Vector Vision - Synth sounds for SampleTank

Ultra-animated evolving synth timbres

Vector Vision brings vector synthesis to SampleTank in an animated, motion-filled library of presets that recreates the sound of “vector synthesis” made famous by the Sequential Prophet-VS and Yamaha SY22, which were the next generation of wavetable-based synths like PPG Wave and subsequent Waldorf products.

Vector Vision sounds

For the included waveforms, we've included samples of a wide selection of hardware instruments, everything from the Mellotron 400S to the Fairlight CMI, Oberheim OB-X, Yamaha TX816, Rhodes Mark I electric piano, analog and digital vocoders, and of course the Prophet VS itself.

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The origin of Vector Vision

The idea of vector synthesis is that you have 4 waveforms set at different points, like the 4 corners of a square. Then a modulation source its “vector” to emphasize particular waveforms. Since the vectors are in a 2-dimension X-Y space, the sound evolves as you move away from one waveform toward another.

This is a contrast from wavetable synthesis where the waveform hard switches from one timbre to the next.

More tech talk

For SampleTank, we’re using LFOs and envelopes to move between the different vectors. And of course, we've provided beat sync versions of the presets as well, so you can synch the timbral evolution to your DAW tempo.

Here LFOs and envelopes modulate the volume and panning of a carefully curated set of multisamples. The speed of the vector crossfades between samples is controlled by SampleTank macros, with options that use the internal clock as well as beat-synched to the host tempo.

Living sounds that breathe

For ultra-evolving living electronic timbres, Vector Vision will become your go-to library.

SampleTank 4

The new SampleTank 4 has been re-designed from the ground up to be every musician’s “go to” workstation for music creation, with a completely new rescalable interface, a massively expanded sample library and a new cutting-edge sound engine with efficient disk streaming, to deliver more powerful music creation tools than you ever imagined. What might usually take dozens of plug-ins can be accomplished right inside SampleTank 4, for lightning-fast workflow that keeps your inspiration going.

Vector Vision works inside SampleTank 4 CS, offering you all the features of the new SampleTank 4* engine and over 4 GB of fresh sounds to get started.

*SampleTank 4.1.4 or later is required.

About the creator

Erik Norlander is an American musician known for his work in the progressive rock genre with extensive touring and recording credits. He was the co-designer of the legendary Alesis Andromeda analog polysynth among many other hardware synths and drum machines. Erik is IK's resident synth guru and the driving force behind award-winning IK products such as Syntronik software and the UNO line of analog synthesizers.