Minimonsta

Kymeia · Post by **Kymeia** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 5:17 pm

http://www.gmediamusic.com/

Win: http://www.ohmforce.com/gforce/bin/Mini ... 0_demo.exe
Mac: http://www.ohmforce.com/gforce/bin/Mini ... 0_demo.bin

Comparable to Minimax?

[ This Message was edited by: Kymeia on 2005-02-21 17:17 ]

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 5:51 pm

With a bit of tweaking i can get them pretty close, though they do still sound different. i think MiniMonsta is far better than Arturia's effort, plus i like the GMedia guys and their attitude (fancy a pint anyone?)

i love their M-Tron, impOSCar (replaces my old real OSCar very well) and Oddity (i prefer it to the SCOPE version), but MiniMax is enough for me, though the Meta-Patches is a nice performance tool.

Wouldn't like to say which sounds better, but i know MiniMax was their softsynth benchmark and i saw that John Bowen and Hans Zimmer wondered over and had a picture taken with GMedia's Dave Spiers.

Mr A

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 6:14 pm

MiniMax still reigns king in my book. I haven't ever played a real MiniMoog, but there are some things CreamWare said and I have my own observations as well....

The filter keyboard tracking isn't right. When you have both tracking switches on, the original MiniMoog (CW said, anyway) didn't have perfect tuning if you had resonance all the way up. The MiniMonsta IS perfectly in tune, however. That's actually a bad thing because you can't load in the original MiniMoog patches properly.

I couldn't figure how to get velocity to work. Any tips?

The feedback didn't sound right. I don't know how the original MiniMoog sounded, but MiniMax' feedback always had a flubby, tube-like sound. The MiniMonsta simply changes the pitch of the oscillators. Huh?

The resonance response was weird. From twelve o'clock on the MiniMonsta was all self-rez. MiniMax' self-rez didn't kick in until later. Again, I don't know how the original MiniMoog worked, but my MoogerFooger behaves more like MiniMax.

Ohm Force was talking about how the square wave wasn't really a square wave, but it sure sounded like it to me. MiniMax' square definitely wan't a square wave.

It took up ENORMOUS amounts of CPU!! I have a 2.5GHz P4, and at 8 voices it took up 70% of my CPU. Way more than MiniMax.

Good points: no aliasing, smooth filter, clean and fat. The envelopes were good too, but I don't know how the original MiniMoog worked.

If it didn't take up so much CPU power I might buy it, but I only use CPU synths for lots of polyphony so that purpose is defeated.

I wish CreamWare would market MiniMax more.

Shayne

Kymeia · Post by **Kymeia** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 6:36 pm

It's the Metapatch thing I go for the most. Soundwise they seem pretty similar but the metapatch octave is very sensuous and intuitive to play and makes it feel very musical - very innovative tool. I think it's clever how they've made something that at the same time harks back to the birth of the synth and to its future.

Post by **hubird** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 11:19 pm

I was heavily hit to the ground by the impOSCar these days...!

Impressive!

I'm not ready yet for a Minimax-impOSCar comparison, but both for sure are in the same league

suthnear · Post by **suthnear** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 2:35 am

On 2005-02-21 18:14, Shayne White wrote:
The filter keyboard tracking isn't right. When you have both tracking switches on, the original MiniMoog (CW said, anyway) didn't have perfect tuning if you had resonance all the way up.

In his review of the voyager, Gordon Reid complained that, unlike the model d, the voyager's filter doesn't keytrack @ 100% and that, therefore, mini sine patches were impossible:

"If I have to find a fault with the filters, it's in the fact that they do not track the keyboard accurately across its whole width. My 20-something year-old Minimoog does so without hesitation so, in this respect, the Voyager is not its equal."

from http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Jun03/a ... oyager.asp

But remember - these are analogue instruments: it's quite conceivable that creamware's instrument didn't actually track accurately while Gordon's and gforce's does.

I couldn't figure how to get velocity to work. Any tips?

Click on the parameter you want to affect (e.g. cutoff) then go to the midi panel at the top. You will see that it should read VCF cutoff (or something like that) under parameter name. Next, select key velcoity under midi source. Finally, adjust the sensitivity knob and curve setting to taste. You use the XADSR and LFOs in a similar way.

The resonance response was weird. From twelve o'clock on the MiniMonsta was all self-rez. MiniMax' self-rez didn't kick in until later

Read the intro blurb in the manual

I think it's very nice - instant sounds of the 70s but within a 21st century context. The unison sounds terrific, the tons of extra modulation possibilties are very welcome and the melohman concept is killer.

