Future Impact now available!! WAS: deep impact reissue!!! interested?

[gastric]

1. Full ADSR envelope generators both for VCF and VCA, with exponential decay, like the Moog synths, while the old AD and AR (linear) envelope generators can be used optionally as well. ADSR envelopes can be restarted either in continuous mode, restarting from the point where it was in the moment of trigger, or in reset mode, restarting the envelope always from zero.

We asked, and asked, and asked some more and you DEFINITELY listened. Thank you kindly.

I'm seriously looking forward to all of the new, wonderful sounds that we'll be able to create with just this one enhancement.

 

[Andras Szalay]

Best would be if you delete the whole settings library of the FI editor. You find it at:

Users/Username/Library/Application Support/FIEditor

If you find a settings.ini file here, it would be useful if you can send us for investigation before deleting it. We are rather sure that this will solve your problem.

Andras Szalay

We checked this on PC too, so let me summarize for all of you: if you find the editor crashing repeatedly without any good reason, then you should delete the whole settings library of the FI editor. You find this at:

MAC: Users/Username/Library/Application Support/FIEditor
PC: c:\Users\username\AppData\Local\FutureImpactEditor\

Andras Szalay

 

[maisbass]

Dear friends,

Last time I promised that the new 3.xx Future Impact software will be ready until early April. The good new is that IT IS READY. Among many improvements and minor new features, the most important new features are:

1. Four Flexi Controllers allow you to control ANY parameter of the FI from VCF Envelope, Noise Envelope, LFO, Pitch, Accent, Envelope Follower, Aftertouch or any MIDI controller, altogether 69 sources. These can be routed to any of 137 destination parameters. Adjustment ranges, offsets and polarities are fully controllable. It can be decided for any Flexi if the adjustment happens in chromatic steps or continuously. Even effect parameters can be controlled by Flexi, so e.g. you can use two more VCFs by controlling the frequency of the two effect EQs.
2. Full ADSR envelope generators both for VCF and VCA, with exponential decay, like the Moog synths, while the old AD and AR (linear) envelope generators can be used optionally as well. ADSR envelopes can be restarted either in continuous mode, restarting from the point where it was in the moment of trigger, or in reset mode, restarting the envelope always from zero.
3. Improved pitch tracking; Bass and Guitar mode, Guitar mode covering the full range of the 6 string electric guitar.
4. Three simultaneous effects: The three effect blocks that were selectable alternatively in the FI software up to now can be used simultaneously, connected in a chain. The sequence of the blocks within the chain can be selected.
5. Up to now the Future Impact was used almost exclusively by bass players, now with new features we are convinced that it is very encouraging for other musicians as well:

A.) Guitar players: The improved pitch tracking in the full range of the guitar offers the unique possibilities of the FI for guitarists.
B.) Keyboard players: with the Mini Moog compatible ADSR generators and the Flexi controllers the FI fulfills all wishes of a keyboard player for a monophonic synthesizer.
C.) EWI Wind Controller players: Beyond the extremely flexible possibilities of the Flexi controllers some specific MIDI control possibilities are implemented tailored for the use of the Future Impact with a EWI, e.g. VCF cutoff frequency control by Ctrl 11 (Expression), and Ctrl 5 to control Portamento through MIDI.

And now after the good news, there is a bad news as well . We cannot release this software to the public yet, for very simple reason. The new software requires a new editor with very significant differences from the current one, and this editor is not yet ready. The new features require many new parameters, so the format of the program file must be different from the current one. This means, that while you could theoretically upgrade your device to 3.xx even with the current editor, it would be useless because your FI would not work at all with the sounds stored in its memory that are in the old format.

The new editor will have the following features:
Perform a software update, just as the current editor.
Edit, Save and Load program files in the new format (*.pr3), and download them into the FI.
Load sound program files in the old format (*.prg), convert them internally to the new format, so then you can save it as a *.pr3.
Write *.pr3 files from the computer to the FI individually, or all from a folder, just as the current editor does.
Read *.pr3 files from the FI and store them on the computer either individually, or all. Note that when a *.pr3 file is downloaded into the FI, then the name of the file (the first 32 characters) will be stored in the FI, so when you recall the file from FI it will be saved with the original name.

If you have stored all your sounds safely on computer, or if you use only the original factory sounds then you will have just to upgrade your software with the new editor, and initialize your FI with the sounds that you have, or with the factory sounds.

