Artiphon

No Nick that's not the point - I want the choice when I create a preset, that's all. (Actually, I want more choices, but that won't happen, and I understand that. and If I wanted Bass presets that were pentatonic I could do that by modding or by setting it live on the play page.)

Bass presets are diatonic for a good logical reason. Using pentatonic on Leads is done because they want us not to be upset if we play a "bum" note and instead offer us something that is safe and very restrictive. I don't want to ve restricted. Well, I maintain that hitting bum notes and making mistakes is how you learn and understand music, and appreciate the skill and endeavour of creativity.

I saw the promotional video for the Chorda set in what looked like an educational location - the kids there were playing, not learning. They were not being challenged, encouraged to explore and experiment and to learn, as we all do, from our mistakes, and I find that sad, and rather troubling.

I think we're just talking about the same thing in different ways, but a pentatonic scale is only applied if you save it as a Lead preset and then load it on to the Orba. If you save the same preset as a Bass preset, it's diatonic. (And all presets can be played diatonically in the Preset Creator with a diatonic controller such as the Instrument 1.)

@Nick Lowe

I disagree rather about that first point - the Creator always creates a pentatonic preset - to I would have to load the preset then go to the play page to play it diatonically. I want presets that will by default play in the scale I favour.

It's true that the Creator basically makes a synth patch but it embeds it in a format that defines the default scale, the implementation of gestures, and in the case of chords what those chords will be. (Probably some other things as well that I've missed.) Samples use is not defined in the synth patch, so In my view that whole object is therefor the preset, and it's that whole thing I get  when I click on a preset icon.

I agree that Artiphon should not be ashamed of the Preset Creator, it's a good thing. What I take exception to, not just with Artiphon, but other companies as well. It's that the philosophy of the way they are behaving is, to mind, detrimental to creativity whilst claiming to make it all easy.

Having said that, I still like the Orba and welcome the Preset Creator - if I didn't I wouldn't be here - I just think both can be much better and give users a better experience.

It's the Orba app rather than the Preset Creator that determines whether your "presets" (i.e. the sound patches plus the associated mode-specific scales) are diatonic, pentatonic, or double Phrygian hexatonic, but I do agree that onboard diatonic presets would be a nice thing, particularly on Chorda with its actual twelve pads. I confess I'd completely missed the point about the diatonic one in Orba 2 being intended for MIDI control, despite that being what I actually use it for. 

(I don't know how permanent it is, but the name "Artiphon Preset Creator" is really confusing when the actual presets, as opposed to the sound patches, for Artiphon devices are created in the Orba or Chorda app. The Preset Creator is a synth, and shouldn't be ashamed of it, because it's a really nice one that does some very cool things for the price of literal nothing.)

Great video, though – the double-act of Adam's faux cluelessness with Maya's non-techy presentation of deep synth nerdery was a brilliant dynamic, and the joy of just twiddling virtual knobs and feeling what happens came beautifully. Looking forward to more.

A particular point that was lost previously is worth mentioning again, I feel.

Since Windows doesn't support MPE we are left with guess and hope when trying to set gestures in Preset Creator (it was the same in Orbasynth). You simply don't know whether your setting will work as wanted, or even at all, until a preset is deployed - too late.

This was broached briefly in the live presentation, but it was rather messy and drifted to other things leaving it rather incoherent (plus, I guess you were using a Mac computer)-  a better explanation of this could be welcome and valuable.

A couple of other things occur to me:

First markers of the midpoint of the gesture sliders in Preset Creator would be helpful.

Second, it would be useful to be able to make presets diatonic in Preset Creator- the obsession with pentatonic and the aversion to "bum" notes is not healthy. It's a very limited idea of creating music. The Orba and the Chorda will, of course, have their limitations but let's not make it even worse. Don't be scared of users making mistakes and hitting bum notes - they are the pathway to learning and understanding.

Third, wishful thinking I know, but it would be wonderful to be able to edit chords in presets in chord mode. Personally, modding chord presets has been a hugely rewarding avenue to persue for me. OK, it's not simple and easy, but the results are worth the effort, indeed probably the best thing about the Orba 2 for me.

