[EDIT] SURGE is possibly the best synth I've ever used.

[stk]

Am I like the only one in the world who does NOT like the sound of Z3ta at all?

no
i could never really get into it.. dunno why.. just never clicked

[kritikon]

Hey Kritikon, what do you think of Surge's filters?

I think they're OK. Nothing special, but OK. They have a reasonable amount of power in them, in that you can make nice blips and beeps, and they even hold some power in the bass end (which is often a failing in s/w filters). But I don't class them as real character filters (which would include things like OSCar/impOSCar, MS10/20, 303s, CS series and many others...)

But they are smooth enough to make some good effects with the stepfilter thing for sequenced filtery stuff.

I've not bought Surge...it's probably not on my need-to-buy list, but it's on the 2nd wave list for when finance allows. The reason I didn't immediately buy it is because it has a very generalised FM-ish type of character to it. I know it's capable of a wide range of sounds, but I characterise it as mainly FM-ish-but-better (and I'm just not that much of a fan of FM, although obviously others love it).

But I really do think it has some very nice features, and being a synth tweaker, it is a top-notch design for serious patch-makers. When I demoed it, I fell in love with the GUI - or more to the point, the layout of the GUI. There were one or two functions that I needed to refer to the manual for, but it really invited me in to make up weird and wonderful patches, long sequences and general specialFX type noises. The implementation of the LFOs is sweet - it still amazes me how few VSTi have any form of LFO envelopes - I often find synths unusable for pads, simply because there is no way of sweeping in an LFO, or the way to do it is long and tedious, and downright silly. I've yet to see a Synthedit VSTi that has any form of even a basic LFO intro, never mind proper envelopes. You often can do it via modwheel or controller - but I don't always want to use up my modwheel on pitchmod - many pads need slowly introduce pitchmod as an integral part of the patch! Whereas Surge has it as standard, and it has it with a lovely visual method of setting it too. I like the step sequencer implementation and the modulations you can apply to it - the way you can slew the sequences is great.

In purely terms of a synth that I can enjoy sitting down with and creating strange noises from a blank patch - Surge is fantastic. Vember Audio make synths from the same viewpoint I patch them with. Same with ShortCircuit - they simply must be synth tweakers - it's designed for people like me...not preset whores.

It's just a shame that the general sonic characteristics aren't to my personal tastes. If Surge had the same sonic engine as something like impOSCar, but with the same GUI and routing features it already has - then I'd happily pay more than the asking price - far more. With a set of truly powerful filters and the features it already has, it would be a world beater IMO.

I'm not dissing the filters either...I had some noises out of it that reminded me very much of ARP Odysseys - if you pay careful attention to your patching, then you can coax all kinds of almost organic sounds from it - it's just not quite organic enough for me. It is one that I'll buy at some stage though - it has quality in some important areas.


It very nearly made me go "wow!". Nearly. But just not quite enough...only by a fraction though...I want it...but unfortunately I just don't need it, like you need an MS10/20 or an OSCar/impOSCar. And it irritates me that I don't want to immediately rush out and buy it, because I really want to support Vember Audio and keep them in business, because both Surge and ShortCircuit are quality items. They have an eye to user friendliness and feature implementation both at the same time and at a high level. I look at Surge, then I look at something like a Wavestation and think "why couldn't Korg have realised how synth programming should be done?" A synth like Surge which is so friendly towards serious patching, but has the complexity required, is a rare thing IMO.

Sorry...that was a bit of a witter.

[AKJ]

I just demoed surge and really do not understand why so many people here have such a lot of praise for it. feature-wise it has nothing special. also the sound character did not blow me away.

[kuniklo]

I just demoed surge and really do not understand why so many people here have such a lot of praise for it. feature-wise it has nothing special. also the sound character did not blow me away.

Name another synth that combines comb filters, wavetables with formant shifting and skew, variable shape oscillators with sub-oscillators and selfsync, lfos with envelopes, deformation and step sequencing, and fully modulatable effects? If you can't find any special features in Surge then you're not looking closely enough or you just don't know what to look for. The modulation system is unique and much more intuitive than any other synth out there. The closest match to Surge is the Virus TI, but, frankly, having owned both, Surge is just more capable.

The sound character is somewhat vanilla. It's not a character synth like the impOSCar, more of a good all-rounder VA.

[kritikon]

Exactly.

All those features mentioned above are seriously useable features that can help make very unique timbres. They're not just fluff (and too many synths have 1000s of features that really are just fluff). Taken feature by feature individually, it doesn't do anything absolutely ground-breaking...but all those features added together implements (to me, anyway) all of the best bits from various other areas of synthery. It adds up to more than the whole.

It all depends where you're coming from with synths. As I mentioned - if you're a serious synth geek, it has almost everything you could want in a reasonably priced VSTi. If you just want generic patches, and you simply don't have the time or will to get deep into a synth...then it probably won't be as attractive. Donkeys for monkeys....errrrrr, no...that's horses for courses innit?

[The Chase]

And wait, I hear a few people disliking the sound of this synth? That totally ruins it for me.

no wonder I don't like a single thread with you on it.

So did I get this right, you absolutely love zeta, but as soon as someone says a few bad words about it, it's completely ruined for you?

Do you have no balls?

Hey webster he meant it sarcastically

[martian]

simple z3ta single filter med reso work out, and imposcar at the end (another fav synth).

