One Synth Challenge #111: Crust by Eugene Yakshin (Jasinski Wins!)

[TheNeverScene]

Just discovered Reaper's Project Bay. Makes listing FX and instances much easier.

[1eqinfinity]

@Taron Thanks! I'm really glad that you and other folks are noticing the character of Crust.
I feel you on writing tracks. I have a whole laboratory of musical embryos and there's never enough time to finish anything. I do approx. one track a year and that's painful.

If the formant filter was mediocre it would be depressing Since it's the most computationally expensive element in the synth so far. Even ZDF ladders with nonlinearities are cheaper. However that might change since Crust needs less aliasing in the oscillators as was mentioned before, and it's design doesn't allow for some tricks based on predictive waveforms (because of mutual fm, fm with aux and so on).

[TheNeverScene]

@1eqinfinity: Am I correct in thinking the D Lad filter is a sort of 303 type filter?

[Taron]

A few things I still need to find, but by now I have a feeling that everything CAN actually be found somewhere in there, haha. Maybe I should take a look at some documentation, hahaha... I somehow rarely expect that I need one, but in this case I'd be missing the most amazing stuff. 8}
I've implemented a simple formant filter in my first vst synth, yet to be released, but it was just a morphing fixed scaler array at 44.1khz reference, really sucky. It works and isn't that slow, but due to its rigid nature towards sample rates it really is more of a gimmick. In other words: I'm envious of your beauty there!
...everything for outstanding percussion to gorgeous lead sounds and everything in between, I'm deeply enjoying making music with it. Ever since the OSC, by the way, I almost reliably make a whole song every month and sometimes a few little bits extra. I used to be incredibly prolific in that regard, but that's a long time ago, making several tracks per day, literally, but never really produced properly, of course. Now I'm actually thrilled to make one song per month. But this year has been weird. Rockiest start in a long time, somehow. But not the "rocking" kind, hae...
You should consider joining the OSC frequently yourself to have a good reason to finish some tracks!

[TheNeverScene]

Here's my submission. Another month of midi-draw and jamming on the QWERTY, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. Since FX numbers don't provide much insight, I've included some where's and why's.

Big thanks to Eugene for such an awesome piece of kit!

22 instances of Crush.

Track FX:
Ambient Reverb x 7 (various tracks, mostly longer reverb times)
arcDev ET-301 x 6 (great delay for adding some width to mono signals)
Bass Professor Mark II x 1 (fine tune bass synth and keep it steady)
JB Ferox x 1 (a little tape saturation to drum bus)
GClip x 10 (tame the peaks mainly on percussive elements for RMS levels)
Kirnu x 2 (keep the bass and techno synth rolling along)
PIZ midiNotesToCC x 1 (provide keytracking for tom panning)
ReaComp x 1 (sidechain bass to kick)
ReaEQ x 20 (pretty much on everything)
RoomMachine844 x 5 (various short verbs to drum tracks and drum bus)
Sanford Reverb x 1 (more verb on drum bus)
SoftAmp FM25 x 5 ( 4 Clean channel used on L&R organ and guitar tracks for a sense of mic'd cabs, 1 dirty with gain at 3 on guitar bus because I wanted something heavier....it's a Fender, not a Mesa Boogie:)
ThrillseekerVBL x 11 (great for basic compression and adding girth and harmonics, mainly used on drums and a few synths)

Master FX:
A1 StereoControl x 1 (stereo widening....duh)
DensitymkIII x 1 (glue)
DJMFilter x 1 (one knob filter sweep...use is obvious in that one spot)
GClip x 1 (catch peaks before final limiter)
OTT x 1 (some added lift with mild upward/downward compression)
QuadraCom x 1 (a little more lift and punch)
ReaEQ x 2
Reafir x 1 (noise reduction)
RoomMachine844 x 1 (space glue)
Unlimited x 1 (make loud)
https://soundcloud.com/the-never-scene/ ... 11/s-jnJaM

[schiing]

You should consider joining the OSC frequently yourself to have a good reason to finish some tracks!

I agree with this, and I wholeheartedly recommend the OSC. It has definitely been good for my process these past few months. In particular I've been a lot more conscious about my sound design and my mix choices (probably because I know my track will be played 300 times over and scrutinized by other musicians - most of my music is only ever heard by me). And even though I've been making music for about 100 years, I've addressed some of my Achilles' heels since I entered the OSC and made some real progress in certain areas.

But yeah, it does take time to complete a track... I admire the guys who are able to deliver every month.

[progtronic]

My OSC #111 Entry:

Really tried to simplify things this time, after that shitshow of a mixing disaster I had last month. So.. I pretty much took a 'less is more' approach with everything, on this one.

Also.. Tj Shredder suggested that I slow down a bit, give some space to breathe.. and thought I'd try something more mellow on this one. Well.. "mellow" for me anyways.

I created all the patches first, then was guided musically by wherever the resulting sounds took me. At some point, it drop kicked me into the middle of a 19th century carnival freak show.. with clowns.

I'm not even mad...

https://soundcloud.com/progtronic/progt ... ame-osc111

DAW:

1. Studio One Pro (ver.3)

Synth:

1. Crust = 66

Native FX:

• Limiter = 105
  Gate = 3
  Channel Strip = 30
  Mixverb = 11
  Binaural Pan = 3
  Beat Delay = 4
  Pro EQ = 7
  Multiband Dynamics = 4

3rd Party FX:

• MBandPass = 8
  MWaveShaper = 2
  MEqualizer = 1
  MAX1 = 8
  LoudMax = 1

[progtronic]

Here's my submission. Another month of midi-draw and jamming on the QWERTY, but I'm starting to get the hang of it....

Nice one man. Has a bit of a Synthwave vibe to it. Would work really well as part of a vid game soundtrack, in something like Far Cry 3's: Blood Dragon.

[generaldiomedes]

Quite the prog opus there progtronic, I think you’ve got a shot at the title.

[TheNeverScene]

Quite the prog opus there progtronic, I think you’ve got a shot at the title.

Yeah, Progtronic has been bringing it full force here lately. Crazy skills and love how it all just flows. Top notch!

[1eqinfinity]

@1eqinfinity: Am I correct in thinking the D Lad filter is a sort of 303 type filter?

Yes, you're correct. It's sort of 303. There's a couple of things that I'd change in the future to remove the "sort of" part, for now it's an approximation

[1eqinfinity]

...
You should consider joining the OSC frequently yourself to have a good reason to finish some tracks!

...
I agree with this, and I wholeheartedly recommend the OSC

Last year I bought a book "Music Habits - The Mental Game" by Jason Timothy. Guess what, right now it took me almost 10 minutes to even find it, forget the reading.

[] Peter:H []

Next months synth - Why not check out vcvrack? Haven't checked the site for a while and was completely flashed by the number of free modules that are available: https://vcvrack.com/plugins.html
And since Version 0.6.0 it comes with a vst bridge

[generaldiomedes]

When I checked it out the bridge was effects only still, but this looks amazing overall. Full VST integration is going to be challenging I think.

[Taron]

That looks like a 3 month OSC, Peter, hahaha! Jeeez, I've never seen that one. ...yeah, definitely interesting!