One Synth Challenge #108: Diodow by HrastProgrammer (Schiing Wins!)

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Guenon wrote:
Taron wrote:I'm pretty sure you guys went already through a lengthy "samples"-discussion, but my two cents are: TOTALLY NO! Because this is not at all like the Thorn situation.
:D cripes. Hmm, I think it's gonna be a can of worms if factory presets are off limits? Also, I got the feeling these included samples are mostly of the "noises and curiosity colors" variety, and usable as such extras, not really enough "load an instrument sample and play your tune with those" stuff in there to take the actual challenge off the rails imo.
The factory samples are really very tame. I suspect that they were even made with the synth itself. I honestly don't see a problem with using factory samples (though I am staying away from them) but we'll have to wait for the word from BJ.

By the way, where is he? It's February 4th and this thread still hasn't been pinned. Something's up.

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Taron...on a completely side note....do my new headphones seem to be making a difference for the better? Can't even put my old one's on anymore due to their junkiness...at least center is center on these.

I don't even know how to load the factory samples into a Diodow osc...not really of my concern though. I'm liking the raw synthesis too much.
Just a touch of EQ and a tickle of compression

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This synth is amazing without samples.

We never (as far as I know) allow samples in OSC.

Why would this be any different? I see no reason to allow samples, the OSC is working great without doing so :D

We don't have to use presets - making our own sounds is a big part of the challenge, right?

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@TheNeverScene :lol: ....well, you're obviously on "posting"-fire! :D
Nah, this thing is pretty accurate, actually. The many curve functions offer a pretty incredible level of detailed control. But I'm still not trusting it just yet. I will have to do some fundamental tests, such as saving and loading a song, seeing if all patches load back properly and then how many instances work properly and so on... we had our fair share of bad experiences, didn't we, hehe.
But, yeah, other than that it's very promising indeed. Love the smoothness of it, really.

@zarf ...hells, yes! I mean, I ain't judgin', but to me the whole beauty of it is making sounds with a new beasty every month! :hyper:

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:-P "Posting" fire and "better mix" fire are not the same thing! "Posting" fire means I'm completely baffled, having a ton of fun, or both. This month it is the latter. "Better mix" means the cans are helping, I hope. I'm feeling a more hi-fi vibe when mixing, but that may just be the recent re-discovery of Tal Reverb 4 and beer. Either way, I feel like my usual 80's drum design is coming together with Diodow after a huge struggle with envelopes....the gabber has kick blasted me to 2002.
Just a touch of EQ and a tickle of compression

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wagtunes wrote:By the way, where is he? It's February 4th and this thread still hasn't been pinned. Something's up.
Pinned to what? Not being a knucklehead, just not sure what you mean.
Just a touch of EQ and a tickle of compression

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RE: The sample issue.

It seems agreed by tradition that presets (that ship with the synth )are allowed and that modifying presets is allowed.

Some of the presets use some of the 40+ samples that ship with the synth.

So if one can use one of the presets it seems that one could just as well use one of the included samples (either directly from an init patch and loading it, or by modifying a patch that includes it already).

Or is the rule going to be only presets without the samples are allowed so then the 40+ samples are off limits?.

I'm in full agreement that any "New" samples not included with the synth should be forbidden.

The included samples are a grey area to me though. I'm more of the mindset that if it ships with the synth it is fair to use, but I of course will defer to the authority (and if not present the majority opinion).

And just for personal knowledge how does a sample differ from a wavetable in that people were allowed to import custom wavetables in previous OSC? I don't quite see how a choir wavetable is fine but a choir sample would not be for example.
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zarf wrote:We never (as far as I know) allow samples in OSC.
Why would this be any different? I see no reason to allow samples, the OSC is working great without doing so :D
I agree it sounds lovely without samples, and I'm of course personally totally fine (from an entrant standpoint) if it's ruled that not even factory sample content is allowed in building your patches.

It's just that I feel like it's more consistent, after the recent Thorn round, if the factory content is allowed :) ... I mean, if you examine the samples that are used in the factory presets, you will find that most of that material serves a similar "noise colors" role in this package as the samples did in the Thorn installation. The technical setting is different than with Thorn, naturally; however, note that with Thorn even importing your own samples as spectral data and used as animated spectral "keyframes" was allowed (there was speech based on custom audio done in this manner in some entry, for example, and so on). There were very valid technical arguments as to why importing your own audio data to be analyzed and reproduced like this was okay, but in turn, that made me go "hmm" and I wanted to personally draw a line at that, and so I didn't import any custom audio in my entry :D

Tl;dr: I think limited factory content like this, especially when it's largely about a selection of filler noises instead of actual ready to go instrumental sounds, would always be okay to use, and it also makes this more straightforward for those who might want to browse the included presets as starting points.

