My full list of feature requests for Soundbox

Feature Requests
1

So, with my company we just released our first two Soundbox packs and I’ve spent a lot of time with it. Coming from developing for Kontakt, of course I know this is a different product and I don’t expect the level of depth Kontakt offers (different markets, different audiences, different scope) but since I think this is such a great product with a lot of potential, I really feel some things could be improved.

This is my list of stuff that I REALLY miss:

  1. Improved modulation workflow.
    The modulations are a little messy: you can’t define the starting point of the modulated parameter (the modulation always starts from the middle value), modwheel doesn’t have minimum value offset… this is all very basic stuff that most competitors have.

  2. There are no unipolar modulators.
    Can we have at the very least a couple of envelopes?

  3. The scaling of the controls is very odd: try changing the amp envelope of a layer and you’ll see that half-way through the envelope value is about 20% rather than 50%

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  1. What’s up with tempo sync values (delay time, sync modulators) not running unless the DAW is running and not showing up at all in standalone?

  2. To my ears, and I might be wrong of course, the Vector crossfading is linear, which creates a dip in the middle. Equal power is typically the standard in these cases.

  3. The effects could be a little (a lot) more high quality. The reverbs are really the only ok ones (cpu-hungry though!), the rest sounds like off the shelf DSP and some in my opinion are borderline not usable (Compressor).

  4. Polyaftertouch please. You can’t support MPE natively and not have PolyAT! My Osmose is crying.

For the developers among us: please add something to help with mapping. I don’t want a full-blown pitch reading algo or an API… but at the very least a system that reads tokens from the file name.

I have more stuff, I just released this video with some considerations:

I hope this is taken the right way, as I said I LOVE this product, which is the reason why I’m doing this, I want it to do well :slight_smile:

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2

Absolutely everything here! Not going to lie, the modulation system and lack of full MPE support have bothered me since launch. I know there was a reply here saying the polyphonic aftertouch is coming, but without adequate mod source controls it would basically be useless.

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3

I stay positive, it’s a young product… lots of time to improve :slight_smile:

4

You’re not wrong, but at the same time can’t help but feel a bit cheated when it was advertised as having MPE support, but doesn’t fully implement it. At launch even polyphonic pitchbend didn’t work. I don’t like purchasing products with a promise it will work one day. So, yeah, OP’s list of feature requests is more than fair.

5

Hello, and thanks for the suggestions!

Most of the features you’ve mentioned are already on our immediate to-do list. Once we release the new version featuring our new time-stretching algorithms, we’ll tackle the remaining items, just as we’ve done with other highly requested features in the past.

We’re currently working on a comprehensive tutorial, especially as the improved sample editor will support the new features. Also, please note that Soundbox is available on iPad. This required an almost full sound engine refactor to overcome iPadOS limitations and ensure compatibility with larger, more resource-hungry libraries. These updates will be part of the upcoming version coming shortly.

Regarding tempo sync values, they require a DAW/host application to receive the clock signal. For now, they are only available when running Soundbox as an AU, VST, AAX, or AUv3 plugin.

Polyphonic aftertouch is indeed the most demanding feature when aiming for seamless performance across all supported devices, but it’s not out of reach. As for polyphonic pitch bend, that was a minor configuration error at launch, which we fixed within a couple of days, typical for new apps. We don’t consider it a major issue.

All features are explained in our main tutorial video, along with shorter videos that cover each added feature/update in detail such as the round robin tutorial.

It’s also important to note that the Soundbox engine is offered as a free download, we don’t charge for it. It’s bundled with our libraries but also available for third-party developers and we don’t view it as a direct competitor to other paid apps. Our goal is to keep it free and accessible, and we’ll continue doing our best to support this approach.

That said, your suggestions are in line with what other users have requested, and we plan to have them soon.

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