[midphase]

#28779

I’m slowly making my way through the videos and there is a great deal of information being presented, so I thought that it might be beneficial to write some first “gut reactions” to LADD before actually using the library.

First of all, I think what the guys have done is incredibly impressive. What Audiobro has managed to create is nothing short of astounding, and it truly showcases the almost limitless potential contained within Kontakt.

Having said that, from a “working composer” point of view, I am sincerely hoping that I will not be required to learn all of the intricacies that are being presented in the videos for my everyday work. LADD right now to me feels incredibly overwhelming and intimidating, and I think Audiobro might consider this as they formulate how to best introduce this product to the public.

I suspect that what we are seeing is a ‘core base’ for a number of future products which will hopefully all leverage these features in different ways (I would love to see something like the sequencer integrated into LASS for runs, trills, ostinatos, and other intricate string motifs that users can pull up at the push of a key).

The other aspect of this programming is the potential for 3rd parties to create add-ons for Audiobro libraries. In the case of LADD, I can imagine a non-Audiobro 3rd party bringing to market a new set of sequences and mixer effect settings in a similar way to which 3rd parties are creating new presets for Spectrasonic Omnisphere.

I look forward to the rest of the videos, even as my head is spinning from all of the information that I have received so far.

Anyone else care to contribute their initial thoughts?

[Andrew K]

#49489

Hey Keys,

Thanks for posting this. This is exactly the kind of feedback we’re looking for.

As beta testers, you don’t get the luxury of a cleanly packed promo and demo. Our demos will include simple load and play examples as well as some compelling “balls-to-the-wall” whiz-bang stuff. Our “expert” tutorials will reside in our private forum because yes… they can be intimidating… and that’s sort of what you are seeing now. :mrgreen:

We are HUGELY aware of analysis-paralysis… and that’s why the patches will come fully loaded ready to play out of the box. No external FX needed… just like everything you heard on the videos was just Kontakt. You’ll see when you get the library.

However, for those who want to customize the patches… they will be able to. :mrgreen: Not unlike RMX… load and play… but if you want to dig deep… you can (believe me!) :twisted:

Our biggest challenge will be to distill this into a simple presentation. I think if I have a camera on my hands, people will say “holy shit”… he can do that while holding 1 finger down and riding a fader??

Anyway.. thanks for your initial feedback. These initial reactions are hugely important.

Thanks Kays!!

Cheers,

Andrew K

[Sebastian K]

#49490

Yes, I think that’s very fair, Kays. You guys are definitely seeing a lot of more of the programming aspects in these videos too, and having a simple and intuitive “getting started” guide is likely critical for a library like this.

In some ways it’s not totally dissimilar to LASS in the sense that there are a lot of programming options, but the basic playing style is actually very simple. As a composer looking to write a cue quickly the main idea is that you have the best orchestral percussion library to play PLUS you have preset sequences to perform and mangle. If you don’t want to get your hands dirty LADD should still be an incredibly malleable cue-writing and percussion playing machine.

From a playback perspective all you really need to know to get started:

1. C1-G1 triggers our built in sequences – loops which lock to your host tempo and can be made up of our RR instruments, pads, sfx, loops, or a combination of all

2. Use the octave below, C0-B0 to load in our existing KeyFX presets on each patch – in realtime. IE – get a sequence going (or play anything on the keyboard) and use those 12keys to create massive changes in the sound of the performance…all while keeping the groove going

3. Everything C2 and above is for playing instruments outside of the 8 sequences we include

That’s the entirety of the real basics for playing this beast, IMO!

Then as a secondary level of control you can consider the available MIDI CCs:

CC1 controls dynamics of the sequences. IE – our sequenced loops have REAL playable dynamics. (Of course, velocity controls the other keys you play as you’d expect for percussive sounds)

CC11 is volume (unsurprisingly)

After that you have more MIDI CCs to control the note-length (CC83) and filter (frequency – 110 and reso – 111). These have the added complication that these options can be enabled/disabled per mixer channel. So I would consider them a bit after beginning level of control.

It’s actually silly-amounts of fun to program as well – but obviously the complexity goes up exponentially.

