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Sonicsmith Pitch Tacking Analog Synths (Converter and Squaver P1)

I am sure these devices has great potential and can do quite a lot of stuff.

At least it seems so on paper, and definitely it leads you to believe that there ought to be some quite interesting sounds in there.

But for some reason the demo doesn't give me that impression.

I guess for one of two reasons, either they really suck at making demo's with focus on what their target audience might want to know and hear of this units capabilities, cause honestly it all sounds the same to me, a bunch of seemingly hard to control warpling synth tones with no real, neither tonal, nor musical direction, or the other option that it has so many features and possibilities with odd interchangeable parameters that the learning curve is so steep it is practically impossible to really learn how to play it as a real musical instrument with any practical application.

Neither options seems to paint a promising bright future for these definitely interesting devices, neither business wise, as part of any well known experimental musician's pedal board or in any other way really.

I really wanted to like it, and as I said it is definitely an interesting technology, but for me to be convinced after seeing that piece of crap, they really better come out with a full featured video soon where we don't only really get to hear what one of the settings sounds like, unless they all sound more or less the same, as this video makes me believe, and where we hear some real life application to it's uses in music, which this video at least let me believe are almost non existent, or at least very minimal and about as impressive to me as about any random circuit bend toy synth, available at any random toy store for a faction of what this costs, played by a 4 year old.

I am well aware that this in many ways is a completely different thing, but at least it seems relatively easy to understand how it works even if it got tons of features and tons of different musical applications:


I at least know which one I would chose as my go to bass synth pedal, if I were to burn off a lot of money on such.

In fact the Ottobit Jr. is actually on my GAS list, even if I have priorities that comes before that and it probably is going to take a good while before I get it.
 
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I am sure these devices has great potential and can do quite a lot of stuff.

At least it seems so on paper, and definitely it leads you to believe that there ought to be some quite interesting sounds in there.

But for some reason the demo doesn't give me that impression.

I guess for one of two reasons, either they really suck at making demo's with focus on what their target audience might want to know hear of this units capabilities, cause honestly it all sounds the same to me a bunch of seemingly hard to control warpling synth tones with no real neither tonal or musical direction, or it has so many features and possibilities with odd interchangeable parameters that the leaning curve is so steep it is impossible to really learn how to play it as a real musical instrument with any practical application.

Neither options seems to paint a promissing bright future for these definitely interesting devices.

I really wanted to like it, and as I said it is definitely an interesting technology, but for me to be convinced after seeing that piece of crap, they really better come out with a full featured video soon where we don't only really hear what one of the settings sounds like, unless they all sound the more or less the same, as this video makes me believe and where we here some real life application to it's uses in music, which this video at least let me belive is almost non existent, or at least verry minimal and about as impressive as my old KidsMusic toy synth.

I am well aware that this in many ways is a completely different thing, but at least it seems relatively easy to understand how it works even if it gots ton of features and tons of different musical applications:


I at least know which one I would chose as my goto bass synth pedal, if I were to burn off a lot fo money on such.

In fact the Ottobit Jr. is on my GAS list, even if I have priorities that comes before that and it probably is going to take a good while before I get it.


I co-sign all of this.
 
Hi everybody :)

It looks like you haven't seen our latest improvement that is also having a huge impact on bass tracking. Have a look at this video, which would explain it better than anything I could write:



I saw that one, I was bummed there was no bass in demo. Most of us already roll back our onboard LPF when feeding pitch tracking pedals, it helps but often isn't enough for satisfactory tracking. I think you'll find bassists are extremely skeptical when it come to tracking, especially with pricy gear. This is due to electric bass pitch being so difficult to track. I've tested allot of pitch tracking synths. So far the Future Impact is the only one I felt was worth keeping. The Markbass came close.

My friends and I are excited about these Sonicsmith units. However, I'm sure we would feel more comfortable investing in a unit for testing if we could see a extensive demo on bass tracking. The connectivity and unique possibilities of the SS modules are great but useless to me and most on TB if the tracking is frustrating.

