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

[wagtunes]

Except, and I'll take the simplest example I can come up with, given the actual Minimoog and Syntronik's Minimoog, there are things you can do on the real one that you simply can't do with Syntronik's because the controls aren't there. End of story.

You guys are simply not getting it....there are things you can do with Syntronik that you can't do with a MiniMoog......like make it sound like an SY-99.

Stop focusing on what it can't do and embrace what it can do. I'm making some great patches using it's 4 OSCs (Layers) and a little bit of creativity........(some of that is needed).

Is this the most powerful synth in existence ? Of course not but like I said it's tons of fun and capable of a surprising range of sounds that will expand if IK ever releases more Instruments.

These were never advertised as 1:1 Emulations although I'd love to get 1:1 Emulations of all those synths for $70.

Well, then in that case, we might as well just call anything that has a filter and an LFO a synth and call it a day. Problem is, with so loose a definition, it doesn't really help somebody who may come here for synth recommendations for a "traditional" VA, wavetable, granular or whatever synth. We might as well, at that point, just toss in Nexus and any other "playback engine" into the mix as long as it has some kind of control over the sound and isn't just static like playing back a piano sample that can't be changed at all.

But if I come here saying I am looking for a new "synth" that I can design a sound library for because programming the synth takes some skill and not everybody wants to spend the time to do that, are you really going to throw Syntronik into that mix and recommend I get it? I mean do you really think I could sell even ONE Syntronik library?

So we have to have some way of making distinctions or this all becomes meaningless.

Especially to sound designers.

The thing is that it still takes designing with sounds to put together the multis. You just aren't going from a wide open synth and designing from scratch..selecting and molding those selections with what you are given is still sound design...you're just being a bit of a purist and forgetting that everything, even purist synths, have their limitations..this one just has different limitations. Just because it doesn't pass the synth purist test, doesn't mean it's bad.

Except the fewer controls something has, the easier it is. It's why I hesitated to get The Legend. I couldn't help think "Who would buy libraries for something with 3 oscillators, a filter and not a lot else?"

But son of a gun. Out of 48 released libraries, it's my 12th best selling one. Shocked the hell out of me. But still, it's considered a traditional synth and maybe that, and the fact that it's a legit Minimoog emulation makes the difference.

Probably, to prove my point, I should have gotten Syntronik for the prerelease price, made a library for it, put it up for sale, and watched how NOBODY bough the library given that all you can really do is combine layers in different ways.

Doesn't necessarily prove whether it's a synth or not, but certainly, for my purposes anyway, would have proved that getting it would have been a total waste of money from a business standpoint.

[jacqueslacouth]

i've been playing with Syntronik for a few days now, and i've only barely scratched the surface of what it offers. is it limited? sure. it's very unusual to see the oscillator panel, but not being able to change e.g. PWM width, or change sawtooth, or add noise, or something. i'm not completely used to this, and i think i would've preferred having at least a dropdown with "source oscillator" samples, so that i could instantly switch between different base sounds without losing my FX chain, envelopes and whatnot. it's true - you can work your filter envelopes and FX and arpeggiator etc, but the core sound character won't change much.

however, the good thing is, i've been through only a small selection of sounds so far, and almost every time i thought "wow i heard this in a song somewhere". i can see that the limitations won't be a huge problem for me, as the sounds are fine as they are, so i wouldn't need to change oscillator parameters to fit the sounds into the kind of music i make. envelopes and filtering and FX and layering would be more than enough for me.

to contrast it with earlier IK's efforts, Syntronik to me is much better. i don't have Sonik Synth and SampleMoog, so i can't compare Syntronik with those, but i do have SampleTank 2 XL and SampleTank 3 full, and Syntronik is on a whole other level when it comes to synth sounds. the sounds themselves are better, there's a lot of variety and not a lot of weird "can't imagine where i would use it" type of sounds (so far, at least), and more importantly, i haven't heard any machine gunning anywhere. this was always the problem with both SampleTank and UVI's synth libraries for me - the inability to do fast basslines or fast, repetitive arpegiations with repeating notes. Syntronik does not suffer from that, as far as i can tell, so i don't have to rely on round robins and velocity layers to rid myself of machine gun effect. for that alone, Syntronik is well worth the 80-something euro i spent on it.

it's essentially a synth preset library, and given that this is exactly what i was looking for - a good sounding, varied "classic sounds" synth preset library that doesn't suffer from machine-gun effects common to sampled sounds - that's exactly what i got. i'm not a big synth guy, so my needs are humble. i can see how it might disappoint people who may have higher standards.

