Blamsoft and eXode present: eXpanse - Hyperwave Synthesizer

[JiggeryPokery]

Something that might be useful Well, it'll help everyone over 40 who can't remember to take their slippers off when they get into the shower or drive to Sainsbury's...

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[evolve187]

I run a 4 year old first gen I7 and had 15 instances of Expanse playing different patches simultaneously without a hiccup (5/6 cpu useage bars). I could have added more.. but really, thats more sound than I will ever need in one song.

Thanks Blamsoft and eXode!

I call this bs,no offense. Im on second gen i7 and reason chokes with 3 instances of expanse open. 15? That would probably crash windows too.

Seriously. No BS. Maybe it's because I run an external soundcard?I don't know but I really did have 15 copies of it running...I just kept duplicating the device and changing the patch...I was surprised myself...
After doing this test I also realized I had even a 2nd project open in the background too...
Hell, I can do a screenshot of it all...but I'm not here to prove anything to you.

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

[fieldframe]

For the filters, it's true that it was to keep in line with the rest of the synth. But for the wavetables, mods, etc it's not possible because of the shared/paged controls. But perhaps you were only speaking about the filters list in particular. It looked strange having some text centered and the filters left aligned.

Ah indeed I'd not considered the paging - and yes, a mixture of both would look wrong.

I'll have a longer play with the envelopes - need to get to grips and understand them better! I'll give shot mode a try. Cheers!

I see, so it's because the pages are all part of the same scenegraph, and a drop-down in a scenegraph can only have one state at a time.

Still, I think it's in Propellerhead's best interest to work with Blamsoft/eXode on this to get a fix out in the next SDK revision. It just looks a bit poor on the SDK's part to showcase a limitation like this.

[alex]

This is a really nice video by the userAlex CVX that shows an example of how powerful eXpanse can be, utilizing just a single oscillator!

Hi eXode,

thank you for your kind words and for linking my video, eXpanse is a real fun to use and it sounds freaking awesome!

Cheers!

[MannequinRaces]

Please consider adding a black line where there is none! This bugs me because the left hand side is enclosed but the right hand side is just open. I added one in where it is blank.

[alex]

Yesterday I was playing with the LFO section and then I thought it would be handy if we could change the LFO phase by clicking and dragging horizontally on the custom screen display.

[riemac]

Please consider adding a black line where there is none! This bugs me because the left hand side is enclosed but the right hand side is just open. I added one in where it is blank.

yes, this looks better.

[FXbypass]

I run a 4 year old first gen I7 and had 15 instances of Expanse playing different patches simultaneously without a hiccup (5/6 cpu useage bars). I could have added more.. but really, thats more sound than I will ever need in one song.

Thanks Blamsoft and eXode!

I call this bs,no offense. Im on second gen i7 and reason chokes with 3 instances of expanse open. 15? That would probably crash windows too.

Seriously. No BS. Maybe it's because I run an external soundcard?I don't know but I really did have 15 copies of it running...I just kept duplicating the device and changing the patch...I was surprised myself...
After doing this test I also realized I had even a 2nd project open in the background too...
Hell, I can do a screenshot of it all...but I'm not here to prove anything to you.

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

I'd like to know what Buffer Size setting you have (Edit > Preferences > Audio) when you can have 15 instances running?
How many instances you can have depends a lot on the buffer size. My music is mainly unquantized and I play a lot of percussion, so I can not have a buffer size larger than 128 samples, or I will start noticing the latency.

[evolve187]

I run a 4 year old first gen I7 and had 15 instances of Expanse playing different patches simultaneously without a hiccup (5/6 cpu useage bars). I could have added more.. but really, thats more sound than I will ever need in one song.

Thanks Blamsoft and eXode!

I call this bs,no offense. Im on second gen i7 and reason chokes with 3 instances of expanse open. 15? That would probably crash windows too.

Seriously. No BS. Maybe it's because I run an external soundcard?I don't know but I really did have 15 copies of it running...I just kept duplicating the device and changing the patch...I was surprised myself...
After doing this test I also realized I had even a 2nd project open in the background too...
Hell, I can do a screenshot of it all...but I'm not here to prove anything to you.

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

I'd like to know what Buffer Size setting you have (Edit > Preferences > Audio) when you can have 15 instances running?
How many instances you can have depends a lot on the buffer size. My music is mainly unquantized and I play a lot of percussion, so I can not have a buffer size larger than 128 samples, or I will start noticing the latency.

I'm not at home right now to confirm but I believe it is usually set to 256 or 512. I run a line 6 UX2 external sound card that does a lot of the processing which I think helps relieve the load from the CPU.

[JCBendock]

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Just wanted to add my $0.02 on DSP usage

14 instance's of expanse all running different patches plus a bunch more. This is on a 2 year old Asus N550 laptop. Not sure when I'd actually have all 14 synths playing at the same time but I could if I wanted to. In addition I tried multiple sample rates, this didn't seem to make a huge difference. Personally I'm very pleased with the DSP usage vs quality of this synth and don't see it hindering my experience at all. Hope this is helpful.

