Tranzistow/Diodow

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Somebody here recommended these synths to me as a joke. Then I went to the page, read, downloaded, and the rest is history.

Diodow

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Tranzistow

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Brings me back to my DOS days.

But there is nothing DOS about what you can do with these things. Diodow is not too difficult to work with as it's relatively "small" though still quite capable. It's great for sci fi stuff as the LFOs are quite unusual. I've never run into anything like them.

Tranzistow is a lot more complex and, quite honestly, because of the demo restrictions, I haven't done much with it.

The bad news is, while Diodow is a free download, there is no way to get the full version of Tranzistow outside of something that I don't want to mention here because I'm not sure if the dev wants the information shared publicly. If you want to know the details, download the PDF.

When I get some time, I'll create some demos and upload them to Soundcloud. While these synths are best at weird stuff, they can do bread and butter sounds as well. But honestly, IMO, that's just a waste of their potential. There are plenty of other synths for bread and butter.

In the meantime, I'm having a blast playing with Diodow. I'm putting together a West Coast style library for it that I'll eventually make available free as the synth itself is free.

Surprisingly, I have only found 1 bug on my system. If you pull the VST up and don't init a patch, it seems if you try to save anything that you create, the save button doesn't seem to work. After you do the init, then it works. Of course this may be just specific to my PC.

The sound itself is solid. The main sound source is a sawtooth wave but you can turn it into a square or pulse via a number of parameters. There are a few low pass filters, a high pass, band and notch filter. It appears to be a bare bones synth as far as sound sources, but there are so many modulation parameters that you can get a wide variety of sounds out of this thing.

The DOS-like interface is probably going to put a lot of people off from programming this thing, which is a shame, but if you grew up during the era, the controls might not bug you too much. For me, it's a refreshing change from all the modern glitz that we get today.

I've programmed a couple of Tranzistow patches and a little over 30 Diodow patches. The demo version of Tranzistow only allows 1 of the 4 parts to be programmed, which is disappointing. But like I said, there is a way to get the full version if you're up to it. That's all I'll say on that subject.

Anyway, I'm having a blast with these synths that had all of one thread here at KVR in 2013 and that was it. Understandable as the main synth is not commercially available.

Maybe if there was enough interest the dev would reconsider.

Either way, if you want to play with something that's truly unique, download Diodow and the demo version of Tranzistow.

Sound demos to come.

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In all honesty, I couldn't work with a synth that looked like that, even if it sounds great. I just couldn't relate to it.
<list your stupid gear here>

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egbert101 wrote:In all honesty, I couldn't work with a synth that looked like that, even if it sounds great. I just couldn't relate to it.
Most people probably couldn't, which explains why these synths are hardly ever talked about here.

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I'm with egbert on this one, really couldn't work with something like that. Kudos for doing so though, shows what a synthesizer enthusiast you are. :tu:

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chk071 wrote:I'm with egbert on this one, really couldn't work with something like that. Kudos for doing so though, shows what a synthesizer enthusiast you are. :tu:
Well, I grew up in the 60s before anybody had a computer and when DOS hit it was all we had. So you got used to the ugly interface. These synths just bring me back to my youth, nothing more.

Right now my goal is to earn a copy of the full blown "commercial" version.

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It's like raking sharp, rusty gardening equipment across my eyes... :P

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Tranzistow is one of the best synth today.
you can do all what you want :
8 osc with wavetable, phase locked, supersaw,sync, pwm, master voices unison, sample player, phase modulation, rotor ala Solaris, plus, add an 8 op dx modulation, draw user wave, draw user lfo, multi stage env loop, 4 comb in serie or parallel, wave shaper, 8 filters with drive or user drive, in serie or par, comp per voices, fm a lot of parameter, the fx section is really great sounding, and more.... the architecture is very flexible, tranzistow is multi threading too with a lot of option under the hood. a beast !
about the interface, the ui is very good for control all this parameters, because you have a lot of control about everything, after, the color, it"s a question of personal taste.
when you use it, it's easy to work with, and when you watch the parameter list you are able to modulate, you think, finaly, it's a great ui, the pilots in a plane don't drive the plane with an ipad.

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really like 2d old school GUI...born as a computer guy with spectrum zx81 when i was 8 years old

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lalo wrote:really like 2d old school GUI...born as a computer guy with spectrum zx81 when i was 8 years old
Those were the days… 1KB of RAM, IIRC, upgradeable to a whopping 16KB!

/Joachim
If it were easy, anybody could do it!

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I remember the great ol' Days of DOS, and I'm so very glad I'll never have to pass that way again!!!

I also remember PAIA synth kits without keyboards, just buttons. And green (only) CRT monitors, and cassette back-ups, and cart programming on early Atari systems - and so glad it's all gone! Fun memories, just like getting roadside flats with a dead spare and no phone in sight. I/we survived, and that's the extent of the magic of the era, for me!

BUT, the Korg Wavestation is no intuitive GUI either, and great sounds can sometimes be found in surprising places. So thanks for the heads-up!

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Even if you dislike the GUI, there are like 3500 pretty great patches that come with Tranzistow... So preset bunnies can be happy. :)

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SciFiArtMan wrote:I remember the great ol' Days of DOS, and I'm so very glad I'll never have to pass that way again!!!
True. I kinda hated DOS. :P

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I grew up with the occasional TRS-80 in school. My first PC was a 10Mhz "Turbo XT" 8088 with a Hercules graphics card and a green monochrome monitor where you could watch the phosphors fading out over a couple of seconds. I got a degree in programming before Windows 3.11 (arguably the first usable-ish Windows version) was released.

My eyes are in much worse shape now, my patience is lower, and standards are better... so I don't want to see a monolithic table of green on black anymore if I can help it. This synth is not for me :)
Last edited by foosnark on Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

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foosnark wrote:I grew up with the occasional TRS-80 in school. My first PC was a 10Mhz "Turbo XT" 8088 with a Hercules graphics card and a green monochrome monitor where you could watch the phosphors fading out over a couple of seconds. I got a degree in programming before Windows 3.11 (arguably the first usable-ish Windows version) was released.

My eyes are in much worse shape now, my patience is lower, and standards are better... so 1I don't want to see a monolithic table of green on black anymore if I can help it. This synth is not for me :)
LOL. I hear yuh. I'm just a glutton for nostalgia. And this thing really is a beast. Shame that it'll never reach the masses.

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foosnark wrote:My first PC was a 10Mhz "Turbo XT" 8088 with a Hercules graphics card and a green monochrome monitor where you could watch the phosphors fading out over a couple of seconds.
Did you happen to play Test Drive in Hercules mode on that system? :D

Thanks for highlighting these synths, Wagtunes, hadn't noticed them anywhere before.

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