anyone tested the Accelerator yet ?

[Googlyman]

Who has checked out the Radikal Accelerator ?

[syzygywell]

There is a thread over at elektron by a member who seems really pleased. Waiting for demos and the new gear smell to wear off for some users before I possibly get one.

[Simonator]

WTF?

TBH, the timbre sounds decent... but that lifting up the synth gimmick is just plain stupid. Why not just use the mod wheel or a D-beam type sensor?


Still, I feel they have redeemed themselves with the stroke of marketing genius that was hiring Jaws from the 70s James Bond movies as their product demonstrator!!!-

[laikenf]

Yeah, I'm not too sure about the lifting and shaking that thing gimmick either, it's not a maneuver commonly associated with keyboardists; unlike a guitar strapped to your body, playing a keyboard on a stand doesn't really give you a lot of time and space to pick it up and shake it (especially if it's a 2 tier stand), besides, keyboards are not exactly ergonomically design for such things, hence the existence of other expression mediums like pedals, joysticks, mod wheels, d-beams, ribbons, touch pads... This just seem like a really bad idea. Sounds good though.

[Hazmatic]

Originally Posted by Simonator

that lifting up the synth gimmick is just plain stupid.

Originally Posted by laikenf

Yeah, I'm not too sure about the lifting and shaking that thing gimmick either, it's not a maneuver commonly associated with keyboardists

Agreed - very dumb idea for the mere sake of being "different." If using both hands while playing, how the heck are you supposed to lift it up?!

Still, I feel they have redeemed themselves with the stroke of marketing genius that was hiring Jaws from the 70s James Bond movies as their product demonstrator!!

LOL.

[memristor]

Originally Posted by Simonator

WTF?

TBH, the timbre sounds decent... but that lifting up the synth gimmick is just plain stupid. Why not just use the mod wheel or a D-beam type sensor?


Still, I feel they have redeemed themselves with the stroke of marketing genius that was hiring Jaws from the 70s James Bond movies as their product demonstrator!!!-

"they" are pretty much a one-man show and the guy demonstrating it is Schaaf himself who also designed the spectralis, just in case thats not known
Jörg seems to be a fan of noodling pitchbent softporn sountrack leads
The motion gimmick is totally absurd and I have no idea if he's aware of how cheesy that is and if thats just his sense of humor or if he thinks its totally cool, really hard to tell.
possibly both given that he's german.

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by memristor

"they" are pretty much a one-man show and the guy demonstrating it is Schaaf himself

... So... let me get this straight...

You are saying that the actor who played Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me & Moonraker went on to become a synth designer-maker?!

Random.

[memristor]

Originally Posted by Simonator

... So... let me get this straight...

You are saying that the actor who played Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me & Moonraker went on to become a synth designer-maker?!

Random.

Obviously he had minor cosmetic changes, but why not ? He did deserve a second chance

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by memristor

Obviously he had minor cosmetic changes, but why not ?

True; No lumberjack shirts in Moonraker IIRC.

[memristor]

Originally Posted by Simonator

True; No lumberjack shirts in Moonraker IIRC.

lumberjack shirts are part of the branding
as in "I've built this synth with my two hands and an axe"

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by memristor

lumberjack shirts are part of the branding
as in "I've built this synth with my two hands and an axe"

"I've built this Axxe from a ski-lift cable, with my teeth"

[roberts_1]

I don't think so.
Do You remembember MacGyver?

He's now a BETA-Tester:

[syzygywell]

One cool feature I didn't know about until the elektron thread was the fact that the LCD can be set to different colors. I thought that was a very nice touch. Small but cool.

[Rusty_OHara]

I've only really read some thoughts from that Elektron Users topic as well.

I'm (cautiously) waiting to check it out at some point.

Main sticking points for me at the moment is going to be the OS / userability (I never quite clicked with the Spectralis / too much effort, not enough spare time for me, but it sounded lovely) but I of course have no detail on this at the moment, having never touched one yet.

And the price... I'd want one with both voice expansion boards in it so I could use it (fully/8x) multitimbral and with more (32 instead of 8) voices.

