Sampling vs Synthesis - do i need synths?!

[fred-hal]

Anyone wanna trade their Kontakt 2 for my reaktor 5? (half serious)

[cron]

It's perhaps slightly lateral thinking, but have you ever considered a tracker?

Even the most basic tracker can do pretty much everything you've listed in the first post and more. What's a tracker if not a big sampler with a sequencer capable of a million and one tricks which alter sample playback. They're the king of beatslicers among other things. Things like VSTi/FX support (including automation) in the likes of Renoise brings them bang up to date too.

Not for everybody of course. I can see how learning to count and think in hex may put some off, but it's actually very intuitive once you take into consideration that each step in the sequencer is a 16th note.

[thecontrolcentre]

although it's possible to make tracks using just a sampler, it's good to have 2 or 3 different synths too, in order to get some original sounds into the sampler in the first place. No harm in having a drum machine too , you can always sample the loops you create with it, then reprocess 'em in the sampler.
I used to use a Yamaha A3000 sampler, an Atari running cubase and a couple of analog synths ... but these days i prefer Live5 and a few free soft synths ,altho' i still use my nord micro modular and Teisco 60F as sound sources.

[DevonB]

As for your opinion about samplers sounding shit for synthesis, i kind of figure that wavetable/sampled-based synths are just samplers with synth waveforms, and a lot of them do a good job. It seems to me that the raw material is the essence of how thick/fat/juicy/glassy/etc the sound is, depending on what you want.

Let me expand on that thought. In one sense, synths are samplers. AFAIK, most use a pre-recorded waveform to make their oscillators. Very few make their waveforms from 'scratch'. The difference is the amount of "oscillators" used. Atmosphere, Ultra Focus, they both 'suffer' from only two "oscillator" positions. This, to me, is a shame. Purity, and ravity, same thing, 2 oscillators, BUT they allow multiple parts to easily be combined together (Purity moreso than ravity). Why such a limit, it's beyond me.

Synths, on the other hand, typically are 4-6 oscillators, even some like Octopus, are using 8 oscillator slots. Combine that with filters, LFO's, envelopes, and effects, the control and complexity is both smoother (speeding up and slowing down full blown samples is grainy compared to single cycle waveforms) and more complex.

The problem has been that most preset developers are NOT taking advantage of the power at their fingertips. I chalk that up to inexperience, personally. Why have a synth with that much power and have the preset designer ignore it on most presets? Some, like biomechanoid and BigTone ARE making presets that do take full advantage of the synth engine. This I appreciate. This also gives good building blocks for you to make your own too.

With these more "creative tool" samplers such as shortcircuit, i am very much interested in using it to create my own sounds as opposed to use pre-built patches multi-sampled from classic gear. If that makes sense. Much like layering oscillators anf using filters/envelopes in a synth.

That's great if you want to be a sound designer more than a writer. Getting 'good' at sound design sucks up a LOT of time.I am an admitted preset whore, but tweak to my needs, as well as build my own from scratch, such as the Vanguard bank I put on Patch Arena. If you really enjoy rolling your own, that's great. I see no shame in going to either extremes personally. I rather spend my time writing music than making my own sounds though, personally.

I can understand you perspective about haveing "one of each" with synths, but cost is prohibitive for me and i really want to be streamlines here. Out of sheer curiosity, which "one of each" for VA/FM/additive etc do you use?

When I was strictly hardware, and a new beast cost at least $800-$2500 to get a 'new sound', I had to go that way because of economics. These days with doing reviews, I have a lot at my fingertips, and I am eternally grateful. If I had to pick strictly on a specific synthesis type? Hard one, but here are my picks.

VA - Ultra Analog or z3ta+
FM - FM7 or Toxic
Additive - Cameleon 5000

I still have several I need to dig through that I'm doing reviews on, like Blue, Octopus, and still need to check out Zebra in the subtractive/FM department. The problem is, there are so many GOOD synths out there. I pick Ultra Analog, because it's NOT pre made waveforms, and its bass is so deep and rich compared to most VSTi's. For free, check out poly iblit for nice bass. z3ta+ is a monster. It is by far the most complex VA out there. I'm not a REAL big fan of its very digital filter, but it is an excellent synth, and really gets close to what hardware makers were doing 10 years ago (most don't even get that close, which is a shame.) FM7 is a monster, and sounds oh so sweet. While harder to program, it offers so many good features. Toxic, on teh flip side, is easy to use, and has a good sound as well. Cameleon 5000, while not up to my old Kawai K5000r, is still a great additive synth, and worth checking out.

Keep in mind, I am a HARD CORE sampler junkie too. I have probably over 200 gigs of samples these days, if not 300 gigs.

