Spectra is now free

[slic]

Thank You!

Good Luck with whatever comes next, good karma coming your way!

[Kilsane]

I bought it a year ago, but I find it good that you chose to give it away for free.
Good luck for the future

[sdst]

Thank you,

very honorable the developers that leave their REs for free and not deleted

[dhruan]

What an awesome gesture! I already have Spectra, and I really, really like it! I know that you put a lot of effort into developing Spectra and that really shows. I am sure that keeping the same attitude and dedication will carry you far forward. So here's hoping for success in your future endeavors, whatever they may be.

[olive6741]

Very kind of you. Really appreciate. I bought it a while now, never went deep with it (no time) and I find very great you let it ‘alive’. Wishing you the best for your next adventure. Good karma !

[integerpoet]

This seems especially generous given that silly people are likely to track the developer down and ask support questions anyway! I guess this is one of the reasons we need forums like this one. Be prepared to help out, folks!

By the way, for anyone scrolling through this thread and wishing for a link…
https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/rack ... nthesizer/
And yes there are several videos.

[fieldframe]

Thanks for your support of the Reason community, and thanks for taking this very generous approach to closing shop.

While Spectra never grabbed my attention when it was released, it's interesting looking at it now. Synclavier-style spectral synthesis was a real gap in Reason, and while you can easily get it now with VSTs such as Arturia's Synclavier V or Dmitry Schies Thorn, there are still benefits to having it in the rack.

With the perspective of looking at it from now in 2021, if anything limited Spectra's appeal, it may well have been its fidelity to Reason's original hardware-stye approach to UI. The Roland-esque programmer, complete with the menu diving that entails, strongly evokes that hardware experience, but as we've seen lately, even Reason Studios has started to fall away from that for certain complex interactions. Algoritm, for instance, feels a lot less like real hardware, but has a workflow that takes better advantage of the fact that it's software.

It's a tough balance to strike. Something like Ekss' product portfolio is very hardware-flavored, but it can be because its interactions are less complex (and are often modeled after real hardware anyway). What do you do when you have 256 partials, a handful of envelopes, MSEGs, custom filters, and more? It's an interesting design problem, and one that I think Reason Studios itself is wrestling with as it evolves the RE platform.

[Catblack]

I'm one of the ones that bought it. I'm glad I got to support you. I can't say I used it more than a couple of times, but I have a lot of rack extensions.


I do have 3 combinators for it that someone on the forum must have created.

Perhaps as everyone tries it out for the first time or two, come back and chime in here with patches and combinators.

[Proboscis]

I've logged in to the forum today to say THANKS for the kind gesture. I'm not much of a synth-user, and don't really comprehend the workflow of synthesis, so I would have not purchased this.

But now that I have, it's very cool. Lots of preset patches, which is a big plus for me.

I'm actually taking up the 'Song Challenge', in respect for the developer.

[Proboscis]

I might ad that it's cool that you would leave it in the shop, rather than kill it, as some other devs have done.

[WasteLand]

thanks, i bought spectra, never regret it, that i bought it. is a great synth.

and it is great that you make it free!

worth the discovery!

[aeox]

It's kind of cool when devs remove the device completely because then the original buyers have a novelty synth which is now unobtainable.

On the other hand, it's also cool when everyone get's it for free. Can't complain about that.

[moneykube]

bought awhile back... great gift for those who do not have it yet... sorry you are leaving the party

[zero01101]

Hi everyone. I recently decided to stop operation of synthetech sound as a company and this has some implications for spectra in the App Store. I could have either removed spectra altogether or offered it for free. I chose the latter knowing that people who purchased it would potentially be upset but what can you do?

I wanted to thank everyone for their support and I hope you enjoy spectra. For those persons concerned about on going support I can only say that I only received one defect for spectra since 3-2018 so I’m feeling like the code is stable. Again thanks to all for the kind words about and support for spectra. It was fun coding it up.

incredibly generous of you; this is a quality instrument that is absolutely worth familiarizing oneself with thank you very much!