Price is looking at $2,499, which I presume is vanilla, so could be up to $3,500 with two voice expansion boards in it... we'll see.

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by Rusty_OHara

userability

Yes- the user's ability is the main limiting factor with most synths ;-)

[Rusty_OHara]

Originally Posted by Simonator

Yes- the user's ability is the main limiting factor with most synths ;-)

Bugger. Thats me stuffed then.

[Psynthman]

Sounds pretty unique, a bit "hard" but it's difficult to judge that without having played one myself. I also agree the lifting/shaking off the synth thing is kind of silly. That's extra money and effort that could have been put towards something a little more useful or interesting. That said, I'm excited to hear what people have to say about it in the coming months.

[bug2342]

Hi everyone,
it´s my first post, but I´ve been lurking for a while.

I have an Accelerator since a couple of days and have spend roughly 10 hours with it by now. In short: I like it, but like every synth it´s not perfect. The price is a bit high if you only use the 8-voice version. I hope the expansions will be out soon. With 32 voices and 8-way multitimbrality it will be a bargain (well, nearly).

Since I was quite frustrated before buying, how little information is out there (besides the quite informative manual) I decided to give a "quick" overview here.

The sound seems quite "big" compared to other VAs. Especially the bass is huge (similar to the Spectralis). Part of this can of course be attributed to the effects section (which is slightly overused in some of the presets).

I think the other contribution is the very low aliasing of the Oscillators. There is no high frequency "Flanging" effect like in many VAs for the full 61 key-range. The next Octave (after tuning up the Oscillator) is still OK, 2 octaves up it gets messy. Overall this is very good, especially considering how flexible the oscillators are (more on that later). If you do a lot of Soloing at very high pitches it might not be the perfect synth, but everywhere else it does a fine job.

First glance through the sounds: The usual VA stuff is very nice. The surprising thing (well I hoped for it) is how well e.g. FM-Pianos work. While it´s not quite up to the standard of my Fs1r (only 3 ops here) it does a reasonable job. Also some of the pluck/whistle stuff you can do with the string filter is fun. When going through the presets you will find a lot of 80´s flair (long reverb/massive use of delay). I recommend spending the time to slightly cut back on the effects. Than you can find some beautiful polysynth sounds in e.g. the sequencer preset section.

Ok, I think I´ll finish this post for now, it´s already quite long.
In the next post I will try to comment on some details of this machine.

p.s.: Sorry, no demos for a while. The machine is not hooked up to the computer at the moment, I don´t have an account on an upload page at the moment and I´m too lazy (and undecided what to demo...). Hope the verbal info helps a bit anyway.

[bug2342]

I hope double posts are not seriously despised in this forum...

Anyway: More Information on my new toy.
What makes it special / what do I like / hate?

First lets run through the modulation options. It might seem like the least interesting point to start on, but it´s essential for this synth.
Basically modulation is done through a modulation matrix where you can modulate (nearly) every parameter of the synthesizer by:

- 6 Envelopes
- 3+1 LFOs
- 3 Sequencer lines

The Envelopes are the ADSR kind with an additional hold phase between A+D. This is a bit less flexible than a multi level multi slope setup. On the other hand it´s a lot faster to program. Overall I prefer ADSR type envelopes. So bonus points here.
What´s missing (always read missing as: would have been nice to have) are retrigger options and maybe a delay.
The envelopes are very fast. If you use reverb, you might want to put the attack to 4 or 5 to avoid clicks.

The LFOs have a continuously variable waveshape. For reasons unknown they are rather slow (I´d guess < 30 Hz?).

The sequencers are real step sequencers (no smoothing or micro envelopes). They can however have separate clock devisions and length for polyrythmic fun.

Overall the modulation section is extremely powerful. Some random examples for stuff it can do are velocity sensitive and envelope controlled FM, envelope control of the waveshape as an alternative to the filter envelope or a transition from negative to positive feedback in the String filter by keyfollow (stumbled on that one in a preset).

