Rossum Electro-Music Assimil8or

[thisoldhouse]

Since I updated to 2.0. none of my truncated samples are saving. When loading they have a strikethrough and cannot be found anywhere. Is any body else experiencing this. Sometimes if I truncate a sample the whole unit freezes. Need to turn off and on to get back working.

i have had these issues since updating. although a freeze has been pretty rare. anyway a few things i've learned on my unit that allow me to avoid losing samples...

when truncating i make sure neither the start or end points are highlighted red (for fine tune editing) if one is highlighted red then the resulting sample will never be found and will result in strikethrough even after saving the program.

a sample that has be truncated while the start or end is highlighted, cannot be found on the SD card in the folder, will disappear from memory after power cycle, but also - cannot be renamed. additionally (but i haven't been able to discover exactly why) sometimes when recording a sample it will be destined to disappear - however, i can verify if this will happen or not with a newly recorded sample by trying to rename the sample. i just rename it something quickly - because if it's a sample that is going to be lost it won't actually rename. so going through the painstaking process of completely renaming a sample to find out nothing actually happens after the process is a waste of time. just change the first character and see if it says 'sample renamed' or not afterwards.

if it doesn't rename, i can truncate it - but making sure neither the start or end are hightlighted when pressing the truncate function - and this will bring the sample back to life - as is in the newly truncated version can be renamed and consequently will save correctly.

also, i've noticed when truncating - if the start or end is highlighted, i don't get the 'sample saved' message flash at the top after the truncation concludes - where as if i truncate without the start or end hightlighted then i do see the 'sample saved' message flash at the top and consequently the new sample is going to be fine

i know it's far from a perfect solution, but looking out for these things have at least allowed me to use my assimil8or with 2.0 everyday and not lose my work. hope it works for you

[jollyjack]

Don't know if this has been discussed earlier, but why is there no feature that allows crossfading of zones? This would be much more useful than the crossfading of channels that is already implemented, for me personally at least. I guess it would require handling up to twice the amount of samples playing at the same time, which might explain why it's not possible...

[quaidscape]

Since I updated to 2.0. none of my truncated samples are saving. When loading they have a strikethrough and cannot be found anywhere. Is any body else experiencing this. Sometimes if I truncate a sample the whole unit freezes. Need to turn off and on to get back working.

Same here.

[Octognoma]

I have updated to the new firmware,

Am experiencing freezing happening when a stereo sample, adjusted to work in mono is put into loop mode,
When pressing Loop end point, screen and button presses freeze. Sound still trigger on the outputs however.

This is has happened to me 5 times now, but is not happening every single time.

Anyone else experienced this issue with looping?

This same type of freeze happened to me as well. It seemed to be with a particular sample and would happen any time i switched to the loop/sample start/end page on that channel. The screen would freeze and buttons wouldn't work but the module would continue to play sounds as it was triggered. I had to power cycle to get the module to function properly again.

I stopped using that sample and haven't experienced any other freezes.

The sample was also on the sampler before i updated to the new firmware.

Ah interesting. the sample in question was defiantly imported and not from stock SD card, maybe its to do with bit rate?
Its a bit of a workflow killer if you have not saved a newly created preset.

Seems to be few bugs to be ironed out still . . . .

[hlmm]

New user here, what a bombastic module, bravo Rossum Electro-Music!!!

I have also had troubles with sample not being properly saved after recording (see quote below). I have found out that the problem goes away if I record with CV trigger or with pre-defined sample length.

[/quote]...sometimes when recording a sample it will be destined to disappear - however, i can verify if this will happen or not with a newly recorded sample by trying to rename the sample. i just rename it something quickly - because if it's a sample that is going to be lost it won't actually rename. so going through the painstaking process of completely renaming a sample to find out nothing actually happens after the process is a waste of time. just change the first character and see if it says 'sample renamed' or not afterwards....
[/quote]

[quaidscape]

Rossum Team, Marco & Sam,

2.0 is very nice! any news on a patch to fix up bugs?

thanks!

[advrsry]

They're almost certainly working on it

[Neo]

Don't know if this has been discussed earlier, but why is there no feature that allows crossfading of zones? This would be much more useful than the crossfading of channels that is already implemented, for me personally at least. I guess it would require handling up to twice the amount of samples playing at the same time, which might explain why it's not possible...

