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capillotraktor « Powerful and effective »
Published on 05/19/12 at 16:42See below.
The sound palette of plants is very large, but when you start to create their own sounds downright giddy possibilities give.
Three oscilloscopes, noise generator, two ring modulators fed by the oscilloscope; these six sources are sent to two multimode filters according to various configs, and everything starts in a string of six effects.
It adds a modulation matrix of 20 strings, where each bead takes two input sources from three LFOs, six envelopes (including amplitude and filter) and physical controllers. Cords destinations include many of the oscilloscope settings, those filters and effects, but also parameters of the envelopes and LFOs ... this is REALLY powerful.
The only real limitation is probably the monotrimbralité, but frankly for the price you can not complain, especially since I have not had any problems with polyphony so far.
Everything is built up in the PC universe: midi over USB, audio in both directions also (there is a pair of audio inputs), which makes the Ultranova a sound card. In addition to the headphone mix and buttons on the front line are well thought out, in short it works well.
UTILIZATION
I think there are two ways to use them: use the factory sounds or attacking synthesis. I'm using clearly not the type of music that owns the factory sounds: basically typed dubstep, trance, hiphop eventually.
In fact I bought it because I had started to seriously look at the block of Nord Stage EX synth which I had to separate myself, as a result I was looking for a cheap little synth to get back to the synthesis. After wavering between Microkorg XL and the whole gang of virtual analogs to less than 500 euros, I fell for it.
I think I will take a while to go around, but it's really an exciting instrument. All is not accessible on the front way "one button, one function", but this is not a black box way 90 ': it has a row of knobs complemented by a series of buttons, one for each section: oscilloscope , filters, envelopes, modulations ... navigation is actually very logical and really fast after a few hours. Work on it is quite comfortable, the screen is bright, the keyboard light touch is really good.
The manual is very detailed and clear, if you know nothing about the synthesis attention nevertheless, it will do much to swallow at once ... by reference as against the early stages of tweaking, it's perfect.
Generally no surprises to the use, Novation offers updates via their website, there either is no particular problem.
SOUNDS
So I am not using the factory sounds, but the range is enormous, particularly through the variety of waveforms and modulation matrix. Just today I followed the creation of a pad, an accordion sound very convincing, and something stuffed R2D2 robotic way.
You can really have fun, and if you have a specific idea in mind, you have many tools at hand to achieve this.
I may have some reservations about the effect block, it lacks a flanger and a phaser (although we can reconstruct many things with filters), and the echoes and reverbs are not transcendent to my taste. This time it is below the quality and musicality of the effects of the North, on the other hand it is more flexible compared to the effects tailored to a certain type of sound ...
I also met by the time of clipping issues, I think I have to learn to manage levels pre / post effects, fortunately, suitable parameters are present.
We have many controls available, pitch, modulation, expression pedal, aftertouch (very good), a feature tweak knobs with a little gadget for my taste (just touch the knob to trigger what you want after matrix mod).
The sound is very big, very rich, lively ... also quite cold, but very dynamic. The envelopes slam, it sings, it rattles around.
OVERALL OPINION
I for two months past the first contact I had a little left out because of time. I come back and it is truly amazing. We must go beyond aesthetics of techno gizmo, worth much more than that if you want to immerse yourself into it. I have not even talked about the vocoder and arpeggiator, I did not really leaning but it is really a complete machine ...
If you want to nitpick they could have an internal power supply, and deliver with the cover.
That said this is a synth, period, no sequencer / arranger or another but its integration audio / midi is very successful. Personally I like to use it alone, the interface is more than enough to not need to turn on the computer, the editing software is also incredibly ugly
In summary it full well my Nord Electro 3 HP, I recommend it to those who love the sounds provided or who have a small background in synthesis, it is really a very good machine.
A purchase I hesitated with the Minibrute who had just come out, and that is just the opposite in terms of philosophy and its (pure analog, all front panel controls, mono) ... I think I'll end up buying it anyway for his part "instant" and contrast with the Ultranova ... yes, the quest for her does not end
Meanwhile, I explore the bowels of the smurf!
