Synclavier Soft synth/emulators?

[blacktomcat666]

I'm really liking the Arturia Synclav. I also own UVI The Beast which rounds the whole thing out nicely.
The Arturia Synclavier is all about the FM synthesis, no sampling, the UVI has a rudimentary FM synthesis capability, but it has all the classic samples from the hardware. It's not thin at all, I 100% disagree about that, it needs no outboard plug ins to sound good.

Agreed - also people can increase the level of antialiasing to 64 x and increase bit depth to 24 bit in the preference panel if they want a more modern sound. CPU impact is still small.

Although the oversampling is cheap on CPU, it seem to work a bit odd. Indeed there's less aliasing on the higher oversampling rates, but then the FM stumbles and has 'dropouts'. This is not exactly what I'd expect from oversampling.

[Winstontaneous]

I'm familiar with Pat Metheny and Frank Zappa's albums featuring the Synclavier, but can't say for sure I know what the SC actually sounds like.

Can someone recommend classic Synclavier tracks from back in the day? Thanks!

[Numanoid]

ps
Is this a nec[r]o record? (10 years! )

Makes me glad

Synclavier sound? Then I think about Laurie Anderson

[fluffy_little_something]

Maybe check the UVI demo for signature sounds
I know that those light background SC bells were common in the 80s, like on Hall and Oates' Big Bang Boom album.

[blacktomcat666]

I'm familiar with Pat Metheny and Frank Zappa's albums featuring the Synclavier, but can't say for sure I know what the SC actually sounds like.

Can someone recommend classic Synclavier tracks from back in the day? Thanks!

This is a good, unprocessed example how the Synclavier fm sounds:

http://hucbald.com/Synclavier%20Works/S ... htmare.mp3

[fluffy_little_something]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr78ISrTElE

What he says at about 7 minutes, gee, he hadn't seen nothing, yet

[Ingonator]

Can someone recommend classic Synclavier tracks from back in the day? Thanks!

Tony Banks from Genesis used it for several tracks in the 80s and also played it Live.

One example is "Mama". Here is the official video and a Live video where the Synclavier is used for the main/Lead synth sound in both (and you should be able to see it in the videos):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccs2rt0oSzQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbO6aKayNIA

In the official video you could see a Synclavier II, an ARP Quadra, a Prophet 10 and an E-Mu Emulator. Most or all of those also seemed to be used on tour.


Synclavier also seemed to be used in other songs from the same album (and other albums too AFAIK...) like e.g. "Home By The Sea":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ILxVQwmbAs

In that Live video Tony Banks seems to play the Syncavier most of the time, not sure if really all those different sounds are from the Synclavier or if and how far he also controls other synths from it. In this song he also seems to play typical FM/additive sounds like e.g. a Bell like sound with it.

A different/official video with the same song, again the Synclavier II is used:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is_2Ng2-yIY


Synclavier was also used at the Invisible Touch Tour around 1986/1987, in parts of the song "Domino" like e.g. starting at 3:42 and 8:32 (and in other tracks of the concert too):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap4an6siukU

[AnX]

Some ppl seem to be confusing Sync versions. (ie the later sampling versions)


The Arturia synth is good, the presets are ok, but if you're like me and roll your own, its very interesting to dig into. Def an aquired taste tho.

[Chris-S]

Does Arturia Synclav V include the Beat-It preset?

http://www.synclavier.com/webclavier/
(preset 2).

EDIT: Ah, there is a competition.
http://www.synclavier.com/info-pages/sound-a-like.html

[Ingonator]

Does Arturia Synclav V include the Beat-It preset?

http://www.synclavier.com/webclavier/
(preset 2).

EDIT: Ah, there is a competition.
http://www.synclavier.com/info-pages/sound-a-like.html

Closest i found so far in Synclavier V seems to be a preset called "Phased Gong" in the "Keys" category. While maybe not exactly the same it does not seem to be too far from the original preset used in Beat It.
Of course this also depends on how much processing was added to the sound in the final "Beat It" song. Raw synth sounds rarely sound like in the final songs.
In the presets i had checked so far there seemed to be a bunch of really nice ones and programming it from scratch is quite deep.

UPDATE:
Just found this in the Synclavier V manual so that "Phased Gong" preset seems to be correct:

One of the most recognizable sounds created from a Synclavier’s FM synthesizer was the
intro gong sound on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” on the Thriller album. You can find this
sound, named “Phased Gong”, in the presets for Synclavier V.

The Synclavier manual is available here:
http://downloads.arturia.com/products/s ... 0_0_EN.pdf

[Aloysius]

The only thing I ever liked by Zappa was / is this Instrumental:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUvH3xf0e-I

I believe it was all done with a Synclavier. Which Synclavier Version, I have no idea.

Is it possible to get these sounds with the Arturia?

[Ingonator]

Synclavier V has up to 12 partials (opposing to only 4 in the real thing) which are parts and not additive partials so that term is a bit misleading IMO, especially as Synclavier also invloves additive like waveform programming for both the carrier and modulator.
Each part has a Carrier and Modulator with additive waveform programming where in the origonal synth the Modulator only offered a simple Sine. Each part/partial could do FM so you could get a 24 OP FM synth wile it does not offer algorithms like in a DX7. As all parts could be detuned and panned you could get some really big sounds from this.

The "Harmonic Envelopes" (one for each part/partial) are used to modulate the FM amount. Besides that each part also has it's own Volume envelope. Copy/Paste of parameters between partials is possible (with the buttons at the main GUI and corresponding features at teh advanced editing pages).

Of course you could only use the additive waveform editing withoutadding any FM or combine partials/parts with both "pure additive" and FM.

Each part could be also mapped to it's own keyzone using the "Key Dynamics" page in the advanced editing pages.

Synclavier V also adds FXs that were not included in the real thing (3 FXs at once fro ma selection of 6 different ones). A mod matrix is included too to e.g map Modhwheel, aftertouch and other sources to certain parameters (for example vibrato is a dedicated destination).

More details in the manual where i posted a link in my post above.

[Chris-S]

I believe it was all done with a Synclavier. Which Synclavier Version, I have no idea.
Is it possible to get these sounds with the Arturia?

Cant' see the video (blocked), but Zappa used the "biggest" and newest editions of the synclavier, which also included a sampling option.

Arturia Synclavier V does not include a sampling option.

[Glyn Darby]

Eddie Jobson was a great user of the synclavier, heres some info. http://www.eddiejobson.com/forum/read.php?f=1&i=52&t=52

[Aloysius]

I believe it was all done with a Synclavier. Which Synclavier Version, I have no idea.
Is it possible to get these sounds with the Arturia?

Cant' see the video (blocked), but Zappa used the "biggest" and newest editions of the synclavier, which also included a sampling option.

Arturia Synclavier V does not include a sampling option.

Thanks. The track is 'G-Spot Tornado'.