4MER WaveShaper Synth is in the Shop!

[Loque]

After reading all these posts, I'll not try this RE.

Reading Forum entries should not prevent you from getting your own perspective by just trying (not buying) a RE.

[Eagleizer]

While I have been critical above of certain aspects of 4MER, I will defend it against criticisms about aliasing, as those are somewhat unfair; there are just too many misconceptions about it.

Aliasing tends to be most noticeable on high harmonics when they are being frequency modulated (i.e, vibrato or pitch-bending), and it's noticeable as noise throughout the frequency. Others are better placed to explain the technical reasons (Nyquist blah blah blah) but it's natural and unavoidable when running at 44.1/48.

If a device natively oversamples to remove all aliasing, everyone complaining about aliasing would be complaining about it being an unusable CPU hog. You can't have no aliasing and low CPU use. So in my view it's best not to try; lower CPU use is always more preferable here, as you can the increase sample rate to remove aliasing at the end.

Indeed, Thor also aliases like a bucking fastard and almost no-one complains about that, because it's a native Reason device from PH and so it must be perfect; yet when an RE does it everyone piles in. Many (including me (I think actually eXode was the first to suggest it)) called for Thor to include an oversample switch.

But the thing about oversample switches though, is that, imo, they're not meant to be used in song construction as you just lose DSP headroom. It's when you export the song/track, you turn on the oversampling, as at that point you do not need the real-time rendering that you do when in song construction.

The other important thing to note, and I feel stupid because I only discovered this very recently, but perhaps it's actually not widely known, is that Reason exports at it's own sample rate. So you can run your system at a lightweight 44.1 or 48, but still select to render at 96k in the export rate selection screen, and never change the system sample rate. I always assumed the system sample rate needed to match the export rate, so I ran at 48, and exported at 48, or changed the system rate to 96 to export at 96. This is not how it works. So now I run at 48, leave it at 48, let it alias like a fargy barst while I work, because who cares if it aliases at draft stage? and then just export at 96 internally, turning on any oversampling switches to maximum prior to export. Yes, a render then takes three times as long, but there's no aliasing whatsover at 96k with 8x oversampling.

I would agree if there were no change in the sound of other devices you
might have in your song when changing the sample rate on export... Or
did you mean something different? (It`s Friday and I`m a bit dizzy already )

Cheers

[JiggeryPokery]

Aliasing tends to be most noticeable on high harmonics when they are being frequency modulated (i.e, vibrato or pitch-bending), and it's noticeable as noise throughout the frequency. Others are better placed to explain the technical reasons (Nyquist blah blah blah) but it's natural and unavoidable when running at 44.1/48.

Well oversampling isn't the only solution to aliasing. If your algorithm takes the sample rate into account from the beginning it can avoid creating overtones above nyquist. This of course isn't that easy if you simply use samples as your waveforms but even then you could have enough metadata about your samples beforehand to combat aliasing without oversampling. Oversampling is kind of the "brute force" method that works in almost all circumstances.

Pretty much yes. I mean, I don't disagree with anything there, but there are practical considerations at design stage.

For example, your solution is exactly what we did with Ammo, which is wavetable based: the sample blob used is selected according to the sample rate, so it's alias-free to silly frequencies. However, I don't know that that's an approach that would work with, er, I don't know, hypothetically, an additive synth, where you easily have harmonics way above Nyquist at 44.1. The old fashioned (re, Hammond) approach would be foldback of upper harmonics. The simple modern solution of course is just filtering, but that can dull things, because aliasing affects in frequencies in the audible range, not just near Nyquist.

But actually, as eusti hints at above, aliasing can be used as a creative effect too. Not something I particularly like, but some people enjoy that sort of lo-fi weirdness thing

[JiggeryPokery]

I would agree if there were no change in the sound of other devices you
might have in your song when changing the sample rate on export... Or
did you mean something different? (It`s Friday and I`m a bit dizzy already )

Cheers

Yes, the tone does change a little; higher sample rates will make the output richer and fuller, imo. But then one learns to compensate, for example by increasing LP filters slightly.

As ever, there are many ways of doing things, and all of have their advantages and disadvantages! There's no one-size fits all solution. I merely offer one option people should consider.

