KVR Audio

Taron · Post by **Taron** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 2:57 pm

Hahaha, thanks, yeah, it came from the heart!

Phewww...I think, I'm done with my song, but I might let it simmer for a little, see how I feel about it in a few days or so, but it's quite a weird trip.

When you hear it, remember the Trumm..ump..ummmmph...ph...pettt!

TheBellows · Post by **TheBellows** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 5:22 pm

Added my track now! (TheBellows - Mantravision OSC 76)

Using 15 instances of the Mantra Evo in Renoise. They're all my own patches.
I used these effects: EQ's, static LP, BP and HP filters, compressors and maximizers.
Edit: in the new mix i also used a reverb, OTT64 compressor and FerricTDS.

https://soundcloud.com/thebellows/thebe ... ion-osc-76

Taron · Post by **Taron** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 5:47 pm

I take it all back...my song is not wacky!

Neat, Bellows!

TheBellows · Post by **TheBellows** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 5:57 pm

Taron wrote:I take it all back...my song is not wacky!
Neat, Bellows!

Thanks Taron, i'm most happy with the picture though, i think it perfectly illustrates the synth.

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 6:02 pm

TheBellows wrote:
Taron wrote:I take it all back...my song is not wacky!
Neat, Bellows!
Thanks Taron, i'm most happy with the picture though, i think it perfectly illustrates the synth.

Just remember, someone did put a lot of time into this synth. A few people have been making jabs at this synth since since early this month... It seems a bit low to make fun of something like this. Not all synths are pop synths you know

To each his own though.

TheBellows · Post by **TheBellows** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 6:17 pm

bjporter wrote:
TheBellows wrote:
Taron wrote:I take it all back...my song is not wacky!
Neat, Bellows!
Thanks Taron, i'm most happy with the picture though, i think it perfectly illustrates the synth.
Just remember, someone did put a lot of time into this synth. A few people have been making jabs at this synth since since early this month... It seems a bit low to make fun of something like this. Not all synths are pop synths you know

To each his own though.

I didn't mean to be rude, but what i meant with it was that it's rough (wolf) on the outside, but sweet (sheep) on the inside. It seemed like everyone agreed that the GUI is a bit frustrating, so i thought we were past that?
Kudos to the makers of the synth, even though it's not perfect in all aspects it's still pretty cool!

Taron · Post by **Taron** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 6:40 pm

You're absolutely right and I hereby feel ...ahm...compelled to say: It's a gift horse and why should anyone complain about it, only because it ran into the house and destroyed most of your furniture right before it exploded.

...nah, I'm kidding. It's really bad manners, but then it might even compel the creators to consider having another look at the really unfortunate parts of it to make the awesome parts of it shine more brightly!
It might've been unfair to them (him?) to having their (his?) "first born" (I presume) thrown to us wolves:

...but then, we're also putting our best foot forward to making something really cool with it. Hopefully that buys us some leverage to be a bit more blunt. It's not like this synth didn't have it coming:

worst envelopes in history: bizarre time ranges, partially not polyphonic, no levels (How's that even possible?)
least amount of control over pretty much everything with most amount of regrets about it
oscillators from before mankind has realized that quantization causes aliasing
interface...my god...I mean...reminds one of the first days of graphic user interfaces and they went out of their way to make the most absurd knob turning logic?!
super processing hungry for...ah...what?

And I'm very certain that I have forgotten or ignored a few more things.

But in all fairness, here's the positive, if I may:

Because everything is so incredibly hard to achieve, one has to dig deep with a lot more attention to what's possible and crazy cool sounds come out the other end.
One throws the hands up in the air, goes for wicked nonsense and crazy cool sounds come out the other end.
It sounds like nothing should sound, which makes it sound very unique and somehow exciting again.
Forces one (more or less) successfully to become more inventive than usual.
It's quite adventures to go seek for treasures in what must be well hidden powers and even when you can't find anything, the whole island is turned over and fertile ground is ready to be seeded?!

SO...and to add one more thing: Much like the Stockholm syndrome, one can fall in love with this synth or at the very least with some of the sounds you've otherwise never had discovered.

I hope, you can forgive me for writing all this, but I am almost certain it won't hurt them (him?). Mantra could've been an ordinary little vst, but for what it's worth, it truly isn't!

Astralp · Post by **Astralp** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 6:53 pm

I've been working on a track today and once I got past the knob strangeness and accepted the lack of long attack and decay I've enjoyed what I'm getting from it. I think the hardest thing is that the oscillators seem to drift out of phase and cancel out frequencies which makes Bass tricky, to get a consistent level, but it's actually adding some random dynamics to the track and working out fairly well

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 7:03 pm

Question:

When have we become so politically correct that we can't objectively criticize a synth?

Do you know why I don't build synths, even though part of me would love to?

Because they would be horrible. I have no talent for it. I did a few synths in Reaktor and they are bland and boring as hell. Sure, they aren't riddled with performance issues and are at least stable, but they don't do anything. They're basic 3 osc, 1 filter, 1 adsr, no FX bare bones VA synths. I did them just to see if I could. But no way in hell would I ever make them available to the general public. I'd be too ashamed to.