This would be fantastic

[Misk]

Just picked up this amazing sampler — messed with it a bit with the 1.01 firmware that it was shipped with before upgrading to 2.00 — sampling and everything was working fine — since I've updated to 2.0 though I can no longer save any samples I record at all — and truncated samples apparently aren't saved either.

My assimil8or is new, though before I updated to 2.0 i'd spent a few days with the old firmware while going through the manual and I didn't have any problems — only when updating to 2.0 have I had any issues.

I tried the renaming trick with newly recorded samples and I keep getting "file not found". I also can't delete any folders on my SD card when it's in the assimil8or.

everything about this is badass, I'd just really like to, ya know... *sample* things with my new 8 channel sampler

[quaidscape]

welcome to the party brother

[thisoldhouse]

.

I tried the renaming trick with newly recorded samples and I keep getting "file not found". I also can't delete any folders on my SD card when it's in the assimil8or.

The ‘naming trick’ is just to verify if something will save or not. “File not found” means that it will not de saved or found after power cycle. So now truncate just 1 sample off the sample but make sure the the start or end point sample position is ‘deselected’ (not highlighted red) when initiating the truncate function and your new sample should save fine now - which you can verify by doing the naming trick. Another way to verify is to check and see if the sample is in the folder. If the sample in question is in memory but you can’t see it in the folder then it will be lost - unless you do the truncate trick - but the sure way to kill any sample is by leaving the start or end point highlighted Redwhen you initiate truncating - so be sure this is not the case

[dare]

Explode zone using Kbd: Chromatic 1V/Oct keyboard always has the keys playing backwards for me.

When i 'explode a sample to zones' the first key is always the last zone, it's kinda backwards for me.

So playing the keys down the scale from right to left plays the break forwards..

How do you explode the sample so you can just play the keyboard from left to right with all slices in the correct order.

I'm sure it's a simple thing I'm just a bit lost with it.

Thanks!

[arechfer]

Waiting for my Assimil8or to arrive
Sonic possibilities seems unlimited
Preparing for the longest week of my life...till Thursday if everything goes as it should
Cannot wait
Pd. Any hint to new users about to do or not to do the 2.0 update until bugs get fixed

[quaidscape]

Waiting for my Assimil8or to arrive
Sonic possibilities seems unlimited
Preparing for the longest week of my life...till Thursday if everything goes as it should
Cannot wait
Pd. Any hint to new users about to do or not to do the 2.0 update until bugs get fixed

Congrat's on the new sampler!

I'd roll with 1.0 until 2.0 gets patched, it's pretty buggy and it's not certain when a patch will be released.

[arechfer]

Thanks...will do

Waiting for my Assimil8or to arrive
Sonic possibilities seems unlimited
Preparing for the longest week of my life...till Thursday if everything goes as it should
Cannot wait
Pd. Any hint to new users about to do or not to do the 2.0 update until bugs get fixed

Congrat's on the new sampler!

I'd roll with 1.0 until 2.0 gets patched, it's pretty buggy and it's not certain when a patch will be released.

[bemushroomed]

Question to the owners of Assiml8or (thinking about selling my Bitbox to purchase this one instead)

Do you find the Phase modulation fun / useful?
Trying to find some examples on YT.. there isnt much really. Rossum does a demo in one video, didn't really impress me that much. One example sounded like a typical FM sound (kind of cool i guess, you could vaguely hear that there was a piano and some other sound modulating it) another was just really distorted (and not in a really interesting way for me). If most usage of PM is just going to be a distorted mess its not too interesting to me, plenty of ways to do such sounds already.

Do you find the interface fast to work with?

The Bitbox is fast to work with, what it does it does well, but its limited if you want to do any type of sound sculpting (which to me is the interesting part with sampling).. Assimil8or also seems to have really great sound quality, pitch has sounded great in the demos.

