If I do a 'full reset' for a default patch the sawtooth wave actually has its midrange harmonics scooped out when the EQ is set flat. If I bring that midrange back using the two EQ mid bands it sounds pretty good. Weird. Seems like a bug.

At some point I thought we would hear the pizza guy ringing the doorbell
A.
PS: is Virtual Voltage another name for binary?

Geez... Is it just me or do Waves threads really bring out the cynical side of Gearslutzes? :]

RB

The GUI looks great!
A.

Indeed!!! I believe it is!

Not to derail the Element thread. I'm actually very interested in demoing it and hearing more discussion on the quality of those osiclators, but...holy smokes, I think you're right! That's got to be the first look at the mythical Logic Studio X. Right? The term "alias" copies. That unmistakable transport. The term "hyper editor."

Oops! I wonder if Apple knows about, or if they had to get permission. I mean, the video had to go through a lot of people at Waves. A room full of audio engineers had to have noticed this.

Great observation, muxx.

Not gonna like it when the demo runs out, damn. I find this has a lovely smooth and lively sound, wasn't expecting this at all and I can't really re-create the sound with any of my other synths (and I do have a few). Created an arp yesterday and left it running on the headphones while doing other stuff (not the one attached here).

I don't like the gui on the other hand, it feels twiddly. I have a Novation Supernova II which has a few faulty knobs and I get the same feeling with Element that some knobs don't respond like they should.

Anyway, I kind of like the oscs and filter and how it envelopes. Here I'm playing around with filter cutoff, envelope and envelope shape (envelope shape is a really cool feature btw). Two detuned saw VCO's with some Element's EQ applied and aux sends to Ircam Verb + Lexicon Dual Delay.

The transport panel could be modded. But the rest ... ??? Isn´t Yoad Nevo famous for beta testing stuff, especially WAVES ... I remember he tested the NLS before release in a video.
The video does not show any channel strips or the mixer view. This secret should be kept obviously!

Very interesting. I'm thinking he doesn't seem like the type to mod his DAW. Know what I mean.

The buttons do seem to take on a more skeuomorphic design, which would be in keeping with Apple's trend toward this (except for Final Cut Pro X which wouldn't call for it).

I bet this is it.

Great little arp demo. Thanks for posting that. Very telling.

Yeah, there is a lot of detail, subtle motion, fullness and filtered lushness to it. Really tasty sounding.

The delicate punchiness in the attack is really sublime. Even as short as the pluck's attack is, you can hear a lot of little juicy deviations in it.

I'm gonna have to give this one a close look.

I never quite got into synthesis, mostly because it was so over my head... which stinks cause production was over my head and I got my head around it mostly. Anyway, I enjoy the song Yoad made!!! lol

Nice exemple thks ....this could have been in a john carpenter theme

By the way how do you guyz found the presets ? how many ?

GUI , i don't like its visual but this is ergonmic and well layout imho

........

Thanks, this kind of simple oscillator + filter + envelope is the kind of test that sells me the synth if it's good. I'm not much into overly complicated sounds.

I ran thru a few presets, but I didn't find them very appealing. I almost never use presets on a VA anyway, other than maybe pads.

The presets are quite heavy on the fx, which isn't necessarily a good thing. The occasions you'd use the reverb on this one are quite rare (it does sound ok here and there). I don't like the chorus much when turned up a bit. On very small doses it goes unnoticed, but becomes quite rough quickly.

I don't mind this synth being a Waves product. The only thing that should count is how it sounds and I think it doesn't sound bad at all - but is it still good enough to find its own space in the mix? I wonder how this thing stacks up against U-he's ACE and Diva that are arguably the best sounding virtual analogs that money can buy at the moment.

This plugin seems to cry for something that would make it stand out from the crowd. A smart company like Waves has acknowledged the problem certainly but they still have chutzpah to release the plugin - so either they must believe in the product (I want to believe so) or they've calculated that someone buys this one anyway for some reason.

The excellent video kind of clarifies what this synth is done for. Apparently, it's meant to be a reliable simple workhorse plugin that gives immediate and fast results without hours of ridiculous tweaking and excessive CPU consumption. The fact is that making of a complete song with ACE only isn't a matter of ten minutes. So, I wouldn't compare this synth to ACE or Diva but rather something like FabFilter's Twin 2.

