Umpf - does it sound worse than redrum in default?

[selig]

With other words, you didn't hear anything from Reason studios about your ticket?

I just checked and it is still "pending" - I'll ping them again and see if/how they plan to address this.

[tobypearce]

Perhaps. But in that case I'd rather have it on the retro one (more 'retro'?) and have the club version snappy.

[Miguel da Wu]

does the umpf retro beat have the same problem?

[friday]

I just checked and it is still "pending" - I'll ping them again and see if/how they plan to address this.

Thanks Selig for all your efforts about this specific umpf problem. Really like to see sample accurate playback in Kong, Redrum and Umpf.

[nooomy]

I have used Umpf for all my latest songs and they sounds great,

why is it a problem that Umpf sounds diffrent? I like the sound of Umpf, and is now my go to drum sampler.

Umpf is great for dance music

[tobypearce]

Good question nooomy.

Not a problem in itself that it sounds good
Removing transients in drum sounds isn't ideal though. I could understand it if the retro version did this, for some kind of warmer sound. But for the club version I'd have thought really tight transients were quite important. And weirdly, only the retro version has a transient shaper built in!

[ProfessaKaos]

Any news or follow up on all this?

[challism]

Yeah, it's almost been 3 years since this thread was posted. Umpf Retro bug ticket!

[dioxide]

Any news or follow up on all this?

Not on my report (from 2019-06-19). I've pinged them again to see if they will pick this up. It has been ignored for close to 3 years. Reading through the comments on the report, no-one from PH/RS ever responded.

[motuscott]

3 years?
So it's not hopeless...

[EnochLight]

3 years?
So it's not hopeless...

[Steedus]

These still have low res elements after the HD update. No way they’ll get to fiddling with the code.

[integerpoet]

What prompted us to suppose different "devices" playing the same sample should null, anyway?

I mean, it's all software and so it's theoretically possible for them to null.

But does that mean they should? Wouldn't different models of hardware device have their own character?

[Billy+]

What prompted us to suppose different "devices" playing the same sample should null, anyway?

I mean, it's all software and so it's theoretically possible for them to null.

But does that mean they should? Wouldn't different models of hardware device have their own character?

I totally agree and it's probably the reason why it's not been seen as a bug.

[nooomy]

The retro umpf is my go to drummer + drum seq player

Really nice stuff!

[tobypearce]

What prompted us to suppose different "devices" playing the same sample should null, anyway?

I mean, it's all software and so it's theoretically possible for them to null.

But does that mean they should? Wouldn't different models of hardware device have their own character?

I totally agree and it's probably the reason why it's not been seen as a bug.

Yes, that's got to be right: there's no reason why samplers should all sound the same and indeed it could be useful if they didn't.

Still: it seems odd that the Club version, surely aimed at a modern sound, dulls the transient whereas the Retro version sounds sharper, with a more precise transient. Transients are important in a lot of modern types of dance music.

[rootwheel]

I totally agree and it's probably the reason why it's not been seen as a bug.

Yes, that's got to be right: there's no reason why samplers should all sound the same and indeed it could be useful if they didn't.

Still: it seems odd that the Club version, surely aimed at a modern sound, dulls the transient whereas the Retro version sounds sharper, with a more precise transient. Transients are important in a lot of modern types of dance music.

I think it's by design. I can see your thinking but in my mind, it is the reverse. Retro electro music usually has more dynamic range and livelier sounding drum machines with more transients. Modern music is often hyper compressed and thus ends up sounding more like a walled loop of sound than obvious peaks and troughs.

I've found that Waves Trans-X plugin is really useful to put after a drum machine RE to modify the transient content. Give that a try as I highly doubt that Props/RS will ever revisit these devices now.

[selig]

I totally agree and it's probably the reason why it's not been seen as a bug.

Yes, that's got to be right: there's no reason why samplers should all sound the same and indeed it could be useful if they didn't.

Still: it seems odd that the Club version, surely aimed at a modern sound, dulls the transient whereas the Retro version sounds sharper, with a more precise transient. Transients are important in a lot of modern types of dance music.

That may be an audio illusion, I can see no difference between the two Umpf machines compared to ReDrum/NNXT/Kong (Kong shown below the two Umpf devices):


This is a square wave starting at full scale on the first sample, zoomed in all the way in Reason. In all other Reason samplers I listed above, this is recreated accurately. But the two Umpf devices have around a 1ms ramp up time. They look identical to me, but there's an easy way to avoid this and that's by padding the front of a sample by 1 ms which would never be noticed in real time. And even so, the audio or MIDI could be 'advanced' 1ms to accommodate.
STILL, why not a button to choose this behavior?

[tobypearce]

Yes, that's got to be right: there's no reason why samplers should all sound the same and indeed it could be useful if they didn't.

Still: it seems odd that the Club version, surely aimed at a modern sound, dulls the transient whereas the Retro version sounds sharper, with a more precise transient. Transients are important in a lot of modern types of dance music.

That may be an audio illusion, I can see no difference between the two Umpf machines compared to ReDrum/NNXT/Kong (Kong shown below the two Umpf devices):


This is a square wave starting at full scale on the first sample, zoomed in all the way in Reason. In all other Reason samplers I listed above, this is recreated accurately. But the two Umpf devices have around a 1ms ramp up time. They look identical to me, but there's an easy way to avoid this and that's by padding the front of a sample by 1 ms which would never be noticed in real time. And even so, the audio or MIDI could be 'advanced' 1ms to accommodate.
STILL, why not a button to choose this behavior?

That's why I love you, Selig.

[rootwheel]

That may be an audio illusion, I can see no difference between the two Umpf machines compared to ReDrum/NNXT/Kong (Kong shown below the two Umpf devices):

This is a square wave starting at full scale on the first sample, zoomed in all the way in Reason. In all other Reason samplers I listed above, this is recreated accurately. But the two Umpf devices have around a 1ms ramp up time. They look identical to me, but there's an easy way to avoid this and that's by padding the front of a sample by 1 ms which would never be noticed in real time. And even so, the audio or MIDI could be 'advanced' 1ms to accommodate.
STILL, why not a button to choose this behavior?

That's why I love you, Selig.

Perhaps it's a limitation of the tech that was used to implement Umpf or perhaps it was a design decision made to reduce clicks at the start of triggered samples which may have been crudely sliced?

Either way, Waves Trans-X works well for me as a follow up device to tweak the transients of the drums and change the punchiness of the output. I never find I'm unhappy with the way the Umpf track sits in the mix once I've tweaked a little. I imagine Softube Shape, SPL Transient Designer or a plethora of other related plugins on the market would also do the job!