Are there any UVI Falcon users here?

[DarkEco]

I need some input on whether you feel your purchase was worthwhile. I'm pretty excited about this software but i find it odd that i've never heard of it! That's like not knowing what Omnisphere is (probably). I'm an Omnisphere user and the main use i've got out of it apart from burning pianos (never actually used it but it's always the one that's mentioned) is the granular engine for SFX design. I never build actual synth patches on it because the UI really just doesn't vibe with me. I'll tweak things on an existing one or mangle things until i get something interesting but it all feels quite under the hood. So i said to myself "Right mate, it's time to get that go-to synth!", and thus began my Plugin Boutique spree...

I tried a number of demos but in the end i felt like i was going to have to buy multiple synths to cover all grounds, and two of the best rated softsynths will cost more than one infinite Falcon. I'm really interested in something modular. It requires a bit more work i suppose but i like experimenting and since i'm gearing towards a career in sound design i need flexibility. I know Zebra2 is very popular for this reason but i feel like Falcon has a lot more going for it since you have infinite everything limited only by CPU and RAM. It makes more sense in my head to spend £150 more on that because you can't really get better than limitless. I also like that the UVI sample libraries can be loaded up in it too, not that i own any though.

So what's the deal with this software? Are people actually using it and supporting it or is it crashing and burning? Can you see 3rd party developers creating UVI instruments in a similar way to Kontakt Instruments? Investing in Komplete is probably the main thing stopping me from buying this thing...

[djpretzel]

I've got it, but I haven't used it much. It's powerful but the interface isn't particularly inspiring... doubtful that UVI will get the same adoption as Kontakt, ever; Kontakt is the de facto standard, and Komplete is an awesome value proposition.

Falcon does SOUND good, but I'd probably consider Spire or Serum as better options for EDM or variant genres. If you're already invested in Komplete, I'd say take the time to learn Reaktor and get into the blocks & user libraries, many of which are awesome. In other words: Falcon seems like a luxury/secondary buy, not something essential, to me.

[DarkEco]

Oh sorry, my last sentence was misleading. I haven't bought Komplete yet, it's just the thought of investing in it was swaying me away from Falcon. I don't make EDM, more electronic rock. I demoed Serum and really liked the GUI and visual feedback but the sound was almost too clinical to my ears. I also wasn't a fan of the presets. While i don't like to rely on them it's handy to have them for inspiration, but it was dominated by aggressive dubstep inspired patches. I'll maybe play around with it a bit more and see how i feel. Thanks for the input, it was helpful!

[djpretzel]

Sure thing; honestly, NOTHING compares to Komplete in terms of value proposition, so if it's Falcon vs. Komplete, that's VERY easy. Komplete is kinda like... a universal starting point.

[timaeus222]

2 hours ago, DarkEco said:

Oh sorry, my last sentence was misleading. I haven't bought Komplete yet, it's just the thought of investing in it was swaying me away from Falcon. I don't make EDM, more electronic rock. I demoed Serum and really liked the GUI and visual feedback but the sound was almost too clinical to my ears. I also wasn't a fan of the presets. While i don't like to rely on them it's handy to have them for inspiration, but it was dominated by aggressive dubstep inspired patches. I'll maybe play around with it a bit more and see how i feel. Thanks for the input, it was helpful!

I agree, Serum's presets are mostly generic; I've always just designed things from scratch on it instead of using its presets. But as a synth purely for sound design purposes... I think it's great for bass. I've almost never tried to forcefully make something that isn't a bass on Serum, though, but that's just because I use Zebra2 so much. In the end, I do find Serum inspiring, but two things are that (i) it takes a while to scroll through wavetables to find what I want to hear for the waveform, and (ii) it really does seem geared towards bass (particularly the sub feature).

[DarkEco]

I just tried out Serum again and it is a lot of fun i must say... but the CPU hit seems ridiculous. I played a major chord and my CPU was at 50% with 16 voices on both oscillators. Play two in a row and i'm maxing out with stuttering and popping. I loaded U-He Hive and applied 16 voices to both oscillators and couldn't get the CPU past 30% even when i was repeatedly playing the chord as fast as i could. I don't understand how anybody can use Serum after seeing this. Maybe it's something to do with Studio One 3, i've heard it's a bit more of a CPU intensive DAW but i have my 8 core activated for multi-processing, so i don't understand why it isn't managing to easily play a single synth patch between that many cores...

Edit: I thought maybe 16 voices on both oscilators was excessive so i tried a reasonable patch. Two osc each with 5 voices, velocity modulating the filter cutoff and an LFO modulating the wavetable position. Still destroying my CPU. I LOVE how intuitive this synth is, it's easily the best synth i've ever come across, but there's no way i can work with it if it's like this.