ReBirth

[Justin Case]

> Ouch.
>
> But more to the point... how do you think Rebirth could be better? What's
> wrong with it (other than the sterile-sounding filters and worthless
> distortion?) Would a more versatile synth architecture help? More voices? A
> Moog logo? :')
>
> Your opinion _is_ valued!

Hmmm okay.. this is in two chapters.

One, what's wrong with it. the filters are ridiculous. The resonnance just
doesn't cut it. I can't put my finger on what exactly is wrong with it. But it
just isn't the same. Maybe they made it 4poles or something. I wouldn't know
and yuo can't really go sneak into the machine since its a software. The tuning
is -12/+12 as opposed to the TB being -8/+8. Not that this really affects
anything... but still, if you wanna do an emulator, do it right eh? The cutoff,
being digital, doesn't allow for smooth sweeping in the filter. The filter
sounds *almost* like the original at low cutoff and high res.... turning the
cutoff up is very disappointing tho, it has a 'digital crispiness' instead of
an 'analog wetness'. The TB is a monster for organic sounds, Rebirth on the
other hand can't seem to get that 'organic' thing right. The sequencers only
allows for two time notation, On and Off.... As oposed to the 303 having 1/4,
1/4+, 2 and Off(silence) (there's an obscure tripplet features on the 303 that
no one ever understood how to use.. I have tried every button combination to no
avail....). The Accent is about the only thing they managed to get right I
think. It is *almost* like the original. As for the drums, well.. sample
plaback and analog synthesis can't be compared. The 808 is the best of the two
machines, the emulation sounds pretty close to the original for hihats,
cowbell, cymbal and rimshot. All of the other sounds are off the mark by a
lightyear. Especially the kick. The 909 is not really 909ish. If you take the
hihats and cymbals away (which were sample on the original 909 too) you're left
with a pretty lame machine with no punch whatsoever. The nice thing about a 909
is that you can get about 12873 different kicks out of it.. With rebirth? 5
samples with envellopes... pretty far from being the same. The distortion was
better in Rebirth 1.0... The managed to rip all the funk out of it in 2.0 with
their "Color" knobs which just adds useless noise and digital oversampling. The
compressor is just a joke.. and ot a very funny one at that. Most 'real'
compressor are composed of an Expander/Gate, Ratio, Threshold, Attack, Relese,
Output gain and Dynamic Enhancer. Rebirth? hmff Threshold and Ratio... the PCF
is a nice addtition although being able to route it only to 1 section is pretty
boring. It has the same weak digital filters as those un303ish machines they've
created. But At least there's a resonnant BPF and there's some sort of pretty
limited (2 stage) EG. The delay is pretty disappointing since its a mono delay.

Two, what's missing. A 'sampler'. not like a real one.. but a small 16 steps
sequencer with piano notes in which you load miscellanous wav files of your
choice (rebirth purist will say that you can already do that... but.. its thru
the MODPACKER..wherein you can change every sample of the program and then
recompile it into a MOD for rebirth....takes AGES to do and gets pretty
frustrating to plan in advance all the sample you THINK that you MAY use..)..
A mixing-console type of addition would be nice instead of just a volume knob
on each machine for mixing. That way we could get EQs on each channel, put FXs
on channels...etc etc...being able to route seperate drum sounds on different
channels of the 'console' would allow us to put FX on only some sounds and keep
others clean. Its a bitch in RB to keep all tht 909 clean just because you
don't want the kick to echo away endlessly...And having Chorus (can sombody
tell them... that doing chorus is not any harder than making a delay?!),
Flanger (same thing), USEABLE distortion, overdrive and maybe even a pitch
shifter, all routable thru a software console would make RB finnaly something
more than a Toy. And since it doesn't sound like a 303 anyways, they should
include more waveshapes including maybe even selectable misc wav files....And
dammit!@#@! THEY SHOULD MAKE IT MIDI USEABLE!... Well, it *is* already... but
as I said in a previous message, the syncro is pretty much a joke.. Hooking it
to my 707 set on 125 bpm... RB keeps sweeping randomly between 115 and
135....pretty awful...

Whoa... that was my hopes and dreams for rebirth. If they someday get all that
done. I may think of using for something else than just saving 303 patterns...

Jimmy