I think there's two schools to this, the other school appreciates technical features, the other school appreciates sound and character (which is a matter of taste and not easily debatable).

I've ran this thing for a week now and I can't match it's sound with any of my synths (FXPansion DCAM, Retrologue, Dune, V-Station, LuSH-101, Arturia SEM, TAL-U-NO LX, PPG Wave v3, Polysix, MonoPoly and FM8).

Actually the whole testing period has been very good, because I've learnt to love all my other synths even more.

I was a huge Dune fan not more than a year ago, or even less. I still like it, but it's one of those feature packed things that you can really sculpt sounds with. On the basic level it lacks character. Element sounds great if you take a sawtooth, filter it and start playing. Dune not as much. You need to add bells and whistles for it to sound good. I stepped into a new game when I got Arturia SEM V, that's when I realized you don't really need tons of features for a synth to sound good.

+1
Although I'm not a pro, I must say I like the gritty and dark sound.
I only got a Juno 106 to compare the analogness, and think Waves did a great job with Element.
Also love it because it is very easy to use.

This is true. I hate feature packed synths that don't have character. I think a good example of this is Zebra. Don't like its bland sound at all, and have for the longest time tried figuring out why so many like it. In comparison I love Diva, and definitely rank it #1.

I'm not hearing unwanted noise people are talking about with Element. I'm running an Ultralite with Logic and listening at low volumes as well as with the volume cranked to try and hear what people are talking about.

Since it's the last day of my demo period, I did some testing and I thought I'll share them here. Bass, pad, arps etc. Kind of impressed with the blade runner style pad. There's some fx applied (Eventide verbs and Lexicon delay), made with headphones so not sure about levels and eq stuff.

Torn two ways.. really like the sound of this thing, but have quite a few synths already and I'm not too keen on Waves..

Oh well, had to try some FM stuff too and it's actually really cool feature in this synth. Again some fx applied. Watch out for your subs with the "element_growl".

great sounds raymond....

i think we gonna have a synth bunlde in waves in some months ....lol

Tasty.

Nice sounds you got! Well if you don't want to get it now for around $70 probably you may be tempted again later if Waves comes up with some new special offer and such

I like it. I bought it.

Thanks jalcide, Jeezo and Hokut.

Actually bought it already, I'd had so much fun using it for a week I gathered it's well worth that ~ $75 ? €60. I would just regret it later not buying while it's cheap. (Altho knowing Waves, this will never be the $199, their pricing scheme would actually be illegal where I live. Some turkish rug dealers have the same system of always having a sale and showing the "real" price which it never actually is).

The FM feature was what eventually sold it to me. I finally found some use for the unison too, just not the way I'm used to using it. I'm guessing one might do some of the same stuff with Cypher too, but the basic FM stuff is just super easy with Element. I love the sound. I love the kind of simple stuff that sounds good on the basic level.

I've been thinking this past week that the developers reading these boards must have hard time not speaking out and letting people hear it .

I mean people talk so much crap about it without even testing it. I myself have also been talking out of my arse about this synth in the past week. The unison for example, it just wasn't something I'm used to.

Sorry about that Mr Rotem, I can imagine some of the comments make your skin crawl .

It's a beautiful synth.

Lol , Dev , before posting there products news have a special training ......because they 're entering a Zone 51 !!

Exactly. Well said.

haha too late for what? Is music going to end one day?

Waves will be around when we're dead. They'll still be making ITB synths, and laughing at this archive.

I think this gets pretty close to my Oberheim OBXa. What do you think?

guyz some good sound i hear .....some presets we want to be posted ....

and yes it's weird , i speak like Yoda sometime...lol

Very close but I prefer the OBX version. In a blind AB test I probably would have chosen that one too.
Thanks for posting these.

That was a nice sound.

I've actually struggled a bit on making pads because of the envelopes. Once you get a nice attack tweaking the envelope shape, the release might not work that well.

I know this is of topic but I had to post this in response to your comment above since I thought it was pretty funny:

Jordan Rudess Microphone Endorsement, Dream Theater keyboardist teams up with JZ Microphones -Sonicstate.com

So the answer to the JR credibility-question is no, I assume (By the way, JZ mics actually are really good)

Ok, back on topic!

I can't begrudge Jordan for trying to make an honest living doing what he loves. Times are hard and it's not easy being a musician.

Besides he has never endorsed a terrible product. JZ mics are great and the Korg Oasys was amazing.

I found the time to test drive Element. The noise is quite audible and cannot be avoided/switched off. That is plain stupid. When 'HD' is switched off the noise even raises a few dB. The noise itself is after EQ and filters and always sounds the same - it seems it is just generated as static hiss after the sound generation. It also doesn't matter how many voices are used. Only the master output gain knob can influence the level. See attached a screenshot showing the noise while element is idle ('HD' switched off). Waves should make this noise madness an option otherwise it should be switched off.

I agree on the noise. I don't know the technical details why it happens so, but when I work with Mac integrated soundcard, the noise is really noticable, especially when you multiple Element instances it stacks up. When I work with a better soundcard, the noise is not really noticable at all. I know it's there when I look at the meters, but it's not really audible. Cheaper soundcards exaggarate it I guess.

A primitive sound card may add additional noise but the noise coming from Element itself is ridiculous. My measurement was done in the digital domain with Element going out digitally thru a RME MADI card.

I don't think MacbookPro adds noise in general, but when ever there is a longer fade out, you can hear the audio starts crackling at lowest volumes and doesn't fade out seemlessly. It's like it's using lower bitrate on lower volumes. The sound quality is quite crappy compared to my Apogee One anyway, but at normal listening you don't really notice.

Yeah but they probably just modelled a noisy synth?

Sure, I see your point, but when every other keyboard/synth/VSTi related product is endorsed by JR it starts to get silly. I bet JR is laughing all the way to the bank though. Oh, and by the way, here are some news on the JR endorsement front fresh off the presses:

WNAMM13: Jordan Rudess Endorsing Live, See Jordan with Mike Garson and Nick Smith at ILIO's NAMM booth -Sonicstate.com

I rest my case.

Yup. It stacks up pretty quickly.

I drop a Waves SSL gate on each instance and of course switch off the modeled noise on the gate.

It's pretty funny when you think about it.

Both the disease and the cure can be purchased from the same company.
They should bundle them together at a discount.

Jordan Interview

Waves at NAMM 2013: Jordan Rudess - YouTube

Not exactly a demo song, but most of the synths on this tune are Waves Element. Only the drums (geist) and pad (wavestation) are not Element.



Don't regret getting this thing at all, love the sound. I often forget to move the license from my studio machine to wlc cloud to work on my laptop and everytime I would've WANTED to load Element and start playing, but have had to use some other synth instead. So I'm gonna say once more I HATE THE FU**ING LICENSING SYSTEM!, but the synth is beautiful .

nice vibe .... browsing on it !!

edit : the second part is also great