That Logic look (?) was already discussed I think in 2011, you can see it Mixing Drums with Yoad Nevo webinar, it shows the whole screen. This thread is not necessarily the place for discussing this subject.

Absolutely not interesting.I'm a Sonar X2 Producer owner and i have Z3TA+2 and it's AWESOME!!!!!
(included in Sonar Pro)

Best

I'm not quite sure who would do a complete song with one single VA synth these days like in the demo video, unless you want to make a "demo song". Most DAW's come with a respectable set of drums etc and I can't see many people trying to carve out good sounding drums out of any VA unless the sole purpose is to create drums with a VA or make a retro tune that sounds like SH101 or so.

I just became a waves mercury user and received this. Thanks waves! Overall I thought the synth was simple easy to program, capable of some interesting sounds. The synth however did not wow me considering the great free vstis out there.

... but this got me thinking. I have a feeling waves has a few more synths up their sleve. Why would they just just release just one synth? Sensing a synth bundle comming?

Check out these 2 free similar synths:
dune LE
Mastrcode MusicT-Force Alpha Plus

T-Force Alpha Plus
Synapse Audio Software Dune 1.4 VST/AU

No Kidding!

I played with it for several hours last night and I do think it fits that bill. The best thing is that everything is right there; no hidden settings. Even the mod matrix is all laid out in front of you.

One important tip for this thing: The envelopes all have a "shape" control which very drastically affects the sound. Several times I found myself thinking, "this patch doesn't sound like I think it should" and adjusting the Shape knob on the filter or VCA envelope was all it needed to get the sound in line with my expectations. This is one control that probably should have had a more visual element to it (or at least better documentation in the PDF).

Oh, haha- one other thing. The full reset/init patch defaults to allowing modwheel to affect the patch a bit, whereas other modulations are dialed down to zero. I kept wondering why my first few patches came out sounding wobbly, and then I noticed that my daughter had pushed my modwheel up halfway the last time she'd been in my room.

General thoughts:

• Still loving the UI.
• LONG envelopes! A, D, and R go up to 10 seconds each!
• I do not like the logarithmic faders. I understand why they did it that way (allows finer control for shorter envelopes), but I would really like a way to switch to linear control. It's possible you can already do this; I only read the sound parameter parts of the PDF.
• I didn't spend much time with the presets, but every single one I tested had an arp applied. The only way I found to disable the arp was to turn it off on a per-patch basis, which was annoying. Again, perhaps there's a way to audition patches sans arp that I haven't found yet.
• That said, the arp is very nicely designed and super simple to use.
• The knobs feel weird; they "click" like hardware knobs do, which makes fine control a little arduous.
• Haven't gotten any truly phat basses out of it, but will try a little more over the weekend.
• The Unison is rather extreme, and doesn't appear to be adjustable? I had better luck just doubling the main oscillators and detuning.

Time for Aiyn Zahev to do some presets ....

http://www.aiynzahev-sounds.com/


go , go , go !!

I agree with you pretty much 100 % (altho I count the knob behaviour to be part of the UI, so I don't like the UI ). I really dislike the logarithmic knobs, most every other synth has fine tune by shift/alt/cmd, should be the case here too. It's the weakest link in this synth by far. I get by by using mouse wheel mostly.

I also agree that the envelope shape is one of the most interesting features here, maybe because I haven't seen similar before.

I wouldn't mind some unison settings either, when it's turned on the sound is all over the place.

The overall tone of this thing still feels quite soft and creamy, after playing with it for a few more times.

Native Instruments stepped into the Waves domain and Waves fights back. Makes sense strategically. Now they should make one classic reverb, one higher end sounding tape machine (plus a low cpu use spin off) and a super crazy complex mastering comp, redo som GUIS, most importantly their Analyzer and add some "sync to song position" features to some modulation plugins.

It's a synth ! it has the same physics as all the the other subtractive synths on the market (more or less)! Make of it what you will ...no better no worse ,if your Vince Clarke it will sound amazing ! If your me it will sound shite ! lol
Fair play to waves entering the over saturated market of synths ..... They are running out of music related things to explote (like everybody)
A few updates down the line it will mature I'm sure into a cool synth.... throw in a bunch of third party presets and we're off..