If you have favorite sounds in your FI that you forgot to store (I assume this is often the case) then you need to do an intermediate step before upgrading to 3.xx. You have to upgrade to version 2.20, which is still compatible with the current format. This software has the feature of reading out the sounds from your FI, and sending it back to the computer. Of course, this requires the appropriate editor version 2.20 as well. This is not yet ready either, but coming very soon.

Of course an editor exists that supports all features of the new software, otherwise it would not be possible to develop and test the FI software. But this is a Windows 7, 32 bit only program, patched by me, ugly and not user friendly. You can understand that we do not want to confront all of you with an editor software that we cannot and do not want to support officially, it is for temporary internal use only.

But here comes the part where you could contribute to the success of this very important release too. For an official release we need a new set of 99 sounds. From the introduction of the new release these sounds will be included in the new production devices, but of course, just like the software itself the sounds will be just as well available for all users free of charge.

We are asking for volunteers who could help us to develop new sounds for the new factory set (and beyond that, for a free library), and by the way beta testing the new software, which may have some minor bugs for sure. So, we would like to select max. 5 -6 volunteers who are willing to take part in this. The following capabilities are required:

1. You have experience in using the FI editor for creating sounds of your own from scratch, and you are willing to take time to work on new sounds.
2. You have a Windows computer with a screen resolution of minimum 1440 x 900, with a MIDI interface that is suited for the FI.
3. You feel confident enough to read and understand specifications that are much more detailed and much more technical than a user’s manual.
4. You feel confident enough to use an editor that is not convenient to use.
5. You are willing to share the sounds that you create with the FI users’ community. Your contribution will be honored on the Help page of the editor.
6. You are willing to sign an NDA. It is not that there are deep secrets here, we just do not want to generate a flow of questions based on temporary information from the public that we have no manpower to answer. Everything will be published once all is finalized.
7. We strongly encourage those volunteers who develop sounds not just for the bass but also ones made specifically for guitar, keyboard and EWI (if any of you play EWI).

If you are interested please send your application to [email protected]. Please describe in a few words your musical and technical background, and describe for which musical instrument would you like to develop sounds. Please let us know your nickname in the forum, so we can identify you. Please send one (just one) *.prg file with a sound that you created yourself, together with a 10-30 seconds mp3 demo of it.

Andras Szalay

@Andras Szalay

Andras,

I am speechless. This is fantastic news. Thank you for all of your hard work and for listening to our community. I cannot wait to have the opportunity to explore the new firmware!

Thank you!!!

 

[Bassheart365]

Dear friends,

Last time I promised that the new 3.xx Future Impact software will be ready until early April. The good new is that IT IS READY. Among many improvements and minor new features, the most important new features are:

1. Four Flexi Controllers allow you to control ANY parameter of the FI from VCF Envelope, Noise Envelope, LFO, Pitch, Accent, Envelope Follower, Aftertouch or any MIDI controller, altogether 69 sources. These can be routed to any of 137 destination parameters. Adjustment ranges, offsets and polarities are fully controllable. It can be decided for any Flexi if the adjustment happens in chromatic steps or continuously. Even effect parameters can be controlled by Flexi, so e.g. you can use two more VCFs by controlling the frequency of the two effect EQs.
2. Full ADSR envelope generators both for VCF and VCA, with exponential decay, like the Moog synths, while the old AD and AR (linear) envelope generators can be used optionally as well. ADSR envelopes can be restarted either in continuous mode, restarting from the point where it was in the moment of trigger, or in reset mode, restarting the envelope always from zero.
3. Improved pitch tracking; Bass and Guitar mode, Guitar mode covering the full range of the 6 string electric guitar.
4. Three simultaneous effects: The three effect blocks that were selectable alternatively in the FI software up to now can be used simultaneously, connected in a chain. The sequence of the blocks within the chain can be selected.
5. Up to now the Future Impact was used almost exclusively by bass players, now with new features we are convinced that it is very encouraging for other musicians as well:

A.) Guitar players: The improved pitch tracking in the full range of the guitar offers the unique possibilities of the FI for guitarists.
B.) Keyboard players: with the Mini Moog compatible ADSR generators and the Flexi controllers the FI fulfills all wishes of a keyboard player for a monophonic synthesizer.
C.) EWI Wind Controller players: Beyond the extremely flexible possibilities of the Flexi controllers some specific MIDI control possibilities are implemented tailored for the use of the Future Impact with a EWI, e.g. VCF cutoff frequency control by Ctrl 11 (Expression), and Ctrl 5 to control Portamento through MIDI.

