Eric Persing interview (VIDEO)

[Vik B]

This is quite long interview but I thought I would share with my fellow Spectrasonic fans.

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks Vik. I skipped half an hour in the middle for now - lack of time - with the full biography. But to save others who are just wanting to cut to the chase: 1'03.00 - Eric says cool stuff happening in 2016, not what people are expecting, and not going to be at NAMM (well, obviously we know the last one by now). He did also mention (not long before this) that "we have some cool stuff in the works" with regard to software / hardware integration. Obviously I'm interested in anything but man... Stylus... c'mon.... well, that said, the past two days I've been doing a ye olde Fresh Prince style rap track for a client and funnily enough Stylus has been a dream for that.

[Lawrence]

Great as a historical document, relatively useless for anything forward looking. Eric being Eric.

[snowleopard]

Dedicated hardware controller for Omnisphere?

[Guy Rowland]

SNOW! So good to see you here. Someone to talk Tour with in July :-)

I've said a few times that the dream for me would be a hardware controller built round an iPad, with the screen central and hardware knobs and buttons round the edge of the screen (obviously labelled on the screen, as you go between pages). I can see that really working for Omni, though no reason it couldn't work for other plugins.

Spectrasonics are quite Apple-friendly (though I've seen Eric critical too) - who knows?

[snowleopard]

Hi Guy. Yes, I finally made it.

I might be dreaming here, but there are a couple reasons behind my thinking. The first is that Spectrasonics created the one of a kind OMG-1 in 2011 (link below). I'm not convinced this is a direction they will go at all, as it's build cost some $7,000. But a variant could be very powerful.

Next, we've already seen success in analog hardware in recent years. I'm convinced it's not pure analog most people want, but the east of control in programming and performance that comes with knobs. Spectrasonics released the Omni app, which has this kind of control in mind.

This thinking is already moving forward, though infantile. Access Virus TI, Roland's newer hybrids, and especially the Arturia Origin. You almost can see what I think is a holy grail of software/hardware integration. Spectrasonics I think could usurp all of these companies by making a hardware unit with certain dedicated sliders and knobs that match the Edit page of Omnisphere, and perhaps other additional dedicated pages. Then add in space for your iPad to operate the app. However, unlike the OMG-1, this unit wouldn't have a Mac Mini built into it, nor have integration of iPods. Instead, it would use USB/MIDI to connect to your computer and your Omnisphere and DAW. Thus is would be a shell that is purely an interface, allowing great control over the instrument. What isn't controlled by sliders and knobs or the iPad, would still have to be done with a mouse, but this would cut down tremendously on programming time, and live performance issues.



Two years ago Urs of U-he showed a prototype Diva keyboard that did exactly what I'm talking about:



Again, I think it's a mistake to sell it with a computer as a stand alone unit. Sell it as a controller. Let the user supply their own computer and hardware, which will allow the unit to not go obsolete so quickly. This would also allow it to be lighter, more portable, less cumbersome, and you could take the controller from studio to home to wherever, without having to lug the computer along.

The Synth-Project guy has the right idea. But he just makes these for himself, making it one big tease.



Arturia I would say somewhat has the wrong idea. What I think they should do is make a keyboard that is merely a MIDI controller/shell that looks a lot like the CS-80, but controls the CS-80v you already own on your computer. I'd think they'd sell hotcakes of these things, don't you? And the cost would have to be less than a Access Virus Ti2 or Prophet-12, with no build in sounds or hardware, don't you think?

[Guy Rowland]

I'd think they'd sell hotcakes of these things, don't you?

Well..... I'm not so sure actually. Isn't that what the MS20 thing was? A remote control effectively for the software MS20? I don't think it sold so well.

