Retrologue 3 feature suggestions

Virtual instruments Retrologue
#1

Retrologue 2 is really great especially for a stock synth but there are a few things missing from it that could take it to the next level. Here’s a few suggestion features.

  1. More modulation destinations. Please add the ability to modulate the FX panel. The synth is lively but the FX are just static. Let us mod the FX as well to really get things moving.
  2. More visual feedback. Above both ADSR is a static envelope picture that serves really no purpose. Maybe implementing an actual visualizer that updates to whatever knob is being tweaked would be a better option. Similar to Fxpansion Strobe 2 synth.
  3. More onboard FX. There’s many FX that could work here but I’m going to suggest at least an on board distortion unit and compressor.
  4. More FX slot flexibility. Being able to change the order of FX is great but being able to do things such as send individual oscillators to individual FX would be cool or even the ability to use two of the same FX back to back like two EQ’s in a row as opposed to just one of each FX would be nice.
#2
  1. Resizable GUI, the same for Padshop and HalionSonic.
2 Likes
#3
  1. Effects Mute button, similar to the nearly invisible but highly useful “lock” for the arpeggiator.
#4

Check this:

https://synthmorph.com/blogs/news/160214279-the-good-gets-excellent-steinberg-retrologue-2-review

and the “Future improvement ideas after working extensively with Retrologue 2” section here.

#5

I would like to get a better volume ballance between onboard osc’s and the sidechain input.
As off now, the input only go as hot as the source signal, while the onboard osc’s go too 100++ dbfs.
Makes it annoying to blend the osc’s with external input. It is doable. But fine tuning is not an option.

#6

I spent about one day trying to get anything useful from Retrologue 2’s side-chain input. No matter what kind of signal I sent to it, the results were really not useful or interesting. As you point out, the input signal is so attenuated that it’s just not useful. I love the instrument, but this aspect of is disappointing. I may be “doable” but I’ve not found it to be useful and I’d certainly hoped for more and was surprised to see it really didn’t perform as I expected it would.

#7

Yes, they must have thought that the function would only be used solo and not include the onboard osc’s.
Caus it is realy far off. We get alot of goodies with cubase. So im not gonna complain to much. Some wired bugs is to be expected. But I hope they have this sorted in their next bug fix.

#8

Funny, but use of the oscillators and other parts of the instrument is what I thought the side-chain would be useful and interesting for. Overall, I really like the instrument. The arpeggiator is particularly strong and I like the drag and drop matrix routing. I think it’s a great sounding synth over all, but the side-chain feature is either buggy and not working correctly, or just disappointing and not useful for me. While the promotions about this feature did influence my decision to update to Pro 9 it wasn’t a major factor. Overall, Cubase is the best DAW I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with and learning.

#9

Undo history, undo operation, like in Groove Agent 5.

#10

I don’t really have feature requests, I would already be happy if they fixed and optimized what’s already there.

#11

I had never even seen that, but now that you mention it… :slight_smile:

#12

Ah, there is one thing that might be useful, increasing the size of the value readouts, and use bold characters of a more striking color, like orange. Don’t forget that not all customers are in their 20’s and using a notebook :wink:
Or a little display instead of readouts, like on Tal’s Mod, doesn’t have to be that big, just the numbers would be enough.

#13

MIDI Out in order to use the arpeggiator for other VST:s.

#14

I wish there were a second aux envelope, env 3 is very useful.

Also, while the stereo spreads automatically as one turns up the number of waves, that is not always wanted. Sometimes one wants 8 waves without any stereo in order to make certain bass sounds. That is currently not possible, unlike in Sylenth1 for instance, which has separate stereo controls.

Why is there a single vs a multiple wave option in the oscillators? If one selects the minimum setting in the multi mode, there is also just 1.0 wave. So, the single is kind of superfluous.

It might make sense to be able to modulate at least the wet amount of each effect in the mod matrix.

1 Like
#15

I rather think that Retrologue will soon become legacy. That’s what sounds more like Steinberg.

#16

How about a shimmer reverb mode with dedicated shimmer controls popping up instead of the chorus ones?

#17

A VST3 edition…?

Plus, there really are some useful comments/suggestions for future improvements posted in the review above (once again, link pasted here:-)
Steinberg Retrologue 2 Review: The Good Gets Excellent – Synthmorph

#18

In the primitive dropdown pseudo-browser, the keyboard’s up/left and down/right keys should not just optically select, but actually load the previous or next patch. That might optionally also apply to the two arrow buttons to the left of the patch name display.

Generally, the necessity for mouse clicks should be reduced as far as possible, ideally eliminated. Sylenth1 is cool in this respect, even buttons can be turned on and off via the scroll wheel.

And why Ctrl-click for resetting controls? That requires two hands for something as simple as that. Most synths have standardized on double-clicking for resetting by now.

But it seems like you have fixed the phaser bug, although I didn’t see it in the release notes :thinking:

#19

I noticed a substantial difference in the attack of the synth adsr amplifier in version 2 and much more immediate and shorter, while in version 1 the attack was much longer, this makes a big difference especially in the pads, strings, I only noticed it this? there is some trick to lengthen the attack