Softtube Modular

[dante]

Coming next month, apparantly. Eurorack emu, 1 to 1 circuit level. Looks like a native VST.

https://youtu.be/DA1lYDmKLIA

You can turn the cable visibility on / off - click and drag modules - wonder where those ideas from !

$99 bucks for base product with 6 modules - then - guess what - pay extra for other modules

[yayajohn]

LOL! Well I suppose if you can't afford a real Eurorack this would be fun and useful but this business of having to buy more modules would kill it for me. I wonder how much if you bought the WHOLE package?
Wonder how much CPU juice that thing is going to draw?

Gosh if you really need a software based Eurorack modular then why not just download this, it free for PC's

http://www.singlecellsoftware.com/caustic

There's also a ton of stuff for the iPad too.

Sound-wise well i'm sure it sounds incredible because otherwise what would be the reason to buy?

[astroman]

Caustic is a piece of crap (I have the iPad app)
if you want to hear how an absolutely anaemic, lifeless emulation sounds: there you go

Softube have lost my confidence by their TSAR reverb claims
to consider this a 'great reverb' one must be close to deaf

cheers, Tom

[yayajohn]

Caustic is a piece of crap (I have the iPad app)
if you want to hear how an absolutely anaemic, lifeless emulation sounds: there you go

yes it is

[dawman]

If you want 1:1 save your money and buy the real thang....
Believe me I have tried so many synths and I just prefer the old Discrete Audio quality of yore.
Love Zebra2 HZ , Omnisphere was fading away until drap and drop wav. pcm into Granular came along.

I am building a Eurorack/MOTM myself.
Can't keep wasting time with 1s and 0s anymore.

Must have Dogs that Hunt.

[dante]

Caustic is a piece of crap (I have the iPad app) if you want to hear how an absolutely anaemic, lifeless emulation sounds: there you go
Softube have lost my confidence by their TSAR reverb claims to consider this a 'great reverb' one must be close to deaf cheers, Tom

I use TSAR (Rack Extension) to paint a room sound on a drum submix, but for low frequencies only. Upper frequencies I use other verbs, with IR etc. Mind you I didn't pay full price for it, as it was included in a bundle.

Softube's TubeTech RE is very good, but its way overpriced compared to cheaper RE's that do the same thing - including the Pultec trick (Attenuate+Boost on same freq).

I think pricing is what pulls them down at the moment, even on sale.

I am building a Eurorack/MOTM myself.

Awesome. Will it be gig luggable ?

[dawman]

Yepp.
Minimal patching from a preset matrix based on a static set up.
Just want some big ass fat bastard stuff.
Almost gave up but got 2k worth of modules for 500.
The case is hinged and is two double module heigth x 2 that pulls up and folds over.
Pretty cool stuff.
With sit in front of me above the Physis K4.
Solaris will retire as I have the FS1r and Code 4 now.

[yayajohn]

Yeah i've had a very small Pittsburgh system 10.1 and it's a great intro with everything you need to get started.
One problem with hardware Eurorack is no presets so I take a picture with my phone and have a folder of my patches.

[Sounddesigner]

It's a smart move by Softube to create a Eurorack vst modular and it will probably sell well. It will sell well cause of name brand or atleast emulations of name-brand modules with its add-on packs cause this Market loves name-brand and emulations. SCOPE Modular has way more modules and will have far far more functionality than Softube Modular for many years I'm sure but one of SonicCore's/Creamware's problems is they never had any big name companies creating modules for SCOPE's Modular wich is sad, and truthfully famous names shouldn't be needed nor emulations of popular Eurorack modules but celebrity and popularity-contests-winners are too well loved in our world. Univeersal Audio's platform was anemic compared to SCOPE but ultimately they overtook SCOPE's market share and won the dsp platform war cause of name brand. UA themselves were a famous name although noone in the company is the original owner and designer of the legendary hardware but his children living off daddies fame.

