Sampling vs Synthesis - do i need synths?!

[DevonB]

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 exactly why I like the 6 or 8 oscillator monstrocities if the patches were programmed right. I really do like the complex Korg patches with a strong lead presence with stuff fading in and out in the background. That's my style at least.

Devon

[soulata]

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.

same here, it's all RMX and Hypersonic here, until it's almost there.

k

[DevonB]

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.

For wanting a single instrument so bad, I think you're doing yourself a disservice to dismiss it so quickly. 299 Euro is direct from them. It's a boxed software, so you should be able to find street price lower than that. Have you played with the demo yet?

* 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.

Exciton is fantastic, and makes some great sounds. Sytrus has a HUGE sound as well, but I seriously hate the tiny interface. I reviewed both at Trax if you'd like some more in depth thoughts on them.

I haven't touched Surge at all. Pentagon, the filter leaves me cold.

Devon

[projectdan]

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.

For wanting a single instrument so bad, I think you're doing yourself a disservice to dismiss it so quickly. 299 Euro is direct from them. It's a boxed software, so you should be able to find street price lower than that. Have you played with the demo yet?


Devon

I agree, it is both easy to use and a true all rounder, street price can be had for a lot less than 299 euro. Its cheaper from america Audiomidi do it for $225 and if you can get a student discount its only $165! Even if you have to pay import/tax (which I didnt) its well priced.

[aaastronomer]

Good afternoon.

...a small but focused set of tools...

good morning...

sytnh vs. samp? easy...how much work do you want to do to get your soundz?

if you don't want to work so hard...tweak synth patches.

if you are a hard worker bee, then sampler...

kontakt 2 + a lot of reading + the samples provided by future music, music tech., sony, etc. will provide you with all of the sounds you could ever think of...but then, there's the rub: you probably can't think of all of the sounds that all of the synths out there are capable of (in the hands of capable programmers)...soooo, we're back to synths.

then, there's drumming. unless you like mapping lots of sound files and then keying in lots of midi, you might want to check out stylus rmx or guru.

as for me, i like to not work so hard, so i have 35GB of samples, kontakt2, cameleon 5000, and acid 5 (my sampler of choice). i also have lots of synths. now i can slap most of a piece together in acid 5 or live 5, save it as a project, import it into cubase sx3, add synth, render unto wav. sometimes i use project 5 to mix synths and sounds files at once.

most of my h/w is shoved into a corner except for ion + k2500rs (an unfortunate combo, in that the k2500rs blows the ion away, sonically...a better combo would be the andromeda + poly-evolver keyboard...looking forward to trying the roland mc-808).

to recommend just one(?) s/w synth, i'd recommend: either dimension pro or rapture (i don't have either of these, but i've demo'd dimension pro and you can use these as samplers too)

but i love and use: tera 2, z3ta+, rhino 2, octopus, zebra2, atmospheres, wusikstation, stylus rmx, albino 2, sytrus, dimension, mini moog v, cs80v, and moog modular v...

i've only demo'd blue and the cycling'74 software, but they're good.

a good approach is one sampler and one synth from the above.

[VicDiesel]

For wanting a single instrument so bad, I think you're doing yourself a disservice to dismiss it so quickly. 299 Euro is direct from them. It's a boxed software, so you should be able to find street price lower than that.

And half price academic. See if you know someone who qualifies -- and who's willing to fib about buying it for themselves.

Victor.

[rounser]

Wow. I knew KVR was synth-biased, but I had no idea how much...you guys realise that you're probably misleading the noobies on how most dance music is constructed, right? The sampler is the workhorse - the synth runs a distant second, and may well end up being layered and resampled anyway. A lot of producers just use the synth as a sample source, and then do it all in the sampler. Apart from the odd parlour trick like ring mod or PWM (the results of which can be sampled of course), the sampler is capable of all that the synth is, and infinitely more.

I can understand where the synth fetishists are coming from, but that doesn't make them right IMO...

[Juanjo]

Hey rounser, I'm actually a sampler guy myself and I do think kvr is somewhat synth-biased... but I don't think the sampler is so dominant over the synth. Perhaps it is in specific genres, but there are other genres where samplers are nowhere to be seen, and I'd say a majority of people use both synths AND samplers in various ratios...

And no, the sampler is not capable of all that the synth is... obvious example: synth with lovely-sounding filter that you want to tweak in real time. If you multi-sample the synth, you loose the filter. If you sample the filter automation, you loose the tweakability.

Being still a sampler guy, kvr has teached me to love the synth... (among other things, including sitting back and enjoying flamewars in its full glory and mentioning "onepingonly" or "dongles" every now and then for cheap comedy effect )

[safeaim]

What about Octopus, Blue and Rapture?

[rounser]

And no, the sampler is not capable of all that the synth is... obvious example: synth with lovely-sounding filter that you want to tweak in real time. If you multi-sample the synth, you loose the filter. If you sample the filter automation, you loose the tweakability.

Sure. But unless we're comparing a characterless filter (e.g. Renoise internal sampler) to a phat-sounding filter (e.g V-Station), generally no-one's going to know the difference after mixing and EQing anyway.

As Freud might say, sometimes an LPF is just an LPF.

[Juanjo]

And no, the sampler is not capable of all that the synth is... obvious example: synth with lovely-sounding filter that you want to tweak in real time. If you multi-sample the synth, you loose the filter. If you sample the filter automation, you loose the tweakability.

Sure. But unless we're comparing a characterless filter (e.g. Renoise internal sampler) to a phat-sounding filter (e.g V-Station), generally no-one's going to know the difference after mixing and EQing anyway.

Might very well be true in most cases... but that's a compromise, and perfectly illustrates ny point: you cannot do EVERYTHING with a sampler, compromise is what a sampler is all about

As Freud might say, sometimes an LPF is just an LPF.

Indeed!

[Rownin]

If you are going to make DnB stuff and you're serious about it, you should get Kontakt 2. Check http://www.dogsonacid.com, a dance music forum mainly focused on DnB. A lot of info about sampling technique can be found there. As for synths, for breaks and DnB the sampler is the workhorse, so concentrete on that. But I would still buy one or two good synths, I recommend Surge or Zebra 2.

[rounser]

compromise is what a sampler is all about

Or, infinite possibilities are what a sampler is all about, and "good enough to fool pretty much everyone" synth emulations.

If the sampler represents compromise in emulating a synth, then a subtractive synth represents complete failure in representing a sampler...unless the sound is formed by basic waveforms and ADSR envelopes.

[Juanjo]

Again, I'm not dismissing samplers, I'm a sampler guy and I basically agree with you on the infinite possibilities, but come on...

"good enough to fool pretty much everyone"

That's pretty much the definition of compromise, no?

If the sampler represents compromise in emulating a synth, then a subtractive synth represents complete failure in representing a sampler...

That's not a fair comparison, we could also say that a sampler represents complete failure in doing the dishes... or course, it was not designed with that purpose in mind. My fault though, as I should have made clear in my previous post that with "compromise" I was referring to the emulation capabilities of samplers only. Of course if you use a sampler for, err, "creative sampling" (as opposed to emulation), then the sky's the limit!

[Spaceman Sounds]

It all depends on what and how you sample it... and how good you are at synthesising the samples. I've got a real treat coming for you all soon when it's finished. Getting through all the beta testing at mo