The sound palette of plants is very large, but when you start to create their own sounds downright giddy possibilities give.
Three oscilloscopes, noise generator, two ring modulators fed by the oscilloscope; these six sources are sent to two multimode filters according to various configs, and everything starts in a string of six effects.
It adds a modulation matrix of 20 strings, where each bead takes two input sources from three LFOs, six envelopes (including amplitude and filter) and physical controllers. Cords destinations include many of the oscilloscope settings, those filters and effects, but also parameters of the envelopes and LFOs ... this is REALLY powerful.
The only real limitation is probably the monotrimbralité, but frankly for the price you can not complain, especially since I have not had any problems with polyphony so far.
Everything is built up in the PC universe: midi over USB, audio in both directions also (there is a pair of audio inputs), which makes the Ultranova a sound card. In addition to the headphone mix and buttons on the front line are well thought out, in short it works well.
UTILIZATION
I think there are two ways to use them: use the factory sounds or attacking synthesis. I'm using clearly not the type of music that owns the factory sounds: basically typed dubstep, trance, hiphop eventually.
In fact I bought it because I had started to seriously look at the block of Nord Stage EX synth which I had to separate myself, as a result I was looking for a cheap little synth to get back to the synthesis. After wavering between Microkorg XL and the whole gang of virtual analogs to less than 500 euros, I fell for it.
I think I will take a while to go around, but it's really an exciting instrument. All is not accessible on the front way "one button, one function", but this is not a black box way 90 ': it has a row of knobs complemented by a series of buttons, one for each section: oscilloscope , filters, envelopes, modulations ... navigation is actually very logical and really fast after a few hours. Work on it is quite comfortable, the screen is bright, the keyboard light touch is really good.
The manual is very detailed and clear, if you know nothing about the synthesis attention nevertheless, it will do much to swallow at once ... by reference as against the early stages of tweaking, it's perfect.
Generally no surprises to the use, Novation offers updates via their website, there either is no particular problem.
SOUNDS
So I am not using the factory sounds, but the range is enormous, particularly through the variety of waveforms and modulation matrix. Just today I followed the creation of a pad, an accordion sound very convincing, and something stuffed R2D2 robotic way.
You can really have fun, and if you have a specific idea in mind, you have many tools at hand to achieve this.
I may have some reservations about the effect block, it lacks a flanger and a phaser (although we can reconstruct many things with filters), and the echoes and reverbs are not transcendent to my taste. This time it is below the quality and musicality of the effects of the North, on the other hand it is more flexible compared to the effects tailored to a certain type of sound ...
I also met by the time of clipping issues, I think I have to learn to manage levels pre / post effects, fortunately, suitable parameters are present.
We have many controls available, pitch, modulation, expression pedal, aftertouch (very good), a feature tweak knobs with a little gadget for my taste (just touch the knob to trigger what you want after matrix mod).
The sound is very big, very rich, lively ... also quite cold, but very dynamic. The envelopes slam, it sings, it rattles around.
OVERALL OPINION
I for two months past the first contact I had a little left out because of time. I come back and it is truly amazing. We must go beyond aesthetics of techno gizmo, worth much more than that if you want to immerse yourself into it. I have not even talked about the vocoder and arpeggiator, I did not really leaning but it is really a complete machine ...
If you want to nitpick they could have an internal power supply, and deliver with the cover.
That said this is a synth, period, no sequencer / arranger or another but its integration audio / midi is very successful. Personally I like to use it alone, the interface is more than enough to not need to turn on the computer, the editing software is also incredibly ugly
In summary it full well my Nord Electro 3 HP, I recommend it to those who love the sounds provided or who have a small background in synthesis, it is really a very good machine.
A purchase I hesitated with the Minibrute who had just come out, and that is just the opposite in terms of philosophy and its (pure analog, all front panel controls, mono) ... I think I'll end up buying it anyway for his part "instant" and contrast with the Ultranova ... yes, the quest for her does not end
Meanwhile, I explore the bowels of the smurf!