See...that's why I'm not overly keen on Z3ta. Those sounds had some impact, for sure, but I obviously picked them as digital. There's just something about it that sounds cold, even when there's modulation going on all over the place. The impOSCar one sounded immediately fluid and organic - I was going to say "fat" but that's cliched and probably the wrong word (it's hard describing sound in words). I know the impOSCar one is digital, but hearing it blind, I'd probably swear it was an analogue source (which shows how good the VSTi is ). In that patch, there wasn't even as much pyrotechnics going on, but it immediately had character and oomph.

The Z3ta ones had some oomph, but (sorry)...very little character to me.

I'm not just anti digital...I think the Wavestation and Wusikstation are incredible synths. I love 'em both, and they can sound incredibly digital.

thanks for all the comments kritikon, interesting reading.

i guess the first 2 sounds sound more digital to you simply because they are bland and lack some character? personally i pick sounds out as digital when they contain unmusical digital artifacts, beyond that everything just sounds like blander analog or character analog to me. i consider synths such as juno and pulse bland analog at osc level, and zeta a little more interesting, although still vanilla.

anyway, in those clips id prob pick out imposcar as digital, because it has this metalic ringing when you create certain high reso patches. hard to hear in the clip because i supressed it a little with eq , but its probably most obvious on the 3rd note. sounds like aliasing maybe? (which i know the oscar oscs do already). with 99% of playable patches (ie. not extreme high or low) its not there to bother me, even with it i kinda like it sometimes, others it anoys me, id love an option to switch it off actually.

to show a little clearer what im talking about, uneqed clip: http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=93884

but imposcar is one of my fav synths, and has the privilege of being amongst the only few i use in my minimalist setup, it just sounds awesome.

easy,

[AKJ]

Name another synth that combines comb filters, wavetables with formant shifting and skew, variable shape oscillators with sub-oscillators and selfsync, lfos with envelopes, deformation and step sequencing, and fully modulatable effects? If you can't find any special features in Surge then you're not looking closely enough or you just don't know what to look for. The modulation system is unique and much more intuitive than any other synth out there. The closest match to Surge is the Virus TI, but, frankly, having owned both, Surge is just more capable.

The sound character is somewhat vanilla. It's not a character synth like the impOSCar, more of a good all-rounder VA.

for VA I have on the commercial side pentagon, zeta and pro-53. and then there is excellent freeware like superwave p8, lallapallooza and arppe2600va (which btw is really absolutely great sounding). these days I am more attracted to synths like absynth, crystall, modelonia, cube etc. which are much more innovative.

[The Chase]

Call me silly but I always thought Voyager sounded better than zeta. They're pretty simular when you think about it.

[kuniklo]

for VA I have on the commercial side pentagon, zeta and pro-53. and then there is excellent freeware like superwave p8, lallapallooza and arppe2600va (which btw is really absolutely great sounding). these days I am more attracted to synths like absynth, crystall, modelonia, cube etc. which are much more innovative.

Compared to the other VAs out there Surge is more innovative and flexible, which is why people like it as much as they do. It doesn't compete with things like Cube or Modelonia because it's not meant to.

I might as well say I don't see why people thing Cube or Modelonia are interesting because I can do much more in Max/MSP.

[AKJ]

for sure one can do more in modular environments, but I am happier with a good synth designer taking some decisions for me. synths like modelonia or chrystal make it easy for me to start from a patch and experiment. of course, surge is not meant to be that kind of synth. but if it soundwise (as a va) does not appeal to me (that is: takes everything to a completly new level of quality) I don't see a reason to spend money just on another VA, while I am much more attracted to other stuff (like cube which I still do not own). The title of this thread suggests that this is the best synth ever, so I read through it and demoed surge. It just was not what I am looking for and for me it was not obvious what made people rave so much about it.

cheers, akj

[kritikon]

I don't even class Surge as a VA though. I see it as designed to obtain intricate patches with great user functions etc, but ultimately digital in flavour. That's not a bad thing...just not analogue sounding. It's probably doing it a disservice calling it a VA. Yeah, it has the usual oscillator->filter->envelope routings, but that doesn't make it a VA. If I ever buy it, it will be for its strengths (intricate pads, flexible filters, good sequencing features, musical waveshaping, specialFX...IMO) not because I think it can sound like an an old analogue synth...which I don't think it does anyway.

I fully acknowledge I'm an analogue fan...but that doesn't preclude me from liking digital synths if they do something special. Surge, ultimately is not entirely to my sonic tastes, but it has everything I'd like in an analogue synth or VA. It's all the thought they put towards making it flexible yet easy to patch that is a laudable selling point.

As for being the best synth ever...anyone who says that is being pretty dumb IMO. Different synths do entirely different things. You can have a synth that is the one you personally like to use the best...but not a best synth. Things like Synthi As etc are pretty awesome synths, but they're f**king useless at making pads...so it can't be the best synth ever, if you want to make pads, can it? Likewise Wusikstation or XPhraze are pretty awesome synths when you want to make 3-minute-long evolving pads and other-wordly textures...but they're useless at making acid 303 lines....etc etc etc.

[AKJ]

don't you think it is a bit of a contradiction saying you do not class it as a va buton the other side stating that "Surge, ultimately is not entirely to my sonic tastes, but it has everything I'd like in an analogue synth or VA"?

[diverdee]

Having tried the demo I must say that the gui, whilst appearing a little comples at first, is wonderful.
I'm no deep tweaker, but I was qucikly able to dial in some rough & ready sounds.
The modulation capabilities are excellent, i'm another one who loves the envelopes on the lfo's - top design.
Dunno about the sound, it was ok - but i'm not really looking for another synth, I just wanted to play with the synth to see what all the fuss was about.

[soma]

I love this synth, but the filter routing took me forever to understand and use.