Unloved synths

[BONES]

Maybe the problem is that you are not into sound design as you said yourself somewhere. If you spent more time with it, maybe you would change your mind...

Not likely when it has fundamental problems. e.g. Use an envelope to modulate filter cutoff. Turn cutoff to zero and both sustain and the mod matrix amount to maximum. In any other synth, that would result in the filter being wide open but in Sylenth 1 it only goes to about 50%. To get the envelope to fully open the filter, you have to assign it in the MM twice. That's just poor design and anyone who thinks they are good at sound design should have picked up on this. The two layer thing is just annoying, in the same vein as DUNE's layering, but S1 doesn't have anything like DUNE's sound quality to make up for it. At $39, Sylenth 1 would make sense but for 139 euros it's a joke.

no, its a versatile MPE synth engine bundled with a hardware controller...

Anyone can buy Equator for $179, it is not something that only comes bundled with some Seaboards (you don't get it with a Seaboard Blocks).

… (unlike diva and legend) and unlike diva and legend is based on samples and wavetables...

It is not based on samples and wavetables at all. It has three V/A oscillators plus two sample oscillators. Maybe the V/A oscillators use wavetables but they are opaque to the user.

… and sometimes i need sounds and samples that aren’t in it. And then i need another synth and midi controllability (patch changes) becomes complicated... etc.

Which would be true of every softsynth ever made. It's why we tend to have more than just one of them.

I wanted to use it as my go-to seaboard synth but i cant.

I think that says a lot more about your lack of ability than it does about Equator's. I use Equator in more than half of our new songs, it has a great sound and is so easy to fit into a mix. In terms of bang for your buck, it ships with more usable presets than any other synth I have tried. If I go through a bank of 128 presets for any synth, I reckon on average I would probably only find maybe 3 or 4 that I'd mark as potentially useful but with Equator I found dozens. All those oscillators make it's pads and leads particularly good. If it has a limitation, it's in the filter, not in the oscillators. I don't find it particularly good for basslines, for example.

Maybe i just found a cool sample i like and i’d like to MPE the f**k out of it. Well yea, but not in equator, that’s actually partially sampled based, just not for you.

You could just load it up in your host as an audio track and MPE the f**k out of it from there, couldn't you? (I don't know, I am yet to find any use for MPE, I use my Seaboards in standard MIDI mode.)

[Dirtgrain]

Perhaps if you'd quoted the entire passage not just the bit that suits you

You are responsible for what you say. If you wind up playing some semantics game to troll or whatever it is you do here, you should certainly expect to be called on it. How you think it makes sense that you said it--well I don't follow.

[oonabe]

I had Serum but sold it for Hive2.
I prefer the sound and most above all - the workflow - of Hive, but Serum made it to a few of my tracks regardless. Serum's bank was, for my taste, too loaded with FX, and i like how Hive handles WT+traditional synthesis, and i didn't feel the need for two wavetable synths, and i prefer to limit my software developers as much as possible.
Nothing against Serum tho, i think it's a great synth.

Always liked Spire, but wasn't tempted enough to buy it, yet.

I thought Sylenth1 was popular tho? i never really liked it.

Exactly, at the end is finding the sound you like or need for your productions. One can prefer Hive or Omnisphere over Serum and Spire and other one can prefer the opposite and a third one something totally different.

Even when a synth might objectively have a "better" sound in terms of more quality or versatility it doesn't mean that's the right choice for everyone.

I used to play extreme metal in the past and was quite young when the whole black metal scene started getting famous amongst metal fans. The first time I listened to a black metal song the guitars sounded awful to me, it was like recording the guitar directly from the preamp instead of using a mic in front of the amplifier's speakers... well, I never liked it, not then and not 30 years later either, but they did and that was the right sound for them, not a sofistified mesa boogie dual rectifier amp recorded by the best producers at the best studio and with the best microphones.

And what I mean with this is that between one extreme and the other there are many different options, and choosing the right synth is no different

[BONES]

You are responsible for what you say. If you wind up playing some semantics game to troll or whatever it is you do here, you should certainly expect to be called on it. How you think it makes sense that you said it--well I don't follow.

Let me give you an example. You ask me how big my car is and I answer "1.4m high x 4.2m long x 1.8m wide". If you then went and quoted me, saying "I asked how big his car was and he said '1.4m', it must be a little kid's pedal car". You haven't misquoted me because I did say "1.4m" but that's not all I said and only taking the first bit completely changes the meaning. Context is crucial to divining meaning, you can't pick and choose which words and phrases you accept and which ones you ignore.

