Yet another Keyscape update

[GR Baumann]

Another 250 new patches utilizing the new Double Felt as well.

https://www.spectrasonics.net/news/news ... php?id=140

[Guy Rowland]

Very nice! The marketing makes it sound like there's 1,500 new patches:



But let's not be churlish, 250 quality (mostly Eric Persing) patches is not to be sneezed at.

Again somewhat confusing from their bumph, to play just the new stuff select Keyscape Creative, and type 1.6 into the search browser. I'm a busy lad at the moment so I've only heard the As and Bs....

[Guy Rowland]

So this is curious - load up the patch Chemical Spill (yes, I've snuck in trying out the Cs). There was reference in the patch notes to "3 instances of K-verb" and I thought.... "what is K-verb"? Never heard of it before. But sure enough there it is, and a K-channel besides on the Common output.



What is so odd is that these effects don't appear in the fx browser - you can't select them on any other patch. Anyone any ideas?

[Guy Rowland]

K-verb is also under the hood in the original Keyscape Double Felt Grand patches. You can only edit it in Omni, but it definitely doesn't appear in Omni's browser. A strange anomaly.

[GR Baumann]

Yes Guy, affirmative, I was wondering about that too.

[Guy Rowland]

From Spectrasonics twitter:

You’ve found the “secret” new Keyscape FX we added for the Double Felt release! We thought it would be fun to utilize them some more for this update. They are intentionally more hidden in Omnisphere, but power users can enjoy exploring them by saving Rack Presets! Have fun!

Typically idiosyncratic Spectrasonics! Would be easy to save a basic preset with an instance in it I guess, though a bit unwieldy in use.

[Guy Rowland]

I just took a little look at all the different reverbs I now I have in Omni aside from the three default of EZ, Spring and Pro.

SKY VERB
In Nylon Sky. This is Raum-like, big expansive tails with magical trails.

SEISMIC VERB
In Seismic Shock. In your face hyped-up EDM style by default - also offers wild modes of various kinds.

UNCLEAN VERB
In Unclean Machine. Digital Lo-fi, emulations of springs (which don't sound like springs), plates and halls. I guess it's like the early Microverb.

K-VERB
In Keyscape (hidden). I honestly don't know if this is algorithmic or convolution, but it's actually the only verb to offer good quality spaces - rooms, chambers and halls. There's also a couple of effecty types - Super Shimmer, Octave Grains and Ominous Sub Oct.

I've saved a Rack Preset of K-verb. Loading it obliterates existing effects in the rack of course, but it least it is only applied to the selected rack. So if I have Aux selected and load K-verb, it leaves A, B, C, D and Common alone.

[GR Baumann]

I just copied the effect preset and apply it to any FX slot I want.

[GR Baumann]

Could also use Flow

[Guy Rowland]

I just copied the effect preset and apply it to any FX slot I want.

Yes, but if you already have effects on those slots it will be obliterated when you paste the effect preset. AFAIK you can't copy and paste the effect from, say, D (which might well be empty) to A (which might well be full).

[Guy Rowland]

I'm a dumb-dumb - I've been using Rack preset, not effect preset - the down arrow to the left. Hiding in plain sight for years for me!

[Guy Rowland]

I'm going through patches little by little as life allows. There really are some stunners in here. Digistack Rhodes is one of those great patches that sounds like a real very playable and expressive electric piano, but different to anything that exists in nature (precisely the sort of thing you'd hope a combination of Keyscape and Omnisphere would do). The Clavichord Ensemble is not dissimilar.

The D-50 - actually Omnisphere soundsources - shows up in a fair few places. Crystal Light does much the same trick as the above - it is clearly D-50, but the texture isn't so solidly dated. Euphoric Pianet Stab even does this for an EDM lead synth, made significantly less irritating than usual by having a subtle organic quality to it.

The hybrid organic has always been a real strength of Omnisphere since day 1. This feels like a particularly fine collection to advance that idea, though there are patches of all shapes and sizes from pads to leads to sfx. Dulcet Impact is guaranteed to raise a grin - an impossibly deep impact with a glassly bell-like texture. Again, the kind of unique alchemy of which Omni excels.

[wst3]

you're doing better than I - I spent some time with the update yesterday, had a blast, found myself grinning and noodling, and didn't make note of a single patch I enjoyed! There were a few!!

[GR Baumann]

What's your best guess is behind the "Sauce" dial?

[Guy Rowland]

What's your best guess is behind the "Sauce" dial?

Good question - my best guess is that it's a +1 octave layer, but it only seems to have a significant effect on the special effecty programs - on the rooms and halls it does sod all as far as I can tell. The effect sounds most distinct to me on Ominous Sub Oct.

Incidentally this is a trick I've stumbled upon in recent years that I love. Put a vocal through an effect chain with a one octave pitch-up, then through a nice reverb of choice. The ear doesn't really perceive it as mickey mouseish, it just sounds shimmery and magical.

[Guy Rowland]

you're doing better than I - I spent some time with the update yesterday, had a blast, found myself grinning and noodling, and didn't make note of a single patch I enjoyed! There were a few!!

