# Applied Acoustics Systems Chormaphone 3



## muziksculp (Oct 27, 2020)

AAS* Chromaphone 3* is available.

https://www.applied-acoustics.com/chromaphone-3/


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## wst3 (Oct 27, 2020)

I think AAS is an under appreciated developer. And especially for Tassman (why did they ditch it?) and Chromaphone. These are really cool synthesizers! Objeq Delay is equally cool. And sometimes Lounge Lizard is just the sound I am looking for (not often, but sometimes).

I have downloaded the Chromaphone 3 demo, but I imagine I will upgrade.


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## jules (Oct 27, 2020)

Hmmm.. they should add a bypass button for the efx and a dark theme, but this one is a big step forward. Time to say goodbye to my good'ol chromaphone 1 !


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## muziksculp (Oct 27, 2020)

I would like to see AAS move forward into the next generation of Physical Modeling Tech.

i.e. I feel their Bowed String Modeling is still primitive, the latest String Modeling Instrument from Propeller Head (Friktion) is a good example of how much more advanced it is compared to the AAS Bowed String modeling Instrument.

imho. Physical Modeling is the most interesting tech. at this time, it just needs to move forward, and get more sophisticated, and refined, be it via AI, or Neural Networks, or other Computer Modeling technologies that can give it a big push forward.


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## lychee (Oct 27, 2020)

I have often had an interested eye on this company, but I was never really taken in by the demos I listened to.
Even though Lounge Lizard is a good plugin of Rhodes, I was mostly disappointed with their Strum GS-2 and String Studio VS-3 instruments which made me agree with @muziksculp's opinion.

But after tasting the excellent Reason Friktion, I regained interest for physical modeling and looked back to the case of AAS.
And finally, everything is not bad in their software and Chromaphone is one of those exceptions.

And this Chromaphone 3 falls just when I was planning to buy it for the percussive part of my set of instruments with physical modeling, because I think it is especially there that it excels.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 27, 2020)

Chromaphone is excellent and unique. 

So is the delay thing they make.

Strum and String Studio are definitely not their strongest, nor unique, things. Though with some of the preset packs they have put out, good sound designers have put String Studio to decent use. The strum thing is a waste of time.


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## jules (Oct 27, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> imho. Physical Modeling is the most interesting tech. at this time, it just needs to move forward, and get more sophisticated, and refined, be it via AI, or Neural Networks, or other Computer Modeling technologies that can give it a big push forward.


Hmm... don't know if they need to move forward or look backward when i hear what yamaha was able to do in the 90s with their VL tech (VL1 and the likes) :





Virtual Acoustic : Demos Yamaha VL VL1 VP1 VL1m VL70m PLG - Technics WSA1 WSA1r - Korg Z1 Prophecy Moss Oasys Wavedrum - Roland VG8


Site abordant la synthèse par modèle physiques, adaptée commercialement à des synthétiseurs comme le Yamaha VL1, VL1m, VL70m, VP1, Korg Z1, Technics WSA1.



virtualacoustic.free.fr




Chromaphone is not very versatile but for gongs/bells/hats/noises-from-outer-space, i just love it (although it can find a strong contender in Air Loom) ! Lounge lizard,also, is pretty good for quirky sounds (besides its obvious main territory).


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## mscp (Oct 27, 2020)

Dewdman42 said:


> Chromaphone is excellent and unique.



Yes! It's amazing what you can do with it.


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## jules (Oct 27, 2020)

Dewdman42 said:


> The strum thing is a waste of time.


With amplitube, the electric edition works pretty fine, imo !


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## Markrs (Oct 27, 2020)




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## lychee (Oct 27, 2020)

Dewdman42 said:


> ...good sound designers have put String Studio to decent use...



Maybe I was too strict with String Studio, you're obviously right, we can actually do decent things with:


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## Neutron Star (Oct 27, 2020)

Despite numerous apparent iterations still so what...... and still so what..................


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## muziksculp (Oct 27, 2020)




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## Neutron Star (Oct 27, 2020)

and........................................................................................................


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## Neutron Star (Oct 27, 2020)

I am going to bail out now on this thread. But my opinion of anything by AAS is mediocre at best. Same algorithms for every product, just repackaged. Just general musical sound crap, leveraged by brought bias. Not an unusual and unique commercial concept. But it is what it is.


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## lychee (Oct 27, 2020)

Neutron Star said:


> I am going to bail out now on this thread. But my opinion of anything by AAS is mediocre at best. Same algorithms for every product, just repackaged. Just general musical sound crap, leveraged by brought bias. Not an unusual and unique commercial concept. But it is what it is.



