One Synth Challenge #100: Lord of the Springs (Taron Wins!)

[V'ger]

@ e@rs & Taron: Cheers, I would like to join, but have no keyboard or studio room anymore and find it difficult to get started from a qwerty keyboard on the sofa. Lack of time too..

But very nice to see the developer is involved in the competition threads like this, and synth looks good too.

[baalisoda]

My goal with this OSC was to finally take my rightful position of dead last. I think I might do it with this one.

Probably one of the most difficult synths I've ever worked with. Couldn't seem to get much diversity out of it no matter how many knobs I turned. Finally, I just decided to go with simple.

Anyway, if this doesn't get me a last place finish I don't know what will.

Listen at your own risk.

Liked the melody part, even more so of your fantastic self-deprecating humor

Cheers!

[Taron]

@ e@rs & Taron: Cheers, I would like to join, but have no keyboard or studio room anymore and find it difficult to get started from a qwerty keyboard on the sofa. Lack of time too..

But very nice to see the developer is involved in the competition threads like this, and synth looks good too.

THANK YOU! Hope it sounds good, too! It will be challenging to create variety, that's for sure, but I'm really counting on all our geniuses here!

As for my involvement, well, I have always wondered, how any developer could stay away from being involved, if they knew their "baby" was on the chopping block here, hahaha! ...but it really is my pleasure and I hope, I'll be able to help things along.

My goal with this OSC was to finally take my rightful position of dead last. I think I might do it with this one.

Probably one of the most difficult synths I've ever worked with. Couldn't seem to get much diversity out of it no matter how many knobs I turned. Finally, I just decided to go with simple.

Anyway, if this doesn't get me a last place finish I don't know what will.

Listen at your own risk.

Well, I took the plunge and was pleasantly surprised about your attitude both in and around the song, hehehe.

First of, though, you did get some decent variety in there. I think, you underused the HP/LP section, which helps shaping the weight of the sounds a bit.
What does puzzle me, is how you've managed to make the kick "click" at the end. Even when I slap OTT on, it won't "click" here. So...that's a bit weird to me. I think, you might've found some way to squish it until the clicking-point, hahaha. Ah well...

Anyway...
To take LotS to other places, you really have to embrace its nature and then lead it gently. Once you start fighting it, the stuff that comes out can get smudgy and ends up sounding the same. Every parameter matters, but fundamentally the most important ones are the tuning needles, of course, and the Spring A balance. These really set the foundation. After that you can carefully work with everything else, especially the crunchy bits like Saturation in A, crush on B and so on...

Though it's really not the same, you can also consider the springs similar to FM synthesis and design tone character with that in mind!

Either way, your style is in your melody and trademark happy timing of it. This time, though, you've hit the "drunk" aspect perfectly!
Thanks for giving it a shot, wag, really!

[wagtunes]

@ e@rs & Taron: Cheers, I would like to join, but have no keyboard or studio room anymore and find it difficult to get started from a qwerty keyboard on the sofa. Lack of time too..

But very nice to see the developer is involved in the competition threads like this, and synth looks good too.

THANK YOU! Hope it sounds good, too! It will be challenging to create variety, that's for sure, but I'm really counting on all our geniuses here!

As for my involvement, well, I have always wondered, how any developer could stay away from being involved, if they knew their "baby" was on the chopping block here, hahaha! ...but it really is my pleasure and I hope, I'll be able to help things along.

My goal with this OSC was to finally take my rightful position of dead last. I think I might do it with this one.

Probably one of the most difficult synths I've ever worked with. Couldn't seem to get much diversity out of it no matter how many knobs I turned. Finally, I just decided to go with simple.

Anyway, if this doesn't get me a last place finish I don't know what will.

Listen at your own risk.

Well, I took the plunge and was pleasantly surprised about your attitude both in and around the song, hehehe.