[droningspaghettimonster]

I've been wondering the same, as I'm in for a sampler + Vector expander this year. PM seems to be a big part of the design and I feel that BitBox is not going to give me advance over Ableton/Bitwig in terms of sound design. The lack of time stretch seems kinda unfortunate though and leads me more towards ER301, which is supposed to handle audio rate modulation (and strumming, which is going to be a big deal with all the CV inputs) like a champ and has more than enough going on in the sound design department.

How is stumming on the Assimil8or? I'd love to see some PM/strumming sound design demos.

[LDT]

I am currently researching samplers, and Aasimilator is off course on my hot list.
I have a question: I get the impression, that it deals with stereo samples as two separate mono samples, L and R. Is this correct?
(If true, I wonder why.)

Thanks!

[quaidscape]

[Sinamsis]

Hopefully someone else can chime in on PM. I don't use it much, though I have a few times in a nice and enjoyable way. To me it's a little gimmicky and often does sound like distortion, but not in a pleasing way to me. For instance, I thought it sounded really shitty on vocal samples. I do think it enriches simple timbres. I imagine it's good for percussion too. Here's the one example I have:




Otherwise, I have an owned an ER-301 and I currently own two Assimil8ors. The Assimil8or has it's quirks and it can be cumbersome at times. But I find it infinitely more immediate than the 301. Of course you might invest more time in presets that would make it less tiresome to program, but I never found a preset that made me happy for all or even most applications. I felt like I was working pretty hard to do basic things on the 301. In the end I wanted something that I could focus on sampling with, so I stuck with the Assimil8or. It feels more like an instrument and less like an under-powered computer. I were to go down this road again, I might consider something like the Percussa, though I'm not sure how it compares functionally. I personally don't want to go down that road again.

I will voice a little frustration with the firmware. I was pretty stoked about the new features (particularly auditioning samples). But it seems to have added some more quirks that are challenging.

In my use so far I have come to the realization that the Assimil8or shines in it's immediacy and sound. The sound quality is phenomenal. It really shines for percussion, but drones and soundscapes are certainly possible. Stereo sample manipulation and sample library organization were historically the biggest issues. The new firmware has helped somewhat but is a little wonky still. I'm hoping the fix to these bugs doesn't take months to come out. Hopefully someone from Rossum can give us an update at some point. Otherwise Marco made it clear that time stretch will never be an option for the Assimil8or, and while this is a bummer it seems reasonable. I will be honest, I did not care of what time stretch did to audio in the 301. Maybe I was doing it wrong.

If I were to critique Rossum here, I think some more hands on demonstrations would be helpful to end users who are not seasoned sampler experts. Particularly some feedback on scrubbing and shuttling would help. Users here repeatedly question if scrubbing even works. I believe it does, but dialing it in can be very challenging and the values suggested in the manual seem somewhat arbitrary. That request seems somewhat entitled, but I think in this case it would really work in Rossum's benefit to show the strengths and abilities of this sampler other than the limited videos from trade shows.

It would be nice to get some other folks who are very comfortable with the Assimil8or to chime in. In general I've not found this thread particularly useful other than discussion of firmware issues. But in general I've noticed that more and more here, and perhaps it speaks more to the direction the forum has moved in rather than this specific thread.

[bemushroomed]

Thank you Sinamsis!

I've decided to keep my Bitbox for now. Even though i would say its a pretty "boring" module its still something very immediate that just works. I'm hopeful they will do at least one more firmware update for it that adds some of the stuff from Blackbox.

I will follow the firmware updates etc for Assimil8or though, its something i can see myself purchasing in the future perhaps..

[ege.gonul]

PM is pretty fun to work with. I generally plug output to input as a PM source and just CV the modulation depth. It creates a kind of quick dirty distortion. But if the ASS8 is in the heart of the system, it can be used to create quick distortion in/out fashion (not the best dist sound but very good for filling up with noise). It is much more cumbersome to create this with a dedicated distortion module because of the dynamic change in output levels. What I like doing is, I keep one CV for bit depth, one for PM and one for aliasing, then change them with a knob according to taste. PM = FM btw. It's been a while I took the FM EE course, but I remember the formula of phase and frequency can be used literally for the same thing because it is in the same equation bracket like Sin(wt + phase).

More info on phase vs FM: https://moinsound.wordpress.com/2011/03 ... hnologies/

It seems they both are same but little bit different sound, and phase mod handles feedback loop in a better way because it doesn't create DC or smth to do with integral removes DC of PM, I don't know, I don't care. I treat it as second FM input in ASS8 and you can assign CV to it's depth. Can't do that with FM on ASS8.

The thing with musical FM is, it is better to use pure sounds (sine) for FM modulation source; otherwise, it can quickly become noise because when you plug a very complex signal into the frequency of the sample-playback, then harmonics are all over the place. But if you feed constant-freq sine wave into FM input, the distortion of the spectrum will have a very distinct stable harmonics. What I am testing recently is plugging these pure waves but with a volume envelope. They are also triggered concurrently with ASS8 channel triggers. In this way, PM can be used as a drum synthesis/processing. Also, if you have Max and ES-3, you can change the gain of these enveloped sine waves, and the "gain" functions as ASS8 PM depth. But I didn't yet try these things with complex waveforms such as https://www.galbanum.com/products/archi ... eforms2010

I think adjusting frequency and amplitude(or PM depth) of the modulation source is more important than choosing different waveforms. Also, the ASS8 aliasing option is handy esp. with stuff relating to FM; it immediately cuts the harshness, and it can create sounds which flashbacks you to Tri-Repetae and with a tiny amount of PM like %1 depth, whole things sounds more "complete with surface noise" in the style of red patched Amber '95 vinyl.

[wavejockey]

good point, i will try PM with the pure sine waves of my vermona perfourmer (these are really beautifull)
i wanted to make a PM preset with samples from mellotron kinda old school meets new, am curious how that famous choir sample sounds when PM'd

[Misk]

The main selling point for me with the A8 was the sound quality, but i've been happily surprised by trying self-patching tricks like multi-operator FM(PM) patches with a sampled sine playing back on different channels—essentially recreating DX7-like routings to get some really complex sounds.

With regards to the 1.0 vs 2.0 firmware, I didn't see any firmware available from rossum's site beside the 2.0 firmware. If I wanted to roll back to a previous version, where would I find the older firmware to download? I've been working around newly recorded samples not saving by instantly truncating them and re-saving them as a new sample, so i'm able to resample and all, but with the zones set up so the highest number zone is only accessible at the lowest voltage (as someone else mentioned here), is counter-intuitive and It'd be nice to roll back to the more stable v1.11.

[ege.gonul]

I never updated to 2.0 after I heard the problems, and I keep checking their websites for bug-free release. And yeah, version 1 firmware is also not anywhere on the website, crazy! I think soft developer team should have been much more careful with the release. It's not nice that people are losing samples or just firmware update back and forth. This stuff takes time and just shouldn't be taken lightly, and I haven't seen any comment about the bug fixes of 2.0.

Regarding the zones, I am not sure about the 2.0, but even with version 1.0, adjusting voltage ranges manually for zones is a little bit counterintuitive and takes time (esp. for eight zones). The solution I found is, I add samples to zones with the again-buggy software companion, and from there, I add general CV assignments copy-pasted into a text file for each channel. The preset text file is pretty easy to edit, and if you already have some templates, it's all copy-paste. It's also a good idea to make one column of CV's for individual zones and another column for adjusting global parameters (such as bit depth) for channels. And even with more templates, these zone-wise assignments can be layered around different presets. Preset-1 Pitch mod, Preset-2 Ring Mod, etc.. This is handy because some parameters are universal, and some settings are zone-based, and it's easy to assign global parameters, but for zone parameter assignments, it is better to have a template to build on.

Here is my template, I copy this into eight-channel starts and don't mess much with zones:

PMSource : 9
LinFM : 0A -0.50
PitchCV : 2C 0.50
PMIndexMod : 7C 1.00
BitsMod : 8C -1.00
LinAM : 0B 1.00
ExpAM : 6C -1.0
ReleaseMod : 5C 1.00
LoopStartMod : 3C 1.00
LoopLengthMod : 4C -1.00
LinAMisExtEnv : 1

I will eventually write an ASS8 software With Max for chopping and making presets. It would be crazy to have some processed version of the sample chops with some ReCycle like processing or even with filters and then layering them into presets.