If I didn't already have minimax I would definitely choose minimonsta over it for two reasons:
- all the extra possibilities
- there is no demo available for minimax so I wouldn't be able to compare them and see that minimax actually sounds nicer. I know creamware is worried about piracy but it's insane that they no longer offer demos...

One thing that is clear is that the big gap that used to exist between creamware and native is now gone (or is at very best marginal).

[ This Message was edited by: suthnear on 2005-02-22 02:36 ]

interloper · Post by **interloper** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 1:30 pm

On 2005-02-22 02:35, suthnear wrote:
One thing that is clear is that the big gap that used to exist between creamware and native is now gone (or is at very best marginal).

Exactly. If these reviews are accurate, and it seems like they are, Creamware DSP technology will lose it's appeal to consumers that now have good native options available.

Something needs to happen soon...

decimator · Post by **decimator** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 2:23 pm

I'am totally stunned / puzzled / whatever ... to hear Minimax owners saying that Minimonsta is rather close, because here Minimax still smokes Minimonsta !!!!!
I find the filter nice and not above, the resonance is most annoying : too high and " narrow peak " shape.
I don't find the richness of Minimax, lack of really audible variations when light tweaking, lacking definition.
The best VSTi is still Vaz Modular by far ( a one man's genius work ) : only on this one I agree there's quite a narrow gap between CWA and the native world.

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 3:32 pm

Yep, really narrow gap! If the only important thing for you is a decent Minimoog emulation, that is.

decimator · Post by **decimator** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 4:41 pm

I never owned a vintage so I can't tell what EMU is spot on, lot of " names " endorsed Gmedia's Oddity ... if Minimonsta appears to be quite an accurate Minimoog EMU then massive thanks to CWA for not making accurate EMUs !!!!

Suddenly I feel more privileged !

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 5:11 pm

decimator wrote:

if Minimonsta appears to be quite an accurate Minimoog EMU then massive thanks to CWA for not making accurate EMUs !!!!

In one of the current KvR MiniMonsta threads(Monster Cables has a lot to answer for here - bleedin' Nazis) i bemoaned someone who thought that Pro53 was as good as their Prophet 5 r3.2. If that's the case then my Profit 5 sounds better than a real Prophet 5 'cos Pro53 sounds arse compared to Profit 5.

Mr A

[ This Message was edited by: Mr Arkadin on 2005-02-23 17:13 ]

Man-Machine · Post by **Man-Machine** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 5:54 pm

Yep, I saw that post too. The knowledge and experience of posters on that forum varies greately.

_________________
L8ter Oscill8ters!

[ This Message was edited by: Man-Machine on 2005-02-23 17:54 ]

Man-Machine · Post by **Man-Machine** » Thu Feb 24, 2005 2:49 pm

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=991486

I posted some sounds samples for comparisons if you care...

Joxer the Mighty · Post by **Joxer the Mighty** » Thu Feb 24, 2005 6:45 pm

I've been following the thread over at kvr. Minimax sounds, to my ears anyway, MUCH better than the other two. Definitely more 'alive', and closer in sound to an analog synth. Just goes to show that even though we sometimes hear complaints about CWA dsp being a dinosaur, vst still hasn't caught up.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 5:43 am

well, I'd rather say this targets more at the Roland corner than CWA's

Sounds great, no question - but I also got some nasty sounds which almost certainly were calculation errors. I wouldn't mention it, if it wasn't right in the middle of something really interesting.

On the other hand many things ran extremely smooth - like messing poly directions and driving CPU load into virtual infinity.
It just blocked processing of additional voices even before crackles set in, well done.

In my case it used up to 30% of a P4/2.4 for a single voice, so the Sharcs still perform very good - and imho the Monsta's controls didn't act as smooth as one would like it on an 'analog' emulation. Possibly there'd be even more cycles required...

