Any Roland V-Synth Users?

Mohoyoho · Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 8:34 am Post subject: Any Roland V-Synth Users?

Any V-synth users here? I'm very intrigued by this synth and am seriously considering it. I would like to hear others' thought on this keyboard.

happy · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 12:16 pm Post subject:

Look at: www.sequencer.de

There you can find something about the v-synth.

A very nice german forum (with an english section) is: www.synthesizerforum.de

In this forum you can talk to some people who use the v-synth.

Christian

Mohoyoho · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:15 pm Post subject:

Thanks. I checked it out, but so much of it is in German. I haven't a clue of what is being said.

mosc · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 2:03 pm Post subject:

Happy. Good to have you here. welcome

happy · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 11:50 pm Post subject:

@ mosc:
thanx for welcome Very Happy

@ Mohoyoho:
The site admin of these german sites is a very nice guy who speaks nearly perfect english. He uses und loves the v-synth. I think that he would be happy about a contact to you.

Christian

monokit · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:02 am Post subject:

I used to own one (until a month ago or so). What do you want to know?

monokit · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:04 am Post subject:

Here's a forum of V users, btw:
http://www.v-tribe.info

Mohoyoho · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 7:08 am Post subject:

Thanks for the link. How come you no longer own the V-synth? I'm looking for owners' impressions and what they are using it for? What problems or disappointments they might find in the synth. Is it a good live performance synth?

monokit · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 8:05 am Post subject:

I got the V-Synth for its sample tweaking features. For example, I love to slomo samples, and the V does that nicely in real-time (but at the price of artifacts). I sold the synth version to buy the rack, and place it near to my mpc4000 as a sort of sample-tweak lab. But I kept on looking for a possibly better tool, and I discovered the Kyma system, which is much, much better tool for the job (imo of course). So the V rack won't come, and I'm saving for the Kyma now.

The VSynth is a Variphrase sample combined with a VA synth engine. It uses a synth structure with oscs, filters and amplifier modules to create the sounds. The filters here are actually COSM fx moduls, and allows for a large number of effects to be used on the sample or VA sounds. Well I guess you know the specs.

The variphrase technique allows you to real-time modify pitch, time and formants of a sample. The result highly depends on the quality of the source sample, and the encoding mode used. It works much better on pure, simple instrument tones than on complex composition (e.g. a mixdown of a song). With good sample material, it is possible to use a single sample over a large range of the keyboard without the well known donald duck effect. Tweaking the time domain however (my personal fave) often results in serious artifacts when slowing down too much. The sound becomes grainy then and coarse. So success with the sampling part highly depends on what you want from it, and what you feed it.

The VA part has recently been upgraded in the latest v2.0 OS, with the added JP8000 waveforms. The VA part of the VSynth never could interest me, and the v2.0 addition didn't change that for me. I just don't like the sound of the synth, or maybe it's the lack of character. But this is probably very personal, lots of people like it a lot.

The number of voices is limited, depending on the type of sounds being used. Never counted them, but I guess between 4 and 10 voices maybe. Although there's some form of multi-timbral mode supported, the hardware interface (the knobs, the screen, everything) is hard-linked to part 1 of the synth. There's no way you can control the other parts (sounds) of the synth.

The fx section is pretty nice.

It's a great performance synth, that's what it was designed for I guess. The pad and d-beam give you great control over the very flexible sound engine. Most preset sounds support them and change from relatively boring standard sounds to weird out-of-control kinda stuff once modified by dbeam and pad.

If you need more info, please ask.

Mohoyoho · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 5:27 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the reply. What I want is an insane sampler. I'm not quite interested in the VA part. The artifacting you mention is a bit of a concern. I would love to try one out but the nearest one I can find is 250 miles from here. Can you map out sounds in real time via the line inputs? Or does it take some time to code them for variphrase?

monokit · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:54 pm Post subject:

Well, the VSynth is not really a traditional sampler. It doesn't support multi-layering (so velocity switching between layers isn't possible). As each patch can be divided into up to 16 zones, multi-sampling is possible though, but IIRC, there is no overlap between the zones. The low polyphony count and the lack of serious multi-timbrality also make the V a weak option compared to a traditional sampler, when comparing with an Akai or Emu machine.

Regarding the artifacts, it all depends on what you want from the sound engine, and on the sound source. It does a fairly nice job on pitch/formant modulations (so a single sample of say a flute can be used over a relatively large range of the keyboard), but time modulations (e.g. slowing down the playback speed of a sample) quickly produces artifacts. (To be honest though, I have yet to hear a good real-time timestretch algorithm on any machine or software product.)

It all starts with the sound source though. Some sounds sound much better than others. Especially when a sound is getting more and more complex, with energy in lots of different frequency bands, more artifacts appear (the grainy stuff). Formant modulation, for example, only works when a sample could be encoded with the best (and most critical) encoding mode, but this only works on relatively simple samples like recordings of instruments (flute, string, single vocal). Low frequencies in the source material also seem to confuse the encoding process, maybe that's why the preset ROM samples all sound a little top heavy, I think Roland EQ'd them for better encoding results.

AFAIK, the live inputs (also the sampling inputs) do not get the Variphrase treatment, simply because the encoding process is needed to use Variphrase.

The power of the Vsynth is in the combination of the flexible Variphrase/VA/COSM sound engine and the added control features like the pad, beams, great arp, 4-chan step sequence and good fx. Every part of the sound also has its own EG, so for example, the playback speed of a sample can be changed over time with it's own EG. Pitch, formants, the COSM fx blocks, amp, all of them have their own EG. There are also lots of LFOs available, one per section. Most parameters can be tweaked in real time.

I see the VSynth as a very nice performance/fx machine using both samples and VA techniques. Building weird sounds on this machine is very easy, and that's how it was marketed initially. Now, with the new v2.0 OS with the JP8000 VA waveforms added (including supersaw), the machine is marketed as a trance synth with a weird touch.

When used in the studio, expect it to play one sound only. It's not very good in multi-timbral setups. If you need it to do more sounds, best thing is to track the sounds one by one. You could also consider the Varios or the older VP9000.

Mind you that I'm focused on time-based modulations and sound quality, so I'm probably not the best guy to ask about the V. On the forum you'll no doubt meet people with a much more positive attitude. It's not that I hate the V, I used it with pleasure on several tracks of an album. I just don't love it.