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UJAM Usynth DRIVE free

Carlos Iglesias

By Carlos Iglesias
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Carlos Iglesias

Carlos Iglesias

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Under the hood, Usynth is a very complex synthesizer. Each instance consists of 2 individual layers per voice, with Virtual Analog, Wavetable, FM and Multisample Synthesis, Multi-mode Filter, 5-stage envelopes, LFOs, 12-way modulation matrix and much much more. But why would you care!

UJAM

Edited by Carlos Iglesias
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lawajava

lawajava

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What they are trying to offer is a common UI for a range of synth types with just a few knobs - and behind the scenes all kind of knob twisting is happening.

UJAM’s suggestion is that with Usynth you don’t need to learn how to program a synth, you just twist a couple knobs and nice sound options are made available. Easy!  

I’m an early semi-adopter of Usynth. I like many of the sounds and ease of use. On the other hand, typical synths have lots of presets and it can be very fast to have a preset favorite to jump to.

With Usynth there are less presets but convenient options to pleasantly morph a preset into something appealing.  

So I’m somewhat of an adopter but not fully onboard with the concept.

Very appreciative of UJAM overall.

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lawajava

lawajava

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11 minutes ago, abacab said:

Certainly appreciate the UJAM freebie! But I am stumped with how to use this thing.

Maybe it's just me, with 100+ synths, but I'm usually able to unravel a synth's use case in a short time. Still scratching my head here though... ?

Yep, "It's Easy!" but it's not quite so until you start to see their method.  But it is odd.

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lawajava

lawajava

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I don’t know how to qualify good for another’s ears with this one.

Usynth does have a generous free trial period. And Drive, this is a free module, is free to keep. So anyone can try it.

I’ve selected a number of presets and not been impressed. Other presets sound great. Interestingly in some cases the not so interesting presets when I turn some of the simple dials can become quite interesting to the ear.

It’s a different approach. Kind of like if someone handed you a guitar with no strings and suggested you play. Maybe they say it’s a better way, and you might be thinking hm something is missing. But maybe in this analogy there’s extra trickery and playing kind of works. 

Admittedly Usynth is a bit strange for me. But it does contain some pretty cool sounds.

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Starship Krupa

Starship Krupa

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18 hours ago, abacab said:

Certainly appreciate the UJAM freebie! But I am stumped with how to use this thing.

Maybe it's just me, with 100+ synths, but I'm usually able to unravel a synth's use case in a short time. Still scratching my head here though... ?

Really? I got a killer synthwave drone bass out of it in just a couple of minutes.

Do you mean "where does it fit in in the type of music I want to make?" So far it seems more of a good Synthwave machine than the "House Essentials" they describe it as.

As far as user-facing controls, the synth in my collection it most resembles is xPand!2, although I think I saw that you have sworn off AIR's products (that's kinda too bad, because xPand!2 is a real powerhouse of a ROMpler and Hybrid3 is my #1 go-to). It also resembles several Kontakt Factory Selection synths. You have a main sound/sample, then a few controls for tweaking it. Resembles a ROMpler, although I don't know if their waveforms are samples or generated by the synth engine. However the waveforms were/are generated, it sounds pretty damn good.

It doesn't hurt that one of the main effects is UJAM's own Finisher.

I don't think there's a way to start from scratch and build up your own patches, rather it's always start from a factory patch and adjust it to taste.

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Reid Rosefelt

Reid Rosefelt

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There is the basic Core Usynth, but after that they are all targeted to a genre or kind of sound: Drive (House), Deluxe (Soul Keys),  2080 (Future Retro Waves), Euphoria (Electronic Dance), and Caramel (Ambient Pads and Soundscapes). 

The Core is probable the best one to buy, but you don't need to.   Like this freebie Drive, the others all work on their own. 

I think they are meant to work seamlessly with the Beatmakers. 

You can download any of them for free for a month and see if you like them. 

And of course, I think we can count on the BF ujam 50% off sale coming soon.  And there usually is a special ujam deal in each store. 

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simon

simon

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36 minutes ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

And of course, I think we can count on the BF ujam 50% off sale coming soon

Most of the freebies we are seeing recently are just about harvesting email addresses so they can bombard with BF deals.  

(not complaining :) - its always good to get a freebie)

so freebie = sale coming up 

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Reid Rosefelt

Reid Rosefelt

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On 11/10/2022 at 6:30 AM, Carlos Iglesias said:

Under the hood, Usynth is a very complex synthesizer. Each instance consists of 2 individual layers per voice, with Virtual Analog, Wavetable, FM and Multisample Synthesis, Multi-mode Filter, 5-stage envelopes, LFOs, 12-way modulation matrix and much much more. But why would you care!

UJAM

Where does ujam say this?

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abacab

abacab

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4 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

As far as user-facing controls, the synth in my collection it most resembles is xPand!2, although I think I saw that you have sworn off AIR's products (that's kinda too bad, because xPand!2 is a real powerhouse of a ROMpler and Hybrid3 is my #1 go-to).

I was thinking Usynth Drive might be useful for synthwave, but it appears to be a black box as far as content goes. How to locate sounds that might be of interest? I have a large collection of many UJAM products and they are very interesting! I'm not against simplicity, but the UI needs to be less opaque as to what you are getting...

Since you brought it up, I also have Air Xpand and Hybrid and they still have a home. They are solid products. But we were promised UI updates for the Air collection years ago by Simon the Air marketing guy, that never happened. Not likely to spend any more on their new products. Although I did pick up Drumsynth 500 for cheap along the way, and that one is interesting...

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ALC

ALC

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7 hours ago, Leandro Álvarez said:

And again, not apple silicon natively compatible :(

Hard to imagine why a product released this year isn't Apple Silicon Native.

I've been waiting for all of UJAM's products to get updated.

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valhill

valhill

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UJAM is a very "controversial" company:) Interesting stuff and I own a lot of their plugins but not been Apple Silicon Native...they practically killed my main projects, some of them I wasn't able even to open. All plugins are constantly in Demo mode and I have to click on every each of them (I have them on 20 tracks) so I would continue the trial:) What? I bought that stuff. As far as I understand the owners are not very poor guys:) so what the heck? UJAM, When? Christmas present?:) O, and the website is miserable. I clicked on your link, logged in, paste the link again and I had to login again:) it put me in a House loop:)

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