[FXbypass]

I'm not at home right now to confirm but I believe it is usually set to 256 or 512. I run a line 6 UX2 external sound card that does a lot of the processing which I think helps relieve the load from the CPU.

Ah, OK, thanks. I guess an external sound card does take a bit of the strain. I have Balance and I think it's great.

By the way, I could not resist Expanse... I had my mind set on not buying another synth for a while, but it sounds so damn fine, and is so fun to program. It's an amazing synth.

[raymondh]

I am finding it is not the number of instances that is the issue, it is how Expanse is played. I havent found the pattern yet but I get my computer too slow message sometimes with a single instance of Expanse, when playing 6 note chords with some of the presets with long release tails. Other patches are way more light on the CPU.

[evolve187]

I am finding it is not the number of instances that is the issue, it is how Expanse is played. I havent found the pattern yet but I get my computer too slow message sometimes with a single instance of Expanse, when playing 6 note chords with some of the presets with long release tails. Other patches are way more light on the CPU.

Absolutely...CPU load would definitely vary patch to patch. I think internal effects, number of active oscillators, modulation, polyphony and the quality settings would all have some sort of CPU load cost.

Perhaps someone that knows can comment on how much load each of those things puts on the overall CPU usage? Ie. does it take twice as much power to use 2 oscillators compared to only one? Curious.......

[dana]

I have noticed that patches that use two filters, even if all the audio is routed only to the 1st filter use a lot more cpu than just using one filter, when playing chords.

[Loque]

I have noticed that patches that use two filters, even if all the audio is routed only to the 1st filter use a lot more cpu than just using one filter, when playing chords.

With key-follow enabled on the filter? That means 2 filters per note. Does it always consume CPU or only if key is enabled?

[dana]

I have noticed that patches that use two filters, even if all the audio is routed only to the 1st filter use a lot more cpu than just using one filter, when playing chords.

With key-follow enabled on the filter? That means 2 filters per note. Does it always consume CPU or only if key is enabled?

Its harder to notice i'm on a much faster machine at the moment, I will test later!

I'm only just beginning to see the genius of this device, there is soo much in it i love it, even with one oscillator with no modulation

A little demo of the direct lfo pitch/filter modulation knob: https://allihoopa.com/s/w78uUci4

[X1Lo]

I haven't been this excited about a synth since thor. Thanks for making this guys, it truly is amazing on so many levels!

[riemac]

Yesterday I've tested how many Expanses I can run befor the CPU limit of my i7 is reached.
I've used one oscillator with 7 unison voices and one filter no FX. All three CPU switches on the back are in the middle position. Every Expanse plays only one sound (no chords). I can run 32 instances of Expanse, this is more than I would have expected.

[eXode]

I have noticed that patches that use two filters, even if all the audio is routed only to the 1st filter use a lot more cpu than just using one filter, when playing chords.

With key-follow enabled on the filter? That means 2 filters per note. Does it always consume CPU or only if key is enabled?

Key follow has no relation to 2 filters per note. The two filters have.

[eXode]

I am finding it is not the number of instances that is the issue, it is how Expanse is played. I havent found the pattern yet but I get my computer too slow message sometimes with a single instance of Expanse, when playing 6 note chords with some of the presets with long release tails. Other patches are way more light on the CPU.

There are several parameters that can affect CPU, some examples:

Mods, modulating mods and/or wavetable position in particular.
Long release times (esp when combined with higher polyphony).
Density settings
Both filters enabled
Effects

[raymondh]

I am finding it is not the number of instances that is the issue, it is how Expanse is played. I havent found the pattern yet but I get my computer too slow message sometimes with a single instance of Expanse, when playing 6 note chords with some of the presets with long release tails. Other patches are way more light on the CPU.

There are several parameters that can affect CPU, some examples:

Mods, modulating mods and/or wavetable position in particular.
Long release times (esp when combined with higher polyphony).
Density settings
Both filters enabled
Effects

ok thanks.

The CPU hit though is a small price to pay for the versatility and sound of this synth. The quality of the entries in the song challenge says it all!

[Loque]

I just had a crash on Windows 10 64bit while switching to this patch. I am not sure if i can reproduce it.

[eXode]

I just had a crash on Windows 10 64bit while switching to this patch. I am not sure if i can reproduce it.

Have you updated to the latest version (1.0.1)?

If you have updated and still get the crash, write down the details and e-mail info@blamsoft.com

[Loque]

I just had a crash on Windows 10 64bit while switching to this patch. I am not sure if i can reproduce it.

Have you updated to the latest version (1.0.1)?

If you have updated and still get the crash, write down the details and e-mail info@blamsoft.com

Thanks for the hint, i missed the update. Hopefully i can now work

[AttenuationHz]

I just had a crash on Windows 10 64bit while switching to this patch. I am not sure if i can reproduce it.

Same?? on windows 7 just tried expensive, *cough* I mean expanse today.

Happened when browsing patches (using up down arrows on keyboard) I was on the Ethereal Lead patch happened when I changed to the "Etheric Nylon -AP.repatch" It's version 1.0.1

EthericNylon.repatch Error.JPG (38.96 KiB) Viewed 1879 times