One Synth Challenge #187: ExtraBold by Nakst (Jasinski Wins!)

[maxym.srpl]

Oscillator's retriggers are not enabled by default, most likely it is. Otherwise, the buffer size and other sound stuff, although it is an very effective synthesizer. Also, unison modes sometimes boost the attack volume.

Found the root cause. It's AMP envelope that uses no release, just decay alone. A little increase of the release fixes crackles.
BTW the patch is not limited in terms of a number of voices. It seems like the decay curve ends nasty.

soundcloud.com/michal-maxym-kozusznik/extrabold-arp-crackles/s-ZyymGpjYDpk

[Legendary_]

Oh wow, this is always a pleasant surprise! I hope that ExtraBold doesn't give people too much trouble -- but then, it's called a challenge for a reason

I'm going to upload a new version of ExtraBold later today with some new factory patches I've been saving up. If you only want to use your patches, you can safely ignore the update.

Let me know of any bugs and crashes. The quickest place to reach me is on the Discord for my plugins, but I'll check this thread occasionally as well.

Good luck all!

this might be my favourite synth for dubstep.

[IV!]

Oscillator's retriggers are not enabled by default, most likely it is. Otherwise, the buffer size and other sound stuff, although it is an very effective synthesizer. Also, unison modes sometimes boost the attack volume.

Found the root cause. It's AMP envelope that uses no release, just decay alone. A little increase of the release fixes crackles.
BTW the patch is not limited in terms of a number of voices. It seems like the decay curve ends nasty.

soundcloud.com/michal-maxym-kozusznik/extrabold-arp-crackles/s-ZyymGpjYDpk

Yes, I hear it. Glad you found the reason!
Usually I make my own init patch (in ExtraBold you can even set yours instead of the default init) so that there are no surprises.

[Negoba]

This month I did a collaboration with @andyrichmond with this very fun synth.

https://soundcloud.com/negoba/accelerat ... al_sharing

DAW:Reaper

Nakst ExtraBold x 28

Track Effects (all native Reaper):
ReaEQ
ReaDelay
ReaGate
ReaLimit
JS General Dynamics
JS Transient Controller
JS 50hz kicker
JS Stereo Enhancer
JS Saturation
JS 1175 Compressor

Valhalla Supermassive Reverb bus

Master Effects:
Analog Obsession BUSTERse
Ignite Amps PTeq-x
ReaLimit

[] Peter:H []

+++ Submission +++
Nothing Special But The Bells

https://soundcloud.com/p-e-t-e-r-h/noth ... -the-bells

DAW: Bitwig 5.2.3

Plugins:

• Standard Channels: 25 * Nakst Extrabold, mvMeter2, MEqualizer, MCompressor, PeakLimiter, dpMeter5. Tool
• Additional stuff: Delay+, MCompressor as Parallel Compressor, Tal Reverb 4, Supermassive, lot's of fancy Bitwig Stuff like Curve-Modulator, NoteReceiver.
• MasterChain: Auburn Lens, Bitwig Compressor+, Loudmax
• Metering: Isol8, PsyScope, Youlean LoudnessMeter, Immerse Virtual Studio (just for listening over headphones)
• Special: Protoplug self code script that takes note pitch from channel 1 notes and applies rhythm sequence from channel 2 notes.
• Listening: all done via Headphone Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro (with correction software), control listen on my Car, small consumer speakers and Smartphone.
• Presets. 50% factory. It's simply unbelievable excellent stuff from @Nakst! The rest is my futile attemps to get something interesting.
• Loudness: ~ -11.5 LUFS integrated

In terms of mixing. I now again started to go less creative and more like a assembly line worker in how I construct each channel the same. Not saying this is the must go setup btw:
I adapt loudness coming out of the plugin to slightly touch the read area of mvMeter2. It's amazing how loud many presets come out of synths...
Then it goes in my standard setup of MEqualizer to get rid of unwanted frequencies for instance Mid-Mud or excess low/highs.
Afterwards signal goes into MCompressor where I adjust the loudness and transients ... the trick to get same loudness out of synth allows me to use my presets with only little tweaking.
Then shelve off remaining peak outliers in PeakLimiter if needed. Finally I adjust every channel to around same outgoing loudness with dpMeter. That gives me mixing and level overview and control with the faders.
Usually this way the mix is already not going into the master to hot and is easy to mix.
Anyways, just writing this because I feel some participant might find this "musik worker" approach to mixing usefull. Actually this channe setup can be found in any pro DAW like cubase. In Bitwig you have to throw it together on your own. And actually I don't like the meters in Bitwig, thats why I use mvMetre and dpMeter and PsyScope.
 