[pjeudy]

Question...can the Propellerhead RE department stop an RE that has Osc Aliasing? can they or should they reject a device submission based on that?

No, why should they? Thor and Subtractor alias. It's a very difficult problem to solve on anything but the most trivial waveforms. Over-sampling is the easiest answer, but the trade-off is CPU usage.

As for the rest of your question, the approval process is into the NDA area.

Makes sense! Thanks.

[pjeudy]

After reading all these posts, I'll not try this RE.

It a very cool device with some fixable issues! I think OchenK is on the right track with this device! it's sooo easy to dial in some Amazing Growling Bass Leads.
I'll be 100% honest...if the Osc can sound a bit cleaner even with the bad reverb,global filter only,Unison spread I don't fancy much and even with only 4 voices! I would say get it anyway! But The Osc needs to sound better...it's to a point that you can hear the Aliasing all the time no matter how you Mangle the sound to try and hide it! That should be a very top priority !! that's a deal breaker!


THOR vs 4MER ...drop this in REASON and look at your high freq
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a9u3zkclzcy2e ... R.wav?dl=0

Also all developers take note...watching those wave forms dance around when modulated looks AWESOME !!! Visual feed back doesn't contribute to the sound, but still interesting to see what happens to the wave forms when you say..saturate them or change the phase of them !!

[spacefarmer]

I bought it without testing and I don't regret.
Yes, there are some more issues, not only the ""monofilterproblem" and the reverb"quality".
When You need an easy to handle allroundsynth with clean warm analogsound, than maybe Fourmer is not
the right choice in the moment.
But the last two days I created much more positiv strange sounds than I did with other devices, except snakebite.
You have to be a little more creative to get nice results, but than you' ll get sounds with an own and fine "dirty digital" character.
Most of them sound better in lowest qualitymode, sometimes similar to the old D 50 - that's the the way for me to go.
Maybe people don' t like that, but me, I wanted this kind of specialist.
If ochenK will be able to update it, this will be a great "characterplayer" and I think this is what we need in reason,
not only allrounders that give us the seventeenth posibility to create always the same.
This synth will have a future, when its developer wants this too and I think that it's worth to do so.

[pjeudy]

Indeed, Thor also aliases like a bucking fastard and almost no-one complains about that, because it's a native Reason device from PH and so it must be perfec

Take a look at this Spectrum Jiggery...4MER is more egregious in it's aliasing!

[Shokstar]

After reading all these posts, I'll not try this RE.

It a very cool device with some fixable issues! I think OchenK is on the right track with this device! it's sooo easy to dial in some Amazing Growling Bass Leads.
I'll be 100% honest...if the Osc can sound a bit cleaner even with the bad reverb,global filter only,Unison spread I don't fancy much and even with only 4 voices! I would say get it anyway! But The Osc needs to sound better...it's to a point that you can hear the Aliasing all the time no matter how you Mangle the sound to try and hide it! That should be a very top priority !! that's a deal breaker!


THOR vs 4MER ...drop this in REASON and look at your high freq
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a9u3zkclzcy2e ... R.wav?dl=0

Also all developers take note...watching those wave forms dance around when modulated looks AWESOME !!! Visual feed back doesn't contribute to the sound, but still interesting to see what happens to the wave forms when you say..saturate them or change the phase of them !!

I'm using the most time Zero for growl sounds. It's not a problem for me to bounce a clip to save some Dsp. A combi of Zero + Devastor + Decimort is for me the best choice at the moment. I'll save my trial and wait for a few updates.

[JiggeryPokery]

Take a look at this Spectrum Jiggery...4MER is more egregious in it's aliasing!

Well, it'll be my turn to get it in the neck next week then I don't especially see it doing anything unexpected there (ignoring individual perceptions on tonal quality of the waveforms here, I'm just considering the aliasing alone).

I agree that the Oversample doesn't seem to do much, though.

[ochenk]

Wow. Okay. I'm not sure I can respond to everything, but I'll try to hit the highlights.

