.
Do the Scope synths need that also or do they sound like "real" synths. That would be my guess from what I've heard.
I wonder also about the 16x16 sample launcher performer boxes like Novation and Akai. Where do those samples come from?
Hardware synths mostly? Do they sound 'beefey' on stage? That's why I would like to attend some of these conventions like NAMM and hear what they sound like in a noisey crowded room.

I also bought the Air synth package back in Dec. and it has some very impressive devices and sounds, in fact there are toooooo many! I don't know what to do with them and I find a cool sound and can't locate it again. Of course saving the projects helps

Happy thoughts and well wishes to all;

Dan

[dawman]

NAMM 2017 at the new convention center in Nashville had lots of synths and keyboards in 15 and 16.

[yayajohn]

I am going to try and make that this year.

[siriusbliss]

I use everything - including iPads.
TONS of cool apps in iOS land.

I'm currently testing using iOS apps via Ableton Link driving Scope synths.

These are the good old days.

...and Scope effects/synths still sound awesome!

Greg

[yayajohn]

Great i was hoping to hear from you too Gregg as i know you play out a lot. I know you are a guitar player but when you use synths do the Scope synths need to be run through something like the Fireworx. What about the iPad and VST's
I have the Behringer iStudio with an old iPad and the sound is ok but I don't know whether or not it would hold any water up on stage.

Dan

[siriusbliss]

Great i was hoping to hear from you too Gregg as i know you play out a lot. I know you are a guitar player but when you use synths do the Scope synths need to be run through something like the Fireworx. What about the iPad and VST's
I have the Behringer iStudio with an old iPad and the sound is ok but I don't know whether or not it would hold any water up on stage.

Dan

You don't need Fireworx.
I just go directly out of Xite to a mixer in parallel to other guitar amp channels.
For iPads/iOS I go through a direct box to the PA or FOH mixer.

G