Hi,
I have been using Gladiator for a rather long time now.
The sound and the quality of the effects are excellent, the most delivered factory presets are much better than the common mediocre ones, like often attached to several other synthesizers.
It is a "honest" product.
Astonishingly I could'nt find Gladiator at several forums like KVR in the top list, seemingly it has a modest popularity.
Also in this forum the user resonance is "limited".
I asked myself for the reasons and probably I could find them.
I think, the the main reasons are at the GUI.
1 - Using all the small knobs is a pain, exact settings are impossible.
I understand that bigger controls don't fit into the control panel and the whole GUI is large enough.
However, by using simple solutions would have been possible the solve the problem. The idea are not new, lot of programs use these method since a long time.
Increasing/decreasing values by the mouse wheel is simple and effective way. And by pressing e.g. the shift key I get a higher setting resolution.
Probably the same object/procedure could be used at every knobs (I am software developer).
2 - The two displays in the oscillator sections with their cloud patterns tell me not much.
A great feature would be being possible to see the choosen oscillator waveforms in realtime: if I use some modulator, the displays show me the real waveform, the performed changes.
It is intuitive, I see what I'm doing; the moving "ant formations" tell me nothing, maybe something about the complexity ot the patch.
A good example is the Cakewalk synth Z3TA+2, there I see always the waveshaping results immediately, very useful at programming sounds.
After finishing the oscillator editing resp. during playing the patch the display could show the recent picture.
3. The confusing patch list is not acceptable, at more than 1000 patches I expect at least an alphabetical order.
I do know, that after reading these proposals the developers won't be start with the realisation of these ideas immediately.
However, hopefully I could make a little contribution to the improvement of this excellent product.
Other synths, being not better than Gladiator like Dune have a good rating among the popular synthies. I ask myself why.
