Synthmaster 3 wish list

[Kumi_27]

multi-timbral support: be able to define zones across the keyboard, each zone play a certain patch

Why? I think it's more complicated than just putting several instances of SM in the DAW (each track with own patch) and maybe using some MIDI event filter/router/splitter.

[darksynth]

multi-timbral support: be able to define zones across the keyboard, each zone play a certain patch

Why? I think it's more complicated than just putting several instances of SM in the DAW (each track with own patch) and maybe using some MIDI event filter/router/splitter.

I think the process you described works best when:
you have already figured out exactly what parts are going to end up in your track, and have crafted each individual part in isolation; like in a traditional sense you have your bass line, lead, etc. composed separately, and all that is left is to put them all together in the DAW, sequence, tweak, etc

but if you are at the stage of experimenting, exploring, to see what is possible and what parts go well together, what you described is rather cumbersome.

with multi-timbral support, you can for example divide the keyboard in two zones, i.e. left half playing the bass patch, right half playing the lead, or divide the keyboard per octave, each octave different patch;

can be a preset for "different zone layouts". so all you have to do is select a zone layout from the "zone preset", assign a patch to each zone, and voila!

this is good for experimenting, exploring, coming up with ideas, and once you figured out what your track is going to be like, you can proceed as you described, to produce a final well laid out track.

[Kumi_27]

Good masterkeyboard gives You just what You described - several zones / layers / splits, every one with own MIDI channel.
You can connect this to one multi-timbral instrument or seweral mono-timbral ones. That was the very idea of MIDI connectivity, even before the software DAWs and VSTs.
Now You can route it to seweral DAW tracks with one synth instance on each track. What's the problem?

If You don't have such keyboard, then there are software MIDI filters, which give You this functionality. They will take notes from one keybed and change their channels, transpose, filter etc. Be it MIDI filter or multitimbral synth, You still have to program the zones and splits, but You can do it with any synth and You don't need it to be multi-timbral.

Ever tried something like Cantabile or Brainspawn Forte?
Or something I just found - https://sourceforge.net/projects/midi-layer/ combined with MIDI Yoke - there are many possibilities.

[darksynth]

Good masterkeyboard gives You just what You described - several zones / layers / splits, every one with own MIDI channel.
You can connect this to one multi-timbral instrument or seweral mono-timbral ones. That was the very idea of MIDI connectivity, even before the software DAWs and VSTs.
Now You can route it to seweral DAW tracks with one synth instance on each track. What's the problem?

If You don't have such keyboard, then there are software MIDI filters, which give You this functionality. They will take notes from one keybed and change their channels, transpose, filter etc. Be it MIDI filter or multitimbral synth, You still have to program the zones and splits, but You can do it with any synth and You don't need it to be multi-timbral.

Ever tried something like Cantabile or Brainspawn Forte?
Or something I just found - https://sourceforge.net/projects/midi-layer/ combined with MIDI Yoke - there are many possibilities.

thank you for the info , I didn't know that. very interesting!

given what you said, multi-timbral feature request for SM3 perhaps becomes a nice-to-have feature, of low priority, rather than essential.

[kv331]

a dedicated Drums layer, like VPS Avenger

multi-timbral support: be able to define zones across the keyboard, each zone play a certain patch

I'll look into Avenger's Drums layer. We already have the Drum mode for the arpeggiator, we might need to extend that.

Regarding multi-timbrality: Each layer will have it's midi channel, zone start/end notes. This way we'll achieve multi-timbral behaviour.

[gjvti]

a dedicated Drums layer, like VPS Avenger

multi-timbral support: be able to define zones across the keyboard, each zone play a certain patch

I'll look into Avenger's Drums layer. We already have the Drum mode for the arpeggiator, we might need to extend that.

Regarding multi-timbrality: Each layer will have it's midi channel, zone start/end notes. This way we'll achieve multi-timbral behaviour.

and I would add that I hope zone settings will have fade option (smooth velocity transitions/curves) __/ˉˉ\_ similarly as Korg Kronos and Omnisphere for example

[zzz00m]

Regarding multi-timbrality: Each layer will have it's midi channel, zone start/end notes. This way we'll achieve multi-timbral behaviour.

As I was reading this thread, I was going to make this suggestion. Looks like you beat me to it!

If you do implement 8 layers, then that will give up to 8 zones/parts! Problem solved!!!

[zzz00m]

a dedicated "wave shape" gallery/browser, ie. a graphical OSC browser showing the Wave Shapes

this gives you a graphical visualization of the wave you are going to select, easy to remember as you associate an image with the sound, makes it easier to browse through dozens of wave shapes, instead of reading the textual definition, select it, press a key on the keyboard to hear what it sounds like, decide it is not what you are looking for and do it again with a different wave shape

we are no longer in basic wave shape type territory: saw, tri, square, sine, etc
SynthMaster offers so many wave shapes/wave tables, it is important to attach an image to it, not just a text + catagorize them with tags

at the moment: there is a drop down menu with text labels,

SM3: have a dedicated browser that shows the actual graphical wave shape + some info/details

just as Preset Browser, that you can filter by criteria / characteristic:

- have a Wave Shape browser/gallery, you see the graphical shape of the wave and some comtextual info like: this wave shape is good for sound x, or adds characteristic y, or has been used in hardware synth z, custom wave designed by person w

- have tags associated with wave shape that can be used to filter the hundreds of waves available

- also as you scroll through the list of wave shapes, arrow down, on wave select: automatically plays the wave, so you can quickly decide on waves that are of interests, add to favorites

in Dune 2, you can see the graphical wave shapes that are in a given table, and Zebra 2 has a Osc browser but not graphical, UVI Falcon has wavetable represented graphically

I like this idea, and it seems to be consistent with earlier suggestions that SM3 make use of a central zone that shows details of whatever function is currently in focus.