Your first two interventions were not very useful, but finally you express your point of view.
I could tell you that I don't agree but we are not here to debate everyone's tastes, especially since it is subjective.
But hey, we understand that you don't like AAS products.


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## Neutron Star (Oct 27, 2020)

Neutron Star said:


> Despite numerous apparent iterations still so what...... and still so what..................





lychee said:


> Your first two interventions were not very useful, but finally you express your point of view.
> I could tell you that I don't agree but we are not here to debate everyone's tastes, especially since it is subjective.
> But hey, we understand that you don't like AAS products.



Yes we agree on one thing, it's all absolutely subjective. And yes, I 
think they are s...


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## KarlHeinz (Oct 27, 2020)

Neutron Star said:


> I am going to bail out now on this thread. But my opinion of anything by AAS is mediocre at best. Same algorithms for every product, just repackaged. Just general musical sound crap, leveraged by brought bias. Not an unusual and unique commercial concept. But it is what it is.


I dont agree in this general voting as "crap" but I can follow most of the rest and I think it really comes from the fact that after Chromaphone 1 there has nothing been REALLY new and invented, more or less "uplifting" and even if its done kind of well (Gui, new presets, great browser now in this version) but this company ones was a driving power behind physical modelling with the flagship of Tassman. New 2020 Tassman ? No, abandoned, nothing new to replace, just nice uplifting.... I dont know if there is any of the original devellopers left in this marketing orientated company now but I would really wonder. Its just a little sad even if these uplifted procuts still have their place in the market but definitely not where the future is made....


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## CATDAD (Oct 27, 2020)

Chromaphone is pretty handy. It didn't quite click for me until I realized it kind of hits a few different sweet spots that have different use-cases. And sometimes that is to sound surprisingly real, and other times it's to purposefully sound a little synthetic.

Obviously it's got those bells, mallets, and metals sounds going on and those are very versatile and useful, and can be layered with recorded samples for interest. The drum part is comparatively limited for real-world sounds, but it's a fantastic tool for building your own drum machine samples! It's also useful for people who might need an "almost-real-but-not-quite" aesthetic, like when you want something to sound like a 16-bit video game, or need percussion that mixes well with some synthy stuff. 

I think its real sauce lies in being a novel sound design tool though. I was disappointed that there weren't any new (perhaps experimental) materials added, but the addition of combining 2 materials for a unique timbre for each material, for a total of 4 active materials might end up filling that space just fine!


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## mjsalam (Oct 27, 2020)

I've always liked Chromaphone and upgraded without hesitation. I find working with it feels creative and sonically I really enjoy both the textures and the percussive sounds it is capable of. I'm a bit surprised by some of the disdain towards it to be honest. I would like to see a dark theme though!


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 27, 2020)

I think Chromaphone is unique and excellent. It is true the AAS tends to update the GUI and put workflow enhancements to these product updates more so then fundamental new audio DSP tech. Ok. I see the improvements to Chromaphone3 as being well worth the $39 and I already sprang for it. 

It now has better FX, it has a dual engine to combine or split different models, and it includes easy mapping of parameters to 4 macro controllers to make it more convenient and exploratory to modulate the sound. They overhauled all the Chromaphone2 presets and added nearly 500 new ones for Chromophone3. The preset browser is improved.

Mainly AAS seems to be putting a lot of effort into trying to sell presets now, from top shelf preset creators. I have bought a few of them, and every year they send me a free preset pack around xmas so by now I've amassed a few preset packs and some of them are quite good.

Chromophone fills an interesting niche and I can't think of anything else remotely like it on the market other then some sample libraries..which are.....well....samples..

I do not think AAS excels or even comes close to excelling at modeled traditional instruments. But in terms of taking the idea of using physical modeling to create interesting string-ish or percussion-ish interesting sounds that possess advantages of modeling to tweak and automate...are awesome.


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## KarlHeinz (Oct 27, 2020)

> I have bought a few of them, and every year they send me a free preset pack around xmas so by now I've amassed a few preset packs and some of them are quite good.



Yes, nothing against that company in general, and not to forget the free player that gives yout the chance to tryout EVRY soundset they ever made and is better then lot of payed instruments/synths out there. Maybe one of the best freeware ever made.

And maybe its just the way things go, and of course nothing against making good things a little better, still a little sad that real innovations seems to go on for years now without AAS.


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## muziksculp (Oct 27, 2020)

Dewdman42 said:


> I do not think AAS excels or even comes close to excelling at modeled traditional instruments. But in terms of taking the idea of using physical modeling to create interesting string-ish or percussion-ish interesting sounds that possess advantages of modeling to tweak and automate...are awesome.