People don't pay SCOPE developers any attention sadly until they go Native and become superstars and some of the best Native developers e.g. Softubes/Warp69 (Relab)/Brainworx/SPL/etc. People are highly praising Softube now especially with this new Modular but where was all that praise when they where on SCOPE? Warp69's reverbs on SCOPE were better than anything Native at that time in the past but few would even acknowledge how good he was until he went Native. They didn't have big names and people hate dsp's and will lie about how great Native is with each generation of plugins as it slowly does improves from sales generated by the lies, basicly building the platform off of lies (much like UA) and in the end when Native finally is great they'll say "see I told you so" . Each generation of Native synths and effects is claimed BE-ALL-END-ALL until the next generation is released and the cycle continues. Many Native developers propagate the lies/hype and many users do to cause they don't want to admit the shortcommings of their platform and some don't know any better, and if anyone says Native is not that great they attack that person viciously. SCOPE was great sounding more than 15 years ago and SCOPE is still great sounding today (that wich sounds great yesterday should still sound great today if it is truly great), so great that Creamware was confident in their algorithms AND SOLD THEM AS EXPENSIVE HARDWARE INDIVIDUALLY (Asb/klangbox/Noah/etc) wich is what YOU WON'T SEE from Native developers wich makes no sense if their claims of greatness are true. You can't claim greatness and never prove you can survive in a much much more tuffer market that's like claiming to be the best boxer in the world but never fight the true champion with the title belt and winning it. SCOPE costs almost $4000 and runs on separately sold hardware but has survived in the hardware/dsp worlds for almost 20 years. SonicCore has been swimming with the Sharcs and still surviving. Until the market is willing to spend big dollars on those Native algorithms then the market hasn't said they are special and thus it's not a fair comparison between Native and expensive hardware/dsp and they are not even in the same market/league. I'll believe in Native's greatness when I see this. It's easy to say and believe something is great until you have to make a HUGE sacrifice for it and spend a lot of money and take on hardware with restrictions. Once a huge cost has to be paid for something then you start to adequately compare it to true-high-end before making such a big decision to buy. XITE-1 was a big purchase for me but years of thought on SCOPE and a lot of comparisons made the big decision a no-brainer. I can't think of any Native synths and effects I'd pay the same amount of money for that I payed for XITE-1 not even the new Softube modular or Reaktor blocks or any other. There's a Native company who effects I love a lot but when that companies prices went up I was forced to consider how good were they truly, needless to say I jumped ship until they lowered their prices again. Heavy price tags and hardware restrictions force you to think.

The Softube Modular sounds nice so far but not as good as SCOPE Modular judging by the initial video's. I probably would buy it since it honestly sounds pretty good initialy and sounds better than Reaktor to me but the price tag and the dongle are turn-offs so I won't since it is not as good or better than SCOPE. I'll listen to more demo's from it and give it a fair chance to convince me but thus far I am not convinced its worth any significant sacrifice and i'm not convinced I won't be ditching it after I buy it when the next generation of Native synths are reached. I have not ditched SCOPE since I started using it 9 years ago and don't see me ditching it anytime soon. Softube modular so far sounds really good but not great plus it uses ilok plus it's expensive and is just a cash-cow for Softube to continuesly sell the users small modular module's packs for big money ultimately. You can end up spending thousands of dollars into the Softube modular and I doubt it will sound as good as any of the high-end hardware that costs thousands (may look as good with the proverbial 'pretty gui's' ).

I'll pass on the Softube and stick with VAZ Modular for my Native modular wich still sounds better than the rest of the latest generation of Native synths IMO and Vaz 3 is more than 10 years old. Since Vaz and Gladiator still sounds best to me far as Native synths goes not much has changed on that platform to me, atleast not for my taste. I rarely buy a new Native plugin but very often buy a new SCOPE plugin when they are released and SCOPE has cut my overall spending dramatically compared to how I was 9 years ago.


EDITED

[dawman]

Think I'd rather take the all expenses paid vacation to the ancient city of Palmyra before trying to learn the names of modules for another Modular app.

[Sounddesigner]

Also, I'm sure the Softube Modular is about to be released on the UAD Platform as well so that platform is about to have instruments especially since they now have MIDI routing. Once that platform gets 1 instrument its users will be comparing it to SCOPE and saying it's superior in every way .

[dawman]

But maybe they'll see how great DSP is and ask Holger for help.
These 2 companies should have merged long ago IMHO.

[astroman]

Also, I'm sure the Softube Modular is about to be released on the UAD Platform as well so ...
Once that platform gets 1 instrument its users will be comparing it to SCOPE and saying it's superior in every way .

well, most users of that platform don't even know of Scope's existence
I don't expect instruments like we're used to in Scope, let alone modular
that's way too complex... a couple of fake euro-modules for envelope and filter processing, ring mod and that's about it basically

cheers, Tom

[dawman]

I am not seeing anything showing Softube Modular being anything othervthan Native.