Devon

[ew]

Or, you could say the hell with it and get Tera 3...
All of the options in one nice package; analog, FM, additive, spectral, physical modeling (through the waveTERA option) AND sampling. 16 part multitimbral and a built in sequencer/arpeggiator. Oh- and it sounds wonderful

ew

[pdxindy]

I started off with loads of synths, free and spendy. I have pared down to Tassman, String Studio, Kontakt2 on the software side. I also have an Oasys PCI and a KorgZ1. AT this point I do not use the Z1 except as a controller. I intend to replace it with one of the new RemoteSL controllers. I would like to lose the OasysPCI because it needs its own host computer and I just want to simplify even though it is an amazing synth engine.

My budget is higher than yours, but I think you are on the right track as far as keeping it simple. The other advice is just to not be too concerned about features, but just try stuff and buy/use what fits with you, not the other way round.

The jury is still out for me on Kontakt. It is deep flexible and powerful software, but it is also very complicated and so far, I have not taken to it so well. I am liking String Studio because I can edit it fast, I have learned it well, it is easy to see at a glance what is going on. I like Zebra2 also because it just makes sense to me.

I suspect I may eventually drop Kontakt and get Zebra and call it done.

I find synths much easier to tweak, control, and flow with than the samplers I have tried, and there is an expressive intimacy to a good synth that I do not find with sample players, that over time I am learning that I value more than exactly emulating a specific instrument.

[kuniklo]

The problem has been that most preset developers are NOT taking advantage of the power at their fingertips. I chalk that up to inexperience, personally. Why have a synth with that much power and have the preset designer ignore it on most presets? Some, like biomechanoid and BigTone ARE making presets that do take full advantage of the synth engine. This I appreciate. This also gives good building blocks for you to make your own too.

But really for most kinds of music you don't really need or even want the crazy song-in-a-patch kind of stuff that 6-osc synths with graphical envelopes make possible. Two oscillators with effects and some realtime control is already a *vast* sound canvas to explore. Big hyper-complex presets are great for marketing purposes but very hard to work into a composition. Personally I find synths like Surge or Zebra2 that have more flexible basic oscillators a lot more productive for sound design.

As for making music with just a sampler, it's certainly completely doable. Modern software samplers like Shortcircuit or Kontakt provide most of the same sound sculpting tools that a synthesizer does. The main thing they miss is inter-oscillator modulation like sync, fm, or ringmod, but you can get similar sounds by using the right samples. Personally I enjoy synthesizers too much to go without one but I have recently restricted myself to just two or three synths and a sampler and I've been getting more actual music done.

[DevonB]

The problem has been that most preset developers are NOT taking advantage of the power at their fingertips. I chalk that up to inexperience, personally. Why have a synth with that much power and have the preset designer ignore it on most presets? Some, like biomechanoid and BigTone ARE making presets that do take full advantage of the synth engine. This I appreciate. This also gives good building blocks for you to make your own too.

But really for most kinds of music you don't really need or even want the crazy song-in-a-patch kind of stuff that 6-osc synths with graphical envelopes make possible. Two oscillators with effects and some realtime control is already a *vast* sound canvas to explore. Big hyper-complex presets are great for marketing purposes but very hard to work into a composition. Personally I find synths like Surge or Zebra2 that have more flexible basic oscillators a lot more productive for sound design.

Yes, there are some 'song in a patch' presets out there, but I'd be hard pressed to say that the 'majority' of these 6 oscillator patches are doing that. But it's not even that. There are mod matrixes that are 100% ignored, and MIDI CC mappings that go completely untouched. Why?

If I all I wanted was basic sounds, then 2 to 3 oscillators would be fine. The point is, developers are MAKING 6 and 8 oscillator monstrosities, and then not even using the power there. Why buy a Porsche when a Ford Focus will get the job done?

As for making music with just a sampler, it's certainly completely doable. Modern software samplers like Shortcircuit or Kontakt provide most of the same sound sculpting tools that a synthesizer does. The main thing they miss is inter-oscillator modulation like sync, fm, or ringmod, but you can get similar sounds by using the right samples. Personally I enjoy synthesizers too much to go without one but I have recently restricted myself to just two or three synths and a sampler and I've been getting more actual music done.

Any time I do strictly orchestral, it's all sampler too. While Kontakt II does provide the power, the samples that are coming out that I see are mostly static samples with very little programming. Note - this is what *I* see, I haven't seen everything. Kontakt DOES make it possible. So do all of these other monster synths. Just wish more time was focused on presets that got me excited about writing like my old hardware favorites.

Devon

[kuniklo]

If I all I wanted was basic sounds, then 2 to 3 oscillators would be fine. The point is, developers are MAKING 6 and 8 oscillator monstrosities, and then not even using the power there. Why buy a Porsche when a Ford Focus will get the job done?

