One Synth Challenge #140: Pendulate (exponent1 wins!)

[ontrackp]

Because this is the One Synth Challenge?

Meaning the challenge is to make the synth not sound like itself?

Exactly. The challenge is to design sounds which people wouldn't think are possible with this synth and composing a track with those sounds. That's the beauty of this challenge!

Most people will anyway design and use the synth for the sounds this synth has to offer normally, but some also take up the extra challenge of designing sounds which are unheard of/impressive. In this case, percussive sounds. It's fun, you should try it!

Welcome to the OSC!

The beauty of any synth is whatever it uniquely has to offer. Why bother making a vibrating organ sound like a drum?

Yes you're right. People will definitely use the synth's unique sounds and capabilities, but some also like to push the boundaries and experiment. Also, Sound design using oscillators and 'making a vibrating organ sound like a drum' are 2 different things. No one is doing that here.

This challenge and community is all about creative sound design, composition, mixing, mastering and everything in between. I don't see why it's a bad thing to try and make percussive sounds from synths even if the synths are not meant for that? Because that's exactly what this challenge is about, to compose a song, with or without drums using the chosen synth.

I hope you see the point I'm trying to make. But do participate cause it's a fun and friendly challenge and we all learn new things from each other every month. Welcome again!

Honestly, I don't see your point. I just see people trying to figure out how to make a drum out of something that isn't a drum just because they have been convinced no piece of music should exist without a drum track. And there's the ketchup and mustard we have to glop on everything.

Hi OSCR's.... jumping into this one late, but I couldn't help myself. Wes - the point of people making drums with a synth not designed for it is that they are creating a piece of music (I.e. the composing part of the competition) that calls for drums or percussion! There are 3 parts to this competition and they are all very inter-related, of course. 1) Composition; 2) Sound Design 3) Production (mix and master). As a community we tend to be creative, supportive and friendly -- also lots to learn every month. Welcome!

[exponent1]

Hey Everyone!

Here's my submission this month, I hope you guys enjoy it.

https://soundcloud.com/theexponent/tempest

DAW: Reaper 6
Pendulate : 23 instances
Native FX: ReaComp, ReaEQ, ReEQ, ReaGate, ReaControlMIDI
3rd Party Free FX: RandArp, Leveling Tool, SN03-G Tape Recorder, OrilRiver, SuperMassive, Cocoa Delay, GClip, LoudMax, W1 Limiter, OTT, MAutopan, A1StereoControl
Mastering: JS: DC Filter, TDR SlickEQ, TDR Nova, TDR Kotelnikov, GClip, LoudMax
Metering: SPAN, Youlean Loudness Meter 2

[ELEX]

In the spirit of put up or shut up, here's my track...I apologize about any antagonism I raised in the last few days.

That's the spirit, indeed ! Most sincerely:

[Leo Amaral]

First time here!

I had a hard time because I never tried sound design before. After creating some timbres the ideas didn't come naturally to my head, I don't know if this is normal to someone that never composes creating your own sound. I hope it's more of a beginner thing. My mixing skills are not in professional side, either.
But, in the end I liked how it turned out. Hope you like it!

EDIT: I forgot the information about the track. Here it goes:
DAW: Fl Studio 20.6
Pendulate: 55 instances

FL Effects:
Fruity Parametric EQ2 x 39, Fruity Compressor x 8, Fruity Limiter x 1, Fruity Balance x 3, Fruity Reeverb 2 x 10, Fruity Delay 3 x 4, Stereo Enhancer x 4, Fruity Send x 4, Fruity Delay Bank x3

3rd Party effect: OTT x 16

https://soundcloud.com/leonardo-amaral- ... x-pendulum

[opdobqo]

Hey all,

Also my first time here, although I've been lurking for years. So much excellent work in this OSC, as always.

I've started OSCs perhaps a couple of dozen times but never finished them. So this month I decided I had to do it. Don't know what changed but here it is. Not the best mix (possibly a mistake to decide to learn a new DAW at the same time as committing to the OSC) but I'm out of time so it'll do. First step.

A really lovely synth, by the way.

Cheers,

opdobqo

https://soundcloud.com/user-416901632/o ... c-oct-2020

Synth: Newfangled Audio Pendulate v1.0.6 (21)
DAW: Reason 11 (v.11.3.4d28)
MIDI Plugins: Reason Pulsar Dual LFO (5)
Channels: Reason channel compressor (2), Reason channel EQ (20), TDR Molotok (12), Audio Damage Rough Rider 3 (2), SoftTube Saturation Knob (1), Xfer OTT (2), Voxengo Tube Amp (1)
Buss FX: Reason The Echo, Voxengo Tempo Delay, Voxengo OldSkoolVerb, OrilRiver, TDR Molotok
Master: Reason RV7000 MkII Reverb, Reason PEQ-2 Parametric EQ, TDR VOS SlickEQ, TDR Kotelnikov, TDR Nova, LoudMax, D16 Frontier
Metering: Youlean Loudness Meter 2 (free version)

[MilksterX]

Hi All,
I discovered OSC's for the first time last week and thought i would give this a try, have loved using this synth and have learnt so much along with learning some new freeware VSTs. Drums were a challenge to do as i've not done a lot of sound design before, and i'm fairly new at mixing and mastering too.

Hope you enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/james-thompson-7 ... us-presets

26 instances Pendulate
DAW: Ableton Live 10
Ableton audio effects used: EQ eight, Limiter, Auto-pan, Gate, Compressor, Echo
3rd party effects used: TDRNova, TDRVOSSlickEQ, OTT, CocoaDelay, Oril River, IVGI2, NI Supercharger

[doctorbob]

Quick question. is NI Supercharger available for free to anyone? If you need a purchase of something else to get it, you may not be able to use it and would need to swap it out for something else because you may be disqualified. FX which have been free and are now charged for are also not allowed.

