Should I buy second hand Evolver desktop (missing rubber buttons)

megamarkd

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Re: Should I buy second hand Evolver desktop (missing rubber buttons)
« Reply #40 on: November 09, 2017, 01:28:16 AM »
My mistake, I should have said "each patch can have it's own transposition*"....

Razmo

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Re: Should I buy second hand Evolver desktop (missing rubber buttons)
« Reply #41 on: November 09, 2017, 04:35:01 AM »
The Evolver is more than capable of the things you mention... it's really good at drones and bell like synth sounds, but you should be prepared to NOT judge it by the factory presets... most factory presets these days are not geared towards Ambient at all, they are focused at the Dance market... EDM to be more precise... this is why I also opted for both P12 and REV2 to be able to overwrite their presets in the factory banks.

I'm afraid that if you want Ambient type of sounds, you are going to find yourself a good editor for it, and start going in deep yourself, because that is the only way you'll get the sounds you want... you may be able to suck up all free presets out there on the net, and start sorting in them, and end up with some good ones that are useable, but you will definitely have to do your own too.

The Desktop Evolver has a lot of presets tailored to the sequencer, with weird and very distorted (unusable for me) presets in it... also a lot of aggressive playable presets... but hardly that many with calm, soothing Ambient playability.

Start creating your own, and you'll see what a great synth architecture it really has... when I get more presets done, I'll eventually post them in here... but right now I'm occupied with the REV2 which should arrive within a few days.
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Gerry Havinga

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Re: Should I buy second hand Evolver desktop (missing rubber buttons)
« Reply #42 on: November 09, 2017, 01:32:58 PM »
The Evolver is more than capable of the things you mention... it's really good at drones and bell like synth sounds, but you should be prepared to NOT judge it by the factory presets... most factory presets these days are not geared towards Ambient at all, they are focused at the Dance market... EDM to be more precise... this is why I also opted for both P12 and REV2 to be able to overwrite their presets in the factory banks.

I'm afraid that if you want Ambient type of sounds, you are going to find yourself a good editor for it, and start going in deep yourself, because that is the only way you'll get the sounds you want... you may be able to suck up all free presets out there on the net, and start sorting in them, and end up with some good ones that are useable, but you will definitely have to do your own too.

The Desktop Evolver has a lot of presets tailored to the sequencer, with weird and very distorted (unusable for me) presets in it... also a lot of aggressive playable presets... but hardly that many with calm, soothing Ambient playability.

Start creating your own, and you'll see what a great synth architecture it really has... when I get more presets done, I'll eventually post them in here... but right now I'm occupied with the REV2 which should arrive within a few days.
Thanks Razmo. The one I bought a few days ago didn't even have the factory presets as far as I can tell. Practically all the tracks I have written so far I use my own patches, which is part of the fun. But it is great to learn from the masters that have gone before  :)

The Soundtower editor and VST plugin do work reasonably well. This will help me to dive in deeper. Because of the quality of the Rev2 (build, architecture and sound) I have become a lot more interested in what Dave has created. 

I made backup copies of all the sounds in the Evolver already and will load some more patch banks I have downloaded and bought. Hopefully in a week or so the other knobs and ROM version 3 will arrive. Then I will start to properly introduce it in my workflow.
DAW-less and going down the Eurorack rabbit hole.

dslsynth

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Re: Should I buy second hand Evolver desktop (missing rubber buttons)
« Reply #43 on: November 09, 2017, 01:41:26 PM »
I made backup copies of all the sounds in the Evolver already and will load some more patch banks I have downloaded and bought.

I can recommend taking a look at the MEK presets as some of them are very good:
http://www.davesmithinstruments.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Evolver_Keybd_Programs+ReadMe.zip

When I got MIDI connection working the first thing I did was to load these presets.
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Gerry Havinga

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Re: Should I buy second hand Evolver desktop (missing rubber buttons)
« Reply #44 on: November 09, 2017, 01:53:47 PM »
My mistake, I should have said "each patch can have it's own transposition*"....
No worries, although the Evolver is my first mono-synth I totally understand. Anyway, the patches I got from the previous owner are not the factory patches. I already made a backup using the Soundtower editor.
DAW-less and going down the Eurorack rabbit hole.

Gerry Havinga

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Re: Should I buy second hand Evolver desktop (missing rubber buttons)
« Reply #45 on: November 09, 2017, 01:57:01 PM »
I made backup copies of all the sounds in the Evolver already and will load some more patch banks I have downloaded and bought.

I can recommend taking a look at the MEK presets as some of them are very good:
http://www.davesmithinstruments.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Evolver_Keybd_Programs+ReadMe.zip

When I got MIDI connection working the first thing I did was to load these presets.
Nice, thank you dslsynth. I have downloaded the file and will import them this weekend.
DAW-less and going down the Eurorack rabbit hole.

Re: Should I buy second hand Evolver desktop (missing rubber buttons)
« Reply #46 on: November 09, 2017, 02:31:23 PM »
I've had my Evolver for maybe a year now - I wasn't even aware of the Evolver at all until I joined this forum, and reading so many folks raving about it obviously did the trick. Anyway, the funny thing for me is that after having it a while, I explore it less than ever, yet I use it all the time. I've settled into a basic mode of spinning the dial when I need a sound. I find something I like and tweak and twiddle it into new shape, or I find a program I don't much care for and, well, tweak and twiddle it into new shape. I guess my point is that even with the most caveman mindset I can muster, the Evolver is always a go-to synth. It helps that it's directly in front of me all the time, but really- I've got three other wonderful mono synths at hand, yet the Evolver gets first dibs. When I DO spend time digging deeper, I always have a blast. I'm no menu-diver, but I have zero issue with not-exactly-immediately-immediate front panel. I know my way around it enough to get the sounds I wish for. I think others here have spoken to a few of the mysteries, the "Why isn't it doing this/that/anything?" moments that will pop up in these early days, but I know you've already been made aware that it's a quite figure-outable creature, the Evolver. I love mine and I'm sure others on this forum are excited for you, hoping you get the same enjoyment that we do. Welcome to the cult!

Gerry Havinga

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Re: Should I buy second hand Evolver desktop (missing rubber buttons)
« Reply #47 on: November 11, 2017, 07:17:58 AM »
Awesome! I went through the first part of Anu Kirk's guide, got to the FM part, which brought back memories  :). One of the issues causing the "out-of-tune symptom" came from a small bug in the Soundtower Evolver VST plugin edition. For some reason it always resets the global fine tuning to -50 as soon as I close the menu. I see if I can address this with some automation from Bitwig.

External MIDI note triggering and tuning are the only issues I came across, but I figured out how this works now.

Playing a mono synth, together with the Rev2 and using some interesting glide settings on the Evolver oscillators creates a whole new evolving soundscape. I can really "grok" now how Sacred is building layers of sound patches spread over the stereo field. Very nice indeed, no regrets at all  ;)
DAW-less and going down the Eurorack rabbit hole.

Gerry Havinga

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Re: Should I buy second hand Evolver desktop (missing rubber buttons)
« Reply #48 on: November 14, 2017, 08:47:16 AM »
Totally convinced I made the right decision buying the second hand Evolver desktop. Last night I wrote my first track with only DSI synths: Rev2 + Evolver, except for the sampled percussion (on the S5000). The Evolver dropped straight into my workflow, using the Soundtower editor and I managed to create a great sounding patch, that really works with two layers of the Rev2, in only a few minutes.
DAW-less and going down the Eurorack rabbit hole.