[spacekid]

Except, and I'll take the simplest example I can come up with, given the actual Minimoog and Syntronik's Minimoog, there are things you can do on the real one that you simply can't do with Syntronik's because the controls aren't there. End of story.

You guys are simply not getting it....there are things you can do with Syntronik that you can't do with a MiniMoog......like make it sound like an SY-99.

Stop focusing on what it can't do and embrace what it can do. I'm making some great patches using it's 4 OSCs (Layers) and a little bit of creativity........(some of that is needed).

Is this the most powerful synth in existence ? Of course not but like I said it's tons of fun and capable of a surprising range of sounds that will expand if IK ever releases more Instruments.

These were never advertised as 1:1 Emulations although I'd love to get 1:1 Emulations of all those synths for $70.

Well, then in that case, we might as well just call anything that has a filter and an LFO a synth and call it a day. Problem is, with so loose a definition, it doesn't really help somebody who may come here for synth recommendations for a "traditional" VA, wavetable, granular or whatever synth. We might as well, at that point, just toss in Nexus and any other "playback engine" into the mix as long as it has some kind of control over the sound and isn't just static like playing back a piano sample that can't be changed at all.

But if I come here saying I am looking for a new "synth" that I can design a sound library for because programming the synth takes some skill and not everybody wants to spend the time to do that, are you really going to throw Syntronik into that mix and recommend I get it? I mean do you really think I could sell even ONE Syntronik library?

So we have to have some way of making distinctions or this all becomes meaningless.

Especially to sound designers.

The thing is that it still takes designing with sounds to put together the multis. You just aren't going from a wide open synth and designing from scratch..selecting and molding those selections with what you are given is still sound design...you're just being a bit of a purist and forgetting that everything, even purist synths, have their limitations..this one just has different limitations. Just because it doesn't pass the synth purist test, doesn't mean it's bad.

Except the fewer controls something has, the easier it is. It's why I hesitated to get The Legend. I couldn't help think "Who would buy libraries for something with 3 oscillators, a filter and not a lot else?"

But son of a gun. Out of 48 released libraries, it's my 12th best selling one. Shocked the hell out of me. But still, it's considered a traditional synth and maybe that, and the fact that it's a legit Minimoog emulation makes the difference.

Probably, to prove my point, I should have gotten Syntronik for the prerelease price, made a library for it, put it up for sale, and watched how NOBODY bough the library given that all you can really do is combine layers in different ways.

Doesn't necessarily prove whether it's a synth or not, but certainly, for my purposes anyway, would have proved that getting it would have been a total waste of money from a business standpoint.

Well, I have been combining all kind of things from sampletank with mine, so I don't think you would run out of ideas. Plus the fact that you can do plenty with just the effects you choose..it's no surprise that you don't own it, yet you have such strong opinions, based on what? you don't really know it, so let people who own it and are exploring it let you in on things..it's different yes, bad? not at all. It's actually very fun and inspiring, but then again, I will mix real and synth all day long and be happy.

[Elektronisch]

Then you're not looking at the whole picture. It's a 4 Osc (Layer) Synth whose Oscs are sample based.

No, it's not...

No matter how much you delude yourself...

Of course it is.....no matter how much that fact eludes you.

Nope, thats 100% FACT

Then you haven't got a clue what a "FACT" is............

At least i know better then you do

[dmbaer]

i think i would've preferred having at least a dropdown with "source oscillator" samples, so that i could instantly switch between different base sounds without losing my FX chain, envelopes and whatnot.

Agreed 100%. So far, this is my number one enhancement wish. I was thinking instead about a way to lock the FX section (with zero FX loaded being one option) and to also be able to lock the other major components: LFO, Filter, Amp Env. I suspect IK would not be open to the idea of direct access to the list of underlying samples or they would have implemented that in the first place. However, some locking capabilitiy is already present, like the Arp, I believe, so the locking approach would not be a major departure from what's already there.

The Syntronik architecture makes it really easy for non-expert sound designers to build musically-useful, great-sounding presets, if you have identified a suitable sample to use in the "oscillator" section in the first place (yeah ... I know, I know ... those of you who feel compelled to argue this view, please just ignore this post and go back to your endless arguing on what defines a "real" synth while the rest of us enjoy this great new instrument).

[IncarnateX]

When did you get a Fantom G ?

In another thread I thougth I read you had scaled your setup down to a bare minimum?

