Syntronik [update March 2018: New T-03 Bonus Content & 4-for-1 bass synth promo] available

[ghettosynth]

Still, 30 pages later, and I still see no confirmation of how you select a source. Is it embedded in the patch? Who knows - there's no sign of it in the front panels I'll confess, but maybe it's under a menu somewhere. A walkthough would, in fact, clear that up.

It would, but we can speculate.



Selecting a patch populates the layer. The patch is a combination of a sample set plus whatever settings are required for the envelopes and filters. Once you've selected a patch for the layer then you are free to edit the basic synth settings.

Since they show you "Snap Mini Bass" in the next image you can see that it has envelope settings that might be appropriate. Hard to say without an audio sample. But given that they are showing you the patch and that the settings for each of the patches are different, I'm fairly certain that the patch settings and samples are linked in this basic way. It does not seem to me that you get to arbitrarily choose the samples separately. If that's possible, a screenshot would be all that is needed to see how that's done.



Populate each layer in the same way and edit the basic settings to your heart's content.

Here's "Dreamy", with a slower attack, something you might expect on a patch called "Dreamy."

[zerocrossing]

DO A WALK-THROUGH VIDEO.

Not a bad idea, but, in the big scheme of things, we really do know what this product is. It's really a bit of wishful thinking to believe otherwise. Take a look at the SY-99 panel and explain how that's capturing any aspects whatsoever of the SY-99 from a synthesis perspective?

Oh, I am right there with you, but we're paying attention. The video I'm suggesting is for the looky-loos who hit this thread as a drive-by and don't get it and are never going to pour through the thread looking for Peter's posts, or doing the analysis that you did by looking at all the UIs.

[ghettosynth]

DO A WALK-THROUGH VIDEO.

Not a bad idea, but, in the big scheme of things, we really do know what this product is. It's really a bit of wishful thinking to believe otherwise. Take a look at the SY-99 panel and explain how that's capturing any aspects whatsoever of the SY-99 from a synthesis perspective?

Oh, I am right there with you, but we're paying attention. The video I'm suggesting is for the looky-loos who hit this thread as a drive-by and don't get it and are never going to pour through the thread looking for Peter's posts, or doing the analysis that you did by looking at all the UIs.

Fair point.

[Kumini]

Exactly. This post alone summarizes everything in this thread so let's leave it at that. I myself don't need to be able to make "swiss cheese". I just want to be served a nice cheese platter to go with all the wine I have

No, it really doesn't summarize everything in this thread. I honestly don't understand why so many people get offended when you start talking about a product from a technical standpoint. That serves a purpose, it's clearly served a purpose in this thread by clearing up exactly what this product is for some readers. Peter's words alone have NOT done that in the least.

This is absolutely a risk that you take when you pre-sell a product. People can't demo it yet and you only have the manufacturer's word to go on. So yes, you are going to look at it, look at the materials, criticize the copy, try to extrapolate what's really going on under the hood.

As we learn more about this product some of us will continue to talk about it from a technical standpoint. Choosing to get offended by that is completely on you. This is a discussion site about plugins. Whoah! Mind blown! Some people actually come here to DISCUSS PLUGINS, who'd have thought that could a thing?

I'm going to be money that someone else, not me, will resurrect this "it's not a rompler" line of reasoning a few pages from now and will repeat the same empty arguments and misconceptions about what people mean. Then someone else will say "let's just drop it guys" as if they were actually contributing anything to this thread in the first place.

My point which I failed to get across was to leave it at that for now. I felt like there's not much more to discuss until the product is released. And I'm not offended by anything in this thread. I'm not a sound designer so I don't care if it turns out to be "just a rompler". I get that if you are in fact a sound designer you could take offense to this being marketed as a synthesizer if all you can do is adjust the filter cutoff. And I'm not saying that's all you can do by the way. Anyways, I just hope it sounds good. Cheers.

[Gamma-UT]

Looking at the UI, I can't help feeling someone at IK saw the immortal thread "You have 2 Osc and you detune them..than what?" at Gearslutz and thought to themselves: "We can make an entire instrument out of that".

[ghettosynth]

Looking at the UI, I can't help feeling someone at IK saw the immortal thread "You have 2 Osc and you detune them..than what?" at Gearslutz and thought to themselves: "We can make an entire instrument out of that".

17 instruments tho, 17 legendary instruments!

[Gamma-UT]

Looking at the UI, I can't help feeling someone at IK saw the immortal thread "You have 2 Osc and you detune them..than what?" at Gearslutz and thought to themselves: "We can make an entire instrument out of that".

17 instruments tho, 17 legendary instruments!

Each with two oscillators. That you can detune. With some added Than What.

With the Jam Points, I think I'm going to get it.

[fmr]

So, we are limited to tweak (with the recognizable limitations of the built-in synth engine) the existing patches, with no access to the raw sampling material? And what about the mentioned modeled filters?

