Complex from Propellerhead

[selig]

There's a velocity jack if you'd rather just drag it "physically".

Can't seem to drag from an output only an in.

You can drag it into the Output Mixer directly, or into the Scale Amp to scale a gate. What are you trying to do with it?

[AttenuationHz]

Can't seem to drag from an output only an in.

You can drag it into the Output Mixer directly, or into the Scale Amp to scale a gate. What are you trying to do with it?

Was just saying there is no indication of what menu you are in. Completely forgot what I was trying to do.

[Galaxy]

can anyone who's tried or bought this comment on the env shapes? want to know how plucky this thing can get. don't really enjoy using extra mod routings to scale the exp curve of a decay/release stage.

[selig]

can anyone who's tried or bought this comment on the env shapes? want to know how plucky this thing can get. don't really enjoy using extra mod routings to scale the exp curve of a decay/release stage.

I've not measured it, but the LPG envelopes are pretty plucky IMO. I'll do some comparisons and post here.

Both envelopes are very similar to Subtractor. Hard to tell exactly without going deeper (watching TV while doing this is not the most precise way of working).

But they both have that "plucky" west coast feel IMO.

[AttenuationHz]

You can move cables out of the way!

[Jmax]

This may be a stupid question..

How do I go about capturing the audio it is creating. Say I load a Generative patch and hit record... but no midi is captured. So in turn doesn't capture any audio from the device. Even though it keeps playing.

[Galaxy]

can anyone who's tried or bought this comment on the env shapes? want to know how plucky this thing can get. don't really enjoy using extra mod routings to scale the exp curve of a decay/release stage.

I've not measured it, but the LPG envelopes are pretty plucky IMO. I'll do some comparisons and post here.

Both envelopes are very similar to Subtractor. Hard to tell exactly without going deeper (watching TV while doing this is not the most precise way of working).

But they both have that "plucky" west coast feel IMO.

Thanks Selig. Interested to find out any general opinions.

[aeox]

This may be a stupid question..

How do I go about capturing the audio it is creating. Say I load a Generative patch and hit record... but no midi is captured. So in turn doesn't capture any audio from the device. Even though it keeps playing.

You can't see me hitting the record button at the end

[scratchnsnifff]

so after getting this i find that its such a refreshing take on reasons modular ecosystem. not many effects were needed for me to get a decent sound going

i absolutely love the comb filter thing and the wave shaper!
i do wish there were more waveforms though, i get that its modeled after a specific hardware unit or something similar, but it basically only has the standard VA shapes, however the wave shaper and FM/AM can really change the shape. Selig put it best when he said think of it as a mini brute in reason.

also, in the future it would be cool to see a polyphonic version but with two state variable (lp,hp,bp,notch) filter modules, i assume by having the sequencer and other utility modules that would be rather hard to fit it all in there. but if they continued the "complex" series they could make something similar but with different features for different purposes.

oh one last note. i noticed that I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the low pass gate knob? and why aren't there any presets that have a basic LP filter with the filter env setup. i know theres the LP gate preset.
i have figured out the envelope setup. and now that i think of it. do you have to route the complex oscillator and oscillator 3 to the mixer and take the green output to the filter to get sound from osc 1 2 and 3? or can you plug the osc 3 into the MIX socket and take the mix output from the complex oscillator to the filter etc. filter env setup is always needed for myself.
please props, stay on this modular path

[Galaxy]

This may be a stupid question..

How do I go about capturing the audio it is creating. Say I load a Generative patch and hit record... but no midi is captured. So in turn doesn't capture any audio from the device. Even though it keeps playing.

Not a stupid question. You’d want to record it as audio, just as you would with your hardware. Especially because reproducing the same sound would be unpredictable.

[Jmax]

This may be a stupid question..

How do I go about capturing the audio it is creating. Say I load a Generative patch and hit record... but no midi is captured. So in turn doesn't capture any audio from the device. Even though it keeps playing.

You can't see me hitting the record button at the end

thnx bro

[manisnotabird]

Disappointed that connecting the quantized notes from the onboard sequencer to the external CV out doesn't produce the Reason-standard note CV, i.e. there's no obvious way to use the onboard sequencer to sequence something else in the Reason rack.

[buddard]

This really needs to be a thing extremely hard to navigate without going into every menu!

Complex1.jpg

Yes, they screwed up a little bit there! They're setting the Checked menu item correctly, but the same menu item should also be set to Selected in order to find it more easily (i e highlighting the correct submenu automatically). They did it correctly on Europa, so I'm a bit surprised that they overlooked it here! Hopefully they can fix it and release an update.

[tobypearce]

Brill.

Many of us have given PH a hardish time this year around workflow and performance issues. Between the welcome progress update on VST performance and the release of Complex-1, it feels like PH are ending the year on a high, with lots of hope for 2019.

And in the meantime, man is Complex-1 complex! I nearly caught myself googling for an intro into modular before realising that this almost defeats the purpose of it. If there was ever one time when you're meant to scratch your head and figure things out for yourself, it's now!

[seqoi]

Boy do i see many new refills focused entirely on this Complex alone...A universe of sounds..

[Yonatan]

Experimental pleasure! Winter is so much saved thanks to Prop. and I dont even consider myself a techy synth nerd. But in Reason you cant help playing around with all its lovely toys.

[antic604]

The undesired side-effect of Props releasing Complex-1 will be that it's the 1st thing I'll get via Rent-to-Own and while I'm there why not get Umpf Club Drums and probably Resonans too? Wish they added QNG in there as well.

