Which DAW you use? Waves and audiounit don't seem to be friends when it comes to Presonus Studio One. It only seems to work as VST3 for me, not sure about VST2.

picked it up for $39 a couple of days ago. Been interested in Element since it was released and I'm happy to have it. I always thought it sounded great, and it does. Download the demo if you're unsure. It took me 10 minutes with the demo to decide to pick it up for $39. The filter is kinda strange though, I hear stepping on some patches/settings when I do a filter sweep using my mouse. Not a dealbreaker though. The presets sound great btw. I've always been a "I'm a purist so I'm going to delete all the presets and create my own" kinda guy, but lately I've really been looking for something I can load up and quickly get inspired with and actually use without much tweaking. This is one of those synths. I like how it doesn't have just a Pad preset section, but also a Polysynth preset section. I wish more plugins had a Polysynth section. I don't always want evolving slow attack pads or mono leads and basses. I want 80's and 90's era Polysynth sounds. Done.

for the best analog emulator vst i prefer audjoo helix. Audjoo - Helix
great sound &tweaks with very low cpu usage.
too bad they got a very bad ease of use (and they won't fix it)
excellent synth to be pitied :(


i tried the element. still need a lot of improvements(i think) such as,better GUI, custom sound bank, lfo phase, etc, etc.

IMHO

Well, I'm still loving this synth and use it a lot.

I have 5 instances of Element on one of my tracks. I was in the polishing phase of my mix and noticed crazy hiss/noise floor volume with playback stopped. I checked to make sure my line in on my audio interface was inactive. I muted all the tracks and started soloing each track one by one until I found the source of the hiss. I had read about it and brushed it off a few months ago but holy cow batman, the hiss is friggin loud! Is there no way to turn it off? It sounds like crap : /

Out of curiosity, what are you listening with opeth13? I noticed the same with integrated macbook pro soundcard, but can't detect much with proper pro sound card.

No problem. I'm using an M-Audio FastTrack. I showcase the hiss in this vid I made earlier.

Yeah, it's definitely got a little bit of noise on the output.

Although, I just loaded 10 instances of the default patch and couldn't hear a thing. Had to use a spectrum analyser to "see" the noise.

I then boosted every individual channel by 10dB and then the mix bus by 10dB and finally started to hear it. Given how extreme those levels are I'm not really sure what the problem is? I would definitely never hear it in a mix. Trying to play a single note on a single instance of Element at those levels instantly clips my mix bus.

Is there a reason you have your mix bus at about -20dB? Have you tried leaving it at 0 and adjusting the level of your individual tracks that are routed to the mix bus?

Another possibility is that your compression settings are heavily exaggerating the noise. Have you tried the same experiment but without any compressors or EQs on your individual channels or mix bus?

If that doesn't help maybe just use an expander after each Element instance to attenuate the noise when Element isn't playing. I agree it would be handy to be able to turn off the noise from within Element but maybe there's a reason they haven't provided such a feature (the noise may be tied into the circuit modelling for instance)?

RB

Hi, the reason I have the mix bus at -20dB is because my headphone gain on the audio interface is all the way up and I'm too lazy to keep reaching to the far right hand corner of my desk to adjust it, so I keep the gain high and attenuate the mix or master bus gain to the desired comfort level while mixing and then get it up to 0 when I'm going to do an actual final bounce. I'm a family room producer, as opposed to a bedroom producer, so hardly pro stuff

I hear the hiss without the compressors, it's obviously not as noticeable without compression, and ultimately I don't think it's a deal breaker. I just didn't know why it was there in the first place. I do agree that it may be part of the modeling algorithms and whatnot, but I did some casual Googliing and found a rock (and roll) mixing forum where apparently they were talking about how almost all Waves plugins have this baked in hiss effect. Just makes me wonder that's all. I will definitely try some different approaches though based on your suggestions. Thanks for the feedback. Wow, the pun.

So this was all user error on my part. I adjusted all levels correctly and got rid of the insane compressors, and I can not hear the hiss even with the master fader maxed out.

It is getting silly now. Why should users of this synth (which sounds good otherwise) make a lot of work arounds, if and when there is too much noise, just because Waves decided to NOT include a noise off button as they have done with other plug ins? As I can see on my spectrum analyzer (Flux HAL) the noise seems to be static - no matter what you use from Elements. They just connected the noise level to the output level setting. It's absolutely ridiculous that this problem exists. We have to fiddle around with expanders, gates and denoising plug ins for something that had to be implemented easily: an noise off button.
And people like to compress their synths - why not? But then the noise problem is getting totally annoying, especially when using more than one instance.

Well, you seem to have read my post so you know full well that I made several other comments/observations before suggesting using an expander as a last resort. Using an expander after a noisy audio source is hardly an uncommon scenario for an audio engineer as far as I know... I would consider it practical as opposed to silly.

Secondly, you don't know for sure that Waves "decided" to not include a "noise off button". As far as I know Element was developed by someone else initially and Waves then either hired that individual or bought the software.. the point being that it's not necessarily a matter of just turning off the noise. Even if it was, it's Waves... it's not like they're gonna listen to their customers or anything, so one may as well just deal with it pragmatically if they want to use Element.

If that's as simple as it is then agreed! Hopefully they change it...

The point I was getting at there, as I stated clearly, was that I'm not getting anywhere near the level of noise that Opeth13 is getting and without seeing his compressor settings on the individual channels or the settings on the channel strip plug-in on his mix bus it seems possible that those processors may be exaggerating the noise issue. That is all.

RB

I was for several years a beta tester for Waves and use Waves products from the beginning of the company. Waves and their products are fundamental for my workflow. And I have generally a positive attitude towards them and enjoy working with their plug ins. But sometimes they deserve some critic for decisions. Some graphics look absurd and the missing noise off button in Elements are some of these. I'm pretty sure there is no decision like that made without Waves wanting it this way. Of course there is a reasoning behind. But I don't care - I just want a 'noise off' button …

Email those punks at Waves and hassle them.. if anyone can get them to change it it's you!

Until then an expander it is...

RB

I guess you're kidding here … if not: there were some reasons I dropped beta testing for Waves and of course I don't have any influence on their product decisions. To make our concerns public is a good move.

No, I'm not kidding.. hassle them. I think they're more likely to respond/react to emails than forum posts. I genuinely hope they change it!

RB

I think it sounds nice. Easy as pie to program. Solid variety of presets makes it easier to get to the desired sound faster. +1 to updates from waves too.

I was experiencing some arpeggio problems with this earlier, but they seem to be fixed in the latest versions. Now it works 100 % on my setup, great stuff.

I made a fun/EDM/rap song with a couple of friends to celebrate the new year. EVERY synth on this track is Waves Element!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiKjR8upkiI

Trying to make a slow pad with Element and I notice there seems to be some strange behavior when using longish attack and release times with same consecutive notes. It's like the amp envelope would not retrigger, but the new note starts from whatever VCA level that note currently is on the release curve.

I don't know if this makes any sense, but say you have two chords that share notes. The notes that are "new" start from 0, but the notes that were in the previous chord are already audible to begin with. So the VCA's on the chord notes are not in sync and it sounds bad.

Kind of mono behavior, within polyphony. Weird, I don't recall having this with other synths.

I have set voices to 12 or even 16 for triads, so thats not a problem.

It's actually easy to try if you just set long attack and release, then press a note, let go, press it again and the VCA starts from where it was, not from beginning.

Element 2.0 is out, anyone tried yet?