OTOH, semantics is arguing over the meaning of words. We all know what a sound designer is, the discussion is around how valuable that skill/profession may or may not be. I made a statement and then provided a supporting explanation. You chose to quote the statement without the explanation, knowing it would be perceived in a totally different way. OR maybe your grasp of grammar is so poor that you don't understand the purpose of a paragraph break and you thought that what you quoted was a single proposition. Either way, it reflects very poorly on you, even if English is not your first language.

[Z3R0T0N1N]

unloved by users is tough; you can find a fanbase for just about anything.
Unloved by developers, that's another story. I use several pieces of abandonware kind of regularly. I don't know if they were unloved, but their parents just couldn't look after them anymore...
Kriminal: Octave Cat
Kjaerhus: Spectra
Elecktrostudio: Model Mini, and Model E

[CrystalWizard]

unloved by users is tough; you can find a fanbase for just about anything.
Unloved by developers, that's another story. I use several pieces of abandonware kind of regularly. I don't know if they were unloved, but their parents just couldn't look after them anymore

That’s a good point. I really don’t care in the least who like the software i use but if the developer stops ‘liking’ it that could meke a difference (or not, i use some abandoned stuff with no issues.)

[Ploki]

Anyone can buy Equator for $179, it is not something that only comes bundled with some Seaboards (you don't get it with a Seaboard Blocks).

yeah but nobody does, because without MPE it's an underwhelming synth for 179$.
It's a sampler/wt that you can't import your own samples or wt's into. for 179$.

It is not based on samples and wavetables at all. It has three V/A oscillators plus two sample oscillators. Maybe the V/A oscillators use wavetables but they are opaque to the user.

49 arbitrary waveforms are pretty obviously WTs, no VA looks like that.

Which would be true of every softsynth ever made. It's why we tend to have more than just one of them.

Yes, but not every softsynth is tailor made for the seaboard...
I wanted to use it as a "live" synth, as my seaboard workstation synth. But it's way too limited for that.

hink that says a lot more about your lack of ability than it does about Equator's. I use Equator in more than half of our new songs, it has a great sound and is so easy to fit into a mix. In terms of bang for your buck, it ships with more usable presets than any other synth I have tried. If I go through a bank of 128 presets for any synth, I reckon on average I would probably only find maybe 3 or 4 that I'd mark as potentially useful but with Equator I found dozens. All those oscillators make it's pads and leads particularly good. If it has a limitation, it's in the filter, not in the oscillators. I don't find it particularly good for basslines, for example.

yeah good presets, i never argued there isn't good presets in it. i argued that its artificially imposed limitations make it less interesting AS A SYNTH.
Its halfway between nexus and zebra... You can do something, but not really.

You could just load it up in your host as an audio track and MPE the f**k out of it from there, couldn't you? (I don't know, I am yet to find any use for MPE, I use my Seaboards in standard MIDI mode.)

no, for live purposes it becomes unnecessarily convoluted and complicated and quickly CPU intense. Having a single window to assign most of your shit is very easy

The first time I listened to a black metal song the guitars sounded awful to me, it was like recording the guitar directly from the preamp instead of using a mic in front of the amplifier's speakers... well, I never liked it, not then and not 30 years later either, but they did and that was the right sound for them, not a sofistified mesa boogie dual rectifier amp recorded by the best producers at the best studio and with the best microphones.

i once did FOH for a black metal concert, i was a last-minute replacement, and i did a great sound. and i got scolded because it didn't fit at all but i never really listened to black metal, only death/thrash of the heavier genres.

[Dirtgrain]

Context is crucial to divining meaning, you can't pick and choose which words and phrases you accept and which ones you ignore.

I completely and utterly grasp what you are saying here, and I see how deliberately disingenuous you are. You made the statement with intent, and it was clearly meant to be eye-catching, provocative. As with other posts of yours, it was about making a thread all about you and how your wisdom in insight is special (I'll explain after this next quoted passage).

OTOH, semantics is arguing over the meaning of words. We all know what a sound designer is, the discussion is around how valuable that skill/profession may or may not be. I made a statement and then provided a supporting explanation. You chose to quote the statement without the explanation, knowing it would be perceived in a totally different way. OR maybe your grasp of grammar is so poor that you don't understand the purpose of a paragraph break and you thought that what you quoted was a single proposition. Either way, it reflects very poorly on you, even if English is not your first language.

You are the one conflating doing sound design with someone self-identifying as a "sound designer." Saying you do sound design is not pretentious, self-aggrandizing. It's the actual, accepted term for what we do when we tweak settings on synths and effects to make sounds. There was no logical reason for you to say that you don't do sound design, other than to impart to us that what you do with synths is lesser than that, different than that. Otherwise, there is no reason to say that you don't do sound design if in fact you are doing it. If you do in fact do sound design, here is your chance to admit it.