This is a really tricky nut to crack. I'm not sure we've seen anyone do it right yet, and we know that because we don't all own one. The first person to really get it right will clean up, but I don't think we've seen the right pardigm yet. There are sort of conflicting aims in the design, and someone has to figure out a way to satisfy all the following:

Instantly hands on sonic control, great visual clarity
Will work with a variety of products
Controls reflect their virtual counterparts (ie if it's set on zero virtually, the knob has to be zero too)
Enough physical controls to make genuine programming a possibility (as opposed to automation or just a few headline controls)

Native Instruments have had a go, and they fall down on the last one (and that they are all tied to keyboards). They get everything else right, but I don't think just bolting 6 of their strips of 8 together in a rectangle would make a good controller - it would look a mess and it would be hard to find your way around. It's a long way from the immediacy of a real synth, or indeed the Diva prototype.

So a screen of some kind - maybe more that one - has to be essential, a way to switch between pages and give rich visual feedback. Perhaps a combination would be key - if you imagine sets of controls grouped together - a row of 4 for ADSR, for example, and an overall shape that is ergonomically pleasing. Crrucially those controls have a display strip, rather like NI's Kontrol. Of course if Spectrasonics designed something like this, they'd design it to play to Omnisphere's suit, and not everything else would be quite so neat perhaps.

Now I think of it, NI teased something similar, very similar, to Eric's comments in the video. They did it at some seminar a couple of years ago, and then the Kontrol series came out, and everyone went... "Oh". It's not terrible, but it's a long way from that dream product. I wonder if Spectrasonics could do a better job.

[snowleopard]

Good post. And I agree it's a tough nut to crack, or it would have been done. But...

Well..... I'm not so sure actually. Isn't that what the MS20 thing was? A remote control effectively for the software MS20? I don't think it sold so well.

True. But the MS20 isn't a Yamaha-CS80. Not the same sound, history, prestige or cachet.

Instantly hands on sonic control, great visual clarity

Ideally, one would take something like the CS-80v, and make an improvement over the physical CS-80 layout. And that may be a real trick as well.

Will work with a variety of products.

Here is where you and I are in disagreement. Or talking apples/oranges. I don't think NI, or Arturia, or Spectraconics for that matter (or Sample Logic even), needs to take this path. To create a hardware controller that is intuitive, programmable, and works with a wide variety of products, is almost impossible. This is almost what Arturia is doing with some of their products. A very hard sell I think.

I'm talking about a MIDI/USB keyboard, with sliders that match a Yamaha CS-80v (for this example, U-He Diva is another. Papen's Predator another, etc). This physical unit would have no sound generating guts. It would not be designed to be played with any other software. Limiting? Yes. But you get a CS-80 (or close to it). I attach my laptop, and I have a very similar sonic output to what Dave Smith did with the Prophet-12. Okay, no analog filters. I understand. But you get my point. I walk away with a synth damned close to a CS-80.

Now, to the original question, what Spectrasonics would do for this to work with Omnisphere? That's would take some thinking. You'd have to create something better than the OMG-1 I think. Though stripping the OMG-1 of a Mac Mini, and 2 i-Pads, and 2 i-Pods, and get it down to one 61 note keyboard would help manage the cost.

Maybe. :-)

[Guy Rowland]

But the MS20 isn't a Yamaha-CS80. Not the same sound, history, prestige or cachet.

..I'm not convinced of the distinction is great enough to make the difference between a smash-hit product and a sadly abandoned curiosity. And you're still stuck with the problem of sliders / knobs being in the wrong position when you first adjust them unless they're all motorised (and then if so, the product would cost eighty squillion dollars).

From Spectrasonics' perspective, whatever they do (if anything) will obviously have to integrate with Omnisphere. And that means having dynamic pages - I just don't see any way around that. You're gonna need something that makes sense on main, effects, modulation, fx and envelope pages (to name but 5), and the idea of a one-button-fits-all solution can only mean something the size of the full Moog Modular and it would also be out of date on each update. So I think dynamic it has to be. But the good news is that I think nobody has done this concept even a quarter as good as it could potentially be, so it's all to play for...