And now after the good news, there is a bad news as well . We cannot release this software to the public yet, for very simple reason. The new software requires a new editor with very significant differences from the current one, and this editor is not yet ready. The new features require many new parameters, so the format of the program file must be different from the current one. This means, that while you could theoretically upgrade your device to 3.xx even with the current editor, it would be useless because your FI would not work at all with the sounds stored in its memory that are in the old format.

The new editor will have the following features:
Perform a software update, just as the current editor.
Edit, Save and Load program files in the new format (*.pr3), and download them into the FI.
Load sound program files in the old format (*.prg), convert them internally to the new format, so then you can save it as a *.pr3.
Write *.pr3 files from the computer to the FI individually, or all from a folder, just as the current editor does.
Read *.pr3 files from the FI and store them on the computer either individually, or all. Note that when a *.pr3 file is downloaded into the FI, then the name of the file (the first 32 characters) will be stored in the FI, so when you recall the file from FI it will be saved with the original name.

If you have stored all your sounds safely on computer, or if you use only the original factory sounds then you will have just to upgrade your software with the new editor, and initialize your FI with the sounds that you have, or with the factory sounds.

If you have favorite sounds in your FI that you forgot to store (I assume this is often the case) then you need to do an intermediate step before upgrading to 3.xx. You have to upgrade to version 2.20, which is still compatible with the current format. This software has the feature of reading out the sounds from your FI, and sending it back to the computer. Of course, this requires the appropriate editor version 2.20 as well. This is not yet ready either, but coming very soon.

Of course an editor exists that supports all features of the new software, otherwise it would not be possible to develop and test the FI software. But this is a Windows 7, 32 bit only program, patched by me, ugly and not user friendly. You can understand that we do not want to confront all of you with an editor software that we cannot and do not want to support officially, it is for temporary internal use only.

But here comes the part where you could contribute to the success of this very important release too. For an official release we need a new set of 99 sounds. From the introduction of the new release these sounds will be included in the new production devices, but of course, just like the software itself the sounds will be just as well available for all users free of charge.

We are asking for volunteers who could help us to develop new sounds for the new factory set (and beyond that, for a free library), and by the way beta testing the new software, which may have some minor bugs for sure. So, we would like to select max. 5 -6 volunteers who are willing to take part in this. The following capabilities are required:

1. You have experience in using the FI editor for creating sounds of your own from scratch, and you are willing to take time to work on new sounds.
2. You have a Windows computer with a screen resolution of minimum 1440 x 900, with a MIDI interface that is suited for the FI.
3. You feel confident enough to read and understand specifications that are much more detailed and much more technical than a user’s manual.
4. You feel confident enough to use an editor that is not convenient to use.
5. You are willing to share the sounds that you create with the FI users’ community. Your contribution will be honored on the Help page of the editor.
6. You are willing to sign an NDA. It is not that there are deep secrets here, we just do not want to generate a flow of questions based on temporary information from the public that we have no manpower to answer. Everything will be published once all is finalized.
7. We strongly encourage those volunteers who develop sounds not just for the bass but also ones made specifically for guitar, keyboard and EWI (if any of you play EWI).

If you are interested please send your application to [email protected]. Please describe in a few words your musical and technical background, and describe for which musical instrument would you like to develop sounds. Please let us know your nickname in the forum, so we can identify you. Please send one (just one) *.prg file with a sound that you created yourself, together with a 10-30 seconds mp3 demo of it.

Andras Szalay

I'm not a very technical person so I don't understand much of what you are saying, except that it sounds like a major upgrade is coming! The more Moog sounds the better, and tracking improvement is always good. Thanks for all of your hard work Andras!

 

[Quatschmacher]

We asked, and asked, and asked some more and you DEFINITELY listened. Thank you kindly.

I'm seriously looking forward to all of the new, wonderful sounds that we'll be able to create with just this one enhancement.

Me too!

 

[Quatschmacher]

@Andras Szalay, does the new update include oscillator hard sync?

 

[Andras Szalay]

I do not know what do you mean on oscillator hard sync.

Andras Szalay

 

[Quatschmacher]

I do not know what do you mean on oscillator hard sync.

Andras Szalay

@Andras Szalay It’s where one oscillator is slaved to another such that its phase is forced to reset at the same time that the master oscillator’s phase restarts. Though not a feature of the Minimoog, it is commonplace now (the ARP Odyssey had it). It is possible to use it in combination with routing an envelope to the slaved oscillator’s pitch to get some wonderful sounds.

