4MER WaveShaper Synth is in the Shop!

[JiggeryPokery]

I have down loaded & Reinstalled it 3 times , but the Authorizer does not provide a Try key to my dongle ? ughhhhh

You can't put a try license on a dongle or tie it to a computer. Try licenses are online only.

Yes but no but. The shop (or something server-y) has been screwy this afternoon. It's downloading trial/beta stuff, but (for me, anyway) it's not been syncing the trial license, so Reason isn't seeing it. I've not even been getting a login screen.

Cheer's Jig ! i sorted it with the sync option ,

Cool. Mine synced again after a couple of hours, too.

[eusti]

And on synced LFOs i would not expect xy%, but 1/16 notes or something like that.

I seem to recall that is due to a SDK limitation.

D.

[Loque]

And on synced LFOs i would not expect xy%, but 1/16 notes or something like that.

I seem to recall that is due to a SDK limitation.

D.

i blame it on Sdk than, but i still would expect it.

[Jordan Miller]

Hi, I was browsing through the presets and found problems with some of them.
By moving the MOD wheel and/or selecting one of the OSCs (1 2 3 4 buttons) it changed the sound (other than what MOD wheel was assigned to). I had to reload the preset to get back to the original patch.

Can anyone confirm this? I made a list -

bass

digi electro bass
keratta
aftershock
rebel

mono leads

8 bit fuzz
fifth of horn
gestart
koyo
rev wide

pads

suprstrings

poly leads

cat piano (this is as far as I made it through the patches).

Also a small thing I noticed is control-click to reset a parameter doesn't work on the mod matrix amount values. You have to double-click for some reason.

[Andy Hyde]

One question for Ochen K, it seems the you can't drop the volume of Osc 2 to zero but can for all the rest of the Oscillators. Move the slider/ knob right down but it still plays.

Hmm.. I can't replicate that. I did try it in version 7.1 for Windows, as well as 8. What OS are you on?

So to be clear, if you start a new blank song, load 4MER into the rack, reset 4MER, turn down the volume of OSC 1 to zero, and then play a note, you hear OSC 2 playing? I don't.

Can anyone else replicate this with the instructions above?

Thanks!

Hi Ochen/ others

Just tried this again after a reboot, it all seems to be OK now. Not sure what was causing the issue, but Osc 2 falls silent now when volume is at zero.

It seems I may have problems with my installation of Reason, but it does not seem to be anything to do with this synth, which is great!

Many thanks for looking into this, consider this purchased soon after pay day


Andy

[ochenk]

Hi, I was browsing through the presets and found problems with some of them.
By moving the MOD wheel and/or selecting one of the OSCs (1 2 3 4 buttons) it changed the sound (other than what MOD wheel was assigned to).

Not sure I understand. I loaded a few of those patches, and the mode wheel did what I expected it to. And select the different oscillators with the vertical buttons on the left shouldn't ever change the sound. Maybe post a video of what you're seeing?

Also a small thing I noticed is control-click to reset a parameter doesn't work on the mod matrix amount values. You have to double-click for some reason.

That because those amount values are custom displays, and displays don't support ctrl-click. So I coded in a double-click to reset.

[pjeudy]

@ochenk I'm away from my computer. ..I might have miss understood what I was seeing...I'll look into it when I get home! And will email...or post it here !!

[challism]

I absolutely love this synth. It's beautiful, inside and out. Congrats to OchenK. I hope you sell a bunch of these. <3

[spacefarmer]

I was looking forward for months and I like this beast for complex soundprogramming - thank You ochenK.

But there is one thing that could be changed, if I didn't miss something.
The filters seem to bevave "monophonic" when they are modulated by an envelope.
I "build" a brassy sound and when I hold a note or chord and play another note later, the filter follows the envelope for all notes the same time, note only for the last one...
and some more than four voices would be nice too.

G.

[Skullture]

Very nice synth but it heavy on CPU. Tried few patchs and its already putting my i5 to a serious test.
I really need a new system lol.

Render my man. I figured out doing it track by track saves a lot of cpu. it really works. I have enough synths though and im done buying synths for now. Disperser on the other hand is right up my alley.

That's my current working method, but very counterproductive imo

[fceramic]

I know it's reasonably priced, but the CPU cost and the monophonic envelopes makes this a very limited synth with a fancy interface.

[anko]

well, this does look cool on the video, and the 2nd demo especially sounds nice. i guess i'll get this one when i can.

what i'm really waiting for is The JPS Harmonic Synthesizer though... ( @JiggeryPokery ...are we there yet? )

[Loque]

I am wondering that 4mer is actually rated with 4.1... I instantly bought this synth and it sounds great. Regardless that most factory presets wont be my favorites, the bugs i found after 1 minute, and some limitations... I mean, serious guys some other s*** with sample based synthesis or bad and overpriced stuff is higher rated. Compared to other stuff in the shop and a real synth for 39 its clearly ***** 5 stars.

