One Synth Challenge #148: Kuma 508 by beatassist.eu (Jasinski Wins!)

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doctorbob wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:10 am Imagine the good old days when all you had was a 2 line LCD display on the hardware synth, and one fader and/or buttons to change all the parameters! The DX-7 was a pig to program, my DX-11 a little better (and still is!).
I'd take a hard-to-program DX7 or 11 over Kuma 508 any day. Seriously. They're much easier to program these days, of course, with a little help from a software editor.

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ELEX wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 11:00 am
doctorbob wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:10 am Imagine the good old days when all you had was a 2 line LCD display on the hardware synth, and one fader and/or buttons to change all the parameters! The DX-7 was a pig to program, my DX-11 a little better (and still is!).
I'd take a hard-to-program DX7 or 11 over Kuma 508 any day. Seriously. They're much easier to program these days, of course, with a little help from a software editor.
Ha-ha, in this case Dexed or Jellinghaus DX Programmer is cheating! :hihi: Comparing the programming complexity of hardware DX7 and software FM synths can make even synthesizers like Kuma feel more attractive... but I would also choose the DX7-11, as I think that even with basic sounds and minimal programming, they would give much more inspiration for creativity, unconditionally winning in sound quality. :phones:

I was overtaken by a problem that is unique to me (and fortunately quite rare): because of the Russian version of Windows, I can't use the presets from the synthesizer browser at all, only download one at a time (in general, it's not so difficult, yes :roll: ). This is not a tool that I will use in the future, but maybe I will take some fun with it for the sake of OSC. Good luck and patience to all! :tu:

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Despite my best efforts (which is not much if you know my sound design skills), I am not getitng any sort of inspiring sounds (or sounds that I like using in my tracks) out of this. This means, I will be sitting out of this month's OSC.

Best wishes to everyone who is working on this.

Cheers!

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▶▶▶ Submission ◀◀◀
https://soundcloud.com/p-e-t-e-r-h/kuma-5o8-bell-hell

I have only added a nice dark intro and did some mixing stuff too my sketch from page 2. I think I'm finished with kind of a cheesy pop piece. Only thing I miss and might add later is a crash cymbal ... but it's still time to create this.

12 Kumas. All but the Cello and the Bells patches I have done from scratch. I love the Korg filter, you can make it really squeak.
Bitwig 4.0 beta 2, only a variety of Bitwig FX, mainly Delays and Leveling-Stuff like Comperssors. plus MReverb from Melda.
Actually almost no automation ...too lazy ... and this way it's enough for ending mid field anyways.
BR
] Peter:H [

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What's the consensus on using a tremolo plugin? I get the sense that it's fine as long as it isn't doing any sort of crazy frequency modulation or the like.

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kylebenjamin wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 4:18 pm What's the consensus on using a tremolo plugin? I get the sense that it's fine as long as it isn't doing any sort of crazy frequency modulation or the like.
I think it should not be used in a AM mode. I have used MTremolo on a few tracks, for instance to simulated side-chain pumping. I would say - without being the normative OSC super power - that all things that modulate amplitude are allowed, as long as they do not change the sound of the synth in a way that it is no longer recognizable as coming from the synth ...

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Well I'm still in listening and voting phase for previous round but I have played a bit with this synth and I must say it is a tricky one. No note velocity for amplitude and filters is quite bad because it will limit possibilities to add more character and emotion to the sounds. Another annoying thing is setting pitch. Is there a way to quickly reset the pitch to zero or any way to enter number by keyboard? I only found CTRL key to make fine adjustment but it is still not good. It is really hard to set proper value this way.

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TrojakEW wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 5:46 pm Well I'm still in listening and voting phase for previous round but I have played a bit with this synth and I must say it is a tricky one. No note velocity for amplitude and filters is quite bad because it will limit possibilities to add more character and emotion to the sounds. Another annoying thing is setting pitch. Is there a way to quickly reset the pitch to zero or any way to enter number by keyboard? I only found CTRL key to make fine adjustment but it is still not good. It is really hard to set proper value this way.
I think you could "simulate" velocity with DAWs like Bitwig. Just multiply the same patch in a Instrument Selector and go round robin for each new note pressed. Then add a velocity modulator on DAW level which modulates the Cutoff or Volume of each slot of the instrument selector...

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TrojakEW wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 5:46 pm Well I'm still in listening and voting phase for previous round but I have played a bit with this synth and I must say it is a tricky one. No note velocity for amplitude and filters is quite bad because it will limit possibilities to add more character and emotion to the sounds. Another annoying thing is setting pitch. Is there a way to quickly reset the pitch to zero or any way to enter number by keyboard? I only found CTRL key to make fine adjustment but it is still not good. It is really hard to set proper value this way.
Yeah, it's kind of crummy you can't reset the pitch knobs in the plugin itself. It seems you have to use whatever your DAW provides to set plugin parameters outside the plugin's GUI.
Celebrating 50 years of pants with frogs in them

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I really dig the intro to your song Peter! You really went deeper into this synth than I did. Can't get any complex yet musical sound from it, so I took it way back to the basics with a one minute soft drone piece. Slowly manually changing the FM level with a slightly detuned modulator gets me in the ballpark for these slowly rising/fading chorus/vibrato sounds I like. Anyway, I'll probably end up with an intermission rather than an actual song ^^

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kylebenjamin wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 4:18 pm What's the consensus on using a tremolo plugin? I get the sense that it's fine as long as it isn't doing any sort of crazy frequency modulation or the like.
I think a tremolo plugin is fine as long as it's in the LFO realm and is only being used to automate Volume (since a similar effect can be simulated in any DAW of choice) or being used as a Sidechain trigger as Peter mentioned.

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I agree, tremolo is fine. I use pecheneg's tremolo a lot. Used with care it can sort of feel like vibrato, but it really isn't! The brain gets fooled.

Reset pitches to zero is best done in the DAW. In Reaper, switch to the generic UI (press the UI button at the top), and then you can double click the pitch items to reset to zero! Job done.

dB

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Thanks for the responses regarding the tremolo, everyone! Makes perfect sense.

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I'll try my best this month, but I find FM synthesis incredibly difficult to be intentional with. Maybe I'll take the time to finally understand it this month, even if Kuma sounds a bit too complicated for me to participate.

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Aro wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 12:12 am I'll try my best this month, but I find FM synthesis incredibly difficult to be intentional with. Maybe I'll take the time to finally understand it this month, even if Kuma sounds a bit too complicated for me to participate.
In that case do not hesitate to use the ready-made presets in a clean and modified form, of which there are many in Kuma) Music above all else! :tu:

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