Fathom Synth Development Thread

[FathomSynth]

zzz00m, Thanks, that is a good way to look at it.

I wrote the following response before seeing your post, but I'll post it anyway to explain some of the differences between Fathom and other synths.

It is very difficult to compare Fathom to other synths because it was developed from the ground up to be different than all other synths.

My best effort at a comparison is as follows.

Currently, in my humble opinion, the very best synths on the market are as follows.

Serum, Best super synth with the most features and highest sound quality.
VPS Avenger, Slightly more features than Serum but not as elegant GUI.
Omnisphere, Best preset and sample library with very high quality sound.
Dune, Best basic synth, very simple design with the best detune algorithm.
Thorn, Best new design and revolutionary approach to sound.
uHe Diva, Best analog emulator ever created.
SynthMaster, The original super synth and still continually updated.

Fathom is the most similar to Serum. However, I intentionally never used Serum while developing the first Fathom release because I did not want to copy it. The two synths are very different but Fathom is closer to Serum than the others because of the quality control in both cases.

The two are similar in the sense that in both cases a high emphasis was placed on creating a very elegant and easy to understand GUI. Also, in both cases the sound engines were designed to output the absolute highest quality sound.

Serum has far more filters and effects and generally more features.

Fathom has more control over some specific sound design parameters.

The two synths can also be used in conjunction because Fathom can load and save Serum wave tables. So it is possible to use Fathom’s wave draw to create original waveforms and wave tables and then load them into Serum.

The most important thing to understand however is that Fathom has features which no other synth has. So you simply can not get them anywhere else. These are as follows.

Full screen freehand wave draw.
Bezier curve wave draw.
Bezier curve envelopes.
Bezier curve spectrums. (3.0)
Fully modular signal flow.
Double wave table.
Wave table math.
Partial modulation.
Oscillator frequency distortion.
Oscillator realtime noise.
Advanced oscillator phasing. (3.0)
Multiple buffer interpolation methods.
Individual detune voice chorus and phasing.
Newtonian mechanical filter.
Polar morph filter.
In depth random modulation.
User configurable graph colors and backgrounds.
Sin oscillation envelopes and waveforms.
Skip cycle processing.
Fractal Reverb.
16 channel modulating digital delay. (3.0)
Metamorphic oscillator. (3.0)

The metamorphic oscillator when it comes out shortly will be by far the most advanced oscillator ever created in a software synthesizer.

It will be the only oscillator ever created with skip cycle processing on most parameters.

It includes the following parameters and more:

Double wave morphing.
Pulse width.
Wave time shift and crush.
Wave time expand and contract.
Waveform vertical overdrive.
Random frequency distortion.
Detune nonlinear modulation.
Detune chorus and phaser on each detune voice.
Three types of oscillator phasing with all dials modulated.
Skip cycle double partial control with modulation.
Harmonics odd and even.
128 partial spectrum with Bezier curve.
Double Impulse function.
Voltage ripple function with five algorithms.
Waveform chop function with depth, width, frequency, direction and shape.
Chop function compress and shift.
AM/FM with FM tonal cycle control.
Realtime noise generator
Double channel distortion
Built in Gaussian partial filter.

A total of 16 pages of controls for one oscillator with all parameters modulate-able and many of the parameters skip cycle capable.

Skip cycle allows you to apply the parameter to every second third or fourth waveform and can be used to create some profound low frequency content.

Fathom is most popular among serious sound designers who want control over every possible parameter. It is not so popular among casual users who want a very easy synth.

The 3.0 release is planned for Monday August 10.

[zzz00m]

The 3.0 release is planned for Monday August 10.

Starting with the next release Fathom 3.0,
Fathom Pro will cost around $45.00, possibly less, and will be the existing product.
Fathom Vector will cost $125

Existing customers, users who have purchased Fathom Pro before the release of Vector, will get Intel AVX Parallel Processing for free as promised. They will also have the option of applying all money ever spent on Fathom and apply it to Vector if they want to move up to Vector. This includes price of Fathom Pro, All software upgrades and all sound banks ever purchased.

Last call to get Fathom Pro with existing user benefits!

[StardragonEX]

hey, thanks to all for answering me.

I will get Fathom Pro this week.

[Biscotto]

hey, thanks to all for answering me.

I will get Fathom Pro this week.

Smart move.

[StardragonEX]

I got it like 2 hours ago

Edit:

By the way, what do you think of Rapid, Icarus 2, Falcon 2 and MSoundFactory, if you have tried them, compared to Fathom and the synths that you told me are the best synths in your opinion.