[Eagleizer]

One question for Ochen K, it seems the you can't drop the volume of Osc 2 to zero but can for all the rest of the Oscillators. Move the slider/ knob right down but it still plays.

Hmm.. I can't replicate that. I did try it in version 7.1 for Windows, as well as 8. What OS are you on?

So to be clear, if you start a new blank song, load 4MER into the rack, reset 4MER, turn down the volume of OSC 1 to zero, and then play a note, you hear OSC 2 playing? I don't.

Can anyone else replicate this with the instructions above?

Thanks!

Hi Ochen/ others

Just tried this again after a reboot, it all seems to be OK now. Not sure what was causing the issue, but Osc 2 falls silent now when volume is at zero.

It seems I may have problems with my installation of Reason, but it does not seem to be anything to do with this synth, which is great!

Many thanks for looking into this, consider this purchased soon after pay day


Andy

Win7x64

I had this problem too with Reason 8. With Reason 7 it was working fine.
For me it was OSC1. A restart fixed it.

But I have another problem:

Many patches only play in right channel, but not every time it`s loaded.
If I load up FlyBy and switch between that and Firecracker, suddenly
FlyBy only have sound in Right channel. This happens more often than not.

Switching drivers back and forth, or changing sample rate fixes the problem.
The problem is there with different drivers, so it`s not a driver problem.
It`s present in R7, R8 and E8.

Also:
Init Patch, on 192000 is not working well at all in R8 and E8... Sound
disappears and spikes heavily. Strangely enough, this does not happen in
R7.

I`m pretty sure Reason is OK as I reinstalled Reason, Authorizer and all
RE`s during last night and this morning. After downloading 4MER yesterday,
Authorizer stopped working and I could not load any RE`s. :p

Edit:
Tested on my laptop, and the problem is there too..


Cheers

[JiggeryPokery]

I am wondering that 4mer is actually rated with 4.1... I instantly bought this synth and it sounds great. Regardless that most factory presets wont be my favorites, the bugs i found after 1 minute, and some limitations... I mean, serious guys some other s*** with sample based synthesis or bad and overpriced stuff is higher rated. Compared to other stuff in the shop and a real synth for 39 its clearly ***** 5 stars.

So you're saying "I don't like the presets, it's buggy, and has limitations. But it's cheap so it should be a 5-star device".

[michal22]

I was just testing a 4mer. I really like the look and ease of use. But this synthesizer sounds bad to me. Often spoofs. I do not know how to change the length of ENV. When setting the SYNC mode, I still see percentages. Frankly ... after seeing the pictures I was sure that I would buy. After testing no longer want to buy. For me still the best synthesizers are purchased is Antidote and Zero. With them, the sound is great. 4mer sounds digitally and artificially for me.

[JiggeryPokery]

And on synced LFOs i would not expect xy%, but 1/16 notes or something like that.

I seem to recall that is due to a SDK limitation.

D.

That's not an SDK limitation. I can't think of any other device in the Shop that doesn't display sync rates as the synced rate.

And what's a "Free Running Retrig"?

[eusti]

And on synced LFOs i would not expect xy%, but 1/16 notes or something like that.

I seem to recall that is due to a SDK limitation.

D.

That's not an SDK limitation. I can't think of any other device in the Shop that doesn't display sync rates as the synced rate.

I think it was explained that because it's custom widget/display it cannot change it's numbering. But, please, let's ask Ochen about it.

D.

[JiggeryPokery]

And on synced LFOs i would not expect xy%, but 1/16 notes or something like that.

I seem to recall that is due to a SDK limitation.

D.

That's not an SDK limitation. I can't think of any other device in the Shop that doesn't display sync rates as the synced rate.

I think it was explained that because it's custom widget/display it cannot change it's numbering. But, please, let's ask Ochen about it.

D.

It's not a custom widget, the sync rate is a knob. Unless... oh, cos he's got 4 LFOs on one set of knobs, and you can't have 2 values on four sets. That's not really very good design. The fact is it would have been better to simply not include it. A sync rate of 22% is as good as useless. 22% of what?

It's doubly perplexing as it could probably have been done if it had been a custom display!

[eusti]

The fact is it would have been better to simply not include it.

Not sure about the technical details, but would that still allow automation in the sequencer and the combinator, even if there are no values given? Or is this just a displaying the values issue that is not related to anything else?

All in all, I prefer to have a value there, as it's easier to match a setting that is manually transferred for programming patches...
But of course a real value as 1/16th or 2Hz would be preferable...

D.

[ochenk]

It's not a custom widget, the sync rate is a knob. Unless... oh, cos he's got 4 LFOs on one set of knobs, and you can't have 2 values on four sets.

As you note, it is, in fact, a limitation of the SDK that you can't value switch knobs between more than two states. Right now, the LFO rate knobs are switched based on which LFO is selected. The SDK doesn't (but it could) allow the knobs to also switch based on sync type. If and when the SDK adds this functionality, I'll update 4MER. In the mean time, this was my best solution.