You can go way beyond basic sounds with two oscillators. If anything I find it a challenge to leave enough of the spectrum open with a good two-oscillator patch to fit in four full synth parts in a track. By the time you've worked in drums, bass, a lead and some kind of pad you've got your hands full filtering and eqing them all in. Even the crazy Bigtone Albino patches rarely use all four Albino oscillators. A flexible mod matrix and mod routings are key, of course, for getting interesting sounds out of a smaller number of oscillators.

[quincy]

Thanks a lot for all the perspectives. I find it very interesting to hear from producers who actually get anything done. I'm purely a guy who messes around with music really, but i hope that by streamlining my tools and finding a comfortable process that i can begin to get something done! I used to actually finish tracks years ago with buzz, and buzz alone!! Not for me anymore, but you get the point

I guess maybe i'm being unrealistic in wanting one tool for every job then, which deep down i knew in the first place. So a few hand-picked tools will have to be found.

Devon - I had a listen to the demos of Ultra Analog on the site, very nice sounding synth indeed, very thick and..well..analogue!! I demo'd the Filterscape VA and it was similarly fat in its sound, not thin and weedy like an awful lot of VAs that are knocking about. Funny, i demo Rhino too, and despite the textures/soundscape type patches sounding beautiful, i got the impression i'd struggle to get fat bass from it, even with 6 oscillators!! ANd all that farting about with envelopes and shit - really not sure i cna be bothered just to try to get a squidgey bass!

Damn this is getting confusing. Perhaps i should just trust my instincts, buy something and then set to work learning the bugger! I'm not getting much(read: any) music done by posting here!!

[DevonB]

Devon - I had a listen to the demos of Ultra Analog on the site, very nice sounding synth indeed, very thick and..well..analogue!! I demo'd the Filterscape VA and it was similarly fat in its sound, not thin and weedy like an awful lot of VAs that are knocking about. Funny, i demo Rhino too, and despite the textures/soundscape type patches sounding beautiful, i got the impression i'd struggle to get fat bass from it, even with 6 oscillators!! ANd all that farting about with envelopes and shit - really not sure i cna be bothered just to try to get a squidgey bass!

Do yourself a favor and check out Tera 3 like ew suggested. I haven't had a chance to take a look at it, but the demo of Tera 2 was fantastic, and doing back to back comparisons of the oscillators from a real analog to Tera 2, it sounds fantastic. It covers a LOT of ground. I just need to break down and buy it one of these years. It's on my short list, along with Korg Digital Edition.

Ultra Analog is very cool though. Lots of options, but not overly complex. Very thick bass sound that's more punchy than most.

Devon

[kuniklo]

Recently I've been working all my tracks out with simple triangle wave patches first. Once I'm happy with the rhythm, harmony and melody of the track only then do I start looking for patches or doing sound design. It's definitely helped me get some control back from all my tools and made me see that simpler patches and instruments are often better in a full-fledged arrangement.

Listening to orchestral music can be very instructive. Each of the individual parts in an orchestra isn't usually doing anything especially complex but the interactions of all the parts can be extremely complex and generate complex timbres none of the individual instruments could achieve alone. I think it makes sense to approach electronic music the same way. Instead of using a few monster synths with extremely complex and detailed sounds you can get better results in interactions of several simpler elements.

Which is all to say. Pick a sampler and two synths and don't touch your vst folder for a year and you'll be surprised at where your music goes. I'd recommend one good fixed-path synth like discovery or imposcar and one more flexible synth like z3ta or albino or surge. That should be enough to do just about anything.

[quincy]

Devon - To be perfectly honest at 299 Euros i can't even consider Tera 3. I have had a quick gander at the screenshots and read the specs and it looks to be an absolute powerhouse, perhaps the single most powerful soft synth that isn't Reaktor!! But i simply can't spend that sort of money.

As for UA - lovely sound, and i could MAYBE stretch to the price but it looks to be a bit underpowered and not complex/varied enough to warrant the price(for me personally).

I'm still looking around now, and a few new contenders have entered the ring:

* Exciton - cheap, moderately flexible and a smooth, analogue sound.
* Sytrus - pricey, but flexible and sounds great.
* Surge - pricey again, but supposed to be easy to program and powerful.
* Pentagon - old, but relatively flexible and easy interface. not totally convinced by the sound though.

Kuniklo - thanks for the advice. I'll certainly be tring to keep it to a few select synths, and i'm gradually working towards a few choices. I like the idea of making a track just with simple tones, until happy with the "musicality" of it. If thats a word?! And only then spend time plugging the real sounds into it.

Let the search continue....

[kevink]

As a guy who got into electronic music because of people like Eno, Tomita, Roger Powell, W. Carlos, ELP and Yes, I can't imagine life with only samplers. But obviously I'm rather old and twisted.

[Seus Hawkins]

I'd be (much) more inclined to say you don't need sampling.

Regards