Now, belittling someone who self-identifies as a "sound designer" is seemingly another attempt by you to put yourself up on a pedestal. You go on to belittle those who might only do sound design. That is absurd. If someone find joy in it, WTF does it have to do with you? I'm not familiar with the music that Simon Stockhausen makes, but if sound design were all that he did, I'd still be in awe of his talent. It is an art in and of itself.

Ironically, it was pretentious of you to make the statement, "I don't do sound design." By the way, it was also so trolly and ironic that you created a new Pigments thread telling us it had to be on-topic only in the title. Was I the only one who noticed that?

[lastmessiah]

Can't say I agree about sound design not being a critical feature of a synth. Half of the fun for me is devising my own sounds so that my compositions have a unique and particular character. It's why I can't relate to people who just use presets...that's discarding half of the creative process right there. If I couldn't patch my own sounds I'd probably just play the violin or something.

[e-crooner]

Maybe the problem is that you are not into sound design as you said yourself somewhere. If you spent more time with it, maybe you would change your mind...

Not likely when it has fundamental problems. e.g. Use an envelope to modulate filter cutoff. Turn cutoff to zero and both sustain and the mod matrix amount to maximum. In any other synth, that would result in the filter being wide open but in Sylenth 1 it only goes to about 50%. To get the envelope to fully open the filter, you have to assign it in the MM twice. That's just poor design and anyone who thinks they are good at sound design should have picked up on this. The two layer thing is just annoying, in the same vein as DUNE's layering, but S1 doesn't have anything like DUNE's sound quality to make up for it. At $39, Sylenth 1 would make sense but for 139 euros it's a joke.

Well, if you turn the global cutoff knob to 12 o'clock (which is the recommended default setting) and the layer cutoff knob to zero as you said, the filter is also wide open, which becomes obvious when you keep the key pressed and turn the filter on and off in the filter selector. The sound is the virtually identical.
I usually use only layer A, so I have 4 envelopes for a 2-osc synth, which is cool, and more than most other synths (Tal synths, Diva, Repro, Legend etc.). I can set up a dozen envelope to filter modulations and create extreme filter closure if that's what I want.

I actually prefer Sylenth1' sound to Dune's, except for the reverb, which is Sylenth1's weak spot. And I like the two layer concept. When I do use the second layer, I use it for attack sounds to complement layer 1.

[Dencheg]

Actually I think ANA2 is much more awesome then popular. Not fair!
I also checked on ArcSyn, but don't understand how it's holding up against ANA2, so if you own both let me know
(Yep, I checked ArcSyn demo, still love to read opinions

[Examigan]

I like both. For me (and some may disagree on this but...) I think ArcSyn is better for experimental sounds. I wouldn't compare ANA2 to ArcSyn as they are not really the same type. Both are great, but definitely different.

[Ploki]

Well, if you turn the global cutoff knob to 12 o'clock (which is the recommended default setting) and the layer cutoff knob to zero as you said, the filter is also wide open, which becomes obvious when you keep the key pressed and turn the filter on and off in the filter selector. The sound is the virtually identical.
I usually use only layer A, so I have 4 envelopes for a 2-osc synth, which is cool, and more than most other synths (Tal synths, Diva, Repro, Legend etc.). I can set up a dozen envelope to filter modulations and create extreme filter closure if that's what I want.

I actually prefer Sylenth1' sound to Dune's, except for the reverb, which is Sylenth1's weak spot. And I like the two layer concept. When I do use the second layer, I use it for attack sounds to complement layer 1.

check out hive, its dual osc, 4 envelopes + 2 additional function generators and super easy to program.
Its my go to for conjuring shit up quickly

[e-crooner]

Well, if you turn the global cutoff knob to 12 o'clock (which is the recommended default setting) and the layer cutoff knob to zero as you said, the filter is also wide open, which becomes obvious when you keep the key pressed and turn the filter on and off in the filter selector. The sound is the virtually identical.
I usually use only layer A, so I have 4 envelopes for a 2-osc synth, which is cool, and more than most other synths (Tal synths, Diva, Repro, Legend etc.). I can set up a dozen envelope to filter modulations and create extreme filter closure if that's what I want.

I actually prefer Sylenth1' sound to Dune's, except for the reverb, which is Sylenth1's weak spot. And I like the two layer concept. When I do use the second layer, I use it for attack sounds to complement layer 1.

check out hive, its dual osc, 4 envelopes + 2 additional function generators and super easy to program.
Its my go to for conjuring shit up quickly

I had the demo on my computer for months, but never really liked it.

[Bodhisan]

I think ArcSyn is better for experimental sounds. I wouldn't compare ANA2 to ArcSyn as they are not really the same type. Both are great, but definitely different.

Not to be contrary for the sake of it, but ArcSyn is so easy to quickly make “standard” lush pads or smooth to biting leads. The rumor, on another note, is that Steve is working on a totally new synth, which would make ArcSyn pale in comparison.