I posted a comment supporting to Nick Lowe about MPE - Artiphon seemed to have waylaid it as a support ticket. So this I just thought I would ensure my agreement with Nick is noted here!

Incidentally, I don't know if this is a bug, but worth reporting anyway: sample mode doesn't work on MacOS Catalina. (You can't toggle the MODE button, though you can toggle between saw and square waves on the waveform icon.) Fine on Ventura.

I'll be representing the UK insomniacs, but haven't had a chance to dig into the sample features as David has, so I promise not to ask any intelligent questions. Presumably it'll be available afterwards as a recording with comments still open?

What I would front-load this with is that sound design for MPE is very different from sound design as historically practised, and that that's the perfect thing to focus on in an extended livestream.

Anyway, break a leg, guys. Really glad this is happening. Orbasynth has long been Artiphon's best-kept secret (partly because the download link is so hard to find for any but the intrepid), but is a little gem that deserves to be much more widely known and played with.

@Evan, your comment is appreciated.

I have been playing around with the Preset Creator some more and I feel the concept of a blank canvass to work from is really important. 

When I load a sample I always have to go through setting to clear remnants of the previous preset loaded on the Orba and some things that I think Creator introduces. Once I can hear the sample clean (as close as I can - I appreciate there will be some change of the sound in the process, as always happens with electronic instruments), then I can make the adjustments to make the best of the sound, whether that is distorting it, or just improving it's more natural character. 

I think it would be wise to aid people with information about what sort of samples are likely to work well and those that won't. Things like dealing with samples that end abruptly might be helpful for many, I think. I have also noticed some incidental sounds in a sample recording can be much more noticeable when used for a preset even though they are barely noticeable when playing the sample in isolation. Some guidelines might save people some avoidable problems.

I would suggest it would be good to cover some ways of handling mixing samples with the osc2 synth sounds (I'm not even sure that does work - I've not managed anything that I felt might be worth deploying, so I haven't tested that possibility.

I will miss the live presentation - in the UK we like to sleep at night!

I have noticed that Preset Creator in Sample Mode adds a pitch bend effect on key press pressure. It's a nice gesture if you want it, but I'm far from convinced it's a good idea as a default. If you're using samples make sure you check the gestures section carefully. This one is in the "press" settings.

 A gentle pressure controlled vibrato wouldn't be so bad, but this seems to me like ensuring you'll be playing out of tune most of the time!

I tried out an idea I had: First I created a preset stripped down as far as I could make it - to avoid any gesture or LFO etc. affecting the sound. Then I loaded that preset on the Orba, then go into the creator and loaded that preset there. Then loaded my sample -  going into sample mode introduced some effects to the sample sound which is want I didn't want, but it was not too heavily affected. From there I could tailor the sound from the sample to what I wanted.

I do think that this should not be the way we have to do it - Artiphon should provide a "blank" preset to enable this and adjust sample mode to give us a clean palette to work from, as it were.

(I did manage to get one decent sounding preset before trying this, but my other attempts before that were just too horrid to want to risk deploying them.)

I remain positive that this feature of the Preset Creator could be really good - but it ain't there yet.

Having spent a little time with it, using samples with the preset creator is straightforward enough in principle - but getting good results is another question - could really do with Artiphon providing some explanations  for best ways of using it otherwise sounds get mangled in the process, and it handles some samples rather poorly which limits it's scope, to my mind.

The graphics on pages 4–6 of the manual are tantalisingly pixellated. I don't think this is intended, though it's one way to get users to figure it out hands-on…

Oh - a new feature. The creator can be fed a sound sample (read the manual) and use that to make a preset - it seems to be tolerant to some degree about the format. Before you get too excited, it treats it like the samples recorded on the Orba 2  are, so you will get a Pinky and Perky effect with human voice sounds (sorry -  a reference for Brits with high age quotients). However, there does seem to be some degree of adjustment to the output sound possible, which gives it some potential for really  interesting presets.

Surprised perhaps that Artiphon haven't been louder about that - it could be a neat feature and worth exploring.