Madrona Labs Sumu

[Sackbut]

. . . and Dash really didn't seem all that into it either.

Perhaps you had just before watched the bald guy, who laughs every time he turns a knob/slider, reviewing Zyklop? This might mask Dash's extreme joy in using Sumu.

Seriously, I was digging on some of the sounds from the video, and I can't say I can replicate them in other synths accurately.

It really boils down to our personalities and what our 'headspaces' are listening/looking/feeling for in an instrument/sound/composition, which also includes the instrument's history, how it looks and feels and so on. It's the difference between one person picking up a guitar, say, versus another deciding on a vibraphone. Or some kind of relatively-free homemade thing.

[Sackbut]

Really? The soundscapes he made at around 23min mark sound very good to me, sort of a Scorn soundtrack vibe, very organic and complex sounding.

I think part of the catch is actually showing us what the sound was before it got imported. We often don't get that, so it's less possible to know what Sumu is doing to the sound that makes it worth investing in. Like in Iris 2 for example, it's trivial to narrow a selection in the spectrum and have the scanning lines go over it back and forth with some 'odd sounds', but so what.

If you try the demo yourself you would see that your assumptions are wrong concerning SUMU.

That’s what I did, and I was blown away. I didn’t hear a single demo of it, but tried it based on my experience with Aalto. I liked it so much, I went for Madrona’s full bundle. Awesome stuff.

Well you just wrote, 'awesome', as if there's no other adjective out there. Awesome never really was used in that way, was it? Like 'sick' too. So sure, let's all get Sumu and exclaim how awesomely-sick it is. And this spring, don't forget to comment on those awesome blossoms.

Do you have any examples to listen to? Has anyone done any of their own samples yet and if so, what? Pinging a wine glass (or running a wet finger along its rim) or metal bowl? A mosquito buzz? Why take the sounds of other synths and dump them into yet another synth? Why this wobble (Reese?) bass?

It's not just the instruments of course, but also the creativity, that maybe the instruments might help inspire.

[Sackbut]

. . . and Dash really didn't seem all that into it either.

Perhaps you had just before watched the bald guy, who laughs every time he turns a knob/slider, reviewing Zyklop?

Each to their own, ay? Haven't yet seen the bald Zyklop guy but am less interested in Dawsome/Myth. So I might be spared. Dawsome should do a five-eyed thing now and call it, Zpyder.
Some You Tubers drive me up the wall, like tolerating that guy's bunny helmet because maybe he talks a good sell, I somehow agree, or he makes good selections or the one's I might be interested in. It's growing on me. Maybe he's on here reading this. Your bunny helmet is growing on me.

[Alchemedia]

Come on Dash/Sumu users, up your game.

Your wish is my order, master:
https://sonograyn.bandcamp.com/track/study-01

Very nice Martin!

[kraster]

I haven't heard anything so far (in all the vids I've watched, including the recent Dash Glitch one) from this synth that is any different or better than anything else, and Dash really didn't seem all that into it either.

Sumu sometimes sounds like cheap tape manipulations from the 70's (like the vocal 'munchkin' parts. Like what we could do with Soundedit 16.) Speaking of which, even Severed Heads could get better sounds back in the early eighties than this Sumu. Or Iris 2.

Maybe one day, someone will finally figure out Sumu in a way that can make me appreciate it and say, wow, but so far, it's disappointing.

Have you ever heard some of the-- free-- synths from NI's Reaktor library?
I get this nagging suspicion that there are a lot of people who want to like Sumu and aren't being honest with themselves.

Meanwhile, Dash hogs the screen as usual, so that Sumu has to be scaled down. Given my review/comment here and there, I suppose it's appropriate.
...Importing a granular synth's sound into Sumu? Really? What's the point? Adding a reverb? Really? Why? Should we not listen to Sumu standing on its own? Sumu's 3D thing in this context seems more like a gimmick and/or mask-over.

Come on Dash/Sumu users, up your game.

The emperor has no clothes.

$129's a ripoff.

The whole point of Sumu is to use a different kind of synthesis.

Granular is different to additive resynthesis so the whole idea of putting a granular sample into an additive resynthesiser is hardly some outlandish idea.

The whole point of sound design is to mix up techniques and technologies to get different results. It's a weird to complain about mixing different synthesis techniques in the context of sound design.

Your entire line of argument here is ridiculously reductive. You could regress it entirely to "what's the point of anything". Let's just all go back to a signal generator and tape splicing. Or maybe further back to hitting rocks against each other.

For instance your comment on the vector field is silly. The vector field works exactly how you'd expect sound to work in 3d space. You define a particular shape within that space. It has obvious left to right movement, distance filtering to simulate distance and simulated doppler effects if the sound moves fast enough.

In other words, it works exactly as it is intended to work. It's not "masking" anything. It works.

Nobody is forcing you to like it and if it doesn't impress you then move on but saying that it doesn't successfully do what it sets out to do is just plain wrong.

There is a very clear concept running in this synth.

Break a sound into 64 partials that consist of sines and noise and are capable of AM/FM. Use the partial map (tonal and temporal data) to drive other parts of the synth. Have a 64 part lfo/envelope generator capable of modulating the partial map or any other part of the synth. Have the ability to place those sounds in 3d space as described above. Have a main envelope and a filter.

