# The Current State Of Affairs... - Site: Analog Industries - Author: Chris Randall - Date: 2011-10-25 - URL: https://analogindustries.com/2011/10/the-current-state-of-affairs/ A picture may be worth a thousand words, but in this case I'm just gonna have to prattle on for a bit, because we're not ready to show off yet. However, I'm pleased to announce that Kombinat is getting a much-requested refresh in the near future, in the form of Kombinat Dva. This will be a pretty big update to Kombinat, and will constitute a new plug as far as your DAW is concerned. (You know how we do that sort of thing by now.) It is getting several more algorithms of various fuck-up-ed-ness, a feedback control that is quite nifty, and a UI that is in line with Filterstation and Panstation. I have no idea on the timeline for this, but I'm about halfway done with the UI; then I hand it over to Adam for the new algos and to clean up the mess I made, and we're off to the races. In the meantime, Adam is bumping some of the older products to 64-bit. First up will be ADverb, because, well, it starts with A, and everyone knows A is first. We're going to have nothing but refreshes and updates for the next couple months, so make sure you're subscribed to the Audio Damage RSS feed if you're waiting for a particular product. I only usually mail the mailing list if money is involved (that is to say, if it's a major paid update.) Otherwise, all update announcements go in the RSS feed, which you can find [here](http://feeds.feedburner.com/audiodamage). In other news, I'm putting the finishing touches on Location / Procedure / Experiment 2, the follow-up to [this release.](http://micronaut.bandcamp.com/album/location-procedure-experiment) It will include the audio of Experiments 7, 8, and 9, a new Location (which I haven't done yet), and two procedural work-outs from Max/MSP. For the latter, I will also provide the Max patches, both as stand-alone executables and as unlocked patches that you can "remix" with if you're so inclined. And finally, I'm closing in on the finish line for this iOS contract I've been laboring on for nigh on 4 months now. As such, I'm casting about for a new iOS project to take on. If you have an audio-based idea that you think should be realized for one or all of the iOS platforms, I'd love to hear about it. ## Comments (24) **boobs** (2011-10-26): so, are you guys porting all your plug ins to avid's new AAX format? lols. edit: ouch.. someone just kicked me in the nuts over the internet. iOS - i have energy XT which is borderline useful for dicking around in and then exporting midi files for later use in other apps on an actual computer. this is what i use the iphone for when i'm using audio related apps.. stuck on a plane or in a waiting room or whatever.. self: "well.. might as well mess around with some sounds and export them via drop box" or whatever.... the thing energy XT doesn't do is export the drum parts as midi files.. only audio and that's really not that helpful to me. so, i guess what i'm getting at is, for me, the iphone is basically just a doodly scratch pad time filler when i'm stuck somewhere but the nature of things means that the pocket computer always comes up with something that i want to actually use, expand on etc but god knows i don't want to write a song on an iphone.. so long story short.. midi file export in some kind of simple 4 track midi sequencer.. maybe even make it so i can email the exported file to myself.. that way i can get it with no problems and dump it in logic or whatever so i can save my golden chart topping melodic ideas etc. man.. that took forever. i've only just gotten an iphone after replacing 4 year old flip phone so i'm still figuring out it's audio related usefulness in my life. **quantize** (2011-10-26): Great news on the Kombinat update...definitely one of my most used AD products next to dubstation **Chris Randall** (2011-10-26): @boobs: with some of the background MIDI stuff that is going on now, you can use a sequencer (e.g. Genome) with a polytimbral synth and get some interesting shit happening. I will say that you really need an iPad 2 for that sort of thing. The 1 just doesn't have enough horsepower. But that aside, you're essentially asking for a polytimbral synth that has, say, a 4-track MIDI sequencer that can import and export MIDI files? That is, I'm sorry to say, beyond my powers. -CR **boobs** (2011-10-26): @CR - i'm only interested in exporting midi files. the synth could be cheesiest thing ever. bells, strings, bass.. noodle away.. save.. export midi file. energy XT does that part but not for the drum parts.. maybe it's something they'll add in an update. anyway, as said.. the iphone to me is a smart phone that has 'audio games' on it that allow me to sketch things out and use later. i'm not trying to actually compose with it. just capture little things. it's a butterfly net. **bongo_x** (2011-10-26): I'm excited to hear about the Kombinat update. I'm a big fan of distortions, and like Kombinat, but feel like it could use a little more variety in sounds. And I can't read the freakin thing because I'm old. Maybe that's actually the problem. bb **Chris Randall** (2011-10-26): @bongo_x: Well, the "can't read" problem will certainly be solved. As I said, it's getting the Filterstation/Panstation treatment, so giant-sized text all around. The only departure from that general layout is that I kept the three knobs per engine (although they're almost twice as large, and white instead of red) because I felt a big field of 0-100 text entry widgets was (a) not visually interesting in the least, and (b) didn't convey any meaningful information. So in this context, although I've become an avowed knob hater in the past year, I decided that they were necessary. As for sonic variety, this will have a whole slew of new algorithms. On top of that, there is a full path feedback control (with attack and decay driven by an envelope keyed off the input) that takes it in to true Nine Inch Nails melodic distortion territory. Really quite something; if I had known how sonically interesting this effect was, I would have lobbied for its inclusion in the first version. But better late than never! -CR **wgparham** (2011-10-26): I