So when you are selecting oscillator shapes, it would be perfect to see them animated (possibly oscilloscope, or 3D) in a central zone of the UI, as well as to actually preview their sound in your current patch, as you click on the oscillator in the list.

[zzz00m]

Here is my big suggestion:

Since improved wavetables are now "on the table" for SM3, here is an out-of-the-box idea...

How about making it possible to just drop an entire WAV file into an oscillator, then set scanning options, regions, etc., in a graphical editor sort of like iZotope Iris?

I have tried importing WAV files as SFZ, which works, but it would be really cool to have full control of waves for scanning or looping selected regions of the WAV.

[kv331]

How about making it possible to just drop an entire WAV file into an oscillator, then set scanning options, regions, etc., in a graphical editor sort of like iZotope Iris?.

I believe the "right" way to do it (for mono sounds at least) would be like below:

mono detect.png

You detect the individual periods and then import them one by one into a "wavetable". I still insist doing it on time domain instead of frequency domain. We have a lot of acoustic instrument sounds + vocals and we would love to convert those into wavetables.

[Greenstorm33]

I already said that I'd like to see the FM/PM routing improved because the current system of drop-down menus is awkward to use and doesn't allow you to see all the routing happening at once. I'll just throw in that what I'd really love to see is a "routing table" for each layer as used in IL Sytrus/Toxic Biohazard, Wiggle, and Linplug Octopus. It's an elegant solution that lets you easily set up any routing you want as well as visualize the current routing easily. The table could be easily incorporated into the GUI by just having it be another tab where the osc and mod osc tabs currently are. If you were able to implement this and also increase the possible FM volume/depth (oscillators on synths like Sytrus can FM each other quite a bit "more" than SynthMaster's oscillators can) I could ditch my dedicated FM synths and just use SynthMaster, which would be awesome considering all the things SynthMaster can do that they can't

[Niowiad]

I'm sure Filter FM was already mentioned, anyway I'm here giving my +1

[zzz00m]

How about making it possible to just drop an entire WAV file into an oscillator, then set scanning options, regions, etc., in a graphical editor sort of like iZotope Iris?.

I believe the "right" way to do it (for mono sounds at least) would be like below:

mono detect.png

You detect the individual periods and then import them one by one into a "wavetable". I still insist doing it on time domain instead of frequency domain. We have a lot of acoustic instrument sounds + vocals and we would love to convert those into wavetables.

I think time based would be fine. My main point was to be able to audition the wav after import, to select and hear only a selected part (zone) of the wav, without having to convert anything to a wavetable in order to hear the result. Instant feedback, no extra steps required. I was thinking something like this could maybe work together with the enhanced wavetable editing.

For example, say you have a 60 second field recording of some ambient sound that you imported as a wav, and you wanted to select just 5 or 10 seconds to play in your oscillator. Without chopping it up in another app, it would be really cool if you could mask just the part you wanted to play non-destructively. Then maybe you change your mind and want to hear a different section, just move the mask over the part you want to audition next.

[kokotte]

How about making it possible to just drop an entire WAV file into an oscillator, then set scanning options, regions, etc., in a graphical editor sort of like iZotope Iris?.

I believe the "right" way to do it (for mono sounds at least) would be like below:

mono detect.png

You detect the individual periods and then import them one by one into a "wavetable". I still insist doing it on time domain instead of frequency domain. We have a lot of acoustic instrument sounds + vocals and we would love to convert those into wavetables.

I think time based would be fine. My main point was to be able to audition the wav after import, to select and hear only a selected part (zone) of the wav, without having to convert anything to a wavetable in order to hear the result. Instant feedback, no extra steps required. I was thinking something like this could maybe work together with the enhanced wavetable editing.

For example, say you have a 60 second field recording of some ambient sound that you imported as a wav, and you wanted to select just 5 or 10 seconds to play in your oscillator. Without chopping it up in another app, it would be really cool if you could mask just the part you wanted to play non-destructively. Then maybe you change your mind and want to hear a different section, just move the mask over the part you want to audition next.

from what i understand, you would like a sampler in SM3 with adjustable in/out and loop mode, it's different from wt or perhaps, you would like a spectral editor ....

[zzz00m]

How about making it possible to just drop an entire WAV file into an oscillator, then set scanning options, regions, etc., in a graphical editor sort of like iZotope Iris?.

I believe the "right" way to do it (for mono sounds at least) would be like below:

mono detect.png

You detect the individual periods and then import them one by one into a "wavetable". I still insist doing it on time domain instead of frequency domain. We have a lot of acoustic instrument sounds + vocals and we would love to convert those into wavetables.

I think time based would be fine. My main point was to be able to audition the wav after import, to select and hear only a selected part (zone) of the wav, without having to convert anything to a wavetable in order to hear the result. Instant feedback, no extra steps required. I was thinking something like this could maybe work together with the enhanced wavetable editing.

For example, say you have a 60 second field recording of some ambient sound that you imported as a wav, and you wanted to select just 5 or 10 seconds to play in your oscillator. Without chopping it up in another app, it would be really cool if you could mask just the part you wanted to play non-destructively. Then maybe you change your mind and want to hear a different section, just move the mask over the part you want to audition next.

from what i understand, you would like a sampler in SM3 with adjustable in/out and loop mode, it's different from wt or perhaps, you would like a spectral editor ....

Well it's already a "sampler". Not really looking for a "spectral editor", as I have iZotope Iris for that.

But being able to adjust the start/end, and maybe loop, in the oscillator when using a large wav would be handy.

Not really related to wavetables, but just an additional suggestion while they are working on a new wavetable editor. Maybe there would be some common code that could be shared between features?