There are other techniques to help deal with aliasing. All of them require knowing and limiting the waveform itself. This works if you have a wavetable synth, or a synth that just has basic wave shapes. In those cases, you can include different versions of the waveform at different frequencies, removing harmonics as the frequency increases, until you're just left with a sine wave at Nyquist. But the whole point of 4MER is that the waveform itself changes. It's unpredictable. That's not true with Thor. It's not true with Subtractor. And it's not true with most synths in the shop. But 4MER is different. So 4MER has to rely on oversampling. JP is right. Rendering out using higher samplerates is a great way to up the resolution, which is just another way of uping the oversample rate. Rendering 4MER at 192k with 8X oversampling entirely removes all aliasing.

There is a crazy amount of processing going on in 4MER. Just the oscillator section itself is nuts. If you're modulating one of the waveshaping operators, the entire waveform has to be recalculated every single sample. Then I provide 8 operators, which ups the calculations per sample. Then I quadruple that with 4 oscillators. The very first version of 4MER blew out the DSP of even the most souped up system. 4MER was so long in development because I was implementing every optimization known. And I even invented a few new optimization methods. To me the amount of DSP I got it down to is a miracle. I know it's still beefy, but that's because it's doing a crazy amount of stuff. I knew I could easily slash the DSP usage by reducing the number of oscillators or waveshaping operators, but my philosophy has always been to give users the options, and let them manage them on their own. I could make 4MER with just one oscillator and no one would ever have an issue with DSP, but it wouldn't sound as cool, or be as useful. Maybe it's the wrong choice, but I'm okay with it.

The filters are not monophonic. They are true polyphonic filters. Every oscillator of every note has two individual filters. If you're playing 4 notes, each with all oscillators running, you're using 32 individual filters, not 2. The filters don't have individual envelopes, and the filter parameters control all instances of the two filters. Both of those decisions may change in the future. The global envelopes can be used on all instances of filters 1 and 2. That global envelope modulation source is monophonic, but the filters are not.

No synth is going to be useful to everyone. That's totally okay, and just shows how diverse our music making is, that we need such diversity in our tools. That's awesome. Since launch, I've gotten so many emails and Facebook message from folks who really love and are inspired by 4MER. It's a shame that this thread will become the permanent public discussion of it. If I made a crappy synth, I can live with that. But the support that I've gotten seems to tell me that there are lots of people who like 4MER and find it very useful. 4MER wasn't designed to outperform every other synth in the shop. It was designed to create a sound that I wasn't able to get from any other synth in shop. And it totally does that.

Sorry I can't respond to more. Gotta head off to my day job. I've already submitted a 4MER update to Props for review. It takes care of the bugs reported since launch, and adds a feature request. Hopefully it'll be out soon.

[chimp_spanner]

Hey man don't be too deflated. I think if anything people have high expectations of your synths because they're great (I own almost everything you've made, super useful stuff). So anything that falls even slightly short of that gets a bit amplified, and of course the people who are unhappiest are usually the loudest, even if they're the minority! It's always the way.

I'm going to really sit down with this thing tonight and just try to make music with it - which is the best way to test any instrument. You can find problems and flaws even with the stock devices if you *try* to break them, but ultimately it's about whether they make the sound you need them to in any given scenario. So I will give it a proper test drive once I've finished the job I'm on at the moment.

I hope my feedback wasn't interpreted as overly negative though. I mean like I said, I love some of the presets, so I know it can make awesome sounds. There's nothing wrong with constructive criticism or feedback, but I think calls to have it removed from the shop are way over the top. An update or two and I have every confidence this thing will get there

Keep up the great work!

[Bonkhead]

Ochen , great response, I hope this clears things up for most complaints in this topic

I absolutely love 4mer for the same reason it was created. You can do some extreme modulating of the osc which isn't available elsewhere in reason.

[DinoJ]

The other important thing to note, and I feel stupid because I only discovered this very recently, but perhaps it's actually not widely known, is that Reason exports at it's own sample rate. So you can run your system at a lightweight 44.1 or 48, but still select to render at 96k in the export rate selection screen, and never change the system sample rate. I always assumed the system sample rate needed to match the export rate, so I ran at 48, and exported at 48, or changed the system rate to 96 to export at 96. This is not how it works. So now I run at 48, leave it at 48, let it alias like a fargy barst while I work, because who cares if it aliases at draft stage? and then just export at 96 internally, turning on any oversampling switches to maximum prior to export. Yes, a render then takes three times as long, but there's no aliasing whatsover at 96k with 8x oversampling.