Next stop: Oscillators: Very flexible. The waveform and symmetry (of all waveforms) can be modulated. Sync is actually continuous (syncs only when the waveforms are not to far apart). Each oscillators has separate inputs for phasemodulation by OSC 3 + 4.
The phase modulation warrants some discussion. Many purists would probably prefer "real" FM (linear or exponential). I think the choice for "yamaha-style" FM is good. It tends to produce more easily musically usable results.

The filters sound nice. There are 2 filters, each can be lowpass, highpass, bandpass and notch. Each of these modes has 12 and 24 dB mode. Routing is very flexible.At least the 24dB lowpass has a strong reduction of the low frequencies with increasing resonance (very similar to the analog one of the Spectralis). One complaint: There is no filter FM! Probably the guys where paranoid about aliasing. I would still have liked it to be there.

Between the filters you can fade in a string filter. Very nice, one of the more complex implementations of a feedback loop I have seen. Also there is a noise source with it´s own filter.

So, the synth section is quite flexible (not PC3 flexible, but I guess this is to be expected).

On the end of the signal path you have a quite elaborate FX section. It actually exists four times and has Distortion, Chorus, Flanger, Reverb and Delay (and I mixed the order). First impression: The FX sound very nice.
Favorite toy in this section: Every effect has it´s own eq band /filter on the output. Therefore one can e.g. only mix a low passed part of the distortion back into the signal.
I´m not the biggest fan of the scaling of the dry/wet controls. At completely dry (but not bypassed) the delay and reverb can still be a bit too much if you just want a hint of them to be present.Of course you can still bypass the effects individually or cut there frequency range to make them "milder", a bit more fine control on the dry side would still have been nice.

The other stuff: You have a note sequencer that can hold cords and an Arp that can do the same (very flexible).

Splitting and layering works fast.

The note cutoff at a voice steal is a bit fast. It creates slight clicks. Nothing terrible but I still wish I had a voice expansion.

Thats it for now. I like the machine quite a bit. If you don´t want GAS don´t listen to the pads...

Hope you enjoyed my semi-comercial.

[Googlyman]

update? more to comment?

I heard a spectralis and the bass while huge is not punchy at all.

[Googlyman]

?

[NuG3nda]

bug2342 ..>great posts ... very informative looking forward to more in depth + audio demos.. your post shine of someone that knows synthesis and sound, which is what RT is all about..

>Googlyman .. the envelopes are very fast, the analog multitude filter can scream with high reso and the OSC are very flexible, can sync and be very aggressive and both analog filters have liner and exponential FM and can be set up to feed into each-other.... . so I don´t think ´´not punchy´´ is a correct statement it might not do hammering like a future retro XS, but it can defiantly deliver a big punch specially if you program small filter ´attack envelopes´ on steps just before triggering of notes to open the filter quickly; this can do wonders in accenting punchy hitting bass, but you are correct on: the bass its very very very low and takes a bit of energy from the mid range punch, a eq and some outboard is definitely recommended to tame its sonics...

[sammytaters]

can it super saw?

[bug2342]

Since this thread seems to be (more or less) still alive some minor updates and answers.

First of all: Sorry I didn´t record a demo yet. I kind of forgot and life was a bit busy (mostly in a good way) the last months. I started working on something by now but since I first had to battle the interesting interactions between the Accelerator, that loves to merge incoming MIDI to the OUT, and my DAW that does not (or in a strange way) remap MIDI channels I´m already annoyed again. So: No promises, sorry.

Just in case somebody is interested in more demos:
Listening Room | GreatSynthesizers

The site is german and it´s only factory sounds, but a nice demo overall.

The Answers to the few questions:

-Does it SuperSaw?

No.

While the Sample based Synth in the Spectralis does some of the more impressive SuperWhatever sounds there is no "Instant Bigger Sound" (tm) option on the Accelerator. If you are looking for a SuperSaw you might also be disappointed that there is no unison mode.

That being said there are a bunch of redeeming facts:

* The Oscillators do sound big for a digital synth. Also there are three of them +FX +EQ so I never felt the need to use unison mode.

