This was exactly the point in my last post. You have to know how to program Strobe (and Cypher) and you could get almost every sound, either smooth or harsh.Funkybot's Evil Twin wrote:I just made an extremely pretty sounding square pad in Strobe. So not only can it can be done, it's not hard. What I did to get it: I used the LP12 filter and backed the drive off a bit (-13db), then I setup a single square osc, then I set Unison to 2 and used the "hidden oscillator" feature to create a different osc for that second voice, then I set the pitch to that 2nd voice up, added some triangle on it, and set the envelopes and master level. I then used the P1/P2 controls to add some S+H movement to the filter for when I need it and it sounds amazing.
If you can't get clean pretty VA style pads out of Strobe, it's not Strobe's fault. Next time you're at your friend's house, check out some of Ingonator's Shine On brass pad sounds, those are great and also fit your description of what Strobe can't do.
Seriously, even if you know how to program synths, these particular synths are very idiosyncratic and unique and you need to learn about them.
I don't believe that there's a synth that produces nice sounds no matter what you do. I once had a real Minimoog and it was able to do sounds which were far away from being beautiful if you don't know how to program it.Epiphany wrote:I think you mis-read Megakazbek's post. This is the exact opposite of what he said he wanted. We have an untold number of VST synths of dizzying complexity. Great, and useful, but what we don't have (he believes, FWIW I agree) are many VST synths that are actually difficult to make sound bad - right out of the box.Ingonator wrote: With the "Stack" function in the OSC section of Strobe you could layer 5 OSCs and detune them which could lead to a supersaw sound. Additional you can mix two waveforms in the main OSC and 4 waveforms in the Sub-OSCs. You could do PWM for the main OSC and the Sub-Osc separately. The modulation system is very nice and powerful too, you just have to understand it. That's complex enough for me. If that's not enough you could still use Cypher and/or Amber. The last thing is to add more modulation, a step sequencer, or layer 3 patches in Fusor.
I must admit i haven't done all of that because i'm still exploring Strobe.
Maybe this is purely a function of the range of options and synthesis modes a synth has - too many ways of deviating from the solid foundations of VA sound, perhaps. That would explain the popularity of something like Sylenth, which IMO is one of the few that achieves the above. It doesn't even have genuine PWM, FFS, and the modulation options aren't particularly extensive. But boy, can you load it, get inspired and find a place in your track for it.
Besides that Strobe is far away from being complicated, especially if you read the well written manual. But you could add some complexity by using the mod system, the "Stack" function or by loading it into Fusor.
Cypher is more complicated but you can handle it if you have a look at the manual or the tutorial videos.
I haven't tried to program Amber since as a "string machine" it uses a quite different approach to synthesis.
BTW i also love Sylenth1 because it's easy to program and has an awesome sound. But compared to a Jupiter 8 it's quite complex.
Same for Waldorf Largo because it has a very high sound quality and it's easy to program even if the amount of features is quite high.
