The secret of Zyns' natural sound ?

[Marginal Ray]

Partially translated from French with Google translation (apologize!)

Hi,

On Paul Nasca’s website, we can read: “Due the "randomness" settings Produced the instrument has "natural"quality”.

Sometimes I use a commercial synth: Alchemy by Camel Audio. Unlike Zyn, it is easy to program, at least in regard to modulation, his chosen field. With a mouse click, everything can modulate everything, with an omnipresent random option. But modulate the pitch of a note, the cutoff or resonance of a filter with a random LFO, even itself modulated according to the velocity or duration of the note, is rarely enough to give the sound this hardware, almost acoustic grain, encountered on most Zyn sounds.

I want to know if the secret of this natural sound lies deeper in the synth programming and sound design. Is randomness so deep implemented? Is it something else?

I also noticed that most Zyn presets, from Paul Nasca or others, are beautiful. It’s not the case in Alchemy, as if some professional sound designers are motivated in producing the max of sounds for the max of money. In other words, they don’t take time to get the best of the machine. I may be another part of the answer...

Raymond.
Yet only one song online (> 50% with Zyn) : https://soundcloud.com/marginalray/sur- ... -5000-amis

[paulnasca]

Hi.

In generating beautiful sounds (with ZynAddSubFX or any other software I tried) I considered two main ideas: the "bandwidth of each harmonic" and the randomness of the sound.

The "bandwidth of each harmonic" considers the harmonic of the sound as being spreaded in frequency(higher harmonics are spread more than lower harmonics). This is nothing new in ZynAddSubFX, because it happens in every ensemble sound (choir, orchestra, etc). So, the idea is (at least partially) to ignore what happens in the time domain and think only on what happens in frequency domain (see for example the description of the PADsynth algorithm, here http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/doc/ ... Dsynth.htm ).

The randomness represents few things: one is that every frequency inside one harmonic has random phase (like I said before, one harmonic is not a single frequency but it is spread over many frequencies), that every note is slightly different than before it, etc.

I described it more about the above things here: http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/doc_0.html

Or, perhaps, the secret is that I was in (unrequited) love for two women when I did this (one was when I started ZynAddSubFX and the other one when I created PADsynth )

[Marginal Ray]

Or, perhaps, the secret is that I was in (unrequited) love for two women when I did this (one was when I started ZynAddSubFX and the other one when I created PADsynth )

This is the absolute explanation (and motivation)! Should I wish you to fall in love in a new woman to create a new synth? It should also work if you stay with the same!

Back to Zyn : Should I understand that you could create more or less the same "natural" sounds, with several other powerful multisynthesis instruments. I have synthmaster player. Musicradar.com wrote about it "If ever there was a desert island synth, SynthMaster is it, covering all sonic bases with authority and a superb tone." Really ? They never listen to Zyn! Everything sounds so electronic in Synthmaster, or largely based on fx.

I was so surprised that some very lush sounds from Zyn don't even use reverb, as if it would be integrated deeper in the sound structure, probably in additive mode. Your own presets and those created by zyn fans sound so good. I never found this quality in another virtual instrument.

Thanks for all, again.

Raymond.

[paulnasca]

Or, perhaps, the secret is that I was in (unrequited) love for two women when I did this (one was when I started ZynAddSubFX and the other one when I created PADsynth )

This is the absolute explanation (and motivation)! Should I wish you to fall in love in a new woman to create a new synth? It should also work if you stay with the same!

Good idea

Back to Zyn : Should I understand that you could create more or less the same "natural" sounds, with several other powerful multisynthesis instruments.

I believe that if you apply these principles (bandwidth of each harmonic and randomness) you could get many synths to sound more "natural". Try to use a lot of detuned oscillators, for example. To test the randomness play the same note multiple times(without using chorus or other effects) and use a sound editor (like Audacity) to record the notes and to check if the same note looks different every time (it should).

I have synthmaster player. Musicradar.com wrote about it "If ever there was a desert island synth, SynthMaster is it, covering all sonic bases with authority and a superb tone." Really ? They never listen to Zyn! Everything sounds so electronic in Synthmaster, or largely based on fx.

I was so surprised that some very lush sounds from Zyn don't even use reverb, as if it would be integrated deeper in the sound structure, probably in additive mode. Your own presets and those created by zyn fans sound so good. I never found this quality in another virtual instrument.

Thanks. If you wish, give me some examples of presets I made in Zyn which you like and I will try to explain them from the perspective of the "bandwidth of each harmonic"/"randomness" (why I put the parameters like I did).

[Marginal Ray]

Thanks. If you wish, give me some examples of presets I made in Zyn which you like and I will try to explain them from the perspective of the "bandwidth of each harmonic"/"randomness" (why I put the parameters like I did).

It’s very nice to accept to give such explanations. But I 'm afraid I do not have the skills to get something from them (especially in English!). Zyn gives me the impression of a Jumbo Jet cockpit, where touching any knob has huge effects. What impresses me is that without reaching the level of mimicking of physical modeling (see Pianoteq), Zyn approaches the real thing like no other digital synthesizer. Patches like “Damped Organ” or several other guitar sounds are interesting alternatives to a samples based sounds.