I notice that the Minimod has a multimode filter with slopes from 6 to 24 dB per octave - certainly NOT what we could see in any Minimoog. And the filter in the OXa seems to be exactly the same (at least in terms of available controls), so, probably we can't vary progressively from LFP to HPF passing through BPF/Notch in the middle, as we had in the original OB-Xa. So, none of them seems to have any relation with the filters present in the real units.

[ghettosynth]

So, we are limited to tweak (with the recognizable limitations of the built-in synth engine) the existing patches, with no access to the raw sampling material? And what about the mentioned modeled filters?

I notice that the MIDI has a Multimode filter with slopes from 6 to 24 dB per octave - certainly NOT what we can see in any Minimoog. And the filter in the OB-Xa seems to be exactly the same (at least in terms of available controls), so, probably we can't vary progressively from LFP to HPF passing through BPF/Notch in the middle. So, none of them seems to have any relation with the filters present in the real units.

Yes, the filters are all there, as far as I can tell, and you just make your selection in the U/I. As I mentioned PAGES ago, there is no attempt to authentically model the architecture of the respective synths. There is really just one instrument with 17 front panel designs.

[fmr]

So, we are limited to tweak (with the recognizable limitations of the built-in synth engine) the existing patches, with no access to the raw sampling material? And what about the mentioned modeled filters?

I notice that the MIDI has a Multimode filter with slopes from 6 to 24 dB per octave - certainly NOT what we can see in any Minimoog. And the filter in the OB-Xa seems to be exactly the same (at least in terms of available controls), so, probably we can't vary progressively from LFP to HPF passing through BPF/Notch in the middle. So, none of them seems to have any relation with the filters present in the real units.

Yes, the filters are all there, as far as I can tell, and you just make your selection in the U/I. As I mentioned PAGES ago, there is no attempt to authentically model the architecture of the respective synths. There is really just one instrument with 17 front panel designs.

So, it is a common ROMpler, and if we don't have the possibility to access the raw multisamples (for example to combine samples form several synths), it is even a very limited ROMpler - but with 17 skins

[Dewdman42]

Peter has mentioned numerous times on this thread the depth of sampling with many combinations of oscillators... It seems pretty obvious to me that there must be some way to select the source samples to use, even if we can't guess about it right now from the video screenshots. But I'm assuming that too, so we shall see.

In my view that will be the greatest strength of the instrument.

I do not think this is going to be the be-all end-all, nor do I think this will be authentic emulations of these instruments nor will they provide a rich synthesizer environment that many synth gurus demand. But what I do think is that it will be possible to create lots of cool sounds by mixing and matching the samples, and by mixing and matching the filters, by using the many IK fx that have been included, and with layering. The one thing I wish they would have done differently or better is provide better mod matrix capability, it sounds on the surface like this will be a bit disappointing and will make presets sound a bit static, but we shall see.

Peter has mentioned that its basically one synth engine with different GUI's on top, which I find the GUI's kind of useless and stupid, but its ok..whatever sells I guess... but basically it will be one fairly simply synth engine, with a very large collection of sampled oscillators, in many different combinations. Then you get the 4 different classic filters and a few more. Then you also get a large collection of IK effects, which are probably capable of some interesting things as well.

I think it will be possible to layer thousands of interesting combinations of sampled oscillators to get many interesting results, then fed through the simplistic synth engine, but with classik sounding filters and some decent Ik fx. There is a ton of possibility here. its definitely worth jam points pre sale discount of $69. I am not sure I would pay the price its going to end up at, but we shall see. For me its worth the presale price just for the string machines that are built in, which I don't have in my arsenal yet.

No, some of the synths will not be true emulations. some of the presets will undoubtedly sound iconic and true to the original, but of course you will not be able to truly program an SY99 preset that interacts the way a real SY99 would. Clearly. But some of the essence of that machine will be present in the sample collection which can then be further processed through the simplistic synth to provide a more dynamic experience then a mere rompler would. They are advertising is at a "hybrid" and that appears to be what it actually is...its a weird hybrid of sampling and synthesizing, using a large collection of oscillator samples in many combinations, with a simple synth engine and perhaps extensive effects, with some classik sounding filters. It is something new really... its the analog sound...but a totally different way of pulling them all together into sounds. I think there is potential here for interesting and musical results. I already have pretty great emulations of some of the classik analog synths I care about...we don't really need another one anyway. This is actually something new and different in that regard.

I think its throwing some people for a loop by using the classik gui's over the top of something which is not really authentic emulation. Kind of fun to see those gui's but since they aren't complete emulations its also entirely unsatisfying and a bit misleading. no doubt. Nonetheless, I think there is going to be a ton of potential for sound design here in a way that hasn't really been done before.