I’d suggest at the very least having default routings so that oscillator 2 slaves to 1, 3 to 2, 4 to 3 and 1 to 4 and have a checkbox for each oscillator which switches sync on or off. (A further enhancement would be to have the sync routings freely assignable.)

Oscillator sync - Wikipedia

 

[fivestringgecko]

@Andras Szalay,

+1 to what others have said, thanks for all your continued support and hard work for the Future Impact! I play in several different cover band projects, and the Impact has become an important enough part of my rig that I bought a backup. KILLER pedal and I already love it, and I'm quite excited about the update and all the awesome new features! Cheers!

5sg.

 

[Andras Szalay]

@Andras Szalay It’s where one oscillator is slaved to another such that its phase is forced to reset at the same time that the master oscillator’s phase restarts. Though not a feature of the Minimoog, it is commonplace now (the ARP Odyssey had it). It is possible to use it in combination with routing an envelope to the slaved oscillator’s pitch to get some wonderful sounds.

I’d suggest at the very least having default routings so that oscillator 2 slaves to 1, 3 to 2, 4 to 3 and 1 to 4 and have a checkbox for each oscillator which switches sync on or off. (A further enhancement would be to have the sync routings freely assignable.)

Oscillator sync - Wikipedia

OK, I understand what you mean. No, this is unfortunately technically not possible. The oscillator algorithm is a very highly optimized assembly routine. This must be the case in order to have the very high quality of the sound without aliasing distortion, because each oscillator is calculated at 512 kHz sampling rate. This high optimization is possible only if every oscillator is running on its own. Taking into account the phase of any other oscillator would break the degree of optimization, either the quality would be much worse, or the number of oscillators had to be halved. I know, you can make nice sounds with syncing, but on the other side with the FI you can make the foldover distortion sounds (where the oscillators interact with each other, just like by syncing, but this does not affect the calculation of each separate oscillator). If you use the individual envelope of the oscillators on the FI to drive the degree of foldover distortion then the effect is very similar to that what you request, and there are even much more possibilities. This (the foldover distortion) would be definitely not possible without the very high oversampling. So, sorry, at some point a compromise must be made...

Andras Szalay

 

[Quatschmacher]

OK, I understand what you mean. No, this is unfortunately technically not possible. The oscillator algorithm is a very highly optimized assembly routine. This must be the case in order to have the very high quality of the sound without aliasing distortion, because each oscillator is calculated at 512 kHz sampling rate. This high optimization is possible only if every oscillator is running on its own. Taking into account the phase of any other oscillator would break the degree of optimization, either the quality would be much worse, or the number of oscillators had to be halved. I know, you can make nice sounds with syncing, but on the other side with the FI you can make the foldover distortion sounds. If you use the individual envelope of the oscillators on the FI to drive the degree of foldover distortion then the effect is very similar to that what you request, and there are even much more possibilities. This (the foldover distortion) would be definitely not possible without the very high oversampling. So, sorry, at some point a compromise must be made...

Andras Szalay

Thanks for explaining that, András. It’s true, one can’t have everything and the FI is already a powerful instrument and will be even more powerful with the new update.

 

[Basehead]

This is great new, Andras...looking forward to the update

 

[Andras Szalay]

I was at the Frankfurt Fair this week, where I had a meeting with Gundy Keller
( ). Among other good ideas he recommended to implement a feature that could be very useful. He uses the FI in studio connecting the bass and the FI to separate channels of the mixing console for separate tone EQ, effects, pan, etc. To do so, he had to go through all sounds that he used in the editor and mute out the direct bass sound. He would prefer a simpler solution for that. This would be just as important for him, or for anybody on stage where it is preferred anyway to use two separate amps for bass and FI. I think this is a very justified request. I can see two solutions for that (or both of them?).

1. The onboard MODIFIER has the option to set the balance between the bass sound and the synth sound. As it is currently, if you start to turn the encoder right the FI will start to reduce the bass volume in steps of 1.5dB, reaching -6dB at the end. I could change the last step so, that it will be mute instead of -6dB. This means, you have to adjust this for every program individually, but it is very simple to do so, you do not need the editor.
2. I could implement a new option in the global menu for muting the bass sound. Could be displayed as “nBS” for NO BASS, with 0 as default, and 1 for muting. In this case it would affect all programs globally.

What do you think?


