EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

--- In exs-users@y..., <HELP@M...> wrote:
> > How does it compare to Emagic's ES2? I'm particularly interested 
in
> > features and CPU usage. Obviously the price is WAY better!
> 
> This is apples and oranges. The ES2 is in a class by itself. I 
don't think
> it's fair to compare the two.

They're both synths, right? I think a comparison would be in order, 
and I'd like to start;

I've been using crystal for a few days now, and for a freeware synth, 
I'm amazed. The editing possibilities are really great - we're 
talking about 6 LFOs assignable to just about anything you could 
think of (and a few things you wouldn't have thought off), 3 voices 
featuring 5 different waveforms, FM and resonant lopass filters. Each 
voice has 2 envelopes (filter and amp), and there's also a mod 
envelope, again assignable to whatever you want. All envelopes are 9 
points, syncable to bpm and loopable!! The most amazing thing is the 
routing possibilities; there's a whole page dedicated to mix the 
voices, including a band splitter and 4 delays.

The downside: primarily the sound. It is a lot thinner than what I've 
heard from the ES2. Something like a 25 year old synth compared to a 
modern one. Still you can do a lot of very interesting things with 
it, but for the fat synth sounds be prepared to do quite a bit of 
fxplugins work.
Apart from that, I can't really seem to make the save preset feature 
work correctly - as it is now, the parameters saves with the song, 
but not if I try to save them to a settings file - that could just be 
me not knowing how to do it properly, though.
Also, it has made my LP5W crash a few times, which is of course 
always annoying, yet somehow expectable behaviour for a freeware 
synth.

I haven't tried to play around with ES2 settings, knowing that I 
probably wont buy it anyway, but those of you who have can make the 
comparison for yourselves. I have tried to play some of the ES2 
presets, though. If you're a synth addict, I wouldn't say crystal 
sounds nearly good enough to be a proper substitute for ES2, but it's 
a nice supplement, and I've made some quite good results with it.

regards

monsdrum