By JensJohansson
On 5th January 2007
Version: 1.06
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JensJohansson
4 of 9 people found
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I absolutely fucking love this thing, I have used it on so many productions it's not even funny! If synth1 was a man I would consider becoming gay. OK, maybe not but..
The sound is as you would expect from a very well written digital "analog simulation" instrument, clean and fat.. well my ears can't detect any problems in the software anyway.
The user interface is straightforward and very easy to understand if you have any idea of how a "normal" additive synth works. It gives you a very solid feel, you DEFINITELY don't worry about this thing sinking your machine with a blue screen or something.
The feature set is close to perfection.. there are no overwhelming amount of choices and "getting from point a to point b" is in no way tedious.
I also think it looks great, and as another reviewer pointed out, the ability to actually change the size of the interface is such an amazing idea you wonder why you don't see that more often. Screen sizes vary wildly!! Perhaps the buttons etc aren't "iconized" with fixed bitmaps and scaling was easy to accomplish.
Also this thing has this added emotional bonus: you will know that you are using something that was created out of love and giveen to the world for free... just for the act of giving something really nice and useful. And you're not compromizing one bit by using something that was just given to you...... the quality of this thing is awesome!!! |
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By juffi
On 5th July 2006
Version: 1.07
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juffi
8 of 9 people found
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This is probably one of the best freebie synths out there. Aside from its sound, there arent many VSTis, that are THIS low on Cpu.
It has 2 oscillators only, so someone could say: hey thats not enough. Think again. This synth can do pretty heavy virus-like basses, i reprogrammed this on it. Amazing. It has a supersaw, even some commercial synths dont have this actually. There is a FM section also. Synthesis structure is modelled after Clavias Nordlead2, so you can imagine what it can sound like , although i doubt it can sound excatly like it.
Filter is absolutetly fine for me and i dont miss much here .
The arpeggiator is very nice to use, it cant compete with albino's arp, but i did quite nice ebm-like sequences.
Many people complain that is has no mod-matrix. First question: do you need actually 16 modulation targets?
Anyway, a little modulation matrix could be fine. You can check out LFO1 + LFO2 of course.
Gui department is something to debate about: it is not a pretty modern gui, on the other side, it shows nearly everything what i like to see. You can change color AND size of the gui. Even commercial synths dont offer this.
Preset management is cumbersome at first, you have to set the path where your presets are. But if it is done, it is one of the best preset management. Why? Because you can access presets without "load" and so on and you can browse all of them in a host. Perfect. Would be nice if we can access 16 Banks in that gui.
There is a button says "OPT". Now if you hit this, you can access the settings area. There you can see your controller assignments. Furthermore this baby has midi learn cc. In this OPT-Menu you can turn off slider window, thats seems to be annoying. If you want a virus like black color try this one: Panel = #08080f and Text = #c8c8c8. But write down your old values first ;)
Effects department is nice also, there is nothing to complain about. In Version 1.07 there is Compressor, ring modulator, decimator, Distortion1+2, Phaser. There is also an EQ between, delay and chorus are also on board.
It has a decent unison mode. Although you only can switch it on and cant say how many voices you want to use, it sounds great to me. Next to it there is stereo spread, so you can do ultrafat stereo spreaded basses or leads/pads.
A new option there is "Lissajous", so if you hit it it can sound a little bit warmer, the bottom end of frequency is more up. You can only hear if you have decent headphones and try some basses.
Documentation is also on his website, what more you can ask? Some parts are japanese : http://www.geocities.jp/daichi1969/synmanu/readmeeng.html
Dont get fooled by the standard preset bank, download all other banks and try them out.
Sometimes i wish, it could have a suboscillator and a reverb. If Ichiro Toda continues with this and would announce it can import sysex from Nordlead2 i think that would be insane. |
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Last edited by juffi on 2nd December 2006
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By Dj Mu7!L80R
On 30th June 2006
Version: 1.0.7
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Dj Mu7!L80R
3 of 8 people found
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I was testing this synth since a few months ago, I realized that the presets sucks (honestly), really crappy, but indeed the Synth1 is a great VSTi, I'm making a soundbank on it and will be released soon.
About the fx... really good chorus, delay, unison, filters and extras, the oscillators are cool! but the pulse isn't totally squared, I think that could be better.
The FM control isn't alias-free, the filter section is just awesome, the envelope control works perfect, you can make a really good sounds on it, but about the equalizer, it's very simple and could be better...
It doesn't has enough documentation, the skin of the program (user interface) looks poor and could be better too (yeah, I know that we can change the colors but it looks too flaky). About the sound, sounds cool but there are a few things that could be better.
Stability... it never crashes but I've made a arp with LFO in filter... the speed of the LFO isn't the same when you open the program again, just in the first preset. there's something wrong.
It's free, its great but could be better, it just needs some adjustements and the synth1 will be probably the best free v/a in the world! but remember... the factory presets sounds awful, don't judge this synth by it's presets! It's better than you can inmagine! |
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By Arksun
On 29th June 2006
Version: 1.0.7
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Arksun
3 of 7 people found
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On the list of update points for ver 1.7 the last one is stated as:
"Internal processing improvements."
That would be putting it mildly, the aliasing has well and truly gone and what we have is one of the smoothest, most wonderful sounding soft-synths around at this time, freeware or commercial.
I actually tried out the Synth1 when it first came out, wasn't too impressed, threw away. But recently I decided to give it another chance with this latest version.
Wow, just a lovely sound to it, very easy to program and capable of a wide scope of rich warm dense sounds.
I have the preset bar a low score because quite frankly the presets that come with it are pretty aweful. Spend time programming this thing and you'll get to realise just what makes the synth1 really special.
The filter does remind me a little of the Nord hardware synths and you could certainly class this soft-synth as having somewhat of a weighty 'hardware' sound to it.
I can very much see myself using this in future productions.
Its free so what ya got to loose, check this beauty out!
Arksun |
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Last edited by Arksun on 29th June 2006
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By origami
On 7th December 2004
Version: 1.06
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origami
11 of 14 people found
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There are many free synths. That is something great and that helps a lot musicians like me who tried to make their first steps into electronic music creation and didn't or couldn't spend much money.
But there's always a but. Many of these free synths are not that good. Ok the good intention is there, but when you try the thousands and thousands of free synths available, you see there're only 2 dozens that are really good.
Synth 1 is one of the best.
What does this synth have so special? It has 2 oscillators, that's nothing uncommon. It has 2 lfos which can be linked to the filters, the oscillators, the envelopes, etc. well... It has a filter, a chorus, a delay...
But what a filter! what a delay! what a chorus! All top quality. Only a look at some of its presets can make you aware that this is not another synth. They say it's based on Clavia Nord. Maybe, maybe not. It just sounds great. You can not only create any type of sound: bass, pads, strange effects, etc. You can create great bass, great pads, great effects.
It has an arpeggiator to make things better. And fm synthesis too. and ring modulation too.
This synth could perfectly cost around 100 euros and wouldn't be expensive related to the price of other soft synths. Many who have tried this synth know the great and many qualities of this synth. (great sound, versatility, analogic feel, ridiculous low cpu usage...you can even change its colour!)
And apart from the fact that it sounds great, it's so easy to understand! Synth 1 has been the synth that's helped me to learn substractive synthesis.
Now that I've bought Reaktor I know my studio has improved a lot. But Synth 1 will always have a special place in my songs. There are things that one always knows.
Buy it, I mean, get it. It's free but you won't make allowances. It's just one of the best soft synths available. |
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