What is the strangest synth you've encountered?

[sQeetz]

Delay Lama was pretty weird back in the days.

[Passing Bye]

Olga

[alienmachine]

Block 4's Microcomputer. Strange digital beast from early 2000s. I loved this one.

[Jonathan Shepherd]

As someone above said, Sophia. And all things Madrona Labs.

[morphex]

I still use some of the Reaktor ensembles from Twisted Tools. I load up my own recordings into UltraLoop and S-Layer and then I'm able to create completely new loops that can spark my creativity if I'm feeling uninspired. Dust from Soundmorph is really nice for granular atmospheres and delicate textures.

As someone who loves cinematic music, both Plasmonic and Absynth are amazing, deep synths that I could play with for hours. I took the time to really dive into Absynth years ago and I'm still impressed with it's sound and functionality. I also have Absynth loaded as an effect on a bus as part of my Logic Pro X sound effects template. I'd really love to see a fresh update for it.

[concon]

Synths aren't strange, people are strange.

women seem wicked, when you're unwanted and streets look ugly.

Those DOORS are closed. Surprised you didn't mention your favorite synth, FORM from NI. That can get pretty weird.

[vurt]

Synths aren't strange, people are strange.

women seem wicked, when you're unwanted and streets look ugly.

Those DOORS are closed. Surprised you didn't mention your favorite synth, FORM from NI. That can get pretty weird.

the ceremony is about to begin!

ive decided to keep form as my super secret weapon


you are correct though, awesome and weird!
reaktor is full of weird

[MaF]

In that regard and in my experience nothing comes close an old software that goes by the name Argeiphontes Lyre. Literally everything was strange: the name, the parameters, the UI and the results. I did not know what I was doing and therefore was waiting for the results in excitement. (It was an offline sound generator for classic MacOS, rendering the results to an audio file.)

Check out for yourself, it seems, it‘s still in development: http://www.akirarabelais.com/o/software/al.html

[krzys]

Truly innovative synthesis http://www.amaranthaudio.com/products/cycle/

[aMUSEd]

Truly innovative synthesis http://www.amaranthaudio.com/products/cycle/

Yeah I need to see if it still works on Big Sur but given it hasn't been updated for years I'm not hopeful

[aMUSEd]

Truly innovative synthesis http://www.amaranthaudio.com/products/cycle/

Yeah I need to see if it still works on Big Sur but given it hasn't been updated for years I'm not hopeful

OK it won't install. I expected the installer to need to be run as an uncertified installer but even then it crashes before it gets a chance to install anything. Pity.

[Gribs]

Palindrome is a glitchy, vector morphing along a path, granular sampler. It is cool but not all that strange too me.

Madrona's stuff, especially Aalto, is Buchla-inspired semi-modular and likewise cool but not all that strange to me at all.

Synplant was definitely strange when I first tried it, but strange in a very good way. I so wish for a version 2, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. I don't know what Magnus has been doing since he worked with Teenage Engineering to make the PO-32 (meh). I was offered a PO-32 in lieu of $50 in a trade deal and took the $50.

I would say Ruismaker's Mononoke for the iPad is my most recent "strange" soft synth. It seems to have taken a certain inspiration from the Lyra-8 hardware synth and improved on it in the digital realm. I wish it was also available as a VST. Oh well. It is a great thing to patch into Aum with other stuff.

I think I am going to buy Thermo and maybe the bundle with Fundamental 2 after work today while it is on sale. I didn't realize Sonic-lab was having sale until late last night.

[krzys]

Truly innovative synthesis http://www.amaranthaudio.com/products/cycle/

Yeah I need to see if it still works on Big Sur but given it hasn't been updated for years I'm not hopeful

OK it won't install. I expected the installer to need to be run as an uncertified installer but even then it crashes before it gets a chance to install anything. Pity.

That’s unfortunate. The dev has a wonderful synth that unfortunately didn’t receive enough airplay to take it further down the development path. Thanks for the heads up re: big sur.

[highkoo]

I like weird. Id nominate Obscurium and Aparillo, and Madrona for sure, as weird-but-useful.
Metaphysical is the classic.

Weirdest I ever saw was Cal Scott's last-I-knew-now-deleted Reaktor user lib stuff. Absolutely bonkers out there, speaker and cpu and soul destroying devices with truly special sounds and graphics.
He returned, but last I saw all that old weird shit was gone. I have it all archived, but I hope it lives on somewhere else...
There is a thread on KvR about his madness I think..

[jamcat]

Delay Lama was pretty weird back in the days.

I wish it had survived to 64-bit.