If nothing else, you will get a huge collection of oscillation samples you can resample and throw into alchemy or whatever floats your boat.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

Since there seems to be a lot of oversimplification(as well as overcomplication)/assumption here, I hope this clears it up (in addition to the web site and my multiple descriptions of exactly what Syntronik is and is not):

We provide 4 LAYERS in Syntronik. This is where the user can combine the instruments (single presets) from any of our 17 synths. So if you want to do custom sound design with more control than you have within a single “instrument," you can think of Syntronik as a 4-oscillator synth with each LAYER as a single oscillator.

The added power here is that each LAYER (each “oscillator” in this example) has the ability to contain more than one oscillator of samples. For example, a single LAYER can contain an instrument that has a single sawtooth wave in Osc 1 and a second sawtooth wave in Osc 2 that you can detune. Or maybe Osc 1 has samples of 2 detuned oscillators, and Osc 2 has samples of a single square wave with a suboscillator to create a 4-oscillator sound out of just one “instrument” (just one LAYER). And for those that want total control, you can easily choose an instrument that has just a single oscillator sample in Osc 1, program that the way you want it, then use LAYER 2 for a second oscillator, LAYER 3 for a third oscillator, etc. This is no different than “Elements” in a Yamaha Motif or other rompler. And in fact, this structure goes all the way back to the famous Yamaha CS-80 which has just one oscillator going through the filters with dedicated envelopes. This was a deviation from the traditional idea of multiple oscillators through a single filter like the Minimoog, Oberheims, etc. did. But there is an analog synth precedent for it with the CS-80.

[Dewdman42]

Peter, here are a few questions.. hopefully easy to answer...

1. can I choose any sample from the entire collection to use within a particular instrument as a source OSC? or if I am looking at the SY99 screen(for example), will I only be able to select SY99 samples to use in OSC1 and OSC2?
2. I read somewhere that I can use any of the filters in any of the instruments...so that is similar to question #1, but I think already answers that YES, I can mix and match the filters in the instruments to get different results.
3. You have the layers...ok...is there any synth processing that can be done to all the layers as a whole...or at least FX processing? In other words, does synth processing need to happen entirely within each of the layers or can we really layer the bare OSC's from different instruments and then process that resulting layered OSC through the synth and FX engine?

[ghettosynth]

Since there seems to be a lot of oversimplification(as well as overcomplication)/assumption here

I disagree. So far it seems like my description is fairly close and based on the rest of your post I can't see that it isn't? I don't think that I've either oversimplified or overcomplicated this. You have a rompler engine with modeled filters. That's not new really, Kontakt has that, they are just not particularly current filter models. Granted we really don't know how good your filters are yet and for the moment it's fair to assume the best and they will be an improvement over what is typically available in rompler engines, but that doesn't change my understanding of this product.

I think it will be possible to layer thousands of interesting combinations of sampled oscillators to get many interesting results, then fed through the simplistic synth engine, but with classik sounding filters and some decent Ik fx.

I doubt it, well, I mean in the sense that you build up layers and them filter all of the layers with one "synth engine." I think that the "layers" are each an independent layer of the sample engine as you see it in gui. You click on A,B,C,D and choose the preset for that layer. The preset defines the samples that you are using.

My guess is that the set of four layers feeds into a single effects chain which you access with the button that looks like a rectangular "oooh" face on the right. We don't really know this because IK has chosen to focus their video efforts on a synth history lesson instead of a walkthrough. The icon to the right that looks like an EQ is for the arpeggiators. The icon on the far left is for mapping the four layers to key-ranges. Obviously the gear is for settings. That's pretty much it, no? I mean there's the shopping cart, I'm not sure what that's there for?

You select your "oscillators" for a layer by choosing a preset that is based on a particular sampled instrument. You then repeat this process for up to four layers. Each of those presets loads the samples and the settings for the sample layer. This is a "tone" in Roland parlance. I assume that there's some way to save your set of tones, a "patch" in Roland parlance, but I can't see exactly how that's done. What's also not clear is whether effects configurations are loaded with each IK patch.

I think its throwing some people for a loop by using the classik gui's over the top of something which is not really authentic emulation.

I think that some people were expecting more given that IK went to the trouble of creating a bunch of guis that all do the same thing and are then marketing this thing is a somewhat misleading way. The synth DNA videos talk about the features of the original synths. This has nothing to do with the features of this product. At best, you have snapshots in time and some limited ability to modify those with the filters and basic modulation. No filter FM, not that it would sound as you'd expect from a complex sample.

This is a classic rompler engine, ala Roland, but with less control and fewer modulation sources and destinations. This is very similar in concept to UVI products like Vintage Vault.

[ghettosynth]

Peter, here are a few questions.. hopefully easy to answer...

1. can I choose any sample from the entire collection to use within a particular instrument as a source OSC? or if I am looking at the SY99 screen(for example), will I only be able to select SY99 samples to use in OSC1 and OSC2?

You're still not getting it, this doesn't matter, there's only ONE instrument. The SY99 screen may look different from the Moog, but it does EXACTLY THE SAME THING.