31 thoughts on “Sonic Faction Debuts Archetype Ableton Live Instrument Bundle”

1. god no, i don’t want this kind of things to come to Ableton, which has always been professionally ‘blank’ and minimalistic, leaving user at as untouched starting point as possible (remaining of course a music production tool). and here we have ‘trendy sound making starter kit’

   1. You don’t have to use it…

   2. Nobody is forcing you to install it. I’m sure you use some tools others don’t like. That doesn’t make them worthless.

2. say no to drugs…… (0_o)

3. Sounds like it could be interesting but could we have a intro video that clearly explains what this can do and demonstrates how it works? Somebody clearly had fun with the video editing, but before I drop $200, I need to have a clear idea of what a tool does and how it’s going to work for me, and their intro video doesn’t do it.

   These ‘stylistic’ intro videos should always be secondary, in my opinion, to a straightforward video that really shows off your product. IIt seems like 90% of the companies make these fancy intro videos that forget to show you what the product does.

   Let us know if you do a proper demo video!

   1. looks like they have tutorial vids for almost every instrument… british-sounding narrator included 🙂

   2. I updated the post to include hands-on demo videos for the individual instruments. Thanks for the feedback.

   3. The video was so distracting, at the end of it, I don’t think I took in one thing this bundle does.

4. Great sickness! 🙂

5. 199? Good luck

6. so you’re really into making a promo video, now what do they do?

7. I wonder if that kid actually bought his copy or got a cracked version, coz lets face it its a lot spending money to drop. although you can buy them individually too.

8. Not super interested in ‘ableton skinned VSTs’, but I notice one package listed with these on Sonic Faction website called DopeMatrix for $39, that looks quite interesting. It’s the Push integration that makes a difference to me. Otherwise — these are just VSTs that have to stand or fall based on the sound/cost/workflow.

   1. OK, I see that DopeMatrix is actually from back in Feb 2014 and there’s already a synthtopia thread about it. Yeah, the picture had me fooled that it was somehow patchable in M4L. Would love to hear about the Push / step sequencer functionality, if anyone has used this.

   2. The step sequencers are shown on their YouTube channel:
      https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFkqzqcBsEbXpvfCulukCeU6MaMEyZThJ

      I’d say they have some interesting features but I’m not sure they’re worth $200 on their own (and I know the Beatdown one comes with Beatdown standalone).

      I’m personally going to skip this even though I can get it at upgrade pricing for half off. I can see this bundle being really useful for somebody starting out who wants to make bigroom EDM or dubstep but that’s not me.

9. I just want one promo video that doesn’t use dubstep. It’s becoming a parody of itself.

10. Is this a joke? “A paradigm shift” says the poorly recorded voice over and then the first thing they show is a TB303 clone? The video is cringe worthy. If their idea was to sell to 10 year old boys that will torrent these files anyways then congrats.

    Let me know when something real shows up.

11. Has anyone actually tried them?

    1. Sure…I have the devilfish (sampled modded 303), the whoosh machine (white noisemaker/modulator), beatdown, and the sickness (sampled Virus instrument). They are all very nicely put together sampler instruments with useful interfaces. Once I got Push, though, I never much used the sequencers, as I couldn’t figure out a good-for-me way to get them to play nice. (I understand they do, but I prefer other tools.)
       That said, while the UI update to all the instruments looks pretty good., I don’t know if i’d say it’s a good value proposition – even for my discounted update price. I’m still kind of interested in the dope matrix (sampled modular instruments), though.

       1. edit – so yeah, i didn’t realize that these were all packaged so deeply in the max tools. Much nicer than I thought! (now that I had a chance to watch all the videos myself…) I think this looks like a great value.

12. You guys are right! I have not even tried them but I can say they are worthless. They should be banned from making plugins. It’s a total joke! There is no musical or creative value here. . To top it off They have ruined Ableton with their crapy design. The only way I will give them $199 is for them to stop making plugins and stop making unless promo videos. Biggest flop of 2015: Sonic Faction

    1. Considering you’ve never tried them, I find your comment a bit harsh. If you’ve been reading Synthtopia for a while, you’d have run into these guys before, over several years. This is not a vst or au “plugin”. it’s a set of samples aggregated into mapped sampler instrument racks and max for live tools that they have been building over several years, and are now packaging into a single interface that is updated to more tightly integrate with Live 9 suite & max for live.

       As to your comment about ‘ruining’ Ableton live – it’s not dissimilar to saying someone ruined Adobe InDesign by setting up a book in it that you didn’t like the content or graphic design of.