* The oscillators can continuously morph between waveshapes and all waveshapes can be modulated in symmetry. Especially symmetry modulation can sound kind of SuperSawy. Since it does phasemodulation one can also use a very low frequency oscillator and modulate it´s phase at audio rate. Still it´s obliviously not the same.

This is probably also the place where I should mention that this is not a synth for instant EuroDance gratification. I think the Accelerator is probably more at home in a traditional pop/rock/jazz environment. Don´t get me wrong, I think it can add a lot to dance music, It´s just not the fastest box to dial up the big and/or aggressive dance sounds.

- Is it punchy?

Yes.

This is especially obvious when you have some reverb or delay on a sound. You will than realize, that the first couple of settings of the attack time just change the brutality of the click. The modulation path in this synth seems very fast (which makes it even more annoying that the LFO is limited to something like 30 Hz...). The bass is still very big. The EQ let´s you shape the signal however you want.

Other random observations after some time of use:

- It has rather large sweet spots, but feels more at home at the smooth/warm end of the spectrum. Even when you use deep modulations, frequency modulation and any other evil things, most sounds you come up with end up being musical and usable. This is kind of nice most of the time, but can drive you to despair when looking for a "broken" sound. So there is still a reason to have Blofelds, Evolvers and other noise machines living next to this box.

- There is no option to dump sounds (or I am stupid...this is very strange)

- There are a couple of ways to crash this synth:
* unplugging a USB MIDI connection or switching of the computer stops it dead after some time of use.
* Every 100+ boots it does not produce sound.
Both of this is not terrible: Reboot only takes 5 seconds.

The "how does it sound" update Not like the Spectralis! (Not better, not worse, just different)

The Spectralis loves to distort in the analog part. Also it tends to be slightly "clicky". The Accelerator tends to sound very clean. There is no filter FM and no distortion on the filter (well, maybe a bit if you run 3 phase synced oscillators at full amplitude into them, I´m not sure). Filters on both synths tend to strongly reduce the low frequencies at higher resonances. Still, the resonance on the Accelerator is more clean and gain compensated (especially you can´t get the gritty resonance you get with the Spectralis multimode filter if both, LP and BP are active).

The more flexible modulation routing allows for more responsive sounds, however. Probably the Accelerator is the most expressive synth since FM went out of fashion.

Annoyances/Wish list:

- faster LFO´s (not likely to happen)
- start selling the DSP expansions
- allow switching off the In to Out merge (global)
- dumping programs (better: USB accessible file system like the Spectralis)
- Please add a way to move more quickly through the modulation matrix. If not: add least add a possibility to wrap around. Hitting the down button up to 31 times is ....... not making me happy.

Would I buy it again? YES!
(there a very few days I wish i would have grabbed a Kronos instead, the MOD7 Engine looks insane (and I like the E-Pianos (nested () are cool)))

Is it my favourite Synth ever? No.
PC3 grabs this title at the moment.

Would I recommend it to other people? It depends.
If you like 80´s Action Movie Soundtracks get at least 3 of them.
Otherwise: It´s a great medium complexity polysynth.
In my opinion it eats most VAs alive. However, as mentioned previously, if you need some standard modern dance music sounds it´s probably the wrong machine for you.

Overall: Buy it :-)

[peter@greatsynth]

Originally Posted by bug2342

Just in case somebody is interested in more demos:
Listening Room | GreatSynthesizers

The site is german and it´s only factory sounds, but a nice demo overall.

Thank you for the kind words. I am glad you like the demo.

Our mag is bilingual (English/Deutsch). In the bar on the right side you find "EN" for the English version.

Peter

________________________________________
GreatSynthesizers | Great Synthesizers is an online magazin with reviews, pictures, documents and soundfiles of analogue and digital synthesizers & related music gear
Great Synthesizers online magazine - Introduction - YouTube

[miscend]

New footage from NAMM 12

[syzygywell]

@ bug2342

What is it that you like about the kurzweil better if you don't mind expounding a bit. I've had my eye on both for a little while. I already have a kurzweil k2661 and spectralis but am considering letting the spec go to upgrade some other equipment.