I have reviewed dozens of SynthMaster sounds, considered by the press as the king of versatility. Some patches are excellent, but I rarely found the organic nature of Zyn, especially in imitation of natural sounds (or imitation of natural sounds’ behavior).
I feel that you have understood better than anyone how to transpose in program code this natural behavior. Than you built the tool (Zyn) to implementation these principles (bandwidth of each harmonic/randomness).

Just a question on this: can we really speak of randomness? Would it not rather be a kind of organized chaos that would bring non-linearity?

Technical explanations on the application of these principles would be especially useful to those who create their sounds. Nevertheless, I am curious to know how it’s possible to achieve a sound like “ambient1” from the mmxgn Collection without using reverb.

Happy new year!

[paulnasca]

Hi.

Just a question on this: can we really speak of randomness? Would it not rather be a kind of organized chaos that would bring non-linearity?

Here is an example of randomness. Listen to this instrument played in ZynAddSubFX (without effects): https://clyp.it/5ao1svtf . Even if it is the same note, it is not the same waveform (you can check in Audacity to see that there are different waveforms, or see the graph I made for you: http://imgur.com/wnPPmrR which represents only few milliseconds of the start of the notes ). The randomness in this case is made by using different oscillators with random phases (or using 'unison' from ADsynth Voice Parameters which does this, too). So, one of the effect of the randomness is that it prevents hearing the exact sound twice. Of course, you can use other ways to add randomness into the sound.

Nevertheless, I am curious to know how it’s possible to achieve a sound like “ambient1” from the mmxgn Collection without using reverb.

I checked the 'ambient1' and I see that it is composed of two parts: one is the "main sound" ( hear it here: https://clyp.it/ezeds2u5 ) with a "fake reverb" (listen to it here: https://clyp.it/jzp3uncb ) . The "main sound" has itself a bit of "reverb" by using a very long release time (see R.dt. from ADsynth Global Parameters of the instruments).
The "fake reverb" uses the SUBsynth engine and a very long release time (click on the "E" from Amplitude Envelope of Subsynth parameters) to see how long the envelope is. This is why it is perceived as a long reverb.
Another thing that adds more "space" is that the "fake reverb" has a larger bandwidth of each harmonic (try to lower the "band width" from the SUBsynth to hear the difference).

Paul

[Marginal Ray]

Hi Paul,

Apologies for late answer. Much work and harsh period in Paris, and we’re afraid it’s not over. In February, I should have more time to focus again on music, synths, and of course Zyn.

Concerning the randomness to prevent hearing the exact sound twice, it can be compared to round robin in a sampler (the result, not the method, of course)? Of course, it’s just one aspect of randomness, because within the same unique note, the sound of many Zyn patches seams to evolve, even in very short time, like an acoustic instrument. As I told you, I never found any other digital synth, soft or hard, that gave me that impression. That’s why I asked about the “secret” of this natural sound.

In fact, there is no secret, because you’ve offered your method to every synth developer. Are they too proud to use it? Or are most commercial synths devoted to electro / techno music, while Zyn is closer to hardware synths like Yamaha Motif?

Concerning the “ambient1” preset, I started to tweak around following your explanations. It’s like jumping in the water when you can’t swim! I want to learn, even in English, and with no math capabilities?

Last thing: would you like that I write a review in the main French music website (audiofanzine)?

Raymond

[paulnasca]

Hi Raymond.

Apologies for late answer. Much work and harsh period in Paris, and we’re afraid it’s not over

No problem.

Concerning the randomness to prevent hearing the exact sound twice, it can be compared to round robin in a sampler (the result, not the method, of course)?

Yes, something like this (considering the result itself).

In fact, there is no secret, because you’ve offered your method to every synth developer. Are they too proud to use it?

I have seen that PADsynth (for example) is used in many other synths and in some the authors acknowledge it (I made a list of some synth where I am sure they use it here). It might be possible that some developers used PADsynth without saying anything (which is OK because I released PADsynth under public domain).

Concerning the “ambient1” preset, I started to tweak around following your explanations. It’s like jumping in the water when you can’t swim! I want to learn, even in English, and with no math capabilities?

At the first is more difficult but when you get the idea it gets easier.

Last thing: would you like that I write a review in the main French music website (audiofanzine)?

Yes, thank you.

Paul

[caonoize]

One thing I've struggled with in PADsynth is that I can often generate a nice timbre, but I can't control the attack so well. For instance, it's really hard to make a nice velocity dependent percussion. Here's a concrete example; my drum kit has an OK-ish cowbell, but if I hit it with consistent velocity, I get wildly varying amplitudes. Any chromatic percussion based on PAD synth falls into this problem, and this is sad as PADsynth makes very nice percussion timbres when used with non-harmonic overtone spacing. Another I'm dealing with is a intermittently popping attack on an organ sound. While I can set the envelope longer to avoid the variation, the attack then seems too soft. The randomization of the sample start offset comes at the price of not having any idea whatsoever about the attack transient.

I'm thinking it might be nice to have an optional strategy for restricting where the sample can play from. (e.g. provide a guarantee it's above or below a certain level at the start.) Maybe have selection from a small set of compression curves applied to the attack portion depending on the offset selected.

Ideas?

[Marginal Ray]

Hi Paul.

The review : http://fr.audiofanzine.com/synthe-virtu ... 30103.html.

Sorry, it's in french, and I think online translation will not give a good result!

Can Zyn v2 be expected (also as VST) ? If not, have you plans to work again on it ?

Raymond

[paulnasca]

Thank you for the review.