Basically, if the people running the OSC ask for your project file, they should be able to easily and freely obtain all the 3rd party FX used in order to replicate the track. This is the best way to judge if a "free" fx is OK or not. [btw I don't know of a case where the project file *has* been asked for, but this is one of the reasons for having this rule.]

Hope you have enough time to do a fx swapout and upload a new version of the track.

Oh yes, welcome to OSC. It's a great challenge, makes you *finish* a track (how often do we just not quite finish something?). You learn about sound design, lots of good people who can help. Do comment on the other tracks, and you will also get comments on yours with help and guidance.

A great place to learn and marvel at what other composers and mix engineers can do ... some will rub off!

Cheers

dB

[MilksterX]

I got supercharger free when I downloaded Komplete start which is also free to download. I didn't need to buy anything to get it so that's good news plus it's a really nice compressor too. I only downloaded it last week and actually didn't realise It was NIs until I listed my plugins from my project. I followed a list of plugins you recommended and actually thought I'd got it from there!

[doctorbob]

Hi, that's OK then - didn't realise Komplete Start was a freebie ... just double checking coz it's easy for "newcomers" to slip up with their fx ... will listen and comment soon. Remember, you must vote once voting is open (after the submission deadline), or you will get DQ'd. The voting info will be on the first page of the thread, and the title will change to - "Voting Open", and you get 16 days to vote.

On the 1st Nov the next synth will be announced too, and then you'll get a whole month to make your next track! I have done one every month since OSC #61!! Keeps the creative juices flowing, and hopefully, get better at all the aspects of the music creation process (composing, arranging, sound design. mixing, mastering).

dB

[MilksterX]

Cool thanks for the info, yeah i will definitely do another one and also check out the previous ones too. I'm sure there's at least 139 decent freeware synths to check out!!

It's definitely helped me focus way more than I normally would have and given me ideas for workflows so I definitely work better when there's a goal or deadline. This one was a bit rushed and so I cut the track time down by a couple of minutes so I didnt have to re-check too much material.

It's also opened my ears more in terms of thinking more about the mixing and which elements sit together best I'm sure I'll learn tonnes more than just watching videos and messing around and should hopefully give me a steady stream of tracks writen and try and experiment with different genres lits already generating lots of ideas and material to rework and use in future.

[1 1 1]

https://soundcloud.com/one_eleven/morning-land

ableton live 10, native effects
compressor and eq + reverb and delay
16 instances of pendulate

i love this synth, it’s unlike anything i’ve used, so many possibilities, a little hard to figure out at first but really exciting once you do

[ELEX]

"Watch... as a young ambitious camel, dreaming of getting both very rich AND entering the Kingdom of Heaven, sets off on an epic journey in search of the Big Giant Needle. A tale of dusty plains, dazzling cities and, of course, genies and bottles. Will The Eye remain shut...or open to reveal it's wonders ?" Find out in:
https://soundcloud.com/elex101/elex-100 ... rt-odyssey
Now available on a website near you !

Hereby submitted for OSC #140 and made using REAPER 6 and Pendulate VSTi .
Thanks to Dan Gillespie for making this interesting synth available and to our much appreciated hosts for choosing it !

EQ was not used for sounddesign purposes.
No transient processing was used to create percussion.
All 100% Pendulate.

The main players are:
12 instruments ( flute-ish, reed-ish, 3 plucks , mallet, brassy, brassy-stringy, bass - sustained ( 2i ), bass - pluck )
7 SFX ( buzz, creaky, metallic, noisy trickle, not-noisy trickle, animal noise , bubbly laser sweep )
10 percussives ( kick, snare (2i), clap, cymbal, hat, crackly boom, hand drum, short tom )

The support caravan:
ReaControlMIDI ( 12 )( transposing to get noise )
BlueARP (4) ( for SFX and briefly on Mallet )
TAL Dub II ( as bus effect for some instruments and SFX )
Valhalla Supermassive ( insert for Brassy )
ReaQ (5) ( light EQ'ing, light HP-filtering )
TDR Nova ( 12 ) ( light EQ'ing, light HP-filtering and sidechaining of kick to bass, EQ on master bus )
Blue Cat's triple EQ 4 (2) ( stereo control for Sustained Bass )
Oril River (14) ( seven pairs of mono instances )
Ozone imager 2 ( on master bus )
ReaVerb ( very, very lightly on master bus )
Chebyshev LP ( curbing the very high frequencies the on master bus )
Limiter No6 ( on master bus )
Youlean Loudness Meter 2 ( -11.6 LUFS integrated ; 5.1 LU range )
Signalizer
SPAN
Voxengo Correlometer

[Leo Amaral]

Putting in the number of the instances of FX are really necessary or it was too much precaution of me? I edited my post to conform to this rule and thought that maybe beginners didn't, like me, remembered this especification.

[ELEX]

Lots of people never specify numbers of effect instances. No problem.

As for myself: since there was some discussion earlier concerning synths 'sounding as themselves' vs. 'sounding as any synth', I decided on this occasion to be extraordinarily verbose as to what was used and for what purpose.

[Leo Amaral]

Lots of people never specify numbers of effect instances. No problem.

As for myself: since there was some discussion earlier concerning synths 'sounding as themselves' vs. 'sounding as any synth', I decided on this occasion to be extraordinarily verbose as to what was used and for what purpose.

Phew! I'm relivied. I thought that could be a reason to disqualification.