That's not really very good design. The fact is it would have been better to simply not include it. A sync rate of 22% is as good as useless. 22% of what?

It's a bad design, but you don't have a better suggestion? That's helpful.

My solution is not my ideal, but if you're saying that it's better to not provide a tempo sync LFO than to provide one that you have to actually listen to to get what you want, I guess we disagree. I'd rather provide an option for tempo-synced LFO that is certainly usable (as evidenced by the included patches that use them) than to just artificially withhold that option from the user. It doesn't hurt anything for it to be there. If you can't use it, don't. But for those who can, they're probably glad that it's there. That seems like an acceptable design decision to me.

It's doubly perplexing as it could probably have been done if it had been a custom display!

Not without making automation less intuitive and remotability even worse. The nature of limitations (in this case, the SDK limitations) in product design requires compromise and/or creative solutions. Your design philosophy is probably different than mine. That's cool. That means we produce different REs. I'm not sure slagging my designs is called for, or even useful. Given the constraints, I can live with the current solution.

[lowpryo]

i'm super excited to go home and try this out tonight!

also I just wanna say I admire you and any other developer on Reasontalk for being able to expose yourself to the direct line of feedback and criticism on here. some people can be pretty picky and blunt.

as far as some of the quirks that people are describing here, I personally think the differences/limitations that different devices have just encourage more creativity (why would someone even want another synth like Antidote when Antidote already exists?)


p.s. you got Weebl to give a demo? that's so rad.

[EnochLight]

I think the GUI on 4Mer is absolutely sublime. Ochen knocked it out of the park - it's a beauty to work with, easy to program, and takes fantastic advantage of custom displays. Nice work on that, Ochen - seriously - you should be commended.

That said, I'm finding the sound... I dunno... uneventful? Perhaps it's the included patch library (and I do tend to be a presets guy), but nothing is really jumping out at me. I want it to knock my socks off soundwise, because the GUI just screams AWESOME. Watching the oscillator waveform dance in modulation is incredible - LOVE IT! But... again - not really hearing anything that blows me away. It's just... eh.. it's OK I guess. But admittedly my brand of sound tends to be more Blamsoft Zero, Synapse Audio Antidote, and the like. YMMV.

There are a few gems in there, though. Just perhaps this is a synth that would benefit from professional sound design by industry respected sound designers? I'm not knocking the guys that clearly provided some patches during beta testing (as I said, there's some gems in there), I'm just suggesting that this might be the sort of synth that needs people like eXode, Aiyn Zahev Sounds, etc.

[eXode]

I think the GUI on 4Mer is absolutely sublime. Ochen knocked it out of the park - it's a beauty to work with, easy to program, and takes fantastic advantage of custom displays. Nice work on that, Ochen - seriously - you should be commended.

That said, I'm finding the sound... I dunno... uneventful? Perhaps it's the included patch library (and I do tend to be a presets guy), but nothing is really jumping out at me. I want it to knock my socks off soundwise, because the GUI just screams AWESOME. Watching the oscillator waveform dance in modulation is incredible - LOVE IT! But... again - not really hearing anything that blows me away. It's just... eh.. it's OK I guess. But admittedly my brand of sound tends to be more Blamsoft Zero, Synapse Audio Antidote, and the like. YMMV.

There are a few gems in there, though. Just perhaps this is a synth that would benefit from professional sound design by industry respected sound designers? I'm not knocking the guys that clearly provided some patches during beta testing (as I said, there's some gems in there), I'm just suggesting that this might be the sort of synth that needs people like eXode, Aiyn Zahev Sounds, etc.

The sound and performance of 4MER doesn't live up to it's GUI. That is my assessment of it.

[lowpryo]

I think the GUI on 4Mer is absolutely sublime. Ochen knocked it out of the park - it's a beauty to work with, easy to program, and takes fantastic advantage of custom displays. Nice work on that, Ochen - seriously - you should be commended.

That said, I'm finding the sound... I dunno... uneventful? Perhaps it's the included patch library (and I do tend to be a presets guy), but nothing is really jumping out at me. I want it to knock my socks off soundwise, because the GUI just screams AWESOME. Watching the oscillator waveform dance in modulation is incredible - LOVE IT! But... again - not really hearing anything that blows me away. It's just... eh.. it's OK I guess. But admittedly my brand of sound tends to be more Blamsoft Zero, Synapse Audio Antidote, and the like. YMMV.

There are a few gems in there, though. Just perhaps this is a synth that would benefit from professional sound design by industry respected sound designers? I'm not knocking the guys that clearly provided some patches during beta testing (as I said, there's some gems in there), I'm just suggesting that this might be the sort of synth that needs people like eXode, Aiyn Zahev Sounds, etc.

The sound and performance of 4MER doesn't live up to it's GUI. That is my assessment of it.

by 'sound' do you mean the sound of the waveshaping effects or the onboard FX? also, by 'performance' do you mean CPU-usage, or actual features within the synth? i think a more detailed assessment from a well-respected sound designer like yourself would be very insightful into the pros & cons of the device