Bazille - most misunderstood synth?

[EnGee]

I sold Bazille when I needed money! But I'm planning to buy it again (after Sylenth1).

There is a great tutorial and long enough to understand most of Bazille (in groove3). This helped me a lot really as Bazille is a complex synth with so many possibilities.

It's not an easy synth at all, especially in the start. The sequencer needs time to grasp and the modulation can get complex. Anyway, even if you understand the functions of the parameters, the next challenge is how to use that and blend them into useful nice patch (or noise).

After all, IMO, it's a masterpiece. Great concept of using the fm/pd synthesis. I agree with the OP is that Bazille is a misunderstood beast and needs more time to know well (the same I feel with Harmor and Absynth, for example, not easy synths like Razor or Hive).

[ghettosynth]

People need to stop making assumptions about one's skill or lack thereof based on a relatively small sample size of work.

I'm pretty sure that people are making assumptions about your skill based on three things:

1) Your own words
2) Your entire library of published patch demos
3) Your responses in this thread

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so all I will say is that your patches aren't to my taste. However, the patch you just posted is just doing some fairly simple randomization of mixing and parameters based on the synth's intrinsic random LFO modulation. Of course it's going to be random, well, pseudorandom at any rate. It's not really a good demonstration of FM or PD.

Maybe you'd like me to make a video explaining this synth in detail.

Oh wait, you'll probably think I'm reading from a book.

Is it any wonder I totally detest this place?

So, you're mad that you think that other people are making assumptions and then you respond with assumptions of your own?

I don't think that you're reading from a book, what's to read? I just don't think that you understand FM and PD as much as you want people to believe that you do and I think that your disagreement with my basic thoughts on this are based on something other than actual experience and knowledge.

Basically, all the patches that have been posted so far demonstrate what I've been talking about. That when you don't really embrace FM and PD that the patches that you create with Bazille are going to either be a bit dark, because you are treating the oscillators as you would a normal VA oscillator where they are missing significant upper harmonics in comparison, or, they are going to be a bit noisy and harsh, because it's challenging to map parameter input to spectral output and it's very easy to get into harsh territory.

I don't think that you can treat Bazille as an ordinary modular and avoid this because, as VA oscillators, Bazille's oscillators are fairly tame.

[Terrafractyl]

Lots of Love for Bazille here also.

Easily one of my top 5 Soft synths.

I also don't pretend to understand the math behind FM/PD (well I Sat down and worked a lot of it out once, but I'm not usually thinking in ratio's and numbers when I'm sitting down trying to make a patch)
But it's super fun to play with and get experimental with anyways.
Not to mention, outside of the FM/PD aspect there is a lot going on with Bazille that is much closer to real world modular than a lot of software, and I'm talking about all the little bits...

Rectifiers, Multiplexers and Lag generators just have me feeling right at home!

[Terrafractyl]

Is it any wonder I totally detest this place?

There is an extremely simple solution to this problem...

[wagtunes]

People need to stop making assumptions about one's skill or lack thereof based on a relatively small sample size of work.

I'm pretty sure that people are making assumptions about your skill based on three things:

1) Your own words
2) Your entire library of published patch demos
3) Your responses in this thread

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so all I will say is that your patches aren't to my taste. However, the patch you just posted is just doing some fairly simple randomization of mixing and parameters based on the synth's intrinsic random LFO modulation. Of course it's going to be random, well, pseudorandom at any rate. It's not really a good demonstration of FM or PD.

Maybe you'd like me to make a video explaining this synth in detail.

Oh wait, you'll probably think I'm reading from a book.

Is it any wonder I totally detest this place?

So, you're mad that you think that other people are making assumptions and then you respond with assumptions of your own?

I don't think that you're reading from a book, what's to read? I just don't think that you understand FM and PD as much as you want people to believe that you do and I think that your disagreement with my basic thoughts on this are based on something other than actual experience and knowledge.

Basically, all the patches that have been posted so far demonstrate what I've been talking about. That when you don't really embrace FM and PD that the patches that you create with Bazille are going to either be a bit dark, because you are treating the oscillators as you would a normal VA oscillator where they are missing significant upper harmonics in comparison, or, they are going to be a bit noisy and harsh, because it's challenging to map parameter input to spectral output and it's very easy to get into harsh territory.

I don't think that you can treat Bazille as an ordinary modular and avoid this because, as VA oscillators, Bazille's oscillators are fairly tame.

My friend, and I use that term as loosely as possible, I don't give a crap what you think. I'll send you two tickets to fly out here (bring a date) and even pay your hotel bill. I'll spend a week with you teaching you everything I know about Bazille or any other synthesizer you want to know about.

In the grand scheme of things, what you think of me, my knowledge, my skill, or my ability to sustain an erection for an hour means about as much to me as the 16 year old kid sitting in his basement watching porn on his father's Windows 95 computer via Compuserve and a 9600 baud modem.