Yes, that's their weak point, I think they would be a much more important player in this industry if they could add some new talent, and know how to their team that can elevate their products to the next level. They seem like they have stagnated technology wise.


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## muziksculp (Oct 27, 2020)

I had the chance to play some of the *Chromaphome 3* factory patches today, sounds very good, but is a huge CPU hog as it is, hopefully they will improve its CPU efficiency in an update, as is, it is not very usable. Kind of a bummer. 

Anyone else notice the crazy high CPU usage of Chromaphone 3 ?

I won't bother using Chromaphone 3 until AAS improves its CPU efficiency, back to Chromaphone 2 if I need to use it.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 27, 2020)

On my system I'm getting about 10% higher CPU with the same preset on Chromaphone3 vs v2. Definitely a bit more, but I don't know if it would call it a "hog" per say.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 27, 2020)

ok yea I got to start cracking on some of the new presets. definitely a bit of a cpu hog. Sounds really good though right about the time it starts cracking


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## muziksculp (Oct 27, 2020)

Dewdman42 said:


> On my system I'm getting about 10% higher CPU with the same preset on Chromaphone3 vs v2. Definitely a bit more, but I don't know if it would call it a "hog" per say.



Triad chords played in succession (1/8 or 1/16 th) repeatedly at medium tempo, using Chromaphone 3 patch named 'Restless Alchemist' sucks 50% of my CPU. Now that's not acceptable.

RAM buffer set to 256 samples. 

DAW : Studio One Pro 5.1 (Windows 10) .


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 27, 2020)

Even worse on my system (same preset with 1/8 chord pattern)


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## muziksculp (Oct 27, 2020)

Dewdman42 said:


> Even worse on my system (same preset with 1/8 chord pattern)



Oh boy, that's not good. 

I just emailed AAS Support to inform them about the super high CPU utilization of Chrom. 3, hopefully they can find what's causing this crazy CPU usage, it makes no sense. Chrom. 2 is very efficient CPU wise.


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## Dirtgrain (Oct 27, 2020)

Now, if that is the case for a lot of presets--and generally patches one would make, then it would be a big hindrance. I wouldn't think one preset (or a few) being CPU hogs is necessarily a problem. It would imply that they pushed the synth to the limit on them. There was a Serum preset that I could play somewhat spammy that redlined my previous CPU. Still, several have been noting CPU issues, so maybe there is a design flaw.


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## GNP (Oct 27, 2020)

Yeah, C3 is a damn CPU hog! What the hell. Luckily I didn't get rid of my previous Chromaphones.

I love Chromaphone, it's a great instrument to score to projects that are not necessarily thriller or dark (as with so many library releases lately) - I have a series coming up soon and this stuff is perfect for it.

But now C3 is a CPU hog.....argh.


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## muziksculp (Oct 27, 2020)

I got a reply from AAS Support regarding the high-CPU usage, they recommended lowering the number of voices in the settings to the minimum (4 Voices). 

After I did this, the same patch that used up a little more than 50% CPU, is now down to 37% CPU usage. So, a little improvement, but not enough, I hope they can improve it via an Update soon.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 27, 2020)

not only that but its only using 4 voices!

Some of the patches sound REALLY good though.


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## muziksculp (Oct 27, 2020)

Dewdman42 said:


> not only that but its only using 4 voices!
> 
> Some of the patches sound REALLY good though.



Yes, that's true, only 4 voices 

I replied hoping they can improve CPU efficiency of Chrom. 3 via an update soon. Let's hope they can do it.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 27, 2020)

I actually sent them an email about the same time you did and they responded with the same answer and I responded to them about the same as you. hehe.


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## muziksculp (Oct 27, 2020)

Well, what's good is that they replied very promptly after I emailed them. Which I like. We could have not heard from them until tomorrow.


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## lychee (Oct 29, 2020)

I bought Chromaphone 3 yesterday and wanted to create a sound with it, but something bothers me.
Is there a way to have a neutral base to start a sound or somehow we have to go from an existing patch?


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## muziksculp (Oct 29, 2020)

lychee said:


> I bought Chromaphone 3 yesterday and wanted to create a sound with it, but something bothers me.
> Is there a way to have a neutral base to start a sound or somehow we have to go from an existing patch?



I don't think so. You can just disable one of the engines, and then load a preset of a certain category you want to start with. That's what I'm doing.


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## lychee (Oct 29, 2020)

It's not very practical, especially when you're new to this plugin.
I will have to enter all the parameters to reset them, and then save it as a preset.


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