Request for quality sounds for the "LinnStrument MPE" library for Surge XT

[Roger_Linn]

Hi all,

I'd like to add more sounds to the "LinnStrument MPE" library for Surge XT, the official software sent for LinnStrument. Specifically, I'm interested in high-quality, finely-tuned sounds with rich and complex timbres, that use all three of LinnStrument's continuous dimensions and play well in all pitch ranges.

At the bottom of my site's "Free Surge XT Synth" page, I've listed some recommendations for the type of sounds I'm looking for:

https://www.rogerlinndesign.com/support/ls-surge

If you have any such sounds, please post them here for possible inclusion in the "LinnStrument MPE" library, and be sure to credit yourself as author.

Thanks much for your help!
Roger

[John the Savage]

On it..

Cheers!

[atte]

I'll give it a go when I get back from vacation!

[loudsuit]

on it!!

[Tj Shredder]

Great idea, also to concentrate on one free synth. And its one of the most advanced ones as well. It even supports the new CLAP standard…
Now I have to find/take some time for it…

[baconpaul]

Heya folks. Just posting in this thread to offer help if you need anything (I'm one of the authors on the synth).

Also we're planning our 1.1 release this week so that will get you all sorts of awesome new things (like CLAP, editor undo, more accessibility fixes for folks using screen readers, and more). Will have the full change log ready on launch day one we are done with the last minute content changes and bug fixes.

[Roger_Linn]

Thanks for joining in, Paul. Surge is amazing in its sonic capabilities. Every time I use it, I learn something new. The Karplus Strong and excited resonant comb filter synth methods are my current favorite rabbit holes. Thanks for your generous contribution to it.

[baconpaul]

Oh 1.1 has a bunch of improvements to the string oscillator (one of the ks methods) including internal oversampling and better tuning at high stiffness. Also if you enjoy those sounds the combulator fx is fun especially if you use the latest note modulator to modulate the center

[Roger_Linn]

Thanks for the update, Paul. That's good news about the string improvements! And thanks for the recommendation about the Combulator-- I'll check it out.

[atte]

I had a play with surge xt today, and unfortunately it doesn't work on my linux/debian laptop.

EDIT: Also tried it as a plugin in reaper, setting pitch-bend to 24 and sliding is not too tight, the last part of the bend is happening after the finger movement has stopped.

All in all seems like an unfinished synth, at least on linux, I'll sit tight and maybe try later when they straighten things out.

[baconpaul]

I had a play with surge xt today, and unfortunately it doesn't work on my linux/debian laptop.

EDIT: Also tried it as a plugin in reaper, setting pitch-bend to 24 and sliding is not too tight, the last part of the bend is happening after the finger movement has stopped.

All in all seems like an unfinished synth, at least on linux, I'll sit tight and maybe try later when they straighten things out.

We have thousands (or more) of linux users and have supported the platform for 4+ years, so would love to find out the problem you are experiencing that others are not.

If you join our discord we can help debug, but “they” (namely we) won’t straighten things out if they don’t know what the problems are.

On the pitch bend: there’s a bug in JUCE which means, if you use very very long audio block sizes, the pitch bend always comes at the end of the block. If you use 1.1 then you can set the block size to 64 or what not and you won’t notice it; but if you use the 1.1.1 beta candidate (the nightly) it is fixed.

As to “not working in my linux/Debian laptop” well, uhh, did you turn it off and on again? But more seriously, we build on ubuntu 20 and so there may be library incompatibilities with our binary. If a build is packaged for your distro perhaps try that, and if not, you will have to self build. Or at least share an error message!

Thanks

[MilesParker]

Hi Roger! Here are some patches I've created -- wanting to do this for a month now and had a few days off work so thought I'd dig in. Feel free to include them, or offer any feedback you might have. Also, if there are any sounds that people are really dying to have lmk and I'll play around to see what I can do.

I've been doing quite a bit of experimenting with different approaches to pressure control, timbre, etc.. and personally I'm really liking what I've been able to do with Surge XT. I'm LOVING it. It seems at least as powerful as say Phaseplant and a number of other commercial generic analogish synths I've played. I find the wavetable sample stuff to be the most powerful, it reminds me of my StudioLogic Sledge in the way you can take wavetables and go wild with them (and I noticed some Waldorf samples in there so that fits).

The version I'd tried a while back was a bit rough, I had some issues with sound artificats, but the current version seems rock solid and the UX is at least as good as most of the commercial offerings out there, barring outstanding examples like Pigments. Most importantly the sound is really sweet and it has all of the features, you need, none you don't.

[Roger_Linn]

Thanks, Miles. Good sounds and much appreciated.
I just sent Miles an email, saying that on reflection, I'm not the best person to decide what goes into a LinnStrument sound library. Surge already has "Factory" and "Third Party" patches, so I think it's better to do the same thing: Inside a "LinnStrument MPE" folder would be a variety of "third party" patch folders-- one from me, one from Miles, and other folders from anyone else who cares to contribute.
So anyone else who has some quality sounds, please post them here and before Surge does a new release, I'll send them over to the Surge team.

[Echoes in the Attic]

If I get some time, I might try to make some MPE presets for surge.

One suggestion - It might be useful to sub categorize the presets for what settings they are meant for with linnstrument. Not that there is any restriction but sometimes it's useful to know how it was intended. For example for some sounds I like to have linnstrument set to unipolar Y axis, starting at 0 and relative so that no matter where you start, up is the only modulation. I find this good where there is a bigger effect from the modulation so you can stay "safe" by keeping downwards pressure after touching. And then for more subtle modulations bi-polar is nice because you don't have to be so accurate. That's probably the biggest difference in patches that I would make would be those designed for bi-polar or unipolar. Maybe a tag would work, not sure if there are custom tags for that kind of thing.

[MilesParker]

I'm glad they seem of use, especially given these are the first patches of any kind I've shared with others. I think what you’re suggesting makes a lot of sense and as you say is in line with what many synth makers do by organizing patch libraries by author. The menu does start to get a bit deep but I think that’s ok as long as people can find what they are looking for.

I guess it’s a bit like woodworking or any other craft, where people have different takes even given the exact same set of tools and materials. With that in mind, I think settling on an open source “reference” synth just makes so much sense … beyond the obvious benefits of common demo platform, with so many synths out there it is really hard to do much knowledge sharing... this will hopefully allow people to learn from each other by using the same set of tools.

WRT Echoe's comment above, this just came up on thread below. My take is/was that I tend to make sounds that are "pure" at 0 and add colour as value increases, so I recommended against relative entirely. I had no idea that you could set the relative value, and of course when I tried the obvious thing and held the button I realize now that you can! So I think it's a subtle but important point -- as I say in thread, I'm relying on musicians to "discover" for themselves what works for them, but I also think it would be quite valuable for people who want to understand patch designers intent. Personally I'm going to stick without relative, since that allows me to get different colours on first strike. Another reason to keep those timbre changes relatively subtle!

Perhaps we don't need a tag or in name but simply add it to description. I'll start doing that.

viewtopic.php?p=8503686#p8503686