[robelanator]

Thank you for this explanation of your setup and the list of plugins you use, Peter. I will try some of these out, especially the free metering plugins.

The meter -> EQ -> compressor -> limiter -> meter chain makes sense. Lots of channel strip pluigns are set up this way, though many have the EQ after the compressor rather than before. Many also include saturation.

As someone who is relatively new, I can be hesitant to risk making things sound worse by being clumsy or heavy-handed or over-complicating things. But after comparing my OSC entry last month to the others, it's clear to me that I need to start learning how to use these tools.

So much mixing advice on the internet is contradictory and ultimately seems to comes down to "depends on what you're going for" and "use your ears". Fair enough. Like with most things in life, I suppose there's no substitute for just doing the thing over and over until you get good at it.

[] Peter:H []

Thank you for this explanation of your setup and the list of plugins you use, Peter. I will try some of these out, especially the free metering plugins.

The meter -> EQ -> compressor -> limiter -> meter chain makes sense. Lots of channel strip pluigns are set up this way, though many have the EQ after the compressor rather than before. Many also include saturation.

As someone who is relatively new, I can be hesitant to risk making things sound worse by being clumsy or heavy-handed or over-complicating things. But after comparing my OSC entry last month to the others, it's clear to me that I need to start learning how to use these tools.

So much mixing advice on the internet is contradictory and ultimately seems to comes down to "depends on what you're going for" and "use your ears". Fair enough. Like with most things in life, I suppose there's no substitute for just doing the thing over and over until you get good at it.

Exactly! And as I said: The explanations of my previous post is nothing new or rocket science. I think most of OSCers have exactly such kind of stuff going in their projects. And yes, there's definitely ways to improve my bare minimum setup ... and I do this exactly as you said by adding for instance saturation if needed. Me writing about my setup came form a gut feeling that arose while listening to OSC186 and a few previous rounds. Many great tracks. Most with very good mixes. A few I would think need a tiny bit of mix polishing here and there ... but hey ... that is only my personal feeling. I'm not Einstein of mixing
About being a beginner and hesitant to follow the wrong "advice" on youtube: Practice is key. And I think you cannot make a mistake if you emulate a setup that has been around as long as here are analog mixing desks and listen to some seasoned mix engineers ... there are always some youtubers that want to sell snakeoil and their latest plugins discoveries (where they give away promo codes to earn their share). Start simple. The Melda stuff I use is free ... okay it's plugins you need to get used too. There are simple stock plugins that already can do everything you need. Start simple... sorry for the wot

[empphryio]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think a lot of mastering advice is more directed towards rock type music and is often where you just have a track you've been handed to master.

Some advice I have heard is to try to get the mix as good as possible so you don't need to do much to the master. And we're in a situation where most of us, depending on the type of music perhaps, and our personal tastes, don't have to do much of anything to the master.

I no longer do anything unless I can clearly see an improvement. Often my (live) master consists of ReaLimit and that's it. Not saying that's right for everyone. Different types of music and subjective tastes. 186 was a little more involved though for me.

[doctorbob]

I'm pretty much with @emp here. I find I get around -14 LUFS-I hitting my master channel without trying too much. Seemed to have zoned in now.

I then put a broad brush EQ at the head (eg SlickEQ), and check the freq content with SPAN, and adjust to taste (ears and eyes). I also like to put a little M/S processing, nothing fancy, just MSED to maybe give a little boost to the sides. Then either Loudmax and a limiter, or Limiter No.6 (which will also do the job!).

A very simple master chain, and it's really just there to tinker around the edges of the mix. Anything which needs a major adjustment is done back at track level.

Just how I approach it - not advocating anything in particular other than get a good mix to hit the master first.

