Topic: Preview: Zynewave Nucleum

Hi Frits 🙂

I think that you’re idea is great but i don´t think it is so good to use Synthmaker or synthedit to make bundled synths in your excellent sequencer.

The reason is simple and i will explain it to you here:

First you will have the high cpu usage for each instance, and the first thing i look for when i try out sequencers with bundled instruments and effects are.

1. The cpu usage (The lower the better)
2. How well it is integrated into the host
3. The sound quality

I am not sure how synthmaker is when you update a plugin with the a new version of synthmaker but in Synthedit the backwards compability is lost and you will have to keep the old and new version in your vst folder to be able to load up older songs.

@Zynewave wrote:

@DFusion wrote:

Hi Frits 🙂

I think that you’re idea is great but i don´t think it is so good to use Synthmaker or synthedit to make bundled synths in your excellent sequencer.

…

I am not sure how synthmaker is when you update a plugin with the a new version of synthmaker but in Synthedit the backwards compability is lost and you will have to keep the old and new version in your vst folder to be able to load up older songs.

Hi,

I’ve already decided not to bundle Nucleum with Podium. I’m going to try to keep the two products separate, which is why I’ve created this dedicated Nucleum forum. I’ll probably release the plugin as freeware, and if users request it I’ll put up a paypal donation button. At least it can contribute to draw more traffic to the Zynewave forum.

I don’t think there is going to be preset compatibility problems when I create new versions of Nucleum with future SynthMaker versions. Hopefully that will just improve the CPU efficiency, and the plugin loading time.

Thanks for the info Frits 🙂
I think that this is a good idea and i would donate some money if there where a paypal option 8)

The reason i answered like i did is because i am really enjoy learning Podium and it is a great daw which really deserves the best 😀

The only thing i miss in it is Step recording via midi and it would be perfect (By step recording i mean the same that trackers and other hosts have where you use the Midi keyboard to enter in notes instead of the mouse).

I didn’t get done at the studio until around 10pm tonight so I have only had a couple hours to try out Nucleum 0.24 and start making presets but here are my thoughts so far. [Note, I’m not really comparing this to other more ambitious synths but rather to help give a sense of what Nucleum is in relation to what’s already been stated.}

The good:
– Simple FM interface: the color coding, large central circle and emphasis on knobs works well here. It’s easy to get some interesting results just through experimentation even before you bother to start thinking about what you are doing.

– Multiple waveforms: it’s pretty much a necessity these days with so many FM synths featuring them already (e.g. Toxic, Octopus, etc.) to have more than just sine waves and noise so I’m glad to have a few more here given the emphasis on simplicity.

– Edge to the sound: It’s easy to create sounds that cut and…

– The inclusion of a chorus effect: … the chorus makes it easy to help take some of that edge off or make the sound recede a bit, especially in combination with proper filter settings. I am not about to compare it to other choruses but it works as a tool to help design sounds without distracting, unlike the delay.

-Morphability: The combination of the easy FM setups and the simplicity of using the modulation matrix makes it easy to create setups where multiple parameters are mapped to a single controller for powerful morphing. This is probably my favorite feature so far. You really can do a lot more than just route filter cutoff to CC1 and call it a day.

The less good:

-The delay: I have no idea whether these are the default effects that come with SynthMaker or something of that ilk but I can say that chorus works a lot better than the delay and I’d honestly rather have no delay present than the one that is there. I’ve tried using some of it on my presets and I find myself wanting to use an external delay (basically any other delay) rather than deal with it.

-ADSRs: Setting the ADSRs is a lot trickier than I am accustomed to in other synths for several reasons.
1) The ranges don’t seem to be ideal and the knobs quickly go past the “sweet spots” with little detail in the ranges I tend to favor. The range covered by 0.000 to 0.400 on the knobs would much more usefully be covered by 0.000 to 0.700. Not as much detail is required with really long settings (e.g. 2 seconds or more)
2) Even when using shift to make fine adjustments it is difficult to hone in on the sweet spots.
3)The numerical readouts have no clear scale (not that I don’t encounter that elsewhere sometimes) meaning that time has to be invested initially on trial and error. If there is any way to replace the 0.00 to 1.00 scale with a seconds readout, that would be a big improvement.
4)Curves/lines used in the envelope scaling by default seem “off”. I haven’t had luck using Shape 1 and Shape 2 in the Mod Matrix to correct this yet. Lots of experiments but no results. Maybe I am missing something obvious though so feel free to help fill in the blanks for me. 🙂

-LFOs: Similar issues to ADSRs. Almost unusable at low frequencies though quite fun at high frequenices. More detail at the low end would be great.

Anyway, those are my first impressions. So far, I find bass, leads, sfx and percussion oriented sounds tend to be easier to make than pads with the synth. It doesn’t offer 6-8 osciillators or a unison/detune option and it doesn’t have internal panning options (e.g. for the different voices or as a global modulation destination) so the primary way to make a sound larger is via the chorus effect. Between the FM knobs and the additional modulation routings it’s easy to use one or two of the primary oscillators as an additional LFO with a great deal more complexity than the hardwired ones. This was already demonstrated in the Kinabalu patch that was included with the 0.24 version I downloaded and unexpectedly helps start to get sounds in the directions of a CS-80, making the difficulties creating pad sounds unfortunate (at least at this stage).

I’ll revisit pads later but for now I just wanted to quickly demo my first impressions of the “morphability” aspect of the synth with a couple demonstration presets I ginned up while noodling around with the synth initially. MW = mod wheel (CC1) mapped parameters. EXP = expression pedally (CC11) mapped parameters.

Presets for Nucleum 0.24 (in .txt file format so they can be loaded within the plug-in from any host)

LD The Edge (MW EXP) – PAL
http://download.yousendit.com/2439FC746B09FBDA

BS Dropped This (MW) – PAL.txt
http://download.yousendit.com/1E05E8343DED409D

Frits, please let me know if there is anything I can do to make my feedback more helpful. I’d say the strengths of Nucleum as a freeware synth are the ease with which it can create timbral complexity and its ability to make sounds that are easy to place in a mix or that can cut through to the front. It doesn’t tend to sound very warm naturally (nor is it really meant to) but you can coax a bit of that direction out of it with a lot of chorus and judicious filter use.