still just want Turbosynth as a VST. I got so much out of that program. From weird textures to single cycle waveforms for my samplers. Also, it's still the most non-musical in a very musical way waveshaper ever. I have it on my old powerpc iMac, but I don't have the DSP card and Power Mac G3 anymore, so no diffuser. A full on emu of Turbosynth would make me shit kittens! -William **inteliko** (2011-10-26): < and > buttons on any sampler device for sampler select instead of menu diving. **VSTJuNkiE** (2011-10-26): Looking forward to the Kombinat update (as well as 64 bit(yay!)) Chris.... **edanderson** (2011-10-26): a really cut down version of turbosynth, either as a plugin or an iPhone app, would be great. just a tool for generating single cycle waveforms and then putting them (or a sample/stream) through a TS style waveshaper would be a good start. no need to re-create the whole environment, just the bits that aren't easily replicable with other tools. also, for iOS, i wonder if there are any interesting ways that audio could be transformed into bitmap "textures" on a 3d model and processed using openGL. the rendered bitmap could be both a visualization and transformed back into the audio output. probably not easy to make something that both looks and sounds interesting... ed **synthetic** (2011-10-26): Looking forward to the Kombinant update. It's probably the AD plug I use the most. **inteliko** (2011-10-27): @ Ed ... If I'm thinking what I think your thinking Alchemy should be doing that soon on iOS, year or two if the lite version for iOS doesnt do it now... A very lite version was released for iOS a few days ago, but that feature is on the VST. I dont own an iPad so I didnt dig into the specs of the one for iPad. **meeglosh** (2011-10-27): Some sort of an iOS glitch machine would be nice...like some middle ground between Axon, Phosphor, Automaton and Replicant. You can call it iFux. **synthetic** (2011-10-27): I have an idea for an app. Should be pretty easy for you. **boobs** (2011-10-27): OT - but a response to CR's AVID tweet. i'm crossing the streams. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHAb85Rpck0 **Chris Randall** (2011-10-27): No more app ideas from synthetic. That's how we got in this pickle in the first place. Regarding the Avid thing, my Schadenfreude Meter is already red-lining. Don't push me. -CR **analogcre8or** (2011-10-27): I'm very excited about the Kombinat announcement, so thanks for that! I've basically had to put the use of the existing version on hold since I moved to working exclusively 64-bit in Logic, but now I am looking forward to an expanded Kombinat world of distorted goodness... Question, if I may, will it read presets from the old version, or will they be included and will they sound the same? I guess reading existing Logic plugin settings is not going to work with the new version? I'm obviously eager to sample all the new stuff this version will bring, but I have some specific Kombinat settings using the existing version that I would love to have come up sounding exactly the same, if possible. **Chris Randall** (2011-10-27): The new version will not read the old version's presets. It has several more parameters. You will, however, be able to clone whatever you've done in the orignal one exactly. It will be, as far as any DAW is concerned, a new and different plug-in. That kind of sucks, but there we are. -CR **analogcre8or** (2011-10-27): Thanks, I think as long as I can tweak it to replicate a sound from the original, if need be, I'm a happy camper, with the 'inconvenient' way to get there bound to help create some new, nasty sounds. Convenience is overrated anyways, and might seriously stifle creativity. **RobC** (2011-10-28): Two things- The talk about Kombinat has made me interested in getting it straight away- but is it (financially) better to wait for the new version? What I'd really like is a cut-down version of Tattoo for my iPod Touch. That would be both fun and useful. Rob. **mad ep** (2011-10-28): I'm with boobs. **studio nebula** (2011-10-28): Re Turbosynth's waveshaper: if there are any Pluggo users in the audience, I built its waveshaper plug-in with the intention of making a direct copy of TS's. I even went to the length of copying the preset shapes as closely as I could. I've always wondered whether anyone noticed. I also put in some randomization stuff, which I had to water down slightly after the 1.0 release because too many people complained that it was blowing them out of their chairs with its unexpectedly loud output. It wouldn't be particularly hard to rebuild that as a standalone plug-in. Doing all of TS as a plug-in would be rather more involved, obviously. I did love its wavetable oscillators with their crude analysis/resynthesis feature, though. Nice program all around. I even bought an Audiomedia II card so that I could run it in (near-) real time. Re Kombinat and existing presets: yeah, it would be difficult to make the old version load presets created by the new version, since we're adding parameters and algorithms and stuff. As CR said, though, it will be possible to reproduce all old settings in the new version. Since they're going to be different plug-ins as far as your host is concerned, you'll be able to load them side by side and copy settings from the old one to the new one, although you'll have to boot up your DAW in 32-bit mode to pull that off. I realize that's crude and tedious. If I can think of a better solution I'll do it, but don't get your hopes up. --Adam **shamann** (2011-10-28): Xfer Records' 8-bit shaper is a lot like the Turbosynth waveshaper, isn't it? http://xferrecords.com/freeware/ Thinking about preset porting, it would be cool to have a host utility that could load a plugin and spit out all parameter values to text, like a patch sheet recipe thing. That I can recall, I don't think any of the various utility hosts around do that sort of thing. Sounds like something Hermann Seib's VSTHost might do, but I can't see that it does. **M7C** (2011-10-30): Re updating your (ever growing) product line, I'll throw in another bump for putting full version info in your "about" pages. So much less confusing down the road, especially when minor updates come out.