Will be great to have your thoughts after you get a chance to play with it.

Regards,
Sebastian

[midphase]

#49491

Thank you guys.

I would like to restate to take anything that I say at this stage with a huge grain of salt since it’s all extremely preliminary and some of these “issues” might not be issues at all once we actually begin using the library. My guess (hope) is that it will all seem quite intuitive once I actually get to play with the settings and start clicking on stuff.

Some of the functionality described appears to be either a tad redundant, or not necessarily the type of functions that would appear to be critical for the end user to have access to. For instance, having just watched Sebastian’s video on Loops, I found myself thinking that the Optimization button shouldn’t really be there at all, but should rather be an automatic function that happens behind the scenes. I can’t think of a reason why one wouldn’t always want to have the instrument optimized to its fullest extent.

The same could be said about the Smooth FX switching, why wouldn’t this be desirable at all times?

There are also some shortcuts which don’t seem to be standardized across all the pages. For instance, on the Mixer page, it would appear possible to Save a snapshot to one of the 8 available locations by Option-Clicking onto the desired location, yet this doesn’t appear to be possible on the Tuner page which requires the user to actually access the Save Preset drop down menu in order to save their tuning table.

In some cases, there are functions which I can see that you would like to be able to offer to the end user as a way to customize their experience, yet which might fall in the “too much of a good thing” category. An example of this is in the Key FX Setup Page with the option to change the color of the Key FX keyswitches (or even reverse the selected colors). While this is certainly a very nice customization option to offer to the end-user, in such an option-rich GUI, perhaps not having this choice might simplify the interface a bit. It also doesn’t appear to be an option available to the other key groups which could lead to some confusion.

I am sure there are some valid reasons for this behavior, but at this early stage, it causes some concern toward my ability to keep all of these functions and shortcuts straight in my brain (likely my personal shortcoming, no doubt).

I’ll say it once more, everything that I’m mentioning right now might not be valid once I actually start using LADD, but in the meantime I think I’m going to have some strange dreams tonight.

[midphase]

#49492

P.S.

Sorry…before I go to bed and have weird dreams, I just thought I’d add one more thought that’s been on my mind. I might be alone in this, but I find myself wishing that the Length function would be renamed to Release which from my preliminary understanding, appears to be what is actually being affected. When I think of length, particularly as it applies to sequencing, I think of actual note duration (a quarter, or whole note) and not actual duration of sound release and trail which to my mind seem to be more connected to words like Release or perhaps even Gate.

I’m probably the only one who feels this way, so feel free to ignore this, but I just wanted to post it before I forgot.

[Andrew K]

#49493

@midphase wrote:

P.S.

Sorry…before I go to bed and have weird dreams, I just thought I’d add one more thought that’s been on my mind. I might be alone in this, but I find myself wishing that the Length function would be renamed to Release which from my preliminary understanding, appears to be what is actually being affected. When I think of length, particularly as it applies to sequencing, I think of actual note duration (a quarter, or whole note) and not actual duration of sound release and trail which to my mind seem to be more connected to words like Release or perhaps even Gate.

I’m probably the only one who feels this way, so feel free to ignore this, but I just wanted to post it before I forgot.

Hi Kays,

The problem is that it really is Len… and not Release. Because you could still be holding the note and it would still be cut short. In an ADSR, Release means the duration after you release the notes. What is happening here is that even if you were to hold the note, it would be shortened.

But I do see your point.

Cheers,

Andrew K

[Andrew K]

#49494

@midphase wrote:

Some of the functionality described appears to be either a tad redundant, or not necessarily the type of functions that would appear to be critical for the end user to have access to. For instance, having just watched Sebastian’s video on Loops, I found myself thinking that the Optimization button shouldn’t really be there at all, but should rather be an automatic function that happens behind the scenes. I can’t think of a reason why one wouldn’t always want to have the instrument optimized to its fullest extent.

The same could be said about the Smooth FX switching, why wouldn’t this be desirable at all times?

