One Synth Challenge #73 special: Synthmaster (Jasinski wins!)

[Cygnus86]

The photo was a wee cub I photographed when I was working in Africa in the late 80's (working on the hydrology of the Kenyan Lake Basin! Yes, really). Also ferried stuff in for Live Aid as well - BA were good and didn't charge us - the Kenyan armed airport police were not quite so sure about the big containers - they liked to "examine" them with the butt of their automatics!

I digress ... good luck to everyone else too - looks like this will be a big entry again - fab stuff in already folks.

dB

Wow that was fascinating to read! You have some mad photography skills; I really thought that was straight out of National Geographic.
Mightily impressed by your track, though going to have to listen again before I can place comments on it. Definitely brings back some nostalgia of listening to some of my favorite 70's prog rock. Need to dust off those vinyl records and give them a spin now.

Gonna skip this one since I don't own this synth and I've only entered 1 OSC. I thought OSC was always using freeware synths or free beta's so anyone can join, so I'm a little disappointed now

Indeed...and just when I was all ready to finally join in!

I've only entered 2 OSC's in the past, yet will still be (hopefully) submitting a track this month, so please don't think this month's synth is off-limits to you! There is a free version (Synthmaster Player Free), in-case you missed that. Sorry if you already knew this and what I am saying is redundant, but I highly recommend you check it out, along with the 192 (fantastic) community presets that were crafted specifically for this competition.

*Edit* Whoops, looks like Z-prime beat me to it! Listen to him, he's a veteran! Submit a track!!

[jasinski]

The player is pretty legit. Just saying. You still have control over some parameters and don't have to worry about all the confusing UI of the full synth

[doctorbob]

@cygnus86

Thanks for that. Track updated so the ending is a bit more in the right vein - was a little too abrupt for my liking before. Yeah, fun exploits - was based in Nairobi and Kisumu. Eating fish and chips by the side of Lake Victoria watching the sun go down was awesome (fish==tilapia). Also got called in by Kenya Met office to fix their VAX computer, which had crashed with some nasty system error. Yay! Fun days.

dB

PS. Here's the wee cubs' mum - walking me away and looking mighty pi**ed off! Shot with a 135mm lens - so I was not too far away!!!

[doctorbob]

Sorry if you already knew this and what I am saying is redundant, but I highly recommend you check it out, along with the 192 (fantastic) community presets that were crafted specifically for this competition.

*Edit* Whoops, looks like Z-prime beat me to it! Listen to him, he's a veteran! Submit a track!!

Yup, do it. My track is made with the free player and the factory and community presets. Jasinksi is right too, you do get some control over some parameters (depends what the preset-maker decided to expose for you!), so you can do some quite awesome tweaking, honestly.

dB

[rp314]

Gonna skip this one since I don't own this synth and I've only entered 1 OSC. I thought OSC was always using freeware synths or free beta's so anyone can join, so I'm a little disappointed now

Indeed...and just when I was all ready to finally join in!

But the player is free. You are still able to join. OSC members even put together a free bank of patches with things like percussion for people using the player. I've heard some good tracks made with the player already, too!

So I have to come up with yet another excuse?!

[Mojo42]

Gonna skip this one since I don't own this synth and I've only entered 1 OSC. I thought OSC was always using freeware synths or free beta's so anyone can join, so I'm a little disappointed now

Indeed...and just when I was all ready to finally join in!

But the player is free. You are still able to join. OSC members even put together a free bank of patches with things like percussion for people using the player. I've heard some good tracks made with the player already, too!

So I have to come up with yet another excuse?!

Yep

Make it same way like me: Say that you simply haven`t got the time and the nerves for all that stress

At least you can do this if you are a beginner like me But for the case that you are one of those who can compose an amazing song in just 2 days (like the most here), then you will have to find another excuse

@doctorbob: Ah your posting answered my question

Turned out great and I think it is also a great example for what actually works with the player alone. Great sounds and amazing solos. Completely weird, but damned coooooooool. I will put it on a "Doctorbob`s best of" playlist Good luck.