Since Sunday. Too hard to resist when the price was no more than 740€. Sold my twenty year old JP8000 for 403€ to get the cost further down -with no regrets. My "studio" is still bare minimum. I just have two studios instead of one. One is MC909 based, the other Fantom based, but music will be made on either one or the other, with some samplings of Minilogue and JD-Xi along the way. They are not going to be connected.

[Numanoid]

When did you get a Fantom G ?

In another thread I thougth I read you had scaled your setup down to a bare minimum?

Since Sunday.

Nice

[Saukar30]

A fantom G for 740????? Dayum your a lucky man! I always wanted 1 of those things.

[Kraznet]

It's great that you can layer up to 4 synths but it would be even better if there was a single mixer window so you can balance the volume levels of the individual synths. At the moment you have to click A-B-C-D in order to change the volume of individual synths which isn't particularly a great workflow. Unless there's something I'm missing of course.

[spacekid]

It's great that you can layer up to 4 synths but it would be even better if there was a single mixer window so you can balance the volume levels of the individual synths. At the moment you have to click A-B-C-D in order to change the volume of individual synths which isn't particularly a great workflow. Unless there's something I'm missing of course.

I switched over to using Sampletank. They should implement the mixer page from it into syntronik.

[Burillo]

The Syntronik architecture makes it really easy for non-expert sound designers to build musically-useful, great-sounding presets, if you have identified a suitable sample to use in the "oscillator" section in the first place

that's the best part about both Syntronik and SampleTank, and why i love SampleTank workflow - they encourage you to layer sounds, and it works really well, especially for synth sound. which, now that i got Syntronik, makes me wonder about Sonik Synth 2 and SampleMoog. does anyone have any of them, and if so, how do they compare to Syntronik, sound wise? i'd hate to use the SampleTank interface for Syntronik as it makes finding patches that much harder, but i guess i can tolerate it.

[Kraznet]

OK it looks like a spoke too soon you can do it in this window by selecting the name of the synth to adjust the levels and pan:

[spacekid]

The Syntronik architecture makes it really easy for non-expert sound designers to build musically-useful, great-sounding presets, if you have identified a suitable sample to use in the "oscillator" section in the first place

that's the best part about both Syntronik and SampleTank, and why i love SampleTank workflow - they encourage you to layer sounds, and it works really well, especially for synth sound. which, now that i got Syntronik, makes me wonder about Sonik Synth 2 and SampleMoog. does anyone have any of them, and if so, how do they compare to Syntronik, sound wise?

Almost forgot. you can use the mixer icon(right side) 'volume' for your A,B,C,D..simply select which one A-D and then hit the mixer icon and adjust volume there..the master seems just wired not on the layer you are on. I have alot of files Burillo..those are out of print, but I'm layering some Pink Noise Studio(kontakt/convert with extreme sample convertor, then import into sampletank)with these new ones with a lot of success. * edit: ^ you found it.

[Examigan]

i think i would've preferred having at least a dropdown with "source oscillator" samples, so that i could instantly switch between different base sounds without losing my FX chain, envelopes and whatnot.

Agreed 100%. So far, this is my number one enhancement wish. I was thinking instead about a way to lock the FX section (with zero FX loaded being one option) and to also be able to lock the other major components: LFO, Filter, Amp Env. I suspect IK would not be open to the idea of direct access to the list of underlying samples or they would have implemented that in the first place. However, some locking capabilitiy is already present, like the Arp, I believe, so the locking approach would not be a major departure from what's already there.

The Syntronik architecture makes it really easy for non-expert sound designers to build musically-useful, great-sounding presets, if you have identified a suitable sample to use in the "oscillator" section in the first place (yeah ... I know, I know ... those of you who feel compelled to argue this view, please just ignore this post and go back to your endless arguing on what defines a "real" synth while the rest of us enjoy this great new instrument).

Hi David,

Glad you got it running and hope you have fun with it. It sounds very cool from the description, I may just download the free version to check it out.

[IncarnateX]

A fantom G for 740????? Dayum your a lucky man! I always wanted 1 of those things.

Could hardly believe it myself and didn't trust it to be true before I got my hands on it. The poor guy had bought it as an upgrade from Fantom Xa but found out he could not convert his hard made presets automatically or to any satisfaction by software. So he had bought himself a Fantom X6 cheaply and just wanted the G out of the house and into oblivion. No problem, I was there on the spot. It is Speaking of romplers, this one is indeed into a class of its own.