NUSofting DaHornet: NOT THE HORNETS! NOT THE HORNETS! AHHHH! THEY'RE IN MY EYES!
Can a NUSofting DaHornet software synth come close to the sound of the original EDP Wasp? That's what Bill Holland aims to find out in this demo while wearing a beard made of bees (off-screen).
According to Bill, it's not too far off, but watch this video and listen for yourself. There's been some buzz about this virtual synthesizer, but maybe that's just due to the bee fever sweeping the Gearwire office.
BILL HOLLAND: Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. My name is Bill Holland and we are looking at daHornet from NUSofting. This is a new version of daHornet just released. You can find this on dashsignature.com. This is a free synthesizer meant to emulate the famous Wasp synthesizer.
Now, we took a look at the earlier version of it. There are a lot of improvements that have been made here. If I play back my loop real quick, you’ll see the sound is quite good if compared to the original. Here you have the same interface that you have on a Wasp but one advantage you have is as a time save and space saver, you can get rid of the keys and still tweak your filters.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
So, let’s take a look here real quick. On top, we have our voices. This is the amount of polyphony. I can take it down to two...
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...or take it all the way up to 16.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
I can also change up my VCA level here...
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...and filter.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
Now, that’s the velocity filter. My regular filter is down here. Before I get to that, let’s go over to the keyboard control. I have my master pitch bend...,
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...my glide control...,
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...and two different oscillator controls...,
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...take the octaves up and down...,
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...control the width...,
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...and change the waveform.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
Here you’ll see this oscillator is turned off but I can have a saw or square wave.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
Notice here I can also control the volume of each oscillator.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
Notice right now that I’m actually still hearing a noise. This is the noise signal right here. I can turn that down and get rid of that...
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...and control the octaves of this oscillator.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
I can also detune right here...
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...and also change the waveform of this one.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
The control oscillator is similar to an LFO. If I move the frequency and pitch controls, you’ll see what happens.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
You also have again noise control...
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...to control the shape of the noise...
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...and a macro control here allows me to control it over in the filter window.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
Now here in the filter window, I have my frequency, cutoff, and filter Q.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
I can switch up low pass, band pass, and high pass.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
And I can go to my envelope generator, change attack, decay, sustain and release.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
And I can go to my envelope generator and change attack, decay, and sustain.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
And then I also have control envelope for the actual waveform.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
Now on your right side, you’ll see we have the master output volume right here...
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
...which in itself is pretty straightforward.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
Now again rememberm you can bring the keys down here so you can play it live or you can switch control over your keyboard.
[BILL HOLLAND PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION WITH THE NUSOFTSTRING DAHORNET]
Well that was the daHornet from NUSofting, an emulator of the classic Wasp synthesizer. For now, this is Gearwire.Com and I’m Bill Holland.
Velocity Controls
The Velocity Amp and Filter Controls are actually controls for hom much the midi velocity information effects the amp and filter envelopes. ie: higher velocity = louder volume and more open filter. Just thought you might want to know.
sincerely,
tim.jenkins
thank you
I was wondering about that, because I did not remember those being on the original wasp. Thanks, Tim, for the heads up.
Mmhmm.
No problem.
Bye the way, i love the videos here. It seems like the only synth and pro-audio demos out there are by pony-tailed progressive rock guys who are extremely disconnected from anything current.
I'm not hatin on pony-tails or Prog-Rock, It's just awesome to have someone you can relate to do the demo's and also to hear what the synth's will sound like played in a band other than Yes.
Keep up the awesome work!
tim.jenkins
tim.jenkins@live.com
exactly
I've noticed that also, although I do love some prog rock. I've talked to a lot of people that want to find out how to get the sound of current bands. It really does seem that most online demos are either trance, prog rock, or maybe (if you're lucky) a cover of Gary Numan. I'm glad to hear that my attempts are appreciated. Stay tuned for my Minimoog extravaganza next week.
Thanks, again!
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