Andras Szalay

 

[Quatschmacher]

I was at the Frankfurt Fair this week, where I had a meeting with Gundy Keller
( ). Among other good ideas he recommended to implement a feature that could be very useful. He uses the FI in studio connecting the bass and the FI to separate channels of the mixing console for separate tone EQ, effects, pan, etc. To do so, he had to go through all sounds that he used in the editor and mute out the direct bass sound. He would prefer a simpler solution for that. This would be just as important for him, or for anybody on stage where it is preferred anyway to use two separate amps for bass and FI. I think this is a very justified request. I can see two solutions for that (or both of them?).

1. The onboard MODIFIER has the option to set the balance between the bass sound and the synth sound. As it is currently, if you start to turn the encoder right the FI will start to reduce the bass volume in steps of 1.5dB, reaching -6dB at the end. I could change the last step so, that it will be mute instead of -6dB. This means, you have to adjust this for every program individually, but it is very simple to do so, you do not need the editor.
2. I could implement a new option in the global menu for muting the bass sound. Could be displayed as “nBS” for NO BASS, with 0 as default, and 1 for muting. In this case it would affect all programs globally.

What do you think?


Andras Szalay

If both options are possible then I’d say add both; users can then decide which to use.

 

[Quatschmacher]

@Andras Szalay

I think I’ve found a bug in firmware 2.03. If you check out the following patch which is a pulse wave with some pulse width modulation from the LFO. If you trigger it via the virtual keyboard and hold the note, you’ll hear that the LFO does a double dip at top of the modulation rather than a smooth sine. It reaches the top, clips at 0% duty cycle, drops a short way back, rises again before descending all the way.

 

[Quatschmacher]

@Andras Szalay will you be at Superbooth again this year?

 

[Andras Szalay]

@Andras Szalay

I think I’ve found a bug in firmware 2.03. If you check out the following patch which is a pulse wave with some pulse width modulation from the LFO. If you trigger it via the virtual keyboard and hold the note, you’ll hear that the LFO does a double dip at top of the modulation rather than a smooth sine. It reaches the top, clips at 0% duty cycle, drops a short way back, rises again before descending all the way.

I do not consider this a bug, I was always aware of that. It is not possible to limit LFO DEPTH to a point that it does not drive the square to zero width, this depends on the combination of two parameters, LFO DEPTH and square OFFSET. It would be stupid to limit that, since the most interesting sounds of a square wave are when it is close to zero width. It is the sound programmer's responsibility to take care for that, or if he wants to then he can use it as a strange effect. Anyway, it is no danger to crash the program this way.

Andras Szalay

 

[Andras Szalay]

@Andras Szalay will you be at Superbooth again this year?

No, I do not plan to come this year.

 

[Quatschmacher]

I do not consider this a bug, I was always aware of that. It is not possible to limit LFO DEPTH to a point that it does not drive the square to zero width, this depends on the combination of two parameters, LFO DEPTH and square OFFSET. It would be stupid to limit that, since the most interesting sounds of a square wave are when it is close to zero width. It is the sound programmer's responsibility to take care for that, or if he wants to then he can use it as a strange effect. Anyway, it is no danger to crash the program this way.

Andras Szalay

It’s not that the duty cycle goes to zero that is the problem. If you load the patch and play a note, the first LFO cycles fine, on the second time you get a behaviour where the LFO seems to double back on itself. So not that there’s a portion of silence which would be normal when the square wave hits zero, but rather that the LFO shape actually changes. I’ll try to illustrate in the diagram attached. First is normal sine, second, sine with clipped tops as duty cycle hits zero. Third is what happens in this patch.

 

[Andras Szalay]

View attachment 3379220

It’s not that the duty cycle goes to zero that is the problem. If you load the patch and play a note, the first LFO cycles fine, on the second time you get a behaviour where the LFO seems to double back on itself. So not that there’s a portion of silence which would be normal when the square wave hits zero, but rather that the LFO shape actually changes. I’ll try to illustrate in the diagram attached. First is normal sine, second, sine with clipped tops as duty cycle hits zero. Third is what happens in this patch.

Actually the LFO is not a sine, it is a triangle. When the sum of the LFO signal + the offset reaches the upper limit of the arithmetic, then you would expect a saturation, as on your second drawing. But this is not the case (just as on most of all computer applications, except some special signal processing chips), after reaching the upper limit the arithmetic folds over from the highest number into the lowest. Therefore, first you have an always thinner positive pulse, then for a very short moment the pulse disappears, and after that it appears again but with opposite polarity. This is the reason of the loud click in the transition.

Andras Szalay