13. Terrible videos in so many ways.

14. wowie, i genuinely thought people were overreacting – until i watched the video.

15. Wowo… that video was about 4 minutes tooooooo long!!

    Shockingly bad!

16. Uuuuuuuuummmmmmm Yeah, Sell me the same worthless plugs that you made before as a big development lol

17. Mini review: I’ve used some of their devices before, and decided to buy the bundle at the upgrade price. I didn’t think $200 was good value, but at $99 upgrade pricing I decided to give it a shot. Brutally bad promo video aside I’d say the bundle is worth it IF you’re upgrading. Maybe not at full price:

    tldr: Some great instruments everyone will like, some less inspired ones that will appeal to a narrower audience. Good value at $99 upgrade pricing IMHO, YMMV at $200.

    All the instruments are max4live devices. All of them (except for beatdown and woosh machine) are a combination of multi-sampled waveforms from synths and digital oscillators, with filtering, envelopes, and FX integrated into a fairly straightforward package. Some of them are actually really good. My impressions:

    Clone (SH-101) and Hatchet (ARP AXXE) sound really, really good. These are the best of the lot for utility and satisfying sounds right from the start. Clone in particular had me happily noodling around for an hour or so.

    Evilfish (modified TB-303) is also pretty good as-is, but sounds terrific if you run it though a good distortion plugin. It takes a bit of fiddling with the device to get a “classic” sound, but it’s doable. The variable accent “amount” feature can produce some really original sounds, especially if you link one of the built-in LFOs to the accent amount control. I quite like it as an instrument, but don’t expect a 303 emulation. Buy the AudioRealism or D16 VST for that.

    Rogue-One (SC Pro2) sounds pretty good, but unlike their ARP and SH-101 devices it’s not quite as.. present? I admittedly haven’t played with it much as I have outboard gear that fits this sound niche better.

    Sickness (Access Virus) sounds like a multi-sampled Access Virus. It’s actually pretty well executed and fills the “make the biggest lead sound imaginable” niche. It’s not really my style, but I could see it being great for instant gratification putting together a loud and crashy EDM tune.

    Pulsator (Waldorf Pulse) haven’t used it enough to comment.

    Beatdown: I’ve used the old version a bit, and it’s pretty handy. The effects, sample switching, etc. aren’t anything you couldn’t build yourself, but it’s decent value for the library of samples, useful effects, and the way it’s all well designed to work as a single device you didn’t have to spend time creating yourself. If I’m starting out a new tune I’ll sometimes drop it in as the default drums as a starting point. Note: the step sequencer is good, but 4/4 time only.

    Woosh machine: The new version is nifty. Instantly gratifying atmosphere, noise, background ambiance, and well.. wooshes. Start a track like you’re Oliver Lieb in 1992 without even trying.

    Overall I’m sold on the bundle for $100. There are a few kinks to fix (some of the custom max controls don’t map to live macros, whoops. Tech support has already been notified) and the $200 price point for new users is a bit steep, but overall a pretty decent value if you’re likely to enjoy even half of the instruments.

18. I bought this bundle at the discount price.
    1. you have to install a downloader from the comfirmation email sonic faction sends you.
    2. after the installer was complete i began to install the instruments and thats where it started going horribly wrong. Im not sure if my install was out of order or i messed something up(not trying to be too harsh) but WTF… A single instrument at a time is all my computer is able to run. I have used NI razor, massive and ozone6 (to name a few) at the same time and still wasnt bogged down as much as a single instrument from this bundle. I have bought little sample packs from Sonic Faction previously and i was pretty happy with the results. As far as Archetype goes, I think they should leave instrument design to NI! At least try the stuff out before they release it…

    1. I definitely agree, I could load the beatdown, the devilfish 303 and when sickness came in it immediately crashed Ableton. All the other instruments could not be loaded and Ableton gave me a message that they where broken, at least give people a possibility to test it first would be a good idea. Having said that, I am perfectly comfortable with the older versions of these instruments, but the upgrade was a downer for me and totally unusable.

19. This stuff isn’t really running good on my machine ( 2.4Ghz processor OS 10.05 GB ram ) , I’ve never had any problems with any packs I’ve installed before , it’s not even saving properly , I’m thinking of getting my money back . Very disapionted , I really wished this stuff worked .

20. This stuff isn’t really running good on my machine ( 2.4Ghz processor OS 10.05 , 8 GB ram ) , I’ve never had any problems with any packs I’ve installed before , it’s not even saving properly , I’m thinking of getting my money back . Very disapionted , I really wished this stuff worked .