Also, to keep my music coherent, I tend to use a reverb buss for the instrumentation and another for the percussion But both set to the same room size, but maybe each verb buss is EQ'd slightly differently. How much verb each instrument gets can also be controlled by how much is sent to the buss (remember to have the buss fully wet, no dry signal!), and then mix the verb in to the overall mix. In Reaper I have a folder for instruments and another for percussion, with each verb also inside the respective folder. This gives 2 faders to adjust the instruments vs percussion mix easily.

dB

[seap]

+++ Submission +++
Hold My Bear
My very first entry and post. I hope I did everything according to the rules.


https://soundcloud.com/seap681/hold-my- ... al_sharing

DAW: Reaper
Synth (15 tracks): ExtraBold

Plugins:

• Reaper stock plugins: EQ, Limit, Comp, XComp
  Reverb: Supermassive (Valhalla)
  Volume dynamics: Filter 2 (TAL)
  Master limiter: Unlimited (Sonic Anomaly)
  Pad EQ: BootEQmkII
  MIDI arp: arp4midi

Sounds: Mostly tweaked presets, except "talky" synth, which was made from scratch.
Drums from scratch. Kick and snare are both two layers for bottom and click.
Kick made by having a track with a reference sample and then tweaking knobs until the synth sounded about the same.
This is my first time sound designing drums, so that was probably the hardest part. I have always just used samples.

Mixed entirely on DT 990 Pro headphones. I hope I get time for a monitor mix update. I believe the rules allow me to post a mix update before deadline.

I must have had 100 crashes while making this track, which was quite disturbing for the flow. I thought it was the synth, but I am now pretty sure it was a very unstable midi arp that crashed almost every time I changed position while playing or even when stopped. Swapped it for another and no more crashes. The final arp track turned out a bit underwhelming since it was a last minute change and I was pretty sick of crashes at that point.

[doctorbob]

Nice track @seap. You can update your track as many times as you wish before entries close. I you don't have a SC Pro account, then any comments will be lost though.

Did you mean for your lead in the last section to be panned far right? Before your leads are centre panned (which in general is "normal").

dB

[] Peter:H []

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think a lot of mastering advice is more directed towards rock type music and is often where you just have a track you've been handed to master.

Some advice I have heard is to try to get the mix as good as possible so you don't need to do much to the master. And we're in a situation where most of us, depending on the type of music perhaps, and our personal tastes, don't have to do much of anything to the master.

I no longer do anything unless I can clearly see an improvement. Often my (live) master consists of ReaLimit and that's it. Not saying that's right for everyone. Different types of music and subjective tastes. 186 was a little more involved though for me.

Sure there's lots of "mastering" advice. My take is that mastering becomes way easier, when the tracks are prepared properly, that means I control frequency content and dynamics per track. Doing my "assembley line worker" thing I catch some loudness spikes/outliers early, and therefore prevent them from going into the mastering multiband compressor where they might trigger compression.
And EQing tracks properly - There was a OSC round where the synth created lot's of high freq content which was inaudible for my ears, nevertheless it triggered the mastering compressor. The result was that the inaudible frequencies ducked the audible high frequencies and the mix got dull. After removing the inaudible stuff the mix got more audible highs coming through.
Might even depend on what type of music you make. I usually cram to many things into tracks and therefore it's extremely important to separate them and avoid masking on a track level already. You can do the same with a reduce composition There's actually no silver bullet...

[seap]

Did you mean for your lead in the last section to be panned far right? Before your leads are centre panned (which in general is "normal").

It sounds like I better have a look at the stereo panning. I did do some last minute changes to the panning. The second section leads are double tracked with slightly different instruments to the extreme left/right, so I probably forgot to reset the panning for the downstream in a last minute edit.

Thanks for the review.

[Jbravo]

this is very good! the sounds and the musical ideas

This month I did a collaboration with @andyrichmond with this very fun synth.

https://soundcloud.com/negoba/accelerat ... al_sharing

All sounds are Naskt ExtraBold and native Reaper plugins with the exception of:

Analog Obsession BUSTERse
Ignite Amps PTeq-x

On the master bus

More details to come.

[Negoba]

this is very good! the sounds and the musical ideas

Thank you! It was a ton of fun making this one.