[bug2342]

Originally Posted by syzygywell

What is it that you like about the kurzweil better if you don't mind expounding a bit. I've had my eye on both for a little while. I already have a kurzweil k2661 and spectralis but am considering letting the spec go to upgrade some other equipment.

Well, thats a bit of a tricky question, because htey are obviously very different machines. Anyway, I started it so I guess I have to elaborate.

Let me first explain, that I´m mainly doing pop music and occasionally like to play some trumpet or flute part. Some kitsch just fits very well occasionally...

So, when I talk about my favorite synth it should provide some bread and butter sounds, some kitsch and an interesting synth engine. Sometimes it can also be annoying to move all your stuff around. So a box to do it all is very welcome.

An example of what I love about the Kurz: Say you are fooling arround with a song and somehow you think a flute like sound would fit. So you dial up some orchestral flute and try it. However than you realise you might need a bit more grit. So you tune down the flute and use it as an FM modulator, and than do some shaping and filtering. You still get something flute like, but also strange and different. Another example: Recently we where planning a gig with a reduced setup. For some song we needed a brutally distorted drumkit from the Plugiator. The Kurz allowed us to mangle an acoustic kit, till it sounded some evil electronic drum thingy.

For comparison with the older instruments from Kurzweil:
I think the main new feature is that you can layer up to 32 layers now and "chain" one layer into the next. Also some os the DSP blocks got more compact. This allows for example to set up a 3-op FM algorithm in one layer.

The accelerator on the other hand has more instant gratification qualities. Some of the sounds it produces are just utterly beautiful. I really like it, but it is just less universal. Most of the time, when I have both available and I am looking for a straight subtractive synth sound I will get better results with the accelerator. For FM I think it´s a draw. The accelerator is definitely better for punchy attacks, the PC3 can do more complex stuff.

Short remark: I would never encourage somebody to let go of the Speci. I think resale prices are not really great and it is a very nice box. I got a used Speci 1 roughly one year ago and I am very happy with it. The price for a new one is rather high however, so I have to admit that I probably would not buy a new one.
Since I have a Speci owner "on the line": Does linear FM of the 24dB filter work? It seems like this parameter does nothing. The exponential FM works however. Is this one of the "forgotten to implement" things?

[syzygywell]

Originally Posted by bug2342

An example of what I love about the Kurz: Say you are fooling arround with a song and somehow you think a flute like sound would fit. So you dial up some orchestral flute and try it. However than you realise you might need a bit more grit. So you tune down the flute and use it as an FM modulator, and than do some shaping and filtering. You still get something flute like, but also strange and different. Another example: Recently we where planning a gig with a reduced setup. For some song we needed a brutally distorted drumkit from the Plugiator. The Kurz allowed us to mangle an acoustic kit, till it sounded some evil electronic drum thingy.

For comparison with the older instruments from Kurzweil:
I think the main new feature is that you can layer up to 32 layers now and "chain" one layer into the next. Also some os the DSP blocks got more compact. This allows for example to set up a 3-op FM algorithm in one layer.

The accelerator on the other hand has more instant gratification qualities. Some of the sounds it produces are just utterly beautiful. I really like it, but it is just less universal. Most of the time, when I have both available and I am looking for a straight subtractive synth sound I will get better results with the accelerator. For FM I think it´s a draw. The accelerator is definitely better for punchy attacks, the PC3 can do more complex stuff.

Short remark: I would never encourage somebody to let go of the Speci. I think resale prices are not really great and it is a very nice box. I got a used Speci 1 roughly one year ago and I am very happy with it. The price for a new one is rather high however, so I have to admit that I probably would not buy a new one.
Since I have a Speci owner "on the line": Does linear FM of the 24dB filter work? It seems like this parameter does nothing. The exponential FM works however. Is this one of the "forgotten to implement" things?

Thanks for the comparison.. to be honest about the Linear FM I sincerely can't recall I have it out on loan at the moment. Just pop into the forum and ask.

[peter@greatsynth]

Accelerator review with 15min audio demos: Radikal Technologies ACCELERATOR – next gen VA? | GreatSynthesizers

Peter