Modern soft synths

VST, AU, AAX, CLAP, etc. Plugin Virtual Instruments Discussion
Post Reply New Topic
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

Not trying to change your opinion about Virus (and frankly i could not care less) but how much time did you actually spend with it and which model it was?
You may think you can fly ... but you better not try

Post

there's no sign of life
it's just the power to charm
you come and go, you come and go. amitabha neither a follower nor a leader be tagore "where roads are made i lose my way" where there is certainty, consideration is absent.

Post

xoxos wrote:there's no sign of life
it's just the power to charm
No doubt. Completely unrelated, are your plugins all synthedit? I'm not being critical here, I like your stuff, I'm just wondering if that's the reason you don't release 64 bit plugins?

Post

i develop all my synths in arrogance, that's when you think other people are just as capable as you, and it's hateful, hateful, hateful. please talk to me, i need an opinion on whatever the cool people are talking about in their cool, doing things kind of way.
you come and go, you come and go. amitabha neither a follower nor a leader be tagore "where roads are made i lose my way" where there is certainty, consideration is absent.

Post

recursive one wrote:Not trying to change your opinion about Virus (and frankly i could not care less) but how much time did you actually spend with it and which model it was?
why!? didn't we do this for the hundredth time about 10 pages ago?
We have already argued to death if aliasing and the old DSP filters written 15 years are good or bad. We know you like the way they sound, but other than that we really got nowhere remember?
ghettosynth wrote:
Terrafractyl wrote:I think in 90% of the people that buy synthesizers, 'Modern' means shiny looking. (or whatever GUI style is currently cool)

For hipsters it means...
For synth nerds, it means .....
For Ghettosynth obviously it means Reaktor.

Pretty sure we are never going to agree on a term like this. Sure we all know something like 'best sounding' is hugely objective, but really a term like 'Modern' is even more vague and objective.

Its like 'futuristic'. Its meaning will constantly change to reflect our own perceptions.
Not that I want to beat this horse some more, but, I never said that I thought that Reaktor was modern in any way. In fact, as an application, it's decidedly behind the times. Max is a MUCH more "modern" application in the same sense, although it also has quirks and properties from days gone by. The big issue with Max is that it cannot be a VST.,,,.
doh, people are really not seeing my post as the half baked joke it was intended as. I was just trying to make a point about the futility of this argument. Instead you took it an wrote an essay in response, in true Ghettosynth style!

Really though I would completely disagree that MAX is more modern than reaktor. That GUI is like horribly ancient in comparison to Reaktor. The inbuilt help (hover over things u know what I mean) in Reaktor, makes it so much more usable for the uninitiated. and for me, a lot of the 6.xx Updates have really brought Reaktor into the present day.
I was waiting for anti-aliased lines for GUI's forEVER so I'm glad that finally came in the 6.11 update!

I'm interested in the fact that the Virus fans all like Spire... Personally I was horribly unimpressed with the sound of Spire when I demo'd it. It did not remind me of my Virus at all!
Each to their own! Still yet to try Rabid, maybe it will be more my cup of tea.
For me though, the user interface was 90% of what made me love my Virus, I got to know that panel backwards, and whenever you know a synth that well it becomes fun to use, just due to the speed of creating stuff.
For me, a modern synth is one of the mega-synths just because I often like to get pretty creative with patches and love having nearly all of the options at my fingertips. I hate it when I get close to making a cool patch and then go 'but what if I put it though a comb filter or a modulated delay that has modulation set by a mseg, pr whatever, but then realize the synth I'm working with doesn't have one of those... and you have to port the whole patch to a different synth... I have reaktor for doing absolutely anything I can think of.... but I don't like to work purely in Reaktor when I write music, so for me Zebra is the halfway ground. It used to be the Virus, but that was 8 years ago or so.
Each to their own, we all have our own way of working.
Hypnagog (Experimental Electronica) |
Terrafractyl (Psytrance) |Kinematic Records (Label)

Post

Terrafractyl wrote: doh, people are really not seeing my post as the half baked joke it was intended as. I was just trying to make a point about the futility of this argument. Instead you took it an wrote an essay in response, in true Ghettosynth style!
I think that you're overreacting a bit. I wasn't posting for you, rather, for others who will read it and take away a simple message.
Really though I would completely disagree that MAX is more modern than reaktor. That GUI is like horribly ancient in comparison to Reaktor.
Sure, but, as a development platform it is much more modern and interesting. I don't want to go into detail, it's just not interesting to enough people. I would switch 90% of my work to Max though if it could run as a VST.
I have reaktor for doing absolutely anything I can think of.... but I don't like to work purely in Reaktor when I write music, so for me Zebra is the halfway ground. It used to be the Virus, but that was 8 years ago or so.
Right, we just have different points where we make that switch. Zebra, and most synths like it, just don't add enough to the other tools that I have to justify making that switch at a more complex level.