A question:

In Fathom, how can I make that the presets that only can make the sound for a single key at the same time can make the sounds for more than 1 key at the same time, like a Piano? (For example for the preset "Analog Distortion" in the folder "Trance")

[ahanysz]

In Fathom, how can I make that the presets that only can make the sound for a single key at the same time can make the sounds for more than 1 key at the same time, like a Piano? (For example for the preset "Analog Distortion" in the folder "Trance")

Interesting, at first I thought -- isn't that just polyphonic/monophonic? Set polyphony to a number bigger than 1 and you should be OK.

Actually there's more to the story. If glide (portamento) is turned on, it looks at though this overrides the polyphony. So you need to turn glide off. I can't see this mentioned in the manual, not sure if it's a bug or a feature :-)

[zzz00m]

In Fathom, how can I make that the presets that only can make the sound for a single key at the same time can make the sounds for more than 1 key at the same time, like a Piano? (For example for the preset "Analog Distortion" in the folder "Trance")

Interesting, at first I thought -- isn't that just polyphonic/monophonic? Set polyphony to a number bigger than 1 and you should be OK.

Actually there's more to the story. If glide (portamento) is turned on, it looks at though this overrides the polyphony. So you need to turn glide off. I can't see this mentioned in the manual, not sure if it's a bug or a feature

Glide is typically used as a mono mode in other synths.

[FathomSynth]

I have not tried those synths so I can’t say if they are great or not. The ones I listed I have used and I know they are the best, in addition most other musicians as well claim thy are the best. Also, anything by uHe is going to be exceptional.

Control of polyphony number of voices and glide is on the main global panel.

That is correct, currently glide forces it mono, but I am planning at some point to program it so it can do glide-able chords.

[zzz00m]

By the way, what do you think of Rapid, Icarus 2, Falcon 2 and MSoundFactory, if you have tried them, compared to Fathom and the synths that you told me are the best synths in your opinion.

I haven't used any of those either, but it appears that they are all well regarded synths. The first 2 are in a crowd of hybrid synths in the $150+ price range. I went with Pigments 2 in this category.

Falcon 2 is probably the most complex hybrid synth with a steep learning curve, with extensive sampling capability, and price tag to match at $350.

MSoundFactory is probably the only modular synth in the bunch, so a bit closer to Fathom in that regard, but has a much higher price tag as well.

[AnX]

My best effort at a comparison is as follows.

Currently, in my humble opinion, the very best synths on the market are as follows.

Serum, Best super synth with the most features and highest sound quality.
VPS Avenger, Slightly more features than Serum but not as elegant GUI.
Omnisphere, Best preset and sample library with very high quality sound.
Dune, Best basic synth, very simple design with the best detune algorithm.
Thorn, Best new design and revolutionary approach to sound.
uHe Diva, Best analog emulator ever created.
SynthMaster, The original super synth and still continually updated.

your descriptions are way off....

[zzz00m]

your descriptions are way off....

When you make a statement like that, it would be more respectful, and more informative, if you stated WHY...

[StardragonEX]

your descriptions are way off....

When you make a statement like that, it would be more respectful, and more informative, if you stated WHY...

FathomSynth said those were in his humble opinion the best. Everyone can have a different opinion, you don't have to be like that, moreover he must be searching for a different thing because he is a developer too, not just an user, he has the technical knowledge to judge too.

I think it could help us better if you told us what are the best synths in your opinion too.

[StardragonEX]

@ahanysz and @FathomSynth

thx, it worked with polyphony up and glide off.

[StardragonEX]

By the way, what do you think of Rapid, Icarus 2, Falcon 2 and MSoundFactory, if you have tried them, compared to Fathom and the synths that you told me are the best synths in your opinion.

I haven't used any of those either, but it appears that they are all well regarded synths. The first 2 are in a crowd of hybrid synths in the $150+ price range. I went with Pigments 2 in this category.

Falcon 2 is probably the most complex hybrid synth with a steep learning curve, with extensive sampling capability, and price tag to match at $350.

MSoundFactory is probably the only modular synth in the bunch, so a bit closer to Fathom in that regard, but has a much higher price tag as well.

The bad thing is that Falcon 2 doesn't have a demo to try.

I tried MSoundFactory demo, it had some decent factory presets and some really bad factory presets. I liked that it seem like you can build your own synths inside of it for what I experienced (maybe I'm totally wrong).

Rapid sounds good, maybe a bit to crisp, but I liked some of the expansions in the demo videos like the Synthwave expansion.

Icarus 2, I didn't find it sounded as good as the best sounding synths but it have an enormous amount of presets and it seem like it has a lot of features.

[zzz00m]

The best synth is the best one for YOU. We all have different requirements and workflows. There is no objective 'best'.

The only way to determine that is to try as many as you can. Many have trial versions that you can test drive before buying.

Otherwise it is only opinions about 'best' for others. And you should really google them for 3rd party reviews online to give you some more in-depth insight beyond the product marketing websites. It's still their opinions, but many have a lot of experience with different synths.