LOL ... well, I used to post here quite a bit, but have only 'lurked' for the past two years and couldn't remember my old username/pass (or even the email I used to use for signing up here)..... I got the waves announcement in my regular email and came here to see what people were saying about it, didn't see a thread, so I made one.



ps, "silver sonya", I always enjoy reading your reviews, posts, etc. I feel kind of honored that you quoted me in a post.

Just tried it :

1) cool on cpu
2) Really usable presets as a starting point
3) alot of them
4) synth made in a "producer" point of view not by synths gurus ..so it's big + ...everything around to tweak quik and to get the sound : what a good soft synth should be designed for
5) Gui : ok

Missing

1) Learn lock (when you learn a control , if you go to another preset you lose them)
2) Random presets (i'm having fun with this feature in Zeta2..Ect)
3) Sync Lock independant to presets ..(will maybe it's already there but didn't saw that working, when i switch to a preset that have independant tempo , it's wining other my sync command switch before)

Good synths by waves ...you can make great stuff in it if you want to but the most important for me , you can do it Quick and easy .....ideal for producers ...

went into this very skeptical and not needing a new synth of any kind. spent way too much in all those end-of-year bargains.

demoed it. bought it after about 15 minutes.

there is something really special and subtle going on under the hood on this thing.

i think it sounds more complex and expensive than my other favorite soft synths: DIVA, Lush-101, Poly KB II, Xils 3, DCAM/Synth Squad -- oscillator for oscillator.

i'm not quite sure how they are able to get this richness with only two oscillators.

i mean, a little tweaking on some of the presets and i found myself listening to a single note held arp waaaay longer than i have with other synths. very fat.

the sound of it is very inspiring. and really very analog. i think they nailed it. instead of focusing on gimmicks, they focused on sound quality and let it speak for itself. (similar to the well-aging Sylenth1, in this regard). [sidenote: as high quality as the Sylenth1 oscillators are, and punchy and clear as the note attacks can get -- similar in many ways to Element, here -- it does show its age in regard to the complexity and depth of newer circuit modeled synths, so i didn't include it in my list.]

filter section sounds great. very satisfying. is it as "juicy" as cytomic's "the drop"? not quite, but, is probably better suited for its integrated role in the synth. there is something special about that RES knob -- it's doing some kind of inter-modulation, or something, when it gets cranked up. it's hard to get it to sound bad, but it still has balls. in some of the patches it seems to intelligently soften or do something that is very musical. can't quite put my finger on it yet.

the amp section is great sounding.

the eq is very analog in its behavior, beefy and well thought out for its simplicity. i was planning on adding an SSL G Channel (or Softube EQ, etc) for my testing, and never needed it. but would in actual production, of course. :-)

the delay is useable, but i'd probably put my PSP 608 on it when actually producing.

the reverb is pretty crappy. very metallic and "short looped" sounding.

so any patch that had reverb, i would turn it off and put my Lexicon PCM96 on it. problem solved.

the detail, punch and filtered 3d softness/complexity in the attacks of notes is really mind-blowing. the clarity, too. but also gritty. i don't know quite how to describe it. but it's the first time i've really felt this in a soft synth.

all i know is that i always seem to have to stack my divas, etc. to get what i'd consider a "finished element" (no pun intended). i had this impression with just a single instance. i probably will end up stacking these things, of course, but... you wouldn't have to. again, with only two oscillators? there is some mojo going on here that i'd like a technical explanation on from Waves (if you guys are listening....).

i think it definitely meets the high expectations of a Waves first, and of the name/concept of "element."

i can't wait to make music with this thing.

(very curious to learn more technical details of this "Virtual Voltage" modelling and how it likely compares and contrasts to what they know of other circuit modeled technologies.)

You mean FabFilter Twin (1) right? Twin2 has this utterly ridiculous user interface with sliding panels and endless scrolling of the modulation section, while the most positive thing with Element seem to be the direct user interface. Everything directly accessible, just like Twin.

Regarding envelope shape, well, being mainly a modular synth user, I've always wondered why this is mostly absent from software (and hardware) synths. You can achieve it on synths with comprehensive enough mod routings by modulating envelope times with the envelope itself, but it's such a powerful feature to have easily accessible on a knob. The only VSTi I can think of that has it is Waldorf Attack.

Not sure I get you right, there's a bunch of synth with customizable envelope shapes, Z3ta, Massive, ANA, Admiral Quality, etc... come to mind.
A.