[antic604]

Pretty great showcase of the synth:

[Loque]

The undesired side-effect of Props releasing Complex-1 will be that it's the 1st thing I'll get via Rent-to-Own and while I'm there why not get Umpf Club Drums and probably Resonans too? Wish they added QNG in there as well.

I guess that was planned due to there is no intro price or similar and it went directly into the RTO.

[antic604]

The undesired side-effect of Props releasing Complex-1 will be that it's the 1st thing I'll get via Rent-to-Own and while I'm there why not get Umpf Club Drums and probably Resonans too? Wish they added QNG in there as well.

I guess that was planned due to there is no intro price or similar and it went directly into the RTO.

Those sneaky bastards!!!

[selig]

Disappointed that connecting the quantized notes from the onboard sequencer to the external CV out doesn't produce the Reason-standard note CV, i.e. there's no obvious way to use the onboard sequencer to sequence something else in the Reason rack.

There are two things going on here. The first is that the Complex-1 pitch system is an offset system rather than a direct system, with a reference pitch of C3 (60) as the starting point (unity). When you sequence, the lowest note has a value of zero, and all notes above that are positive CV. This means a value of 0 from the sequencer equals 60, so you would need to add 60 to all notes to get the literal note number (or transpose in the receiving instrument).

OK, so far so good. Now to the really non-standard bit, which is the fact that one octave from Complex-1 equals a CV value of 18, which is 1.5 times what it SHOULD be. So to use the voltage with other synths you need to scale it down by 66.66%. To do this you can use the Mix module (input 2) with a value of 0.664 (just under 1/3). Or you can use the Scales & Amp module with a value of 0.870 (this module uses a different scale, the exponential scale from Thor).

After the scale conversion, you can add 0.475 in a Mix module to get correct note numbers.

You could also do these conversions externally if you prefer, but yea it's kinda sad it couldn't "just work". To recap, you need to scale first by 0.66, then offset by +60 to convert Complex-1 quantizer values to Reason note/gate values. Luckily the gate doesn't need any conversion!

[brand]

This thing looks amazing.

[antic604]

Cables have been possible since the introduction of Custom Displays, which is what, years now?

Cable view isn’t so much a mode - you even activate it temporarily when clicking on connections when not in Cable view. It’s not an SDK “mode” - the synth is mostly one giant display, that’s all.

Can you please elaborate on this a bit? Because if the "Cables have been possible since the introduction of Custom Displays, which is what, years now?" then why has no RE dev ever used them? For example Vk-1 should be the obvious choice for this type of routing! There's a clear demand for "cables up front" and I'm pretty sure big portion of Complex-1 sales will be driven only by the fact that it looks different from the typical Excel-based mod matrix, even though - in practice - the functionality is the same?

Silently I was hoping Complex-1 was a sign of new SDK development that'd eventually lead to incorporation of 3rd party Eurorack-like REs into the Rack, but my enthusiasm was cooled by yourself and Matthias on FB stating that's not the case...

[scratchnsnifff]

Cables have been possible since the introduction of Custom Displays, which is what, years now?

Cable view isn’t so much a mode - you even activate it temporarily when clicking on connections when not in Cable view. It’s not an SDK “mode” - the synth is mostly one giant display, that’s all.

Can you please elaborate on this a bit? Because if the "Cables have been possible since the introduction of Custom Displays, which is what, years now?" then why has no RE dev ever used them? For example Vk-1 should be the obvious choice for this type of routing! There's a clear demand for "cables up front" and I'm pretty sure big portion of Complex-1 sales will be driven only by the fact that it looks different from the typical Excel-based mod matrix, even though - in practice - the functionality is the same?

Silently I was hoping Complex-1 was a sign of new SDK development that'd eventually lead to incorporation of 3rd party Eurorack-like REs into the Rack, but my enthusiasm was cooled by yourself and Matthias on FB stating that's not the case...

Going off of what selig said about it having to be a giant custom display, I wonder if it is possible to have Thor type menus, even if everything had to be in the same place. I mean, spectra has loads of menus and options but it doesn’t have wires
It would probably take a lot of trickery, but the fact that other devices have custom displays and totally different menus gives me hope that one day we’ll see something Like a mix of complex one and the launch box Re

Idk if I’m saying this correctly but I do think it’s possible, just very hard to pull off

[selig]

Cables have been possible since the introduction of Custom Displays, which is what, years now?

Cable view isn’t so much a mode - you even activate it temporarily when clicking on connections when not in Cable view. It’s not an SDK “mode” - the synth is mostly one giant display, that’s all.

Can you please elaborate on this a bit? Because if the "Cables have been possible since the introduction of Custom Displays, which is what, years now?" then why has no RE dev ever used them? For example Vk-1 should be the obvious choice for this type of routing! There's a clear demand for "cables up front" and I'm pretty sure big portion of Complex-1 sales will be driven only by the fact that it looks different from the typical Excel-based mod matrix, even though - in practice - the functionality is the same?

Silently I was hoping Complex-1 was a sign of new SDK development that'd eventually lead to incorporation of 3rd party Eurorack-like REs into the Rack, but my enthusiasm was cooled by yourself and Matthias on FB stating that's not the case...

Drag to destination was also available since custom displays were added, but no one figured that out until the Props added it with Parsec's update. Lots of things are possible long before they are implemented, usually because it takes looking at them from another angle before one sees the possibility.

And after Parsec added this feature, others followed - so I would not be surprised to see other "cables on front" synths in the future. However, retro-fitting existing synths will not be as simple as adding a few lines of code. The panels will have to be almost completely redesigned to work as they do in Complex-1.