I love Fruity's new Kick generator, but what I'd like to know is whether there's an equivalent out there for the snare ?

The Drum synth is OK, but instead of a little generator trying to be recreate every sound from metal to toms (and using it in the piano-roll), I'd prefer a dedicated snare-synth. Just good noise, envelope and filter, resonance etc.

Does such a thing exist ? If not perhaps this would make a good range of cheap drum-synth VSTis. You can imagine eventually having a separate plug for all sorts of sounds....

Is there such a thing already ?

Try the VST's xoxos (a regular here) built in SynthEdit. Free.

http://home.earthlink.net/~plattermatic/

Tried the Blaster - thanks for the link. It was pretty good, but lacks richness IMHO. No other "single purpose" one-voice noise generators out there ? I'm currently loading in either Kontakt or Absynth for a single voice which is desperate overkill - but at least gets the sound.

And no, I don't want to use the piano roll.

(ps: I know I should have started this in "instruments")

Don't know about you guys, but at the expense of convenience I like mixing 4 or 5 snare samples at various levels in CEP to come out with custom sounds. Now that Fruity is a host in a VSTi, it would also be cool to see a multitrack(like Cool Edit, but with only a few tracks) sampling VSTi for blending multiple sounds together into one......maybe not even multitrack like that...maybe just with a vector mixer!?%@?*
something much lower scale and of a different species from Kontakt...

[ 12 July 2002, 18:54: Message edited by: Ford Prefect ]

Have you toyed with DrumSynth Live yet? What you need may be in there.

far be it for me to tout my freeware synthedit creation as a global solution, but i'm wondering what you're looking for, more if you know?? i'm not familiar with fruity's synths, and certainly have a relative appreciation for my creation, but i reckon blaster is about the closest in terms of actual synthesis at the present (i'd like to know otherwise, if it runs on my pc and doesn't cost a bomb)

the major shortcoming in terms of emulation would be the use of noise to model the bessel function pertinent to the harmonics of a stretched diaphragm head.. it's worked for roland for years

i find it does take a bit of fiddling to get the noise mod happening for a particular sound, but the alternative to having a free-ranging tuneable noise source is having several selectable noise presets, and as such you're back to samples in the present era (which, agreeing with ford's methodology, is handy.. have a kit of familiar samples you can quickly level adjust to suit the moment.. maybe a program in dr005, which has pitch enveloping.. set up several noise/texture bands???)

i've had a number of instances recently with this vsti thingy where people have wanted synths that do more with less controls.. i'm not a math savant but i think a bessel calculation will probably require most of most people's processors. having a vsti that has three sliders for drum skin type, et c. isn't probably happening anytime soon.. something that will accurately model all of those springy things in the rattle-plate thingy et al. for true realism.

anyway.. i really like blaster! i was honestly surprised by the result. you've always got the option of applying effects to nail your sound (and given the array of free vst plugs, that's a considerable facility) or running layered instances to double up the oscillator count?? anyway, i hope you find a tool that does it for you.

If you're not after an electronic snare type sound (which I think blaster does better than just about anything else) then I think sampling is the only way to go.
Synthesis can't adequately replicate acoustic snares, full stop.

What I'm after is quite specific, and I'm certainly not trying to say someone should make one, just that I'd like one. It goes like this:

I like programming drums in Fruity, but I don't like going to the piano roll - sort of subverts the easy drum progamming GUI.

So what I'd like is a one-voice drum-synth specifically for this job. The new DrumSynth is OK, but since it's trying to be a full drum machine in a single instance, it is not really suited to this idea. The machine is trying to simulate all sorts of drum sounds and therefore can't really do any one thing extremely well IMHO.

I've also been spolied by Creamware's ModularV2 which has a selection of dedicated drum synth modules. The sound out of these is really first-rate - and they should be for the amount of dedicated DSP they chew up!

So I'd just like a simple one-voice VSTi with about eight or ten parameters, but more importantly to be really top-quality. There seems to be so much emphasis on CPU resources with VSTis that the quality sometimes seems a bit shakey.

Which - in exhausting detail - is why I'm using Absynth or Kontakt to generate a single voice of white noise.

And yes, I know I could use a sample (well, I do in Kontakt), but I prefer the knob-twiddling factor of synths. And usually I don't want something that sounds like a real snare anyway.

Phew! So much about so little. . .

hey there m8 -
greetingz from the land of ZZZZZzzzZZZZzzzzZZzzz

this doesn't answer yer question at all, but I'll sell you my copy of DrumVox by Hummell if ya want it. I bought it, but am not that into percussion synthesis, and never use it. lemme know. and good luck finding what your looking for. You know of waldorph's attack, right? but you just want one voice . . . . hmmmmmmmmmm

In response to the "do I know what I want" question. Yes, and here it is:

http://www.hq13.com/pulsar/vsti.htm

Trouble is I just made the graphic. . .