This synth has some major problems with it. Forget that I had to freeze every single track just to get it to work and that's after trying 3 different DAWs. Nothing in this synth is consistent. Knobs do things that make no sense. Envelopes are so random that I eventually just ended up doing nothing more complicated than "trying" to lengthen the attack time slightly.

If every synth in creation was like this, I wouldn't even attempt to do music for a living. I could never program anything so libraries would be totally out of the question. I guess I'd become an accountant.

As much as I dislike FM synthesis, Dexed was an amazing synth and I thoroughly enjoyed working with it. At least, with few exceptions, it did what it was supposed to do and behaved like it was supposed to behave. I wouldn't want to program FM synths as a steady diet, but it was fun for a month.

There was nothing fun about this. I finished the track in about an hour and was grateful to be done with it.

Music should not be that unenjoyable.

So again, when did we become so politically correct that we can't make objective comments about the performance and operation of a synth?

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Sun Jun 21, 2015 7:09 pm

wagtunes wrote:Question:

When have we become so politically correct that we can't objectively criticize a synth?

Very simple answer Sir: objective criticism is great!

Jabbing and negativity isn't all that great though. If it's not your synth, wait until next month, that's what most people do, and don't bring down the party

I didn't like dexed all that much for example.

Enough talk, let's have somefun!

loris16148 · Post by **loris16148** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 8:58 am

https://soundcloud.com/loris-solic/mantra-evo

28 instances of Mantra in Reaper.
ReaEq
EpicVerb
GlaceVerb
Reacomp
LimiterNo6
Transient Controller
FreeverbToo
ReaDelay

stone1 · Post by **stone1** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 9:16 am

loris16148 wrote:https://soundcloud.com/loris-solic/mantra-evo

28 instances of Mantra in Reaper.
ReaEq
EpicVerb
GlaceVerb
Reacomp
LimiterNo6
Transient Controller
FreeverbToo
ReaDelay

Sounding great! Good job on the fx and risers - how did you do those? Also kick sounding sweet!

TheBellows · Post by **TheBellows** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 9:33 am

I had to check out Synthedit, the app used to make the Mantra Evo, i like making lofi analog noise machines and stuff and i think making softsynths could be fun.
Synthedit was made in 1987 and the guy who made it claims that he's still improving it, though it still looks like something from Windows 3.1. Looking a bit deeper i found some familiar knobs. Yes, the knobs.

Now here is my question: How can someone in 2015 still hang on to these knobs? He has developed the software for 30 years and this is how it works?
I was a bit tempted to buy it when i read about it, but after i tried the demo i soon became more sceptical. I couldn't even figure out how to get sound out of it. This could have been so great, but it looks like it was outdated 15 years ago and that really puts me off. He's charging quite a bit of money for it too, so one would expect that he was doing some work to keep it updated, but it certainly doesn't look like it.

Does anyone know this software? I'd love to build my own synths, but i can't afford to throw money around, so is it worth it. I see some synth examples looks and sound good and with better knobs, so it should be possible to create, but is it actually possible to make these with no programming skills or expensive modules?

Taron · Post by **Taron** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 9:42 am

Ahhh, of course, that explains a lot!
I've already forgotten about those "make a synth" toys. I'd never put myself at the mercy of such a tool, really.

But with regards to the knobs...man...after screwing around on those for a while, you almost forget how normal knobs are working for a moment. It's not too surprising he never changed it. Habits. But I should be cracking up about it after my story up there, hahahahaha.... I KNEW IT! (1980's).

@loris: Really a nice track!!! Loads of things are very enjoyable about it!

Xenobioz · Post by **Xenobioz** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 12:12 pm

TheBellows wrote:I had to check out Synthedit, the app used to make the Mantra Evo, i like making lofi analog noise machines and stuff and i think making softsynths could be fun.
Synthedit was made in 1987 and the guy who made it claims that he's still improving it, though it still looks like something from Windows 3.1. Looking a bit deeper i found some familiar knobs. Yes, the knobs.

Now here is my question: How can someone in 2015 still hang on to these knobs? He has developed the software for 30 years and this is how it works?
I was a bit tempted to buy it when i read about it, but after i tried the demo i soon became more sceptical. I couldn't even figure out how to get sound out of it. This could have been so great, but it looks like it was outdated 15 years ago and that really puts me off. He's charging quite a bit of money for it too, so one would expect that he was doing some work to keep it updated, but it certainly doesn't look like it.

Does anyone know this software? I'd love to build my own synths, but i can't afford to throw money around, so is it worth it. I see some synth examples looks and sound good and with better knobs, so it should be possible to create, but is it actually possible to make these with no programming skills or expensive modules?

You can make any knobs you like with software like Knobman or Photoshop. You don't need to know any programming for making your own knobs. You can also set different kind of knob response, like rotary, vertical, horizontal and more.

For free, you have an oscillator with FM capabilities another one with Phase Distortion. There are lot of filters available. Then there are many more modules for other things. But if you can program then the possibilities of what can be done is of course a lot bigger.

One Synth Challenge #76: Mantra Evo (Syntax Project Wins!)