First of, though, you did get some decent variety in there. I think, you underused the HP/LP section, which helps shaping the weight of the sounds a bit.
What does puzzle me, is how you've managed to make the kick "click" at the end. Even when I slap OTT on, it won't "click" here. So...that's a bit weird to me. I think, you might've found some way to squish it until the clicking-point, hahaha. Ah well...

Anyway...
To take LotS to other places, you really have to embrace its nature and then lead it gently. Once you start fighting it, the stuff that comes out can get smudgy and ends up sounding the same. Every parameter matters, but fundamentally the most important ones are the tuning needles, of course, and the Spring A balance. These really set the foundation. After that you can carefully work with everything else, especially the crunchy bits like Saturation in A, crush on B and so on...

Though it's really not the same, you can also consider the springs similar to FM synthesis and design tone character with that in mind!

Either way, your style is in your melody and trademark happy timing of it. This time, though, you've hit the "drunk" aspect perfectly!
Thanks for giving it a shot, wag, really!

Thanks for the kind words. I really do need a tutorial on this one. I was hopelessly lost.

The click on the kick is the Cubase compressor on max. In fact, I had to use a ton of compression all over the place as well as overdriving the limiter.

Was a definite "challenge" in every sense of the word.

[Taron]

Nooo...why? I mean, why all the compression and such? I think, you've been overthinking the mixing a bit. Once you adjust the levels on LotS to be somewhat in balance, you can then fine tune the rest of the balance in the DAW, see what really needs compression to stay at a certain level (mostly just to avoid peaks), what could use saturation to level potential peaks and then limit the master up to -0.3db. It's what I do and LotS poses no particular challenge in that regard.

The kick has pretty umpfy power already and really shouldn't need this kind of compression treatment. What you should've done instead is simply sidechain it over the rest to make sure it stands out without peaking the whole mix, you know. Other than that...

The tiny example I showed on the first page had literally no treatment except for a limiter at the end and it really had already kind of a decent loudness. With only a little more attention and some sidechaining, I'm pretty sure it would've made a fairly solid mix.

Anyway...just some thoughts!.

[rghvdberg]

So far no luck running this in linux/wine

[baalisoda]

This is my entry for this month's #OSC100

https://soundcloud.com/baalisoda/baalis ... ical-dream

I have used following tools to create the above track.

DAW - FL Studio 12

Lord of the Springs VST by Taron x 7 Instances (used custom patches that I created out of default presets)

Native Plugins
Fruity Parametric EQ x 7
Fruity Reverb 2 x 2

Third Party Plugins (All available as free VSTs)
Baxter EQ x 1, BX Solo x 1, TDR Kotelnikov x 1, FerricTDS x1, Proximity x 1, BootEQ x 7, Classic Delay x 1, NastyDLA x 2, NastyVCS x 1, epicVerb x 5, LoudMax x 1

Thanks for listening and I hope you like it

Cheers!

[thecontrolcentre]

Cool little tune baalisoda

[baalisoda]

Cool little tune baalisoda

Much appreciate your kind words, sir

[Taron]

Cool little tune baalisoda

+1

[nickamandote]

Haha, you guys make me create another euroreggae track this month

[ontrackp]

Taron -- Congratulations on Lord of the Springs! Any chance of a mac version?

[Taron]

Thanks! Yes, there is a chance, just not inside this time right now. Thanks to bj I'm all set to go, but I have to learn everything I need about the graphics on OSX and all the other silly little things I may have in there only windows specific, such as file handling and who knows what else. It's freaking scary for me right now. I will have to inch my way through this with a whole new world to conquer, but it's there and I've already successfully compiled the v2413 last month.
Jokingly I suggested I might be able to do a GUIless version of LotS for mac, but that would be pretty insane, honestly.

So, yeah, it bothers the heck out of me, but it just has to wait.

[ontrackp]

Totally get it -- you should be proud of what you've done and I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's work on your baby!

[e@rs]

Ouch, LotS is kinda CPU intensive... One instance uses 10% or more on my machine.