Yeah, that little.

[exmatproton]

I don't think that you can treat Bazille as an ordinary modular and avoid this because, as VA oscillators, Bazille's oscillators are fairly tame.

I think that is your way of dealing with this synth. Tame or not, i use Bazille the way i want to use it. Sometimes that is as an "ordinary" modular (VA) synth, other times as a FX machine (PD/FM is awesome for weird percussion) and there are times that i work on a patch for hours to get 1 sound just the way i want it to sound (and yes, i use PD/FM in those cases the way "they were meant". In those cases i wouldn't call Bazille a VA modular synth ).

The beauty of this synth, is the way U-He was able to give purists some real good tweak possibilities, but without scaring "everyone" away (imho). With the OSC's, LFO's, filters and FX section, some really simple VA-like sounds are possible as well with this beast

[ariston]

Is it any wonder I totally detest this place?

There is an extremely simple solution to this problem...

Yes, but... quod me nutrit me destruit and all that.

[wagtunes]

Is it any wonder I totally detest this place?

There is an extremely simple solution to this problem...

Yes, but... quod me nutrit me destruit and all that.

I had to look this one up as I don't speak Latin. Yeah, pretty much. Aside from that, not giving them the satisfaction of driving me out of here.

[ghettosynth]

I don't think that you can treat Bazille as an ordinary modular and avoid this because, as VA oscillators, Bazille's oscillators are fairly tame.

I think that is your way of dealing with this synth. Tame or not, i use Bazille the way i want to use it. Sometimes that is as an "ordinary" modular (VA) synth, other times as a FX machine (PD/FM is awesome for weird percussion) and there are times that i work on a patch for hours to get 1 sound just the way i want it to sound (and yes, i use PD/FM in those cases the way "they were meant". In those cases i wouldn't call Bazille a VA modular synth ).

I think that anyone disagreeing with me is missing the point. It's not about how "I" deal with it, or how "you" deal with it. It's about what is offputting about Bazille to some people.

The beauty of this synth, is the way U-He was able to give purists some real good tweak possibilities, but without scaring "everyone" away (imho). With the OSC's, LFO's, filters and FX section, some really simple VA-like sounds are possible as well with this beast

In your opinion, I'm sure. I think the beauty of the synth is that it's a rather unique take on PD/FM synths. Of course some simple VA sounds are possible, complex ones as well, whoever said that they weren't? You can make complex FM sounds with ACE as well, so what?

The point is, that as a modular VA synth, it is not as easy to approach as something like ACE, BECAUSE, it is meant to be an FM/PD synth and that reasoning drives the choices in the oscillators. You can't just choose a sawtooth, not really, nor a triangle. You have to get sort of sawtooths and triangle approximations, and they don't sound as good as bandlimited sawtooths and triangles. Arguing that you sometimes like a squishy sawtooth is irrelevant.

Nobody is arguing that you can't go grocery shopping in a ferrari or a 5 ton truck, but neither are ideal for the task and if you go into expecting it to be an ideal grocery go-getter, you will be disappointed.

Some people are disappointed with Bazille, at least two have posted in this thread. The common theme is that they don't like the sound. Bazille has great filters, so why would that be? Is it possible that it's because the oscillators are not what people are familiar with and are more challenging to get particular sounds?

[brainzistor]

Yes, I owned a DX7 for 30 years. Yes, I could program it inside and out. No, I didn't care what kind of synthesizer it was.
In fact, it's not an FM synthesizer at all but we won't get into that.

Newsflash...





I so want you to get into that, I want it so bad, do it, JUST DO IT, BRO!

[cytospur]

Ooh, another can of worms

[wagtunes]

Yes, I owned a DX7 for 30 years. Yes, I could program it inside and out. No, I didn't care what kind of synthesizer it was.
In fact, it's not an FM synthesizer at all but we won't get into that.

Newsflash...

Yamaha can call it whatever they want. It's not an FM synthesizer. For who knows how many years I thought it was too. It's not.

Besides the point.

And referring back to my original statement that I didn't know or care if it was FM, PD, PM or whatever, yes. Absolutely.

Why?

Because once i get the synth in front of me I can do anything I want with it and I can teach anybody else the same.

And my offer to fly you out here too in order to prove it goes as well. Bring a date. I'll even put you up in a hotel for a week.

And then after you've eaten all that crow you're going to eat, you can apologize for being an ass before I kick you the hell out of my house.

Like I said, I hate personal attacks and assholes.

[ghettosynth]

I'll ...teach you everything I know about Bazille

I think that you already have.

[wagtunes]

Oh and for the record, the DX 7 uses phase modulation, not frequency modulation.

[wagtunes]

I'll ...teach you everything I know about Bazille

I think that you already have.

Oh wow, did it take you a whole 60 seconds to come up with that snappy comeback?