[z.prime]

... you are one of those who can compose an amazing song in just 2 days (like the most here)

Not sure... I, for one, can NOT compose a track in 2 days. Let alone 2 weeks! With all the other stuff going on, a track per month is about all I can muster...

[jdruery]

Hi everyone,
I like making up stories, so my song for this month comes with a story:

One of my favorite novelists, Alexander McCall Smith, founded an amateur music group called the Really Terrible Orchestra. I was imagining one of their concerts when I worked on this song (which probably has nothing to do with what the real RTO actually sounds like). What the players of the RTO lack in talent and musical taste, they more than make up for enthusiasm and heart. On this particular night they went on a tangent from the musical score and started jamming, which worked out okay until the guitarist got a little carried away.

Here's the link: https://soundcloud.com/jeffdd/a-night-at-the-rto

I started working on it before the OSC community presets were released, so all sounds used are from 200 presets in the free player, with the exception of the cymbal crash that happens at 4:00. I really like the community presets though -- thanks to everyone who contributed to that, and to the Synthmaster folks for releasing them.

I used Reaper, and other plugins used were the Reaper eq plugin, Kjaerhus audio limiter, compressor, and reverb plugins.

Thanks,
Jeff

[MTLE]

Oh man and woman,

I could really need some . Have a serious problem with this SM free player.

My track is almost done and I had often Reaper crashes the last days. Now I tried a test rendering.

It crashed at about 3 minutes playtime. It happened on Reaper 4.76 and 4.77. It happened on XP (32 bit) and Win7 (64bit). Player Version is 2.6.21 Free. Using 21 instances with standard presets only.
Memory usage is about 900MB. Other VSTis used more without this problem. CPU is chilling at 25%.

Wherever I start play or rendering in the project I can't really exceed 3 minutes of playtime at once.
Thats a bit to short for my 7 minutes track

Any suggestions?

MTLE

[z.prime]

... It crashed at about 3 minutes playtime. ... Any suggestions?

Can you render/freeze each track individually?

[sfiks]

Any suggestions?
MTLE

Give me the .RPP file and I'll try to render it.

[MTLE]

... It crashed at about 3 minutes playtime. ... Any suggestions?

Can you render/freeze each track individually?

If no MIDI item is there at 3 minutes I can go further on a single track. Just playing a track in single mode makes no difference. It will crash. Didn't try to disable all other channels SM Player yet.
It's 1 a.m. now here. I'm getting tired. Will check other things tomorrow.

Thanks so far.

[z.prime]

If no MIDI item is there at 3 minutes I can go further on a single track...

That is a very peculiar issue. Can you try the different compatibility modes for Synthmaster (E.g. own process, etc)? Also, something I've had to do periodically when I encounter a problem is save the project under a different file, then try deleting half the tracks and render, see if it crashes, if so, try deleting the other half see if that can get around it. Keep doing it with smaller chunks of tracks until I find the track that's the culprit... Sometimes it's just one random automation line that causes a problem.

Also, are you saying that the freeze track option in reaper will crash at 3 minutes, no matter which track you choose?

[MTLE]

Any suggestions?
MTLE

Give me the .RPP file and I'll try to render it.

Thanks for your offer. I already thought about this solution. I'll come back to it if nothing else helps.
I've tried on a 3rd machine now and it doesn't work either. Guess what will happen when I give it to somebody else. Now I believe it will not work

[MTLE]

If no MIDI item is there at 3 minutes I can go further on a single track...

That is a very peculiar issue. Can you try the different compatibility modes for Synthmaster (E.g. own process, etc)? Also, something I've had to do periodically when I encounter a problem is save the project under a different file, then try deleting half the tracks and render, see if it crashes, if so, try deleting the other half see if that can get around it. Keep doing it with smaller chunks of tracks until I find the track that's the culprit... Sometimes it's just one random automation line that causes a problem.

Also, are you saying that the freeze track option in reaper will crash at 3 minutes, no matter which track you choose?

Tried freezing a track that not worked with single play before and freeze seems to work. That's strange. Taking time tomorrow to see what happens to other channels...

Thanks.