This is also a value argument BTW. A lot of synths that fill in gaps for me were not synths that I would have ever considered paying full price for. It was only because they were part of a cheap bundle or bundle upgrade that I have them in the first place.

This is how I keep the GAS down and the music productivity up. In short, the vendor has to view the products within a bundle that a customer has already rejected as something of a loss leader.

Post

xoxos wrote:i develop all my synths in arrogance, that's when you think other people are just as capable as you, and it's hateful, hateful, hateful. please talk to me, i need an opinion on whatever the cool people are talking about in their cool, doing things kind of way.
LOL! Ok! Awesome, is this arrogance open source? I'm always looking for new outlets of expression.

Post

I may be in a time warp,sut synths seem to have stagnated over the years.

My very first syth in the 80s was a Roland Juno 106. I also owned a Seil analogue module (yeah,I know,but it was bi-timbral with digital oscillators and some good sounds could be squeezed from it.) The Yamaha CX5M FM computer I owned was a proper multitrack digital FM thingy ( if I remember well),and it even I had extra cartridges for more presets.

In those days presets were in short supply,and like many back then we couldn't wait to dump our analogue stuff for digital goodiness. This gave me access to maybe a whopping 64 presets,or even more on my shiny Roland D20 with floppy disk. But that eventually got dumped when a sleek black Korg M1 winked at me.

The future was always around the corner back then,but I thoght it had arrived with Steinberg demoing The Atari Falcon at a music show,but it kept crashing. But that heralded the advent of music on computers,and I for one am not disappointed. But apart from bigger samples,more storage,faster computers,its much of the same old. Yamaha once promised great things with physical modelling,but that all went phwat.

Now I come on KVR and read about all the great new synths that dont sound hugely different from 30 years ago. I remember pressing a key on a shiny new kid in town NORD and was blown away by that thing,(and still am). But its the interface of all these new synths that belongs in the dustbin of history.

Unless of course you actually like twiddling virtual knobs and sliders and auditioning ten zillion presets that all sound the same.

You do ?

Really ?

Takes all sorts I suppose.

Shrugs and walks off into the studio.

Post

well,
we observe an alleged increase in sophistication and a continuity in market worth (!!!! wow, how the f**k does that happen? how the f**k does that happen??!!!!)

with a correlated decrease, if anything, in public awareness of anything about the actual shit. twenty years ago, fanboys in synth forums could tell you the featureset of hundreds of h/w modules they could never afford.. i guess that's what we used to do back in teh old days, *research*

nowadays, it's "i want a comb filter not a delay and if you tell me it's a delay i will ostracise you and everyone else will also be happy to" and "there's xoxos the fool who insists a comb filter is a delay hahahah"

like the david bowie song in question,
is there ever, ever??? any kind of *public* increase in anything.. the technology society is permitted to use today is only bridle, tomorrow's detritus. if instead we discuss, "up to date" instead of "modern" then i'd say,

i know when to go out,
and when to stay in
and get things done

"modern synths" are teh ones you develop yourself.

these threads, all of them, are only forage for punters. the cryptos of course have their overt interests in maintaining public interest, like market value, but have no interest in permitting any discussion that would actually promote an essential vitality that allows life to persist in its own interests as if somehow you can keep the cows all really happy once they realise they're only for milk. what the f**k is wrong with the cow, the milk tastes like it died about a century ago eh.

the same bullshit the same asshat characters, subtly degrading the readership and their sensibility, reducing it to an insensate level "i can't code" (the bugger used to code professional medical database, that's about as stressful as dsp gets, and he and his lodgemate pals want you to believe dsp is evil wicked).

so i guess some characters are having fun with all of this, manufacturing some new slurry for the zombies to slurp up, but we all know what they're really interested in, and it's not bloody progress.
you come and go, you come and go. amitabha neither a follower nor a leader be tagore "where roads are made i lose my way" where there is certainty, consideration is absent.

Post

"Public awareness" about synths... is that such a worthy goal? Public interest in math caused by an interest in building synths as a hobby, might be.
~stratum~

Post

well you know, i'd never overthink a topic like that.

i monitor this forum daily to see if any of the expert synthesists have developed any affinity for listening ;)

https://xoxos.bandcamp.com/track/bang-on-your-ear
you come and go, you come and go. amitabha neither a follower nor a leader be tagore "where roads are made i lose my way" where there is certainty, consideration is absent.