[aeox]

Also, I am reminded of this time where I couldn't decide on a certain sound for a track I was working on. After a few different iterations I ended up using a preset from Spectra, I don't remember the name but maybe someone might recognize it at 1:22 in (I think it's played at a lower oct. than intended)

[Auryn]

probably a bit late for a bug report but it seems to me the output of the Generator 1's Ring function bypasses the filter? or maybe this is by design and I don't understand the signal routing correctly

[teddymcw]

Also, I am reminded of this time where I couldn't decide on a certain sound for a track I was working on. After a few different iterations I ended up using a preset from Spectra, I don't remember the name but maybe someone might recognize it at 1:22 in (I think it's played at a lower oct. than intended)

Damn, that was dope. So appreciated when music is given on here, and especially so in context. This piece happened to be a really good one. Cheers.

[pepe444]

Thanks

[WarStar]

Also, I am reminded of this time where I couldn't decide on a certain sound for a track I was working on. After a few different iterations I ended up using a preset from Spectra, I don't remember the name but maybe someone might recognize it at 1:22 in (I think it's played at a lower oct. than intended)

Love this song! Digging the dark vibe!

[Noplan]

Thank you.

[antic604]

I think I know why this one "failed" commercially, despite being quite amazing as a synth (I bought it before it got free).

I loaded it up yesterday and tried several (dozens of) patches to use in a sketch I was drafting and what struck me immediately is that most of them were at least 6, 9 or 12dB quieter than everything else! Obviously it's not a problem to crank the amp up, push channel fader up or use one of the gain devices; but one shouldn't have to do this. There's some - unwritten? - loudness standard at which most of the sounds in Reason are and Spectra simply fails to reach it. And we all know that louder = better

[synthetechsound]

I think I know why this one "failed" commercially, despite being quite amazing as a synth (I bought it before it got free).

I loaded it up yesterday and tried several (dozens of) patches to use in a sketch I was drafting and what struck me immediately is that most of them were at least 6, 9 or 12dB quieter than everything else! Obviously it's not a problem to crank the amp up, push channel fader up or use one of the gain devices; but one shouldn't have to do this. There's some - unwritten? - loudness standard at which most of the sounds in Reason are and Spectra simply fails to reach it. And we all know that louder = better

Or you could use one of the multiple gain knobs on the synth itself.

[mcatalao]

I think I know why this one "failed" commercially, despite being quite amazing as a synth (I bought it before it got free).

I loaded it up yesterday and tried several (dozens of) patches to use in a sketch I was drafting and what struck me immediately is that most of them were at least 6, 9 or 12dB quieter than everything else! Obviously it's not a problem to crank the amp up, push channel fader up or use one of the gain devices; but one shouldn't have to do this. There's some - unwritten? - loudness standard at which most of the sounds in Reason are and Spectra simply fails to reach it. And we all know that louder = better

Or you could use one of the multiple gain knobs on the synth itself.

That.

But actually, you have patches ranging from -12 to -6 dbfs, and this is imho the best target for mixing. As a matter of fact, in the final days of the Nucleus soundlab refills i participated, the -6 dbfs cap was standard. Other synths don't give a crap, so they still have patches over this.

synthetechsound:
Hope you find your time and will to come back to development. This is indeeed a great sounding synth.
And as someone who got it free, thank you!

[selig]

Or you could use one of the multiple gain knobs on the synth itself.

That.

But actually, you have patches ranging from -12 to -6 dbfs, and this is imho the best target for mixing. As a matter of fact, in the final days of the Nucleus soundlab refills i participated, the -6 dbfs cap was standard. Other synths don't give a crap, so they still have patches over this.

synthetechsound:
Hope you find your time and will to come back to development. This is indeeed a great sounding synth.
And as someone who got it free, thank you!

The Reason FSB has had -12dBFS peaks as a standard, and more recently allowing up to -6dBFS peaks but no higher. If Spectra is hitting those levels it’s perfect IMO. If it’s above or below that yea, you adjust accordingly.

[Quarmat]

This synth is sooooo good, so deep and complex if one wants to delve into its intricacies and possibilities. I hope its dev could come back and make other amazing REs like spectra. This one was (is) so good sounding.

I made a song with only spectra 1 kong and 1 mimic (sampling spectra) some years ago when TritoneAddiction launched a spectra challenge: