Neuron Review by Brent Hoover

Introduction

First of all, a disclaimer. Axel Hartmann, who besides being the industrial designer of the Alesis Andromeda and most Waldorf synths is also the designer behind our website, our print ads, and is a good friend of our owner. He is also one of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet. So of course we are going to be much harder on him. Its tough love you know.

Also, let me just say that right out the gate that the Hartmann is packed with features, most of which I am not going to talk a great deal about. Why? Because they are not unique. A lot of synths have them, and if this were another synth, that is what I would talk about. But this has things that no other synth has and those are where I will focus this review.

Background

The Hartmann uses a type of synthesis they call “re-synthesis. This is how I understand it. Inside the Hartmann is a sort of musical artificial intelligence. (Hartmann calls this a “Neural Network” similar to the human brain, hence the name Neuron) When a sound is loaded into the Hartmann, it determines the factors that create a particular sound and creates a “model” of the sound. It is that model that you then play and manipulate. Unlike a sampler where you are playing that original snippet of sound, the original recording is left behind. So, for example, if the sound was of a flute, you might break apart factors like, the size of tube, whether it is wood or metal, etc. This model and its accompanying factors are then loaded into the “resynator”. The resynator is analogous to the oscillator on a traditional synth in that this is where the original sound is “created”. However, beyond that, the similarities end. Whereas in most synths, the oscillator is the just the raw data that is sent to other modules for sculpting, in the resynator is where the real action is.

The resynator is broken down into two basic sections, “scape” and “sphere”. Scape would be analogous to a piano string and the Sphere would be the body of the piano. This is similar to the concept that a synthesizer like Plex uses, however, the difference is in the extent that you can manipulate the elements rather than just combining them in unique ways. Yes, you could put the breath of a trombone in the body of a piano, but you can then make the body of the piano twenty feet tall.

When a model is loaded the Hartmann breaks it up into sets of four variables which you can then manipulate. By using the joystick you can change between any or all of these four variables in a 2 dimensional space. Opposing factors such as Wood or Metal are placed at opposite sides and you can smoothly (or not so smoothly) transition between the two poles.

Sometimes the variables are fairly intuitive, as in Wood or Metal for a flute sound. In those cases the differences are also relatively familiar to the ear, and pretty realistic. However, even in those cases, what the sound of a half wood, half metal flute would sound like is fairly open to interpretation.

Oh, and there are two of them, each with their own full blown set of controls.

The Man in the Box

The Hartmann is essentially a computer. It boots up and powers down like a computer. You can hear the hard drive whirr like a computer. Of course it is a beautifully designed computer with a real wood end. There is no shortage of outputs. Headphones, S/PDIF, stereo, surround, USB, Vulcan Mind Meld, you name it. All of these connectors are located on the left side of the keyboard. Hartmann did this essentially because they felt it looked better, and thus, you would look cooler, which I fully support. It also allows for a very clean back and can be easily set up against the wall.

There are several mentions in the manual about playing live with the Hartmann. Now, I don’t know what sort of live gigs they speak of, but unless that gig is touring with Peter Gabriel or Sting I would find the controls on the Hartmann a tad delicate. Perhaps they don’t have beer in Germany? Do drunken Germans not wander onto stage and demand that you play “Der Freebird” before vomiting and then falling on your keyboard?

But its ability to withstand combat conditions aside the Hartmann is built like a tank. Was this my own keyboard and not a loaner, I would have felt comfortable about being very aggressive and physical with the keyboard, without concern of it breaking.

How Real is Real?

On organic/acoustic sounds the Hartmann is very different from sample-based devices. It is at once both more organic and more digital. There is no aliasing like you would get from a sampler. In fact an interesting effect from this method of synthesis is that even when you go far from the range of the original instrument (say 3 octaves below middle C for a flute) the sound does not lose any realism. That in itself is almost a type of manipulative physical modeling since you have now created a flute the size of a hollowed out log.

Addressing the idea of “realism”, I cannot say that the Hartmann is 100% realistic. In fact on the one patch I compared (Nylon Guitar), my Triton (with an excellent third party patch) actually sounded more like a real Nylon Guitar. And both of them were only realistic if you did not listen to it compared to a real guitar.

But honestly, while mimicking the sounds of a piano or a guitar is an interesting feat, and a boon to the gigging musician, surely there is no shortage of recordings of piano or guitar music. Should you want those sounds, there of plenty of keyboards designed to give you that.

Making Sounds

Although there is no shortage of other sound shaping tools on the Hartmann, I rarely found need for them in sculpting my own sounds. More often I would take modulators (LFO’s, envelopes, etc) and use them to modulate different factors of the resynators. Every sound seemed to gain an “elasticity” that made you want to push and pull at it to see what would happen.

The one difference that the Hartmann had was that while it did not sound more like a Nylon string guitar, it DID sound more like a real person playing a real live organic instrument.

But of course the real magic lies in using that Nylon guitar as a starting point for delving into unexplored territory, and it doesn’t take long for you to get there either. Just reach up and start playing with the resynators. But for me the real interesting moments were the times when I was actually moving the joystick between a particular point and another. Hartmann must have realized this as you can record all of your joystick movements with just one touch of the appropriate named “Record Joystick” button located directly above the joystick. While again this feature is not new, what is new is how intuitively one can record your movements without the need for a MIDI sequencer.

The sounds you create by doing this are hard to describe (which is why I have added a bunch of MP3’s for you to listen to). While Hartmann disavows any link to Granular synthesis (and the two theories share little in common), the sounds were at times very similar. The more modulators I sent to the resynators the more interesting and dynamic the sounds became.

Even more interesting were the sounds created when I started to create sounds from scratch. The Hartmann contains about 30 models that you can select from and use for each resonator. Now I am no synth programming genius, and I use presets just like the next guy, but I found making my own sounds on the Hartmann very easy and very quickly rewarding. The MP3’s I made were basically just made by banging on the keyboard and moving the resynator joystick, something a chimp could do. This could be because so much of this sonic terrain remains unexplored.

Don’t look to be able to create any mini-moog leads or OB-8 strings however; this is a digital synthesizer through and through. At no point during my work with the Hartmann did I once hear anything analog. But you know what, we know where analog is if we want it. This is about a unique sound, not mimicking sounds from the past.

So you want to be a Model?

Should you tire of the models in the Hartmann (and don’t we all tire of models after a while?), once you have registered your Hartmann, you can download the ModelMaker software that will allow you to create your own models from your own samples. Unfortunately, doing this requires a USB-to-Ethernet adapter that is not included. This seems a little silly to have to run out to Fry’s after plunking down 5G’s for the Hartmann, but so be it (originally it didn’t come with a printed manual, but that was quickly corrected). Due to schedule constraints I was not able to obtain one of these adapters in time to do load a few model makers of my own. But hopefully I will be able to do that soon and I will add an addendum to this review plus some more sound samples.

The Interface

I also need to mention how intuitive the interface is. All of the envelopes are easily visible with a large LED right above each of the four individual wheel controllers, one for each envelope parameter (Attack, Decay, Sustain, and Release). You have another fully 2-D joystick for control of the effect parameters and one for pitch bend/modulation. Once you get the hang of it, it is a very accessible interface. I never had to peer at the LED readout except when changing programs or models.

Manual Labor

For a synth that purports to introduce new technology you’re going to need some help getting your head around it. Unfortunately most synth manuals are almost legendary in their incomprehensibility, and of course it doesn’t help that most synths come from non-English speaking countries.

But the manual is great. It’s conversational without being cutesy, in-depth where you need it, but gives you signposts about where you can skip over the background if you want to just dive right in. I read it from cover to cover in one sitting without effort. My only complaint is that they use a “couch potato” iconography that had me a little baffled. I couldn’t tell the difference between all the different guys on the couch.

The Hartmann manual is the best one I have ever read, and makes it easy to get started.

The Supporting Cast

So I said that I wasn’t going to talk a lot about the other features of the Hartmann, but certainly they deserve a mention. It has

• Three envelopes per resynator plus an Amplifier envelope with your choice of ADSR or a definable envelope.
• Glide
• Multimode Filter (HP/LP/BP) with 3 ADSR envelopes
• Very nice sounding reverb and delay (which my MP3’s are drenched in)
• 4 part multi-timbral
• 200 memory spaces for patches and 200 for Multi-timbral configurations.
• Snapshot function (like a patch within a patch)
• An endless wheel and an endless dial for assigning to whatever you want.

Ok, that’s a lot of “other stuff”. But it really gets interesting when you throw in, as Hartmann puts it “Model and template driven Multi-Component Particle Transfer Synthesis with real-time controllable synthesis model parameters”, which, oddly enough, is also what the Sun uses to bring us light.

And now an Editorial note about the Presets

I strongly feel that the Hartmann suffers from some pretty unremarkable presets. Not because some are not musically useful, but because they really don’t really show off what the Hartmann is capable of, not even close. Now, of course this is just my opinion, but a lot of the presets lean towards the slowly evolving pad variety, a variety of which I am exquisitely uninterested. But a lot of people are, but I think even in this realm they barely touch the surface of what is possible.

I do this not to criticize the Neuron but just to encourage you, that if you get a chance to spend some time with the Neuron, do not just page through the presets as I often do, spend some time with it and really explore what it can do.

(I have been told by Hartmann that there is a new soundest available for download on their website which shows off more of the features)

Summary

I always say “No synth is for everyone” and this is true of the Hartmann. The price alone is certainly out of the range of many synthesists. However, most of us are looking for that allusive “new” sound; something to tickle the ear, to make us stand out from the crowd and to inspire us. This the Hartmann has in spades, something no other synthesizer that I know of can claim. It takes some getting used to, and changing a little bit of the way you think about making sounds, but when you do, it really rewards.

MP3s

• The Day I Played The Bass
• Noisy
• Spooky
• Space Chimp
• Nylon Guitar
• Start With The Bells