One Synth Challenge #109: Fathom Synth by Seaweed Audio (mmGhost wins!)

[generaldiomedes]

This puppy is hungry. One patch I worked on with one WT osc and two filters through a delay was up to 80% cpu during patch design! This is on 2.9.4 too. When it was simply playing back it comes back to 4-6.

Kind of hard to freeze tracks when only 1 track can cause crackling hehe.

[functionform]

You cant save those waves yet, but the dev said it was in the plans.

Oh that would be a killer feature to have right now! The workflow naturally suggested itself to me.

[TheNeverScene]

But Functionform, how do you feel about having such an easy ability to create almost anything, forcing stronger approaches to sound design and mixing?

[doctorbob]

Updated my track - crashes a little better now ...

PeterH - nice experimental track indeed. I like the kicks you have in the early version - a bit like a person kicking a wet towel in the new one though - hehe - yeah, I know you will mix yet!!!

dB

[TheNeverScene]

Hey dB, what page is your track link on again? (being very lazy here)

Peter, you are definitely a master of the abstract I like both "drafts". I've been drawing all of my waveforms/tables on this one too.....they look like a 2 year old drew them, but I'm digging it. The basic waveform oscillators seem to have some strange artifacts to me, but the wavedraw seems to avoid that unless I draw it in. Weird question that will probably not make any sense....do you own a Korg Minilogue?

[functionform]

But Functionform, how do you feel about having such an easy ability to create almost anything, forcing stronger approaches to sound design and mixing?

Ah! so true.

[doctorbob]

Hey dB, what page is your track link on again? (being very lazy here)

... page 13 ...
dB

[] Peter:H []

Hey dB, what page is your track link on again? (being very lazy here)

Peter, you are definitely a master of the abstract I like both "drafts". I've been drawing all of my waveforms/tables on this one too.....they look like a 2 year old drew them, but I'm digging it. The basic waveform oscillators seem to have some strange artifacts to me, but the wavedraw seems to avoid that unless I draw it in. Weird question that will probably not make any sense....do you own a Korg Minilogue?

"abstract" - nice! I will borrow this descripition if you don't mind
And I probably used the wrong term in describing the wabetables as "Handcrafted". It's not that I draw waveforms by hand, but build my wavetables by hand manipulating the xml files with a text editor. And I applied the same techniques I have used already for thorn...I'm a bit lazy too, so if you listen carefully you can hear a voice saying "one" and another "thorn" that I have recycled from previous tracks...but now another user wrote a script to make all my tedious manual work obsolete...he announced it in his own thread in instruments forum, just saying in case you've missed that tool.

[bryemye]

Sorry if this was already answered, but does anyone have automation working in Reaper? I'm just getting a bunch of blank parameters and the manual has not helped me.

[generaldiomedes]

Sorry if this was already answered, but does anyone have automation working in Reaper? I'm just getting a bunch of blank parameters and the manual has not helped me.

At least it works for me in Ableton - click on the parameter label itself above the dial. It will turn white, and change the name of the next available generic 'ParameterXX' to the actual parameter.

EDIT - tested in Reaper and it indeed does work as advertised.

[generaldiomedes]

Getting some fantastic sounds out of this synth. I think I would have a very hard time improving or even re-creating some of the patches in another commercial synth for a re-mix, something that can't often be said in an OSC challenge.

And I take back my earlier statement - it sounds better than Massive

[bryemye]

@generaldiomedes Guh, the actual text and not the dial. Thank you!

[generaldiomedes]

@generaldiomedes Guh, the actual text and not the dial. Thank you!

NP - I didn't realize this at first either, and had to suffer an embarrasing post in the official Fathom thread as a result

[doctorbob]

... Getting some fantastic sounds out of this synth.

Indeed - although cpu hungry, it does produce some great sounds. Very pleased with the sounds I got from it - they did the job very well indeed! Looking forward to hearing some amazing entries this round.

I also note that if you read the manual VERY closely, automation does work as described. As explained in the devs Fathom thread, the automation parameters are allocated on the fly because otherwise there would be too many in the parameter list, and could overflow some hosts list size, as well as making a huge list very awkward to use. Hence the rather different mechanism for selecting which params appear in a host automation list. When you think about it a reasonable solution to the problem/issue.

dB

[bryemye]

Agreed on the elegance of the solution dB, just did not read closely enough apparently! Perhaps a change of emphasis in the manual (which I reviewed for an embarrassing length of time) could save some people from themselves.