Of all the things I could have predicted to be triggering my GAS in 2024, this would have not been my guess, but here we are.
My it does look a lot of fun, I think I’d only ever use it standalone, for pure chiptune stuff, I’ve never had any joy getting FM sounds to work in my regular music, you have to embrace the cheese and go full chiptune IMO
Are these available anywhere in UK / EUR yet?
Wow, thank you very much for the review!! I hope mine arrive soon!!
Great rundown from Chris Lody, including the legacy mode.
I find it amusing for some reason that this extremely cheap device, with such rudimentary sample features and microscopic sample time, can actually sample from audio & line-in
OK maybe not. I picked up some kind of sick from my kid. Didn’t even touch it yesterday. Just sleeping. I’ll get to it eventually.
Oi, that Legacy mode sounds 100x better on that bass (whereby “better” I mean “more like the 2612” — so maybe I mean worse?) They really ought to have done at least one video where all the demos were played in Legacy.
While model:samples still cannot hahahaha
Not my song. This is from Chris Lody’s channel.
I’ll be keeping legacy mode switched on forever unless I really want a clean tone from it for some reason, but the Opsix has that covered in spades.
I tried playing laying down to little effect but it was fun while I could focus.
I can’t get enough bit crusher. I had a pitch sweeping tone plus the Toejam & Earl kit going through it and it’s just so aliased and crunchy.
All this fever time has given me plenty of moments for reflection though. It really does what it says on the box. It’s like the Megadrive’s sound chip is there in your hand stuck in a little keyboard/sequencer container.
This is something I kept thinking to emulate between the Syntakt and Opsix for a long time but always got distracted. I imagined setting up patches restricted to the same capabilities of the Megadrive sans PSG.
Now here it is. Battery powered. Plus sampling.
Yeah I currently have the lofi-12 but The more I hear about this one the more I am thinking about getting it. I have always been a huge fan of Yuzo Koshiro work on the Megadrive OSTs and that + sampling seems like the perfect chiptune groovebox, all under 300 euros… it is wild.
Sonicware is doing better and better, I cannot wait to see what they reveal next, maybe a XFM XT? Finally something to counter the digitone easy of FM sound design on a groovebox?
And it’s here, with a great jam at the end:
Part 2 of Chris Lody’s tutorials is up!
I really want an XFM XT. I think with the investment in the case they are invested in that platform.
Chris does really great work on the Livens.
No better review format (for people to form their view) than a really well-done tutorial.
One thing I don’t like about Livens is the overlays, I think a web midi editor would be better.
Honestly, I would tend to agree when its linked to vital options that you’d change a lot, but Im fine with having fm edit with an overlay.
Though I do agree that some apps would be better, for the lofi-12 a app to xfer sample, for the xfm, an app to make fm patches.
There is a 3rd party editor for XFM here.
that’s dope, but imo sonicware should invest into some people working on the software side of their products, they would greatly benefit from it.
This is the one Ive been waiting for. Will watch later.
Though from what Ive seen so far, it’s not the groovebox for me.
Edit: meh. Yeah no longer interested in this.
If all the parameters of the FM synth are addressable via CC or NRPM, then a web editor would be pretty easy to create (I’m not guessing, I have built these in the past)
I’ll take a look at the manual
EDIT: Looked at the manual, unless there’s lots of hidden undocumented parameters, there no chance of a web editor for the synth part 