Sebastian could better answer you with the Optimize functionality, but with regards o the smoothing, there are cases when you’d want it off. One of the things we’ve managed to do is work around Kontakt’s Audio Engine that clicks and pop like a mo-fo when you engage, bypass or switch FX. So we had to find a work-around. The work around involves some tricky time-based smoothing. The longer you make that “smooth”, the more you can here the “smoothing”. You won’t hear clicks, but you’ll hear a longer unclicked transition.

There are cases when you’d want to bypass smooth because the transitions are instantaneous and the slight clicking you hear may be masked by the transients of the percussion. In those cases, you might like the not use smoothing.

@midphase wrote:

There are also some shortcuts which don’t seem to be standardized across all the pages. For instance, on the Mixer page, it would appear possible to Save a snapshot to one of the 8 available locations by Option-Clicking onto the desired location, yet this doesn’t appear to be possible on the Tuner page which requires the user to actually access the Save Preset drop down menu in order to save their tuning table.

Yeah… I actually agree with this and have been planning on instituting the opt-click to save to the Tuner presets. Same with the FIlter presets.

@midphase wrote:

In some cases, there are functions which I can see that you would like to be able to offer to the end user as a way to customize their experience, yet which might fall in the “too much of a good thing” category. An example of this is in the Key FX Setup Page with the option to change the color of the Key FX keyswitches (or even reverse the selected colors). While this is certainly a very nice customization option to offer to the end-user, in such an option-rich GUI, perhaps not having this choice might simplify the interface a bit. It also doesn’t appear to be an option available to the other key groups which could lead to some confusion.

The colors are there to offer users the ability to color-code their own KFX switches. Out of the box, they will all be the same color, but the user might say, I want B0 to always be “Tune Up 1 Octave” and will assign that to a Blue Key so he/she knows. Or maybe all Blue Keys have Tuning going on. All Green have Filter stuff. Who knows. But it’s there if they need it.

Cheers,

Andrew K

[soulofsound]

#49495

I find LADD and the tutorials incredibly easy to understand. Remember how i wrote you when i had difficulty wrapping my head around the ARC? Well not with LADD apparently.

First of all, the most important change i would make : FX snapshot as the first and most prominent column in the Key FX Setup (after the key assignment of course). All the rest there is bonus, but ultimately unimportant with regards to the FX snap. The user has to understand this through the GUI layout, i think, without having to read a manual even.
Then if possible, add four more presets to the mixer page, so you can have as much FX snapshots as there are keyswitches. Frankly i don’t see why you wouldn’t have all presets as twelve, unless it would take up too much space.

Then i think it can create frustration when you’re creating a sound, accidently change keyswitches, go back and find your sound changed. So while it would unify the presets for the different pages, i think you really need to be able to save a complete sound, including every bit of info from every page, into a certain preset and then rest assured the exact same sound will be there when you dial it up. Cause otherwise one would also have to remember if not some preset on say the tuner page was already in use, and now i’ve overwritten it trying to save this new tuning preset, and the other Key FX preset that used this tuning preset i just changed, now also has changed. Quel horreur.
So while i imagine it can be good to have some kind of functionality to overrule some aspect of a certain sound at the Key FX Setup stage, say for fast edits, i think the user shouldn’t have to remember anything else when setting up keyswitches apart from which of the twelve presets are already in use, and really all info should be saveable in one of the twelve presets available.

Can you include midi preset change commands besided the usual lowest octave for changing keyswitches?

Secondly the sequencer page : i think it needs color differences every bar or 4 or 8 beats or something. It’s good when you know you need to move the playhead to beat 33, but having a color-coded layout makes it easier. I’ve been an avid Fruityloops user and there’s this color division of the beats in fours, eights, bars, however you like to call it. Maybe even make this an option where the user can alter the color divisions in 4,8 ,16, 32.
Also on the sequencer page, it seems impossible to get a flat reset where Andrew drew the line. You mentioned it needs a reset button.

I’m amazed at how much functionality there is, and how little i have typed here. Of course working with it, will reveal more still, but i already think it’s an awesome product and it sounds fabulous. The functionality is very straightforward, i think. Not much criticism i can find really. Kudos, guys! I can’t imagine the programming that must have gone into this.

