Radias' Strengths and Weaknesses? From an audio perspective

[Stephen Wiley]

I know we are all proud owners, and probably believe the gear is great at everything. But let's be honest here, there are other instruments that are better than the Radias at some things. I've only had one for a few weeks, so take my opinions with a grain of salt, but here they are. (Let's try to stick to actual audio for the most part, not the technical aspects although mentioning them will be neccesary sometimes) *I'm going to start another thread that talks about the actual technical aspects such as Envelopes, virtual patches, routing, modulation, etc* The goal of this thread is to give your opinion on what the Radias is good at and what it may not be so good at.

Bass - I have been very surprised at the types of bass I can get out of this. I was not expecting much with just 2 OSC's (I heavily prefer single timbre) but I honestly have not ever heard bass this strong. and I mean EVER. Not Trilogy, not Minimonsta, not Waldorf's pulse, not the Voyager. Absolutely shocked at how well this thing does bass, in particular square bass.

Drum patches - They are OK. They are just basic bread and butter drum shots which can easily be had with free soft synths.

Arp - It's ok. I wish it had some more options, but the step sequencer opens things up somewhat. Still would like to see more with the actual arp itself.

Strings / Pads - When I create pads in particular, I always use 3 octaves and adjust velocity accordingly. I've found that 24 voices may not be quite enough sometimes, but I can usually create some fairly lush stuff, however DiscoveryPro (64 voice soft synth with 2x oversampling that is nearly an exact replica of the NL2x) is audibly better at more complex pad sounds, as is Spectrasonics atmosphere.

Leads - I honestly have not programmed many yet, so I'm hesitant to comment, however I have been happy with what I've been able to make. Not blown away, but happen.

White Noise - I know talking about this alone seems strange, but the Radias has the cleanest white noise I have ever heard. I typically hate white noise, but it's as pleasant as can be on the Radias. I've already created tons of beautiful white noise sweeps.

FX - Because of the versatility of the Radias, some neat FX can be made, but there are so many sample CD's out there along with FM8 that are just as good if not better, however the Radias is great at it. It seems creating FX sounds have reached their apex for the most part.

Built-in FX - They are nice to use for the fact that there is no CPU usage, however I have found myself using Nomad Factory Blue Tubes and BlueVerb usually.

Vocoder - It's great. Very creative and very versatile and very easy to use and great sounds from it. I've never really cared much for vocoders, but I've been able to get some high quality sounds out of the Radias with zero FX processing which is pretty damn good.

Keyboard - I have not used the presets or created any patches yet to give a fair evaluation here, although from the little bit of PCM I have played with I have been fairly impressed.

Guitar/Pluck/Acoustic - Have not used this one single bit, in fact I do not know how to make guitar, pluck, and acoustic sounds.



OK - So that's the audio aspect of it with just a bit of technical aspects in there to give a clear picture. Look forward to hearing the opinions of other on this!!!! I know we have a tips and tricks thread, but feel free to post any here related to the categories above. I'm sure I am not the only one who can't make specific sounds (for me its guitars/plucks/acoustic)