No I am sure you were not on your own with this, I too only discovered this recently thanks to the good people on this forum!

Think it was the thread about some REs not behaving properly (Uhbik A) above 44.1? That recently made me aware of this!

As for 4MER, it may have it's quirks/problems but I like it and am sure it will only get better through updates. For me I find it a useful learning aid as it is so visual as it helps me understand what is going off when attempting to construct my own sounds, so even if the sound is not up to expected standards, I am still having a blast learning with it!

I will say I have noticed a few patches that where a certain OSC plays panned all the way to the right or left, even though according to the pan knob it should not be. Am at work at the moment though and cannot remember which patches they were without being at my PC.

[EnochLight]

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

I'm sorry you don't like the sounds that are included with 4mer.
I did some of them and happen to like the synth and its sound a lot.
I think some of the more "name" patch designer might have been involved in some form or other too.
But, maybe the synth is not for you... Or it needs you to bring out its full potential.

D.

I just want to make clear that I did not say "sounds that come with it". I have nothing bad to say about your sound design, I was merely referring to the actual character/sound of the synth itself. I cannot stress this enough.

Apologies, I didn't mean to imply that. I guess I should have only quoted EnochLight with this response.
I didn't take your comment as a criticism of my skills at all.

D.

To be clear:

I'm not knocking the guys that clearly provided some patches during beta testing (as I said, there's some gems in there)...

Apologies if I offended anyone who took part in patch creation. My comments were more along the lines of the sound of the actual synth. Just figured some pro sound designers might be able to squeeze more out of it.

Anywho, my bad!

[eusti]

To be clear:

I'm not knocking the guys that clearly provided some patches during beta testing (as I said, there's some gems in there)...

Apologies if I offended anyone who took part in patch creation. My comments were more along the lines of the sound of the actual synth. Just figured some pro sound designers might be able to squeeze more out of it.

Anywho, my bad!

Apologies, EnochLight.
I think the confusion can be blamed on user error of the internet on my part. I didn't make my point as clear as I'd have liked...

Let me try again: I really meant "I'm sorry that this synth doesn't sound the you'd like it to sound."

I included that some of the patches included were mine, not because I took personal offense at your statement, but more to show that I actually like the synth and its sound... When I beta test I try to see where a synth wants to go soundwise and then massage it to see what's happening... I save patches along the way that I find interesting... For me this is the only way I can really beta test a synth, because when I'm bored or uninterested in a device I cannot really dive deep... So, in the end I submit the resulting patches to the developer and am happy when they get included... More happy when people like them... But I don't program patches that I think people will like... I have my own weird appreciation of certain sounds / characters...
I probably should have left that part out in the original reply as this seems to have led to the most confusion.
To be clear, I'm not offended at all. Maybe I had hoped that my sounds could have helped 4mer to get a bit more appreciation through highlighting its character...


Of course every synth has its own character and that's what I like about them.
The point of suggesting that you might want to try your hand on it was not "then do it yourself, I'm done!", but more meant "maybe only you can tease out of this one what you like best".

As for "name" patch designers, I think there are some NR patches in there that could mean that NaviRetlav might have been involved...

D.

[EnochLight]

I'll say it again: watching the oscillator waveform dance and modulate on the visual display is freakn sweet. Seriously. I consider what Ochen did on these custom displays a benchmark that all other devs should strive to achieve in RE''s GUI.

That is all.

[lowpryo]

thanks for clearing that up, Ochen. it must be frustrating to develop something that pushes the limits of what an RE can do, knowing that there are inevitable flaws because of those limits... and then see people critiquing it as if the flaws are just from bad/buggy programming or things that can be "updated later".

many developers would have encountered those problems and cancelled or over-simplified the device. I hope this feedback doesn't sway more developers to stick with safe/copycat synths and FX. we need more developers like Ochen if the RE format is gonna progress.