[Andrew K]

#49496

Hi Willem,

Thanks for your initial thoughts and input!

Yeah… I do believe this is less abstract than the LASS ARC in many ways. We learned some lessons… and that is why you’ll see that LADD has no Multis and all the patches are based on 1 Master patch. You learn 1 patch… you know them all!

I sort of see your point with the Mixer in the Key FX script, but let’s wait until everyone has had a chance to play with it.

Cheers,

Andrew K

[Craig Sharmat]

#49497

Really digging it!

On many loops I wish I could slow down tempos to half or 2x them depending on tempo.
Heavyocity incorporated that with a MW slide and it was incredibly useful. I also wish I could just click on the radio buttons on and off per example on length and dynamics etc.

OK a few more things after playing through all the patches.

1. My favorite percussion library though I have not put it into an actual cue but just playing patches it certainly is a few levels beyond anything else.
2. How much fun are those pads.
3. Tubular Bells and glock and probably a few others seem low in volume compared with other patches.
4. Dynamic Rolls on Timps cut off too sharply.
5. On the Timps I wish there was a mic control as it can get boomy (that’s great for somethings).
6. The lack of mic control may in general be a cause of complaints.

If i missed some things because of not seeing it or forgetting it on the vids, sorry but there are a few hrs of vids.

[Sebastian K]

#49498

Thanks for the feedback, Craig!

Couple questions just to clarify your suggestions:

1. Is the tempo control something you want in realtime (IE use a controller to double/halve tempos will playing back)? Is it something that changes instantly or waits for the next cycle?

2. I know what you’re saying about the radio buttons. We had a feeling people would want to click them. The dynamics/length should pretty much be turned on everywhere by default (and if it isn’t we probably missed one). The issue is – of course, that there isn’t a direct 1:1 relationship. You can enable these features per/mix channel – which can be used to pretty interesting effect (especially in the case of Filter).

Good stuff!

[Craig Sharmat]

#49499

Hi Sebastian,

It changes as you move the cc (real time)

also check my edit on the previous page, I added some things.

[Andrew K]

#49500

@Craig Sharmat wrote:

Really digging it!

On many loops I wish I could slow down tempos to half or 2x them depending on tempo.
Heavyocity incorporated that with a MW slide and it was incredibly useful. I also wish I could just click on the radio buttons on and off per example on length and dynamics etc.

OK a few more things after playing through all the patches.

1. My favorite percussion library though I have not put it into an actual cue but just playing patches it certainly is a few levels beyond anything else.
2. How much fun are those pads.
3. Tubular Bells and glock and probably a few others seem low in volume compared with other patches.
4. Dynamic Rolls on Timps cut off too sharply.
5. On the Timps I wish there was a mic control as it can get boomy (that’s great for somethings).
6. The lack of mic control may in general be a cause of complaints.

If i missed some things because of not seeing it or forgetting it on the vids, sorry but there are a few hrs of vids.

Hey Craig,

Thanks for these awesome suggestions/observations… and kind words!

On many loops I wish I could slow down tempos to half or 2x them depending on tempo.

LADD can do that… I created a video and a new thread to answer your 2x and half=time tempo suggestion right here:

viewtopic.php?f=53&t=3545

Let’s continue there for the tempo discussion because that brings up a lot of questions and I think think that thread may get long.

1. My favorite percussion library though I have not put it into an actual cue but just playing patches it certainly is a few levels beyond anything else.
2. How much fun are those pads.

Thanks… yeah… the 1 drawback LADD has is that it can be a LOT of fun… and therefore distract you from work

3. Tubular Bells and glock and probably a few others seem low in volume compared with other patches.
4. Dynamic Rolls on Timps cut off too sharply.
5. On the Timps I wish there was a mic control as it can get boomy (that’s great for somethings).

Thanks… those can all be address!

6. The lack of mic control may in general be a cause of complaints.

There’s a TON of mic control in the mixer…. so maybe I’m not understanding you. Can you elaborate on this on e a little?

Thanks man!!