(ps: Hi Algo. Thanks for the offer but you know me, Mr "export to wav" )

[ 13 July 2002, 03:46: Message edited by: spirit ]

in that case what you really need to do is check out synthedit! you can load up that skin and have it work just the way you want.

http://www.synthedit.com

in terms of 'richness,' my suggestion is to double each oscillator up and run each into a seperate pan module.. then have a single slider routed to the 'pan' value of each with an 'invert' module in-line on one channel.. so when you face one 0 to +5 the other goes 0 to -5, giving you a handy choice between doubling up your oscillators and a stereo width function. check out my 'ecs' module for this dynamic.. basically the same as just using two instances of something tho.

at the bottom of the page, you'll find a link to the .se1 file for blaster et al. (tho not ecs.. made later) in the blaster file you'll find a handy method of routing the envelope for the pitch curve thru a vca vs. a fixed value to get the curve..

..actually.. i do that twice for a very sharp exponential curve.. remove one of ther vcas and you'll get a less extreme curve you might like more.

whyterabbyt.. "can't adequately synthesize an acoustic snare..??" are you off your knob? why do i always have to make people .mp3s?? i'm going back to bed.

Have you thought about using the non-live version of DrumSynth? It's not a VSTi, true, but it does create reasonable drum-like sounds that can be plugged directly into the fruit.

You might take a look at it, it's downloadable from the fruity site. Oh, and it's free.

Check out element-P from Linplug. Will pretty much do everything you want.

For of-line sound creation for drum sounds, nothing beats Stomper Hyperion imo. It's freeware and has an awefull lot of options to sculpt a sound.

http://www.lysator.liu.se/~zap/stomper/whatisit.html

spirit wrote:
>
> The new DrumSynth is OK, but since it's trying
> to be a full drum machine in a single instance,
> it is not really suited to this idea. The
> machine is trying to simulate all sorts of
> drum sounds and therefore can't really do any
> one thing extremely well IMHO.

> In response to the "do I know what I want"
> question. Yes, and here it is:
>
> http://www.hq13.com/pulsar/vsti.htm

As I made both the old and new DrumSynth programs in fruityloops, I have to say there isn't anything you've drawn on that GUI that they can't already do. But having programmed hundreds of drum sounds myself, the problem is it takes time and knowledge to get exactly the sound you want. As suggested above, layering sounds is the easiest way to get interesting and powerful snare drums.

Thanks for all the suggestions - much appreciated.

The DrumSynth is pretty good and I've found that it's light enough on my P4 to run quite a few instances simultaneously. But is it possible to save sounds ? I've only got the demo version so perhaps it's restricted, but I can't see where this happens ?

And yes, there's nothing remarkable at all on my little GUI, just a bit of fun. I suppose I'm really concerned about the quality of the sound. There's really no point in using an average quality synth sound if you can get something far better by sampling a high-end synth.

xoxos quoth whyterabbyt.. "can't adequately synthesize an acoustic snare..??" are you off your knob? why do i always have to make people .mp3s?? i'm going back to bed.

Touchy!

I wasn't denigrating your synths, xoxos. Try and remember who it was recommended them in this thread in the first place will you?
All I meant was that whilst the model you used (Based on the SOS article, if I remember) replicates the sound of a snare, it doesnt model the snare.
Maybe 'adequately' wasn't the right choice of word, maybe 'completely' would have been correct.

So if your creation is indistinguishable from an acoustic snare in a blind test of differing styles, then I apologise... otherwise, point me at that MP3

(And lighten up mate. Sheesh.)

so that's what you meant by rich it's the 'freeware is suckware' stigma..

i've got analogs (one of my analog drumboxes has heavy tonal customisations) vas, a h/w wavetable synth, romplers, a h/w physical modeling synth, vintage gear, a fizmo for goodness sakes, basically the lot short of a giant serge modular.. spent about $10k just on h/w synths, (which is about what i earn a year..) so since i've gone to all this trouble to reach this conclusion, take my word for it..

for the lead on my latest track i used chip 32 and erm "it's killer" (i can say that, right?)

paying money doesn't necessarily get you better sounding maths or anything..

off to see if i can channel for w.r. or end up making some kooky new wave.

oh you posted.. i had a fit because of you and tore down all my christina aguilera posters. now i'm going to wear black lipstick and be rude to people who get the wrong number just because of you, w.r.

oh, christina, christina, i am so sorry.

If you get gacky lipstick marks on the phone receiver, dont blame me...

Although have you ever noticed. People who dial the wrong number tend to be the second rudest bastards on the planet (after little old ladies in queues for stamps or tickets).

ehehe, you know when some people are rude, that's really just their way of trying to be friendly

hmm.. wot's dis, spirit? (apart from lousy colour coordination..) sorry about the mp3 dubya, had a fun day..



[ 14 July 2002, 00:59: Message edited by: xoxos ]