[pjeudy]

thanks for clearing that up, Ochen. it must be frustrating to develop something that pushes the limits of what an RE can do, knowing that there are inevitable flaws because of those limits... and then see people critiquing it as if the flaws are just from bad/buggy programming or things that can be "updated later".

many developers would have encountered those problems and cancelled or over-simplified the device. I hope this feedback doesn't sway more developers to stick with safe/copycat synths and FX. we need more developers like Ochen if the RE format is gonna progress.

You can't single out only what you feel isn't nice or flattering to a developer and his product and ignore those same post that also say what they love about it.

OchenK works by himself...if there are things that slips by..or things that he himself could not work around ...naturally people who also code or know about coding will chime or people who have synth knowledge !
It's tough I know...but putting any product out in any market place...you'll have to expect criticism.

[lowpryo]

Question...Do you plan on letting anyone othere then yourself listen to your production?
If you are a graphic designer would you allow your work to be viewed by anyone?
If yes......then get ready array of different points of views and opinions. You can't single out only what you feel as nice , flattering to a developer and his product and ignore those same post that also say what they love about it.

OchenK works by himself...if there are things that slips by..or things that he himself could not work around ...naturally people who also code or know about coding will chime or people who have synth knowledge !
It's tough I know...but putting any product out in any market place...you'll have to expect criticism.

I never said that people should stop being critical. the last thing I want is censorship, because the critique is just as necessary as the development in order to push the technology forward. I just said I hope the critique doesn't have the reverse effect, and encourage developers to stick to safe and boring concepts instead of tackling new challenges like Ochen does. is that not a reasonable fear to have?

[am0eba]

FWIW, I bought this thing without trying, and I also don't regret it one bit. As someone else said, this thing allows me to get at some really unique and interesting sounds pretty quickly. Yeah, *MAYBE* all doable with other synths, but this thing puts my head in a place where the sounds I want just rip right out of it! Admittedly, I'm in a mood right now where I'm enjoying music with harsher tonality and texture, and I probably wouldn't grab 4mer for something along the lines of 80's synth pop, or Bach realizations, but for what I'm doing right now, this thing is the cat's ass!

_Dave_

[thotbott]

With everything that is mentioned here, i for one see it as a positive sales pitch, ochens post about the blood sweat and tears that went into this. It looks like a serious tool in an arsenal of making unique sounds due to how its been made. If the sound goes a bit crazy,so what, let it be a facet in the music you create, not a flaw. I come from a sound art background and stuff like this is gold.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[Loque]

With everything that is mentioned here, i for one see it as a positive sales pitch, ochens post about the blood sweat and tears that went into this. It looks like a serious tool in an arsenal of making unique sounds due to how its been made. If the sound goes a bit crazy,so what, let it be a facet in the music you create, not a flaw. I come from a sound art background and stuff like this is gold.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

Totally agree. Better a new RE like this one with great freedome that may produce some crackles than a new one that just sounds like all the others we already own.

[bsp]

My first impressions after an evening of testing:

• LFOs/envelopes/modmatrix are all very(!) sluggish, as if everything went through some kind of lag processor
• oscillator amp envelope(s) cannot be disabled
• no "All OSC Semitone Pitch" modulation destination, i.e. setting up a simple vibrato for a multi-oscillator patch takes up half the modmatrix slots
• aliases a lot in higher registers, even at 8x oversampling
• can't modulate attack/decay/release rates and sustain level (there's an overall "env rate [1..5]" mod destination, though)
• mono legato not working correctly: envelope 2 is triggered even though last key was not released (should add per envelope "multi-trig" checkbox?)
• no legato portamento mode (must automate portamento speed as workaround, a bit cumbersome)
• velocity-to-volume cannot be turned off (workaround: use CV note+gate inputs instead of playing the synth directly, or preprocess MIDI input)
• aftertouch modulation source is not working
• master volume modulation destination is not working (not that it really matters)
• random s&h lfo depth is not working (btw: an interpolated/smoothed s&h LFO type would have been nice)
• can't cancel oscillator or LFO waveform selection (minor) (suggestion: clicking outside the waveform display/grid should cancel selection mode)
• individual outputs for each of the oscs would be handy
• cross modulation between oscillators would be nice (e.g. and/xor) (actually: a new RE that can do this would be very appreciated!)
• UI in general looks nice (fancy looking envelopes!)
• graphical envelope editor (can't insert/delete points but set number of envelopes stages, up to 16)
• "Osc [12345] Phase" modulation destination (analog-ifies the waveform, kind of)
• the somehow lo-fi/grungy sounding oscillators have a certain (chiptune/late 80ies homecomputer-like) charme

n.b.:

The envelope concept does not really convince me because it has many disadvantages compared to regular ADSR envelopes.
For example, if an envelope sustain level is zero, there is/can be no release phase. I.e. when a note is released before
the sustain stage is reached, the voice stops abruptely, causing audible pops and clicks.
This makes it impossible to use the old trick of varying note durations to blend between decay and release phases.

On the topic of filter pops and clicks: Each sound in 4mer must have a rather long attack phase to avoid these.

The laginess of the envelopes/LFOs, while bad for filter envelopes, is an advantage when modulating oscillator parameters.

One very nice feature of this synth is the OSC phase modulation destination. You can get some nice analogue-ish sounds with it. Few other synths have this, and it usually sounds like some kind of vibrato (e.g. in the Rob Papen synths). Combined with the waveshapers, this is not the case in 4mer, kudos for that!

All in all, I think this synth is best suited for monophonic sounds, like basses and leads.

Here is a sound sample with a patch I made while testing the synth. The first version is using the PMS20 filter RE, the second one is using 4mer's builtin 12db lowpass filter:




edit:
and here's a 3 oscillator bass patch I just made (not drowned in reverb this time, just some eq+compression).
I used the PMS 20 filter again since it works well with this synth, I think.

[pjeudy]

With everything that is mentioned here, i for one see it as a positive sales pitch, ochens post about the blood sweat and tears that went into this. It looks like a serious tool in an arsenal of making unique sounds due to how its been made. If the sound goes a bit crazy,so what, let it be a facet in the music you create, not a flaw. I come from a sound art background and stuff like this is gold.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

Totally agree. Better a new RE like this one with great freedom that may produce some crackles than a new one that just sounds like all the others we already own.

I understand what both of you are ..saying...but do you guys understand...some of the others feedback? or as some people refer to them as negative criticism?
Are we saying in order to be special or different a developer can release any instruments no matter the issues, and user should say "yea...it has some flaws but that what's make it unique" ? *I'm asking a general question that apply's to any developer*
It could be that I'm naive but I think that everyone here who spends days,weeks,months, making music completely understand the Blood,sweat and tears of bringing a product to market even if it's just a demo! And still Most of us wouldn't buy an Album or a screw driver that we think is flawed just to be nice to the producer/developer.

4MER is awesome and has flaws...I understand if OchenK feels a little disappointing *at first* but over time that will make him an even better developer! (if he doesn't get discourage enough to hang the towel)
There was a BETA tester who publicly complained about the Osc aliasing....but that Beta tester eventually apologized and said that he was a little drunk when he posted.So maybe 4MER needed a few more weeks in the LAB. But it's out now and if OchenK can read the all positives and the positive criticisms and apply them to 4MER then 4MER will be the better for it.

Do you guys have any idea how much feedback or complaints Reveal Sound had when they released Spire 1.1 ? A fairly famous Music producer told them on Twitter how bad he felt the DSP was.... and they have more then 1 person working on SPIRE, this is an issue developers will face with more complex projects...specially when they are working alone on the side of there main job!

I find making Distorted Bass lead in 4MER Extremely easy! I have a much easier time making a quick DBL in 4MER then with Blamsoft Zero... not saying ZERO can't to them (Zero can do sooo much more) ..but in 4MER it's quicker,easier and I just love looking at that wave shape moving LIVE not static
I thank you for this SERUM little baby..I mean that with great respect..because I love SERUM! You've out done yourself with 4MER!

I am aware that you have submitted an update to Propellerheads ..cool!
I'm using 4MER right at 96khz...and it's sounds F*ucking Amazing. But I can't always work at 96-88 ect...would much prefer not to have to resort to bouncing at higher freq just to remove as much aliasing as possible... Other then that this Synth is Gold TO ME !
No one has build a UI like this in the REASON world...you're are the first