Maybe in 2018 a new UAD Zeus rack with 8 x 21b49 chips.
Id love to get something like that and turn my XITE-1 into an FOH Desk with 4 x BCF-2000s.

[dante]

I think the sticking point technically with porting SoftTube Modular to UAD would be the DSP spanning ? I thought UAD devices cant span across DSP's - correct me if Im wrong coz I seem to remember this from past discussions here.

So that would mean in UAD Modular once you got modules in your patch that consumed one DSP - thats it you cant add any more modules

Thats a big problem for UAD doin instruments - in particular poly synths - is that the poly would always be restricted to what fits on a single SHARC.

Maybe they could release a UAD 6 string, maracas or a Jan Hammer lead ----

[astroman]

maybe they want to fuel hardware sales...

cheers, Tom

[Sounddesigner]

But maybe they'll see how great DSP is and ask Holger for help.
These 2 companies should have merged long ago IMHO.

To some degree they already are merged and working together after UA stole all SCOPE developers (Brainworx, Softube, SPL all develop plugins on the UAD platform now}. I guess stealing is how UA works with you. They are slowly stealing the whole SCOPE concept. I think it's hard to work with someone when they're savagely ripping into you and brutally pillaging what you have. Just kidding of course, atleast to some degree.

Those third-party developers that came from SCOPE have made significant contributions as well to UAD since Brainworx created the SDK so that other 3rd Party developers can get on board and Softube designed a critical plugin that their Apollo REALtime platform was missing wich was Guitar amp sims.

UA and TC did work with Avid and they did code their plugins for the Pro tools platform. But Avid is a huge company and Protools was the biggest dsp platform with a huge customerbase for money and far as professionals go it was the industry standard so i guess it was a no-brainer to code their plugins for that platform. It was however stated that Yardstick was going to code a reverb for SCOPE but unfortunatly it never happened. When i talked with the developer at Yardstick i think he mainly had some copy-protection concerns and also the reverb would've been a cut-down version due to the limitations of the old SCOPE pci cards and computers. The yardstick developer did still own a SCOPE pci card. If Yardstick would've went ahead and got on board i believe that would've been a game-changer and i believe Creamware would've won the dsp platforms war. Yardstick sounds better than TC IMO and Yardstick as well as Bricasti are amongs the top dogs out here. Noone wants to bring the best-of-the-best Effects algorithms ITB, not even to the more secure dsp platforms.

[Sounddesigner]

Also, I'm sure the Softube Modular is about to be released on the UAD Platform as well so ...
Once that platform gets 1 instrument its users will be comparing it to SCOPE and saying it's superior in every way .

well, most users of that platform don't even know of Scope's existence
I don't expect instruments like we're used to in Scope, let alone modular
that's way too complex... a couple of fake euro-modules for envelope and filter processing, ring mod and that's about it basically

cheers, Tom

You may be right that the instruments may not be complex if created for UAD due to the limitation that Dante pointed out with their platform not allowing plugins to span multiple dsp's. But I am fairly certain that instruments are coming because they keep asking their user-base in surveys if they want instruments, how frequently do they use them, how do they use them, etc etc. Also UA always leak a Studio picture or some other scenery wich has a hardware unit in it that they are about to emulate then in the future that emulation is released, and one picture was of them in a barber shop with one of them sitting by a Moog modular. They've been giving a lot of hints at instruments lately. Since they use the same dsp's as SCOPE they may be able to code a solution for their spaning problem I don't know but I do know they've been hinting at it recently and I do know instruments were planned for the discontinued old UAD-1 platform when it was first released but I suspect they ran into the limitations of their old platform.

Some of the UAD users do know about SCOPE and everytime features that SCOPE has is mentioned on their forum some users start stating how they wish the uad platform had that feature (rather than just buy SCOPE). But true, SCOPE is fairly unknown and for those users who don't hang on forums probably almost completely unknown, but also occasionally comparisons are made between SCOPE and UAD on forums.

[dawman]

These 2 companies need to unite.
Bring in the Mac guys, and yes Hans Zimmer uses thier stuff too.
Having him make a feature request carries serious weight.
Ask Urs Heckman....