Cheers,

Andrew K

[Brian Ralston]

#49501

Andrew and Sebastian,

I am going to post my initial thoughts on LADD probably after this weekend as I make my way through things…but I also have my first weird behavior thing going on I wanted to share sooner than that and the best way I can describe what was going on so you all can repeat it on your end was to simply make a video with my iPhone. Is there a place or a way I can post the video here for the benefit of other beta testers as well or should I just send it to you both via email directly? Or maybe a password protected vimeo file? Thoughts?

[Sebastian K]

#49502

@Brian Ralston wrote:

Andrew and Sebastian,

I am going to post my initial thoughts on LADD probably after this weekend as I make my way through things…but I also have my first weird behavior thing going on I wanted to share sooner than that and the best way I can describe what was going on so you all can repeat it on your end was to simply make a video with my iPhone. Is there a place or a way I can post the video here for the benefit of other beta testers as well or should I just send it to you both via email directly? Or maybe a password protected vimeo file? Thoughts?

Hey Brian,

This board has a pretty low attachment max-size, but if you use DropBox, you could simply post a link to a shared movie here.

If you want to embed a Vimeo vid, that should work as well. Just make sure it’s set to be completely private and that it’s only embeddable on audiobro.com. Our Vimeo tag is simply:

“[vimeo]video-number[/vimeo]”

Also happy to post it here if you want to send us the video via email.

Thanks!

[Brian Ralston]

#49503

I will Wetransfer it to you and Andrew’s emails now so I don’t screw up some privacy setting. But perhaps you could post it in its own thread so all can see.

[Andrew K]

#49504

@Brian Ralston wrote:

I will Wetransfer it to you and Andrew’s emails now so I don’t screw up some privacy setting. But perhaps you could post it in its own thread so all can see.

Sure Brian,

If you email Seb or me a link, we can upload it to our private Vimeo account and I’ll post it for you.

Cheers…. AK.

[nick batzdorf]

#49505

Okay, some first reactions from the other day and tonight.

Holy shit – those are big-ass sounds. I played the snares alone for about 15 minutes. Yeah I’m weird.

Sorry in advance if I’m missing things that are explained in the videos.

The wet/dry mastering knob doesn’t do what I’d expect, namely lowering and raising the reverb – which is the first thing I’d want to do. If wet/dry is a ganged control for something else, it should probably have a different name? And I guess one click to go to the mixer and access the stage, verb, and full sliders isn’t excessive…but my first reaction was that I didn’t want to hunt for it. I do like the x1…x8 feature, though.

A couple or few traditional programs that only have lots of single hits on the keyboard would be nice. Hitting the Key FX presets to bring up the yellow and blue keys is okay, but it’s sort of unpredictable. It would be good to have all the drums on one keyboard, maybe all the metals, filtered stuff, etc. A regular percussion module.

[Sebastian K]

#49506

Hey Nick,

Thanks for your notes!

The wet/dry mastering knob doesn’t do what I’d expect, namely lowering and raising the reverb – which is the first thing I’d want to do. If wet/dry is a ganged control for something else, it should probably have a different name?

In this case it’s more like the Wet/Dry knob on a compressor that allows for parallel compression. Basically, it will mix the signal WITH mastering effects applied and the un-processed signal. There are cases when this is really a duplicate of the left-knob function (like, if the left-knob is going from CLEAN to anything). However, if the left “Morph” knob is going between any two EFFECTED sounds the right knob becomes the parallel-processing knob. AFAIK “Wet/Dry” is the usual nomenclature, but it’s a fair point that your expectations of the control were different than the resulting action. Not sure what else we would call it.

A couple or few traditional programs that only have lots of single hits on the keyboard would be nice.

Agreed 100%! We’ll definitely have to include some traditional “kit” patches. Do you prefer that to having separate trad. percussion channelized in a multi?

Regards,
Sebastian

[nick batzdorf]

#49507

Wet/dry nomenclature is a pretty small point, because you only have to learn that it isn’t reverb wet/dry once.

As a Logic user, anything with channels is a minor nuisance. My personal preference is to have as much as possible on the keyboard at once.

[Author]

Posts