So, full disclosure that I’ve never used PC messages with any synth before and I have zero idea how it works on the Nymphes. The manual does say PC messages are supported, but I have no idea how the banks are configured. Are user presets stores in the first 64 and factory the last 64? Or do they alternate? Does the Nymphes respond to MSB and LSB? Or are banks just sequential?
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Finally I can answer someone and not just ask questions!
I’m not in front of my Hapax right now, but I figured out how to do this.
It’s actually 49 and 49 for the banks.
When you change PCs with the knob, you’re going through one bank, which you can do without changing anything.
Then, push in the PC knob to get to the next screen and change the MSB to 1, which gets you to the other 49 presets.
I’m not sure which bank is user and factory, but I can access all 98 that way.
Hope that helps.
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I believe the second bank are the factory presets, although I also believe you can overwrite them now since v2 of the firmware.
They can be rewritten but not from the Nymphes, only via sysex dump.
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Have you tried this yet?
Orpheus told me I needed to change a number somewhere in a string of code or something, and man, I cannot figure it out. I tried changing that number but still the factory presets remain.
As much as the factory presets represent what the Nymphes can do, they are not very useful to me and my music.
Have you tried this yet?
Yes, sending PC’s from the Hapax to all synths is critical to my workflow. I just re-tested that it works in case the latest update broke something, and can confirm that the Nymphes still receives PC’s from the Hapax
- To select a factory preset on your Nymphes, set Hapax track/pattern MSB to 1, then use PC 1-49 to select the preset
- If you want to select one of your own presets, set MSB to 0 and PC 1-49
If you have not saved a user preset in a spot that corresponds with the Nyphes factory preset, you will hear the factory preset regardless of the MSB setting.
I really hate the preset handling on the Nymphes to be honest.
It is a bit annoying, isn’t it? With the PC messages it works a lot better. I used PC messages all the time during live sets when I gigged with my Pyramid. Just nice to have one less thing to think about.
Although to be honest, the architecture of the Nymphes, and the way it’s set out (preset menu not-withstanding) I hardly ever save presets, and just create the sounds each time, only saving stuff if I want to save something whilst I’m working. Just constantly overwriting those first 7.
Sorry, I should’ve been more specific. I have done what you describe, but wondering if you’ve successfully replaced the factory presets with others.
Even doing everything that Orfeas at Dreadbox described to me in an email, I can’t seem to get it to work.
I think it may involve more detailed coding than I can handle.
I haven’t done it yet because I really don’t care about any static preset and just ignore the wasted 49 slots entirely. I had considered loading an INIT patch into all of factory slots so that it would be easy to just browse to an empty slot when I want to program something new, but it honestly just feels like a waste of effort
I generally just use the user slots for sound design sessions or if I’m actually recording a track or project over a period of time and need to keep things available for iteration. I barely bother with the way things are though, and just end up writing over the first bank or two like you mentioned. Admittedly, this kind of reduces my willingness to put too much effort into my patches because I know there’s a good chance I’ll write over it (on purpose or in error)
I’d probably be happy if the user slots were just init patches so it was easier to tell if it was something I purposely saved for an ongoing project. Dream scenario, they release an editor and librarian, but I have little faith
Synths like that you don’t necessary need patches, though. You can dial in settings that you want pretty easily, and even the mod matrix (for want of a better phrase) is simple to use. That part I think is an amazing design. Props to Dreadbox for having something that can be quite complex be so easily accessible. Especially love that you can map the LFO speed to things like aftertouch, which before I could only do on my Nord Modular (which you do need to save patches with)
I only use them if I need to save stuff whilst I’m working on it. I’ve not taken it out live yet, but probably will at some point, because it sounds great and is so tiny. Will have to go through and save patches then, but it’ll probably feel a bit like homework (as all live sets require!)
I believe that Tim Shoebridge made a PC editor for it, although I’ve not looked much into it, as the reason I have gear is because I like the physicality, otherwise I’d just use VSTs.
Yeah, I hope to one day dive more into creating patches from scratch, but currently am more of a “preset to start and tweak from there” kind of guy. The more I play the Nymphes, the more I love it though. Such a beautiful sounding synth. Same goes for the Typhon! Having not only PC on the Hapax but the 8 assigns is really awesome with both synths.
I don’t disagree, it’s pretty easy to dial in standard patches and thats primarily what I use it for at this point. I just don’t bother if it’s something that I want/need to keep long term (sometimes I’ll walk away from a track for a month or two because I need time to think through something), or has complexity to the modulation that isn’t easy to quickly dial in. I have other polys that are ‘better’ for that kind of thing, and I save the Nymphes for more visceral hands on stuff that can afford to be more loose in terms of programming.
