What determines your choice of synth beyond sound?

Anything about hardware musical instruments.
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BONES wrote: Give us a few audio demos and I'll make something functionally similar in a few minutes. It doesn't seem to do anything particularly magical to me.
He's been posting his stuff in my new thread for weeks.

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For me, it's presets. I'm not a synth-head. I want luscious pads, wonderful arps, fabulous sounds. I make music, not sound-sets.

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I got to have lots of control. Just picked up a Therapsid mk II on preorder that finally arrived with two sid chips installed. Lots of control onboard with all the knobs and buttons. I already had a Sammichsid synth, but the menu diving turns me off from customizing sounds more than the instant control of the Therapsid mk II. Korg Minilog, Virus, Moog Mother 32. My blofeld now that I have the Stereoping Qfeld control board for it. Polymorph, Spectralis 2, Minibrute, KS4. These are my favorite synths I have because of the controls onboard.

If Stereoping would just make a Venom controller like the Qfeld controller I would be all over it. I hate that matrix edit. On the blofeld too. Just not a fan of matrix knob/button control.

Give me control of my sounds in an easy layout. I might use some presets on a synth, but prefer to tweak sounds myself to customize.
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incubus wrote:For me, it's presets. I'm not a synth-head. I want luscious pads, wonderful arps, fabulous sounds. I make music, not sound-sets.
Not a sound designer either, but if you were to judge e.g. MC909 by its onboard patches, you would do it great injustice. They released it in 2004 but the presets were mostly 90 inspired trance, rave and dance, which hurt my ears as much as anything can do. Not at least strange that none of the patches really take advantage of MC909's absurdly massive bass potential (e.g. 4 osc style). I have made about 100 patches from scratch to serve as starting points and use only few onboard patches. I actually think the factory presets are an insult to the machine. Onboard patches will never be a selling point to me, but whether I can make patches to my liking certainly will.
Last edited by IncarnateX on Wed Jun 28, 2017 4:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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1) Presets for sure. Zebra has so many available online.

2) Software only. I'll die never have owning hardware and am ok with that. I like being able to pick up my tablet and go knowing I've got everything I need right there.

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Well, this is about "your choice of synth", and my choices are working really well for me.

The idea of just pushing a button and having a finished song has about as much appeal to me as working in a fast food restaurant. :shrug:

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Well, it is hard if not impossible to change your sources of inspiration per command. If modular is what makes your musical juices flowing, it is what makes them flowing, period. However, like BONES implies, habituation is really a bitch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habituation
and none of us should trust that what makes our juices flowing today necessarily is what makes them flow tomorrow. New gear is often the standard solution to that, but changing your habits with what you got can be another - and cheaper :D

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The "cheaper" part only applies to hardware, in software there is a wealth of freeware that very few people go anywhere near exploiting to its full potential.
incubus wrote:For me, it's presets. I'm not a synth-head. I want luscious pads, wonderful arps, fabulous sounds. I make music, not sound-sets.
Doesn't it worry you that people will pick them? I remember when I heard completely unprocessed sounds from a Korg DM220 (early digital drum machine) on a New Order album, it took my opinion of them down several notches. Ditto when I heard a sound I recognised on a Yello album. It just seems lazy to me. Don't get me wrong, I rarely create a sound from scratch but I always tailor a preset to fit exactly what I need. Often that might just be a matter of changing an envelope to better suit the tempo of the song but I find there is always something you can do to make a preset work better.

The other thing about presets is what a total time-vampire they can be. Last night I spent an hour previewing presets for my newly acquired Pulse 2, jotting down those I think might be useful starting points for my own sounds, and I only got through the first 100 of 400 presets. Out of that first hundred, I only found six that I think may be useful. I know that when I'm finished and start looking at the selected sounds back-to-back, I'll discover that half of them are simple variations on others, so out of 400 presets I doubt I'll find 10 usable starting points. OTOH, the first hour I spent with my Rocket I made (and lost) at least a dozen great sounds. So for me, it's patch memory that's important, not presets, which is why my little killerz only ship with a few.
Wormhelmet wrote:I hate that matrix edit. On the blofeld too. Just not a fan of matrix knob/button control.
I don't mind the matrix edit on the Pulse 2. It's way better organised than the one on my Yamaha CS1x was and things seem to flow quite well. The pseudo version on Ultranova is also pretty good.
What's the Venom like? There are quite a few going on eBay for reasonable money, although the 4 octave keyboard wouldn't be much use to me on my boat.
OreoSplitter wrote:I'll die never have owning hardware and am ok with that. I like being able to pick up my tablet and go knowing I've got everything I need right there.
Everything for what? Performing on stage? Mastering an album? Or just wasting a few hours noodling?
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Wooden cheeks.
Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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My cat has to be ok with the synthesizer. If he doesn't like it, then the synth goes in the garbage or gets deleted.
:borg:

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Aloysius wrote:Wooden cheeks.
V0RT3X wrote:My cat has to be ok with the synthesizer. If he doesn't like it, then the synth goes in the garbage or gets deleted.
Finally! Among all the bullshit in this thread we finally get to what's important.

I could not agree more, being both a cheek and cat man myself! I'm all about the cheeks...and the....cats.

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@picking sounds other will :

Science/history channels have been doing it for decades :hihi:

As well as all kinds of music.

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Venom is a great synth. I used to play my guitar thru its fx. Cheap and versatile with a great sound. 8)

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cheeks and cats and
cheeks and cats
cheeks and cats and
cheeks and cats

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Software- after the sound a GUI that I can see on a 4K monitor; no scale, no sale. Other than that is realy is just the sound, I don't find software as fun, desirable or inspiring as hardware, but it is more convenient if you can use the GUI!

Hardware - I'm a Eurorack guy and just love the lego like aspect, fun, fast, looks great and makes me want to play with it. One knob per function helps but didn't stop me buying electron gear which is still fast and fun to work with (and flexible with OB). I guess value comes in as well, I bought a DM12 on value (after sound) for what you got...now we are seeing hardware for software prices (3 osc analog model D for under 300 dollars) software will have to be very cheap or very good to stop me spending my music budget on hardware.
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