# Issues in Cypher 2 and Strobe 2?



## outland (May 15, 2022)

Most recently, I've had major issues (seemingly out of nowhere) with both Strobe 2 and Cypher 2 and exactly the same type of issues as well in both 2D (standard MIDI) and 5D (MPE) modes: dropping notes in both chords and single lines, major crashes (even on factory patches.) This has happened in Studio One 5, Bitwig 4.2.3 and Waveform 12. All three have exhibited the same behavior with Strobe 2 and Cypher 2. And, of course, they haven't been updated in, I think, well over a year (more?) Both are at 2.6.1.7, I believe.

I put in a ticket tonight with ROLI. We'll see how long it takes to an answer back. Previously, I've had mostly good experiences, though at the beginning of MPE's introduction, there did seem to be a fair amount of guesswork involved in their answers. Still, they did stick with the issue until it came clean. Had anyone had similar issues with these synths?


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## Pier (May 16, 2022)

No idea, but please let us know how it goes with Roli.

I've been tempted by Cypher and Equator many times but I had a bad experience with a Roli product before and wouldn't want to spend money on dead products.


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## outland (May 16, 2022)

Pier said:


> No idea, but please let us know how it goes with Roli.
> 
> I've been tempted by Cypher and Equator many times but I had a bad experience with a Roli product before and wouldn't want to spend money on dead products.


Will do. Equator 2 has been great to work with; no issues here at all and it's occasionally updated. It works gorgeously with MPE and sounds rather warm. If I could say that my issues with Cypher 2 and Strobe 2 were totally unique, I might recommend them as well. They both sound great. But, since it's been over a year since the last update, I'm beginning to think that they are considered orphans. 

I do almost wonder (because I have no idea if there was also a change at the firmware level of my Blocks with the recent Dashboard update or if there was a resultant ROLI driver change) because Cypher 2 and Strobe 2 seemed to begin messing up about the time I updated ROLI Dashboard. Another thing that happened about the same time is Studio One 5.5 stopped producing an error where it was trying to revert sounds with a long release time that had glided up or down back to their original starting pitch after the key was released.


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## outland (May 21, 2022)

Pier (and anyone else so interested):

I rec'd a reply to my request re: Cypher 2 and Strobe 2 (both dropping notes and crashing). I'll copy my request and the reply here (and I'll let the reader judge the efficacy of the suggestion.)

First the request:

(BOQ)

Creator Name - Dan Landis
Issue Summary - Missing note (in Strobe 2 as well since the Dashboard update), other inaccuracies

Issue further detail - While using Strobe 2 or Cypher 2 in any MPE-capable DAW (I tested in Studio One 5, Bitwig 4.2, and Waveform 12), many notes are ignored, both in single notes melody lines and in chords (i.e., four note chords turn into two note chords. Interestingly, Equator 2 is fine all the way around.) Also, pads with 20 or more voices (even in factory pads in both Cypher 2 and Strobe 2), often cause crashes in all three DAWs. Reducing the number of voices to 16 or less helps greatly for this, but can limit number of notes available for playing. I've only noticed this since the last update of dashboard. Oddly (and happily!), in Studio One an issue where Studio One attempted to revert to the original pitch of a MPE "glide" with an envelope with a long release segment has disappeared, again, I think since the update. Studio One, however, apparently does not recognize the MPE "lift" dimension. I'm not sure when this problem first occurred or whether it's a Studio One issue, per se, or not. The disregarding of lift does not occur in either Bitwig 4.2 or Waveform 12.

(EOQ)

I've since found out that the ignoring of LIFT in Studio One is not an aberration as such, but the PreSonus development team considers it a separate "feature request" (that they haven't gotten around to yet) though they claim to support MPE as a standard. I guess "4/5 of a standard" is good enough for them. Somehow, this reminds me of how they handled Poly AT in earlier versions.

The reply from ROLI:

(BOQ)

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for getting in touch with ROLI Support.

This sounds like it is related to MIDI channels coming from the Seaboard. Do you have the Seaboard Block in MPE mode, multi-channel or single-channel mode? Please ensure it is in MPE mode. Also bear in mind that MPE uses all 16 MIDI channels, so the maximum polyphony whilst retaining per-note modulations is 16.

Let me know if you had any other questions and I'll be happy to help.

Kind regards,

Joe
Creator Support Technical Lead | Luminary ROLI

(EOQ)

I, in reply, answered his question directly (which I won't quote here), sent them the Cypher 2 and Strobe 2 diagnostic logs (which do not look "correct" to me), some other info, a rating of "average" (I guess I felt charitable) and this last note:

(BOQ)

While it is true that the MPE setup directions contained in the suggestion enclosed need to be ascertained before one can proceed with any meaningful further attempts at remediation, in and of itself, the suggestion is only the first step to clear any obvious missteps by the user out of the way; it isn't a solution to the actual reported issue at all. The fact that other MPE applications are working as expected should immediately remove this suggestion from consideration.

(EOQ)

SO, while the techie did answer my request within four days, the "attempt at remediation" was useless in my case. I am waiting for a further response.

Offered in the spirit of FWIW.


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## outland (May 22, 2022)

Given the tone of my immediately previous post above, I felt that I should reiterate my positive experience with FXPansion and ROLI to this point; they have in every other issue stuck with an problem to its resolution. I do have hopes that such will be the case once again. Cypher 2 and Strobe 2 are both very capable soft synths that I have enjoyed working with. The TransMod system is really useful to me as a wind driver user, so I really hope that both of these somewhat older VSTs can be returned to the land of the (virtually) living.


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## outland (May 22, 2022)

I've got a couple more observations on this issue: 

1) It seems to be situated around the VST plug-in. Both the Cypher 2 and Strobe 2 stand-alone apps do not seem to drop notes (and though neither is thoroughly stable from crashing, they seem better than the VST on this front as well.) 

2) Waveform 12 seems to deal with both Cypher 2 and Strobe 2 better than either Bitwig 4.2.3 or Studio One 5.5. Again, Waveform isn't perfect with them either, but is better dealing with the plug-ins. 

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Thanks, much!


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## el-bo (May 22, 2022)

Don’t remember having any issues with these (Logic on MacOS Mojave). Think the last time I used them was a couple of weeks ago. Will try tomorrow, to see if I can replicate any of your issues


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## outland (May 22, 2022)

el-bo said:


> Don’t remember having any issues with these (Logic on MacOS Mojave). Think the last time I used them was a couple of weeks ago. Will try tomorrow, to see if I can replicate any of your issues


Thanks much! It's been weird having them freak out both at the same time. Anything you find out and can offer will be appreciated.


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