I meant to reply to this Bill - I'm still only up to G! I still feel like I'm not giving it its due, but like you I stop on a patch and get carried away. One in particular has inspired me on a project I'm currently thinking about.

I'm so enjoying going through the old multitracks of classic songs, and its so obvious that musicians simply loaded patches on their keyboards and played them. We've oddly fetishised patch design and have an obsession for the pure re-creation of every last nuance... it feels kinda ass-backwards to me, too engineering. The quality, variety and depth of Omni to me is closer to the spirit of the musician than the programmer, even though it is a sound designer's paradise.

I just wrote on KVR that the single best thing about Omni is simply that it makes you want to make music.

[GR Baumann]

What's your best guess is behind the "Sauce" dial?

Good question - my best guess is that it's a +1 octave layer, but it only seems to have a significant effect on the special effecty programs - on the rooms and halls it does sod all as far as I can tell. The effect sounds most distinct to me on Ominous Sub Oct.

Incidentally this is a trick I've stumbled upon in recent years that I love. Put a vocal through an effect chain with a one octave pitch-up, then through a nice reverb of choice. The ear doesn't really perceive it as mickey mouseish, it just sounds shimmery and magical.

Cool!

[wst3]

I'm so enjoying going through the old multitracks of classic songs, and its so obvious that musicians simply loaded patches on their keyboards and played them. We've oddly fetishised patch design and have an obsession for the pure re-creation of every last nuance... it feels kinda ass-backwards to me, too engineering. The quality, variety and depth of Omni to me is closer to the spirit of the musician than the programmer, even though it is a sound designer's paradise.

I'm with you on the "idea" of re-creating past sounds in general, and synth patches in particular. For the longest time I used developers presets as a starting point only, and my favorite starting point was "init"<G>.

When FM synthesis came along (started with the FB-01, graduated to the TX-81Z, picked up a used TX=7 but it never got a lot of love) the whole idea of synthesis was turned on its head, so using factory patches as starting points, and sometimes ending points, was mandatory. Over the ensuing years I became somewhat proficient, and then along came FM-7 and again all bets were off. Oh well.

Additive synthesis made more sense, but was even more complex really. It took some time to get my head around the K5, but again I eventually became somewhat proficient. By that I mean (for both) I could start with a factory patch and edit/tweak to get something I really liked, if not always what I started out "hearing" in my head.

One of the reasons I became lazier and lazier was the sheer number of patches included with some of these, especially software synths. They start with orders of magnitude more patches, and that takes some time to go through, but it also gives one a better idea of what a synth can do.

Every once in a while a patch just grabs you. Oddly enough on the FM-7/8 it is "exciting" - I've used that as is, or as a starting point more often than I can count.

Then there is Omnisphere. By far the most complex synth I've encountered (previously this spot was help by Camel Audio Alchemy). And by far the largest collection of patches I've run across. Add Trillian and Keyscape and I don't know if I'll ever get through them all. I have had some limited success tweaking, I've yet to create a useful patch from scratch, so I usually just pick something cool from the list. One thing I have found quite useful is combining patches or elements from all three - one can get some really unusual sounds. Unusual does not (sadly) always mean useful!

Digressing again... if I am creating a cover or a sound alike I might go for pure fidelity, depends, I suppose, on the brief, or whatever I am trying to do. But mostly I believe covers are supposed to bring out something new, and that applies to every facet, and especially patches. (This could well be that I am not terribly good at exact matches, which might have something to do with my lack of interest in same? Chicken meet egg).

[Guy Rowland]

Jeepers, I just counted. I have over 15,000 official Spectrasonics patches (not including all the scenes in the Sonic Extensions).

I'm getting nearer the end of the alphabet. With Cherry Audio releasing their Novachord, the Nova Felt Device in Keyscape Creative gets a similar-but-different feeling. Likewise Old Doghouse Bass is an upright that isn't quite an upright - very playable. Phantom Felt reminded me of a Noire-with-particles type trick.

I really don't know why I own any other synths.

[GR Baumann]

Do you guys really do this? I mean, you are not kidding? a, ab, c. and so on?

[GR Baumann]

aber becklecker nicht das Sofa... Sofa...

Fucking Hell, I must be deranged as Hell... I just dial in a patch, and immediately start to build a multi from that t'ill it squirts..
.
Yeah well, listening to Frank here at the moment.,,.

[Guy Rowland]

Do you guys really do this? I mean, you are not kidding? a, ab, c. and so on?

Only when a new library is out. After that it’s all down to the tag browser. But today I did record something that I found while patch A-Zing.

[Geoff Grace]

aber becklecker nicht das Sofa... Sofa...

Fucking Hell, I must be deranged as Hell... I just dial in a patch, and immediately start to build a multi from that t'ill it squirts..
.
Yeah well, listening to Frank here at the moment.,,.

Perhaps this?



Best,

Geoff

[GR Baumann]

Jap

[wst3]

well done Geoff!

Been a bit since I went down the FZ warren, seems like a good day for it!