For what it’s worth, I have lots of hardware that doesn’t have any patch saving at all, so it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with the concept of a WYSIWYG synth, I’m just whining because I think that was is there, could be better, if that makes sense. While I’m whining, I’d also like to wish that it accepted LSB as a bank command. My little sticky note that tells me that the patch I randomly assigned to slot E4 during a sound design session is actually 32, keeps falling off my monitors lol
My main problem with the patch saving is that without a crib sheet (which I tried but gave up on in the end as I’m too lazy) is that I kept overwriting patches I had already saved. I suggested to Dreadbox that there should be a preview function when saving patches (to hear what you’re overwriting) and they said it was something they were already considering in a future firmware update, so fingers crossed on that.
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It really is. Top marks to Dreadbox. People say it sounds like a Juno, but think it’s got a proper Prophet vibe to it, too (believe the chips are the same as in the new Prophet 5 synths?)
Through a stereo chorus it is absolutely amazing. Did a couple of short clips through a Boss CE-300 (which incidentally is an unsung hero) and that ridiculously good Korg reverb from the NTS-1
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Yeah, they both use the SSI2130 VCO chips. I think the Nymphes also uses the SSI VCA chips as well. Their Dysmetria also uses the SSI chips and likely the other new kits from them as well.
As for the PC stuff, thanks everyone! I personally prefer to use presets since it saves me a lot of time if I can’t finish something all at one session and I need to power off my synth for whatever reason. I also like going back to favourite patches later on.
I do like a lot of the factory presets, personally, so I’ve never tried to disable them or delete them. I sometimes use them as a starting point and then tweak the patch “to taste”.
I guess I could put the preset letter and number in the track name on the hapax for the nymphes, but not having to fiddle with buttons does shave a small amount of time off. It’s one of those things that isn’t essential but makes the workflow just that much smoother. And I’m very short on time for music usually.
I record into bitwig usually, so I have the notes for the tracks in mixer view enabled and will write any relevant presets in the notes, but again, shaving off time would be helpful.
I opened mine up and the VCOs, Filters and VCAs are all those new SSI chips.
I had a Dysphonia for a little bit (I sold it after making it as it was a bit too limited for me, even though it sounded great) and they used the VCA chips to make the filter (anyone who is nerdy like me can read this pdf about how can make a filter from a VCA - I found it really interesting - https://www.soundsemiconductor.com/downloads/AN701.pdf) but the Nymphes uses the actual SSI filter chips (SSI2144) which I think are clones of the original SSM chips, which were used in the old Prophets and possibly the Korg Polysix and maybe Jupiter 6? Can’t remember exactly.
But anyway, the Nymphes sounds great, it is easy to program (preset management aside) and it’s small and pretty cheap for a 6 voice analog poly.
@Seteef & @DrowninginReverb - put all those sliders to zero and start crafting your own sounds! You’ll honestly get your head around it really quickly and it’s so much fun.
Oh, I do patch from scratch sometimes, haha. It just depends on how much time I have available for sound design and if there is already a patch from either factory presets or one that I have made that is already close to what I want. I believe the last slot on the last bank is an init patch. Well, the last two slots. One is init mono and one is init poly.
Yeah, those SSI chips are really great and hard to beat for the price, space savings, and performance. Unless you want something really specific and different from what it can do, it makes more sense to use the chips than to make a circuit from scratch with components. There are also THAT chips for making compressors, de-essers, etc that will get you some of the best performance and it’s much cheaper than trying to do one of those DIY rack kits with transformers that cost hundreds of dollars. And both SSI and THATcorp have really thorough and easy to understand datasheets.
The nymphes is probably the best bang for your buck polysynth out there right now. The volca keys deserves a mention too, but that’s a completely different synth.
My only wish for the Nymphes is a different reverb algorithm. I just find that it’s a very “plain” sounding reverb. I can barely tell it’s there sometimes unless I turn the size and decay up so high that it starts to feedback a bit. It’s just not my favourite reverb. I much prefer the reverb on the Nyx v2 that I have. But, this is a really small complaint.
I hadn’t thought of this as a solution, but it would legit save a good 85% of my complaints about the synth haha. The remainder is 10% ‘just give me the user bank as INIT’s’ and 5% ‘why no LSB bank selection bro?’
I wish the Nymphes had the PT2399 echo chip that the Dysphonia and Erebus had. The echo and delay on that is fantastic (I’ve got an Ibanez DE7 which has that same chip) and sounds great after the Nymphes. The reverb is nice, but limited. Mostly useful for extending sounds. If there was a modulated delay chip, you could do rudimentary chorus with a bit of modulation, and obviously nice delayed basslines.