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You're right, Frostline. Anything that is factory standard should be fair game. Some synths in the recent past were straight wavetable synths, though, without an actual sound generating oscillator.... I think. Thorn only had samples (excluding the awesome osc wavetables) in it's noise section, for example. The U-he Zebralette month seemed to rely heavily on people loading up their own wavetables...imo, the ones preloaded were lackluster and I didn't go diving into third party tables.

I think any stock capability of a synth is a go, even with free tables and what-not. I just enjoy a synth for what I see when I load it up and what I can get out of that.
Just a touch of EQ and a tickle of compression

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Above all else, I really have to say: This synth is MORE than capable of actually being a beautifully complete source for fully synthetic sounds. Samples, even those that "ship" with it, wash away those real qualities, I find. It just doesn't sit right with me.

Wavetables of a choir are a massively different story, because those are elegantly chosen snippets, pure waves, and not a capture of a whole sound. I've done something like this with the U-He Zebralette and worked every single sample of the waveforms by hand so that it would sound right. It was fully synthetic with a reference to a real voice, not a choir. Same with my piano sounds.

At the end, it all doesn't matter. At the end it's about the music we make with it, of course, but well... ...I can't tell for sure what bothers me most about it. The fact that people will be tempted to do some really ugly stuff (I hate, hate clumsy, pitched samples unless it's very, very deliberate, and even then...buah!), or the fact that some stuff may sound so complex, like somebody had achieved something beyond picking a sound, while others may spend days creating the most heart-felt sound and there seems to be no dramatic difference in terms of complexity. I don't know. I can't put it into a single thought, because it's mostly a feeling. It's not One Synth then anymore, because those samples may come from 100 synths and what ever else got sampled. Just sort of...meh. :shrug:

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I think with a small selection of samples like this, it's pretty obvious if someone just slaps one in an oscillator slot and plays it at different pitches ;) ... There is something beautiful to be found in a limited selection of stock factory samples as well, imo, as you can try to stretch what you can achieve with those as a part of a patch, blending in with the rest of the engine. Sooo yeah, I do see it as a "okay, this synth comes with this sort of raw data, and only this raw data, that one can try to incorporate into their own fully synthetic sounds as well as they can, if they can, and if they see it suitable for their aesthetic goals" situation more than taking away at the qualities of the synth :) ... Wow, what a sentence there. But yep, we'll have to hear from BJ how it's gonna be. I wonder where he is?
Last edited by Guenon on Sun Feb 04, 2018 11:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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My impression has been that we just don't allow sample based presets. I don't remember any time in the last couple of years that there has been any exception to that. MPowerSynth has sample capability and as I remember it (which could be totally wrong, with my flaky memory :wink: ) the rules were 'no presets that used samples'? If I recall correctly it was the same with BR808?

Please don't anyone thing that I'm trying to say that using presets with samples is 'bad' - if the rules are agreed that that is OK - all good here - I love the sounds in the preset bank that have samples and have already had to re-write my work-in-progress not to use them, once I realised they were sample-based!

Just seeking consistency. I suppose I do have a similar feeling to Taron - it seems more coherent to keep it 'pure' synthesis. But that's just my feeling. If the rule is to be 'Any factory content is fine' then of course happy to go with that, while asking the question: why are factory samples OK, but my samples not - seeing as if we do that we are already not just using the synthesis capabilities of the synth...

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zarf wrote:I don't remember any time in the last couple of years that there has been any exception to that.
Thorn was a recent one, that's mainly why I'm thinking it would be consistent with that one here. Hmmh. So I guess there are two uniform enough stances about this: absolutely don't allow sample use in patches (no matter if they are in the factory content, even), OR declare all factory content fair game :)

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Frostline wrote:RE: The sample issue.

It seems agreed by tradition that presets (that ship with the synth )are allowed and that modifying presets is allowed.
I believe for the last 'any 1 synth' challenge for hybrid synths like Omnisphere and Rapid which contained sampling functionality it was agreed to avoid using the sampling aspect of the synth.

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Guenon wrote:
zarf wrote:I don't remember any time in the last couple of years that there has been any exception to that.
Thorn was a recent one, that's mainly why I'm thinking it would be consistent with that one here. Hmmh. So I guess there are two uniform enough stances about this: absolutely don't allow sample use in patches (no matter if they are in the factory content, even), OR declare all factory content fair game :)
Fair enough! The sampling side to Thorn passed me by... are you just talking about the 'click' samples that were built in?
Converting arbitrary samples to wavetables seems different to me. (very different quality)

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