Quirky vst's

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Cynthia is a quirky beauty! In keeping with staying close to the original hardware synth in a suitcase that inspired this creation you have to tune it by ear and nothing is temposynced no matter how many people asked for convential features like this.

It's a three osc modular with different frequency ranges for each osc where the third could be sort of an LFO with or without keyfollow or an oscillator in the lower ranges or both audible in itself while also modulating other soruces etc etc (again as the original hardware whose structure it recreates and expands slightly upon) and nothing will make a sound unless you patch things up right. All audiosources are directly patchable to be used as modulationsources instead of or in adittion to being heard - either way they can be patched into the ringmodulator etc. Delightfully unpredictable! :D

Be warned: the manual even deals with what to do if "Cynthia falls asleep" - and the guy who virtually built her isn't sure why she behaves like this every once in a while! It's a VA, but I'm pretty sure it's your kind of VA. :)

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The EMS Synthi AKS is legendary, Pink Floyd used it famously on Dark Side and its front and center on Obscured by Clouds, apparently one of the first VCS3 owners was Jean Michel Jarre and he was stoked enough to get 3 Synthi models as well... Personally I love playing with the freeware emulations, once you know how to use the things its very easy to get really nice, strange, sounds ;)

Madrona Labs' Aalto is definitely quirky, its a semi-modular with complex oscillators similar to Buchla's, I dont know of any other software similar. Its very reasonably priced @ 100 USD, but the demo is very useable, it has an audio-watermark noise-burst now and then but its got to be the most friendly noise burst out there.

http://madronalabs.com/aalto

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mudpeople wrote:Madrona Labs' Aalto is definitely quirky, its a semi-modular with complex oscillators similar to Buchla's, I dont know of any other software similar. Its very reasonably priced @ 100 USD, but the demo is very useable, it has an audio-watermark noise-burst now and then but its got to be the most friendly noise burst out there.

http://madronalabs.com/aalto
Credit has to also go to whoever made their manual. I think it's one of the nicest and coolest synth manuals I've ever seen :) (Lots of humerous hand-drawn illustrations!)
http://sendy.bandcamp.com/releases < My new album at Bandcamp! Now pay what you like!

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nix808 wrote:http://www.krakli.co.uk/cygnus.htm
Maybe this one w/- Space skin?
Kinda quirky just to press stuff,
not knowing what it does.
But +1 here for Synplant
Right = this came to mind immediately! Start here!
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If it hasn't already been mentioned; Xoxos' physical models. I made a 100% synthesized ambient jungle-storm-scape with the Nature pack, the modeled percussion rules... The rest of his stuff is great too.

Elektrostudio's free pack has quite a few quirky lesser-known-but-loved-by-those-who-do synths including emulations of the EKO Computerhythm, Oberheim 2-Voice (with sequencers), Korg Mini-Pops (including preset patterns), Moog Sonic Six and Micromoog, Mellotron (with fun animated tape), ARP Solina String ensemble, and definitely the quirkiest one is the Davolisint (only 37 notes but they're good 'uns). My favorite is the 2-Voice, up til the recent Latte it was the only freeware SEM emulation, and its still the only one with onboard sequencers.

Then theres Synchrosoft's emulations of classic Soviet synths from the 80s, I love the Polyvoks Station. http://y0u-file.narod.ru/Polyvoks.htm

Yet another obscure-analog-emulation is TubeOhm's AntiTranspirant (Powertran Transcendant emulation), the free version rules and comes with a step sequencer

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OK thanks again for you suggestions, so far the best ones i've found have to be:

Olga
SQ8l
Mono/Fury
DaHornet

yes of course three of them are emulations, but they are still quirky. They either have weid frequency responses or peculiar modulation. I particularly like sq8l.. the strings i get out of it are always slightly off. I LOVE IT.

Next to demo is Aalto.
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Don't know if it's been mentioned yet,but how about Symptohm Meloman
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/symptoh ... _ohm_force

There is also the free performer version.

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Humanoid Sound System's Scanned Synth Pro is a pretty quirky bugger...

All sorts of nice (or nasty) accidents waiting to be had there!

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taoyoyo wrote:Humanoid Sound System's Scanned Synth Pro is a pretty quirky bugger...

All sorts of nice (or nasty) accidents waiting to be had there!
Quirky but nice :)

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Anyone tried DLM's dirty harry? Description is intriguing..
I run a netlabel http://oligopolistrecords.bandcamp.com
Free chill, hip-hop, lo-fi, ambient, experimental, for you! (Send me demos too!)

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quayquay17 wrote:Anyone tried DLM's dirty harry? Description is intriguing..
Yeah, I have it, and like it. I think it's a bit tame compared to some of the other things mentioned in this thread, but I would still say "quirky" applies.

While we're discussing dlM, I would also say it's worth checking out his fx - lots of stuff there good for quirk-ifying whatever you want.
Fugue State Audio - plugins, samples, etc.
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quayquay17 wrote:Anyone tried DLM's dirty harry? Description is intriguing..
I like it but it's pretty limited to dirty, circuitbent, broken chiptune type sounds. Pretty much every parameter is in tune with this breif. If you like that sound, you'll love it (as do I).
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Does it make that weird pwm morphing-phasy sound you get from an atari punk console? If so I will have to buy it...
I run a netlabel http://oligopolistrecords.bandcamp.com
Free chill, hip-hop, lo-fi, ambient, experimental, for you! (Send me demos too!)

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Mono/Fury RULES, I even prefer it over Korg's own software Mono/Poly.

Funny you mentioned Scanned Synth, I had thought of it when making that last post but it got lost in typing. Scanned synthesis is definitely a quirky way to make sound

Oh yeah, another quirky one; Progress Audio Kinisis. Just messing around I loaded waveforms from a 303, a Prophet 5, a Korg Karma, and a Buchla system then did the whole vector-timetable treatment to it. Sounded GREAT. And that was only one of 4 voices each with 4 wavetable oscillators that load and manipulate audio files. The oscillator mix can be controlled vector-style with the very intuitive timeline. And the LFOs, filters, pan, whatever else, also have timelines for their own automations. I was a synthesis-purist sneering at anything using recorded waveforms before I tried Kinisis. While Im not really interested in going for Omnisphere, I definitely have changed my opinion. (synthesis is just quicker usually :P)

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If you haven't already. You should check out the Ugo synths.

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