ArcSyn tips and weirdness example

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A while back there was a thread on "what synth do you enjoy programming". It made me realize how much fun I had programming ArcSyn, it's a crazy machine. I'm now onto my second soundset to be released in a couple of days. And while it was all still very fresh in my mind I thought I'd also make a tips video. It starts off with some very basic things and moves into more subtle pitch and waveform randomizations. Hope some find it useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypLzjSpzm9E

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bring on that new soundset!... i have 'sputnik', good stuff...

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:tu:

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For anyone that's interested ArcSyn is also on sale this month: 25% off https://www.spcplugins.com/arcsyn
Also, the oscilloscope in the video is an excellent new freebie from Socalabs:
https://socalabs.com/analysis/

All I need now is a better virtual keyboard that also shows the modwheel movement - can't find anything!

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What I am wondering, why is that synth usually associated with sound gimmicks and science fiction sounds? It is a complete synth and perfectly capable of bread-and-butter sounds such as analog string and brass pads, Moog synth basses, etc., right?

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For the same reason other synths are marketed for EDM use, i guess.

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fluffy_little_something wrote:What I am wondering, why is that synth usually associated with sound gimmicks and science fiction sounds? It is a complete synth and perfectly capable of bread-and-butter sounds such as analog string and brass pads, Moog synth basses, etc., right?
You are absolutely right in this and your post could have been the blurb for my first ArcSyn soundset. I set out to show a more controlled and pure side of ArcSyn. But naturally things comes back to the more complex because of the nature of the synth.

For example, there are around 20 different LFO types just dedicated to randomization: spikes, curves, lines, pulses, changing shapes etc. Then there is a 16-step LFO sequencer that can randomly cycle through different LFOs. And even then you can modulate one random LFO by another random LFO. Finally you could take that combined random result, combine it with another result, perform a mathematical function on it, and have that as a new modulation source.

VSTs based on hardware synths are not going to get remotely close to the continuously variable functions possible. I think in that respect ArcSyn is closer to some weird Reaktor creation than a usual synth. So perhaps it's not surprising it tends towards a degree of strangeness.

Some months back I emailed the dev asking whether he might consider adding an LFO that mimcked the "wandering wobble" of a badly tuned shortwave radio. But, ahem, even after months noddling with ArcSyn I hadn't discovered it already had such an LFO (Random Var1 > Smooth Line).

My latest request is to add a drone button like the Pro-One. Since ArcSyn does soundscapes so well I think it'd be a useful extra.

So yes, it can do the usual synth stuff very nicely, but when you look under the hood and see all this extra equipment you've just got to experiment.

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Just tried the demo again, after a year or so.
I still don't like the interface, very hard on the eye.
And I can see why people use it for weird sounds, it doesn't feel like a normal synth, it is not very musical in my view.

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I love it, think it's incredibly musical and has some very clever approaches to sound generation and modulation

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I haven't demo'd ArcSyn myself (bit put off by the GUI...), but, the sound examples sound pretty nice. I could be mistaken, but, reminds me of the Waldorf sound a bit.

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aMUSEd wrote:I love it, think it's incredibly musical and has some very clever approaches to sound generation and modulation
Seems musical is a term just as subjective as warm and analog :hihi:

What I personally mean by musical is ready for standard synth usage. I think Tal's U-NO-LX is extremely musical. You open the plugin and have all those bread-and-butter sounds to choose from, and the GUI is super user-friendly, intuitive and inviting, like a hardware instrument.

I don't consider excessive modulation options musical.
And it shows in the demo videos I have seen on that synth so far, all rather unmusical sounds, special effects basically.

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Oh ok, I think of Tal U-NO-LX as boring tbh. Musical for me, especially from a synth, is something that expands my musical possibilities. And while Arcsyn is more complex it is still user-friendly, intuitive and inviting to me.

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Bread-and-butter Is pretty well served already.

Many thanks for the video Richard deHove!

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i don't know anyone who only uses one synth plugin, so i find it surprising when developers try to make their plugin cover all the bases.

i look for synths that have something distinctive about them, and, when u get the right combination, amazing things can happen....

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The new soundset I've been working on *is* about weird, moody, disturbing sounds because ArcSyn has the ability to achieve that - which some basic architecture synths can struggle to achieve. But of course it can do "musical" as well. Here's an example of a single preset, on one track playing a midi file of Satie:
https://soundcloud.com/richarddehove/ar ... reset-demo

Zipped fxp preset:
Satie Theme.zip
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