Post

the same bullshit the same asshat characters, subtly degrading the readership and their sensibility, reducing it to an insensate level "i can't code" (the bugger used to code professional medical database, that's about as stressful as dsp gets, and he and his lodgemate pals want you to believe dsp is evil wicked).
For whatever it's worth, my years coding medical software...

1) Began with being taught by another programmer how to do it in the language they were using. While it was similar to other languages I had used, it had its differences that I needed to be taught. I didn't just dive into it and start coding.

2) The language itself, unlike coding in C++ which I long gave up trying to learn ages ago, was English. In a way, it was kind of an advanced version of basic. So it was easy for me to grasp.

3) Most of the base code was already written. What I did was pretty much take existing modules and rework them into other programs. I did very little, what I would call, original from the ground up coding. This also includes the UI which was all done already. And it was not an object oriented language. Nothing to do with making sure your mouse was clicking in the right part of the screen. Yes, this was pretty archaic stuff.

Now I am confronted with being told, "Okay, build a synthesizer." Pretending that I didn't have to worry about any sounds coming out of it, the UI alone is beyond anything I've ever done. Using a mouse to go to a drop down box in order to choose a wave form? I have never programmed in a language that allowed you to do that. I tried learning Visual Basic but it was just beyond my brain power. I come from the old school days of programming in COBOL, RPG II and BASIC. Beyond that, I never bothered.

In short, I do not know where to even begin to build a synthesizer, let alone one that sounds good, has a decent UI and isn't riddled with bugs.

If that makes me a low grade moron in your eyes, that's fine.

I'm sure I have a lot of company in this world.

Post

What you are describing wags is what building and modifying stuff with Reaktor is like at the highest levels. Just take parts of existing synthesizers and make them a part of your own, or another synthesizer. Over time, you might find that there is a natural path down to the lower levels, or maybe not. I can't promise you that there won't be gotchas, as I'm sure that you found out in your medical programming days.

I'll give you a good example. The BlueMatrix and GreenMatrix synths in the classic collection are not really something that are worth putting a lot of effort into because there is a lot of complication in the filters as the devs were using the primary modules in somewhat non-standard ways. Resonance is implemented as feedback outside of the primary filters and the primary filter resonance is fixed. The resonance path is fed from the bandpass output of the standard filter which lends a particular quality to the tone. They can be useful, but, they are definitely inaccurate and replacing the standard filters probably won't buy you much. That's the kind of thing that's best to just either use it or ignore it and move on to more fertile ground.

Post

ghettosynth wrote:What you are describing wags is what building and modifying stuff with Reaktor is like at the highest levels. Just take parts of existing synthesizers and make them a part of your own, or another synthesizer. Over time, you might find that there is a natural path down to the lower levels, or maybe not. I can't promise you that there won't be gotchas, as I'm sure that you found out in your medical programming days.

I'll give you a good example. The BlueMatrix and GreenMatrix synths in the classic collection are not really something that are worth putting a lot of effort into because there is a lot of complication in the filters as the devs were using the primary modules in somewhat non-standard ways. Resonance is implemented as feedback outside of the primary filters and the primary filter resonance is fixed. The resonance path is fed from the bandpass output of the standard filter which lends a particular quality to the tone. They can be useful, but, they are definitely inaccurate and replacing the standard filters probably won't buy you much. That's the kind of thing that's best to just either use it or ignore it and move on to more fertile ground.
At least with Reaktor there is stuff to work with. I'm not designing from a blank slate. And yes, in just a couple of days I have come a long way with Reaktor. Nothing super complex yet mind you, but I'm not lost anymore.

xoxos wants me to open up a programming language with a blank project screen and start writing code from scratch.

First of all, I don't even know what language I would need to buy a compiler for to even do this. I'll assume C++. Now it looks like I can buy C++ for under $100. But then I'm probably going to need to buy at least one book to learn how to program in it. And probably another one for DSP programming.

Then comes the time required to learn this stuff at a proficient level. It took me about 10 years to become a decent programmer in BASIC.

I'm 59 years old now.

Yeah, I can definitely see this happening.

The idea is so beyond ludicrous (for me anyway) that it's also beyond laughable.

TLDR - I've got better things to do with my time.

Post

nvm
:borg:

Post Reply

Return to “Instruments”