Synapse Orion Is Alive

[weekendwarrior]

Hi Everyone.

Long time synth tweaker here - ever since the first version.. Been producing dance music for quite a number of years. I just wanted to take the time to say that whilst predominantly the main workhorse over the last few years has been on Mac. I recently obtained a Windows desktop which has 4GB ram and an AC-Audio 97 soundcard. I’ve reinstalled Orion.
I’ve really enjoyed playing with it again making music. Truth be told the machine has a mind of its own almost. Something that can whole heartedly never be replaced by a modern digital machine. The way the sounds sound - such as the TR kick synth / Tomcat etc. There’s well and truly a certain sheen / gloss feel that can’t be matched. It’s almost like the way Vinyl is compared to MP3. Analog. It feels warm and different. All elements glue together better than any other DAW I’ve used.
Orion is truly to this day still a magical piece of software. Hours go by and I get lost in the patterns.
It isn’t perfect. But you know what. It’s that which makes it very special. The imperfections / waiting for a track to export then exporting the next one. The inconvenience is the magic part. Something that helps creativity.

Peace

[Dave]

Still use it nearly every day here, perfect for my needs.

[weekendwarrior]

Still use it nearly every day here, perfect for my needs.

Yesssssss

[iam7zark7]

Same here!

[Teksonik]

The inconvenience is the magic part. Something that helps creativity.

Madness. If you need inconvenience and limitations to help your creativity then I'd suggest the DAW you're using is not the issue.

I still have Orion installed for nostalgia but I never use it these days because I have far superior options at my disposal. Even the free version of Tracktion Waveform blows Orion out of the water in both function and sound (although many would argue there is no difference in the sound of different DAWs). The paid Waveform Pro is even more powerful and is inexpensive as well. Here's the salient point....it's also under active development.

Certainly use what suits you best but don't be afraid to explore other options. They may very well help your creativity even more.

[junologue]

I've put in a lot of effort to find another DAW since Orion was stopped, but it eventually comes back to Orion.
Above all, I hate to throw away what I've been used to for over a decade and get used to new DAWs and new ways of working.
I'm still using Orion without much inconvenience, but I'm still using it anyway, the non-support of VST3, the multichannel display weirdness on multichannel instruments, these two are the most inconvenient at the moment though.

[Andrew80]

Hello everyone, I worked for 2 months and managed to re-adapt the old skin from Orion v6 to Orion v.8.6 x86 x64, if anyone is interested they can send me a message here.

[Dave]

Which skin exactly? Have you got a better screenshot?

[Andrew80]

I worked on the "Starfighter" skin that was started for the Orion 6 version in 2008 and I made it work without any bugs on the Orion V8 version v.8.6 x32 x64. I worked on it for a few weeks and I would like to ask those who created this virtual studio gem to implement the latest version of NI Kontakt as functionality and update it to the new VSTi3 standard. I will donate this skin for a new professional interface superior to FL Studio.

[Dave]

Ah right, it was grymmjack who originally made that. Don't know if he ever finished the whole project.

Can't remember much about it. Would be interested in having a look at it.

The only image I could find was this

[Andrew80]

With the adaptations I made, Orion v.8.6 supports the latest NI Kontakt version using IL Minihost Modular and I can open Kontakt in it, with KV Element I can open VSTi3 so I also have VSTi3 support and with jbridge I can also use old 32-bit plugins. This is what my version of Orion looks like and I have the programming codes to modify many aspects from the colors in the pianoroll to the colors of the graphics, automation, song mode, pattern, etc. etc.

[Andrew80]

Event Editor

[Andrew80]

Playlist Mode

[Dave]

I have the programming codes to modify many aspects from the colors in the pianoroll to the colors of the graphics, automation, song mode, pattern, etc. etc.

Yes you just change them in the .ini file (or is it config, been a while since I did any edits)

[Andrew80]

I can modify them from the text file, as you can see I found solutions to all the problems of updating the Host to support Kontakt Sample Libraries, normally since version 7 Kontakt can no longer be installed in Orion, it reports an error probably because of the GUI, and for VSTi3 support you can use Element or Patch Work, and for old 32-bit plugins to be able to use them in 64-bit DAWs I recommend Jbridge, it works quite stably.