I'm sure your team could find a decent bassist nearby to familiarize with either synth. If not you could always PM me or many here to test for you, I'd even cover return shipping and send any demo footage to you for distribution.

At any rate, I'll be on edge of my seat waiting for real world bassist reports. I think you'll find bass players to be a valuable consumer pool if your products pair well with bass, we love synths!!!

Cheers!
 
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Hi everybody :)

It looks like you haven't seen our latest improvement that is also having a huge impact on bass tracking. Have a look at this video, which would explain it better than anything I could write:


Guitar demos are irrelevant to our interests. Send a test unit to @Proton Lenny so he can really put it through its paces.
 
I was ever so close to buying a unit, but the bass demo actually scared me away.

However I do agree that in the right hands - and trusted around here hands - that a good demo would probably instil my confidence that these are worth the money. It's a lot to spend, and honestly, if I bought it for use with guitar and it tracked like the original version without the update when it arrived, I would be one angry customer.

Trust to me has been tarnished in revealing how it really sounds while trying to show an improvement. It is honestly still overpriced and the whole you weren't completely honest and happy to take my money makes me instantly leary of the product and its support. Certainly no Moog or Future Impact here, both in performance and supoort.

But that's just my 2cents. I'd love to try one, and am happy to wait until I can.
 
I was ever so close to buying a unit, but the bass demo actually scared me away.

However I do agree that in the right hands - and trusted around here hands - that a good demo would probably instil my confidence that these are worth the money. It's a lot to spend, and honestly, if I bought it for use with guitar and it tracked like the original version without the update when it arrived, I would be one angry customer.

Trust to me has been tarnished in revealing how it really sounds while trying to show an improvement. It is honestly still overpriced and the whole you weren't completely honest and happy to take my money makes me instantly leary of the product and its support. Certainly no Moog or Future Impact here, both in performance and supoort.

But that's just my 2cents. I'd love to try one, and am happy to wait until I can.

b94.jpg
 
I was ever so close to buying a unit, but the bass demo actually scared me away.

However I do agree that in the right hands - and trusted around here hands - that a good demo would probably instil my confidence that these are worth the money. It's a lot to spend, and honestly, if I bought it for use with guitar and it tracked like the original version without the update when it arrived, I would be one angry customer.

Trust to me has been tarnished in revealing how it really sounds while trying to show an improvement. It is honestly still overpriced and the whole you weren't completely honest and happy to take my money makes me instantly leary of the product and its support. Certainly no Moog or Future Impact here, both in performance and supoort.

But that's just my 2cents. I'd love to try one, and am happy to wait until I can.


Yeah, the moment has passed for me as well.
 
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I'm impressed how fast you are with posting things :) We corrected the video a bit and here's the running version:


As for Zach, we will be happy to work with him, so don't you worry :)

What's that weird static before every note?
The video was made with a pre-production unit, which made it harder to set the filter right and that's where the glitches came from. The production units will be free of this flaw and easily set to the right value, making the glitches disappear.
 
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Hmm, I'm still hopeful but the tones and note on/off performance just isn't there...yet.

@ula_sonicsmith
The Future Impact tone and tracking performance is great, it is the pedal to match. With it I can get huge mini moog tones, cutting Juno tones to icy leads and talking bass. I can minipulate the follower and envelopes to trigger how I want and to move at rates I once could only achieve with a traditional synth.

What I'd love to see in a demo is the following 3 things:

1) Bread and butter tones (mini moog, Juno, Torus...). Bass line to Flashlight is great example.

2) intelligent note on/off. Most importantly, reliable/controllable staccato and sustain. Attach and release must be dynamically controlled/triggered with easy.

3) Dynamic modulation. Like with every synth I own (Future Impact included), I love it when my amplitude (on bass) or velocity (On keys) minipulates parameters such as cutoff, amplitude, overdrive.... it adds dimensions to otherwise static sounds.

Good luck, I'll be tuning in.