The demo was really fun (for me), as I used the DX200 factory sequences. Some of the stored contoller changes overlap with the Monsta's automation, very interesting

cheers, Tom

JGR · Post by **JGR** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:24 am

Roland Corner...I dont think so.
Roland just dont have any systms that in any way integrated into modern VST paradigm or at least could be any alternative to VST such as CW SCOPE paradigm. Yes Roland has VariOS but it is very niche product and certainly not mainstream and not integrated in any way into VST paradigm.
In next few years we will see not only 2-way but 4-way and may be 8-way x86/SSE mainstream desktop systems.
Then you could see that one kernel solve nt task, other kernel perform audio editor task, another kernel execute vst-plug-ins and so on... So main problems that native system has now (context switching and cpu underpowering) will gone. This will gain new impulse for native x86/SSE vst-plug-ins development. Of course there are still another major problems for native plug-ns and first of all of course unoptimized code inside nt kernel for realtime task purpose. But may be in near future it also could be solved (read new optimized nt core) altought may be not

It's clearly that competitions for CW Systems from native x86/SSE plug-ins will be raise continuosly.

Conclusions.. It's clearly that for survive as mass desktop audio system supplier with own CW SCOPE paradigm CW system need more and significantly more power than now and also hardware parts must be cheaper than now. Otherwise for CW will left only niche market (read as suplier hardware platform for oem manufactures)

[ This Message was edited by: jgr on 2005-02-25 08:54 ]

R.D. Olivaw · Post by **R.D. Olivaw** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 8:59 am

I own minimax and minimonsta, and to me they are two top notch synths, noone of them being better.
Minimax rules for classic solid/funky bass lines, where monsta rules for everything else. The melohman feature is the best tool EVER for crazy expressivity morphing : morphing between completely different patches via a dedicated keyboard octave is so powerful and user friendly ! And remember almost all the parameters of the monsta can be modulated with a DEDICATED lfo and adsr ! this feature alone makes Max and Monsta two really different beasts.
At kvr they are in the "who's the most accurate simulation?" controversy, which is wasting time because two different minimoogs do never sound the same...
But for sure arturia's modeled mini sounded very bad

To me Max and Monsta are two very good different tools I have in my arsenal.
Native synths and CW are equal quality now (btw oddity is far better than prodyssey).But there is still a big difference between the two worlds : try to play 12 M:M notes in a daw...

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 9:09 am

I don't think CW aim to be a "mainstream" market audio supplier. Most of their cash seems to come in from radio/broadcasting and selling off their dev systems to other companies. I think it's great that audio enthusiast can benefit from their technology.

Can't say I'm too excited about general purpose CPUs handling all audio processing, as that is not what they are optimized for. The only reason they can get anywhere near their current performance is because they have DSP cores embedded within the CPU (that's what MMX/SSE/Altivec is.) Only problem with this architecture is, it's not terribly easy to add more DSPs. CPUs weren't any better at handling graphics, as anyone who remembers the 386 vs Amiga days knows pretty well. It's now the same for audio, as audio demands are getting higher and higher each day. They've moved graphics off the CPU a while ago, which was great, audio is slowly moving that way also, what with all the companies trying to jump on the DSP bandwagon after the CW/UAD/Powercore success.

All this talk about the future is great, but Creamware lets you enjoy dedicated processing right now, while 4-8 multiproc aren't anywhere near as cheap to get the same job done. Also, a tighter NT kernel really doesn't fit within Micro$oft's way of doing things, so I wouldn't hold my breath on that one

.

And anyway, with a CW/DSP based system, you have the option of using both native and DSP processing, so it's really not a matter of one vs the other. Audio will benefit from advancement in *both* fields.

R.D. Olivaw · Post by **R.D. Olivaw** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 9:31 am

They've moved graphics off the CPU a while ago, which was great, audio is slowly moving that way also, what with all the companies trying to jump on the DSP bandwagon after the CW/UAD/Powercore success.

i think audio is getting away from native solution because of economical considerations too : have you ever seen a cracked UAD plug-in?

And anyway, with a CW/DSP based system, you have the option of using both native and DSP processing, so it's really not a matter of one vs the other.

indeed. I do not understand people fighting on forums about "dsp vs native". It's not because you buyed a dsp solution that the native world is away from you now. Such polemics are pointless.

interloper · Post by **interloper** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 3:50 pm

On 2005-02-25 12:15, stardust wrote:

Native means to me easier access and immediate availability on mainstream machines.
DSP means to me independence from OS or sequencer flaws and shortcomings.

To developers, native also means "recurring revenue stream", and that's at the heart of the issue.

We are fortunate to have had Zarg, Wavelength, Spacef, Flexor & Sonic Timeworks (and others) contribute to the platform, but I'll venture out on a limb and say that they would like to earn more money for their designs.

Money = Longevity for a developer. As the sound quality differential decreases, it's going to come down to the cash that they can potentially earn.