Sumu does all of this. Name another synth that has that architecture.

You may not be impressed with the sounds you've heard but that's down to taste more than anything else.

[S1gnsOfL1fe]

Perhaps you had just before watched the bald guy, who laughs every time he turns a knob/slider, reviewing Zyklop? This might mask Dash's extreme joy in using Sumu.

[Sackbut]

The World Outside The Zombie Kitchen

I haven't heard anything so far (in all the vids I've watched, including the recent Dash Glitch one) from this synth that is any different or better than anything else, and Dash really didn't seem all that into it either.

Sumu sometimes sounds like cheap tape manipulations from the 70's (like the vocal 'munchkin' parts. Like what we could do with Soundedit 16.) Speaking of which, even Severed Heads could get better sounds back in the early eighties than this Sumu. Or Iris 2.

Maybe one day, someone will finally figure out Sumu in a way that can make me appreciate it and say, wow, but so far, it's disappointing.

Have you ever heard some of the-- free-- synths from NI's Reaktor library?
I get this nagging suspicion that there are a lot of people who want to like Sumu and aren't being honest with themselves.

Meanwhile, Dash hogs the screen as usual, so that Sumu has to be scaled down. Given my review/comment here and there, I suppose it's appropriate.
...Importing a granular synth's sound into Sumu? Really? What's the point? Adding a reverb? Really? Why? Should we not listen to Sumu standing on its own? Sumu's 3D thing in this context seems more like a gimmick and/or mask-over.

Come on Dash/Sumu users, up your game.

The emperor has no clothes.

$129's a ripoff.

The whole point of Sumu is to use a different kind of synthesis.

Granular is different to additive resynthesis so the whole idea of putting a granular sample into an additive resynthesiser is hardly some outlandish idea.

The whole point of sound design is to mix up techniques and technologies to get different results. It's a weird to complain about mixing different synthesis techniques in the context of sound design.

Your entire line of argument here is ridiculously reductive. You could regress it entirely to "what's the point of anything". Let's just all go back to a signal generator and tape splicing. Or maybe further back to hitting rocks against each other.

For instance your comment on the vector field is silly. The vector field works exactly how you'd expect sound to work in 3d space. You define a particular shape within that space. It has obvious left to right movement, distance filtering to simulate distance and simulated doppler effects if the sound moves fast enough.

In other words, it works exactly as it is intended to work. It's not "masking" anything. It works.

Nobody is forcing you to like it and if it doesn't impress you then move on but saying that it doesn't successfully do what it sets out to do is just plain wrong.

There is a very clear concept running in this synth.

Break a sound into 64 partials that consist of sines and noise and are capable of AM/FM. Use the partial map (tonal and temporal data) to drive other parts of the synth. Have a 64 part lfo/envelope generator capable of modulating the partial map or any other part of the synth. Have the ability to place those sounds in 3d space as described above. Have a main envelope and a filter.

Sumu does all of this. Name another synth that has that architecture.

You may not be impressed with the sounds you've heard but that's down to taste more than anything else.

As I said upthread, it really boils down to personality and values-- like taste, as you echo.

And banging rocks together and rejecting anything else is fair game if that's your thing. Seems that's the whole point.

Sumu took too long since its announcement and so tacking on the 3D thing, aside from the gimmick, seemed a bit of a misapplication of priority, especially when it is offered from a number of sources outside of the synth and people are waiting around. It's not like 3D sound is a unique feature. Put it in later if you must. Adding reverb to a synth demo might be a red flag too, but in any case, I wonder if it's in poor form-- like Dash Glitch's takeover of the screen realestate, at the expense of the synth. A lot of people on YT do this. Some suggest it's a kind of narcissism. A desire for fame, recognition and/or...

...don't forget to click the 'like' button, subscribe to my channel and help support me and my sponsors...

Sumu sounds great, or at least, interesting, on paper, but in practice? Not to my ears. Not yet. Then again, I might end up picking it up and making stuff that shows me what it can do for me, not what others can do for me with it...

Maybe resynthesize banging two rocks together and making some kind of percussion with the sound. That, to me, easily beats importing a granular synth sound for example, which is a bit too 'masturbatory/inward/feedbackloopy/incestuous/overprocessed' for my taste.

Go out there and 'mate' with the greater world and leave your navel-gazing back at home. And bring back results that don't look more like that Eraserhead baby... unless of course that's your thing.

Oh and, while I'm at it, try on other adjectives besides 'awesome' and 'sick'. There are lots of them out there.

[Shabdahbriah]

I haven't heard anything so far (in all the vids I've watched, including the recent Dash Glitch one) from this synth that is any different or better than anything else, and Dash really didn't seem all that into it either.

Sumu sometimes sounds like cheap tape manipulations from the 70's (like the vocal 'munchkin' parts. Like what we could do with Soundedit 16.) Speaking of which, even Severed Heads could get better sounds back in the early eighties than this Sumu. Or Iris 2.

Maybe one day, someone will finally figure out Sumu in a way that can make me appreciate it and say, wow, but so far, it's disappointing.

Have you ever heard some of the-- free-- synths from NI's Reaktor library?
I get this nagging suspicion that there are a lot of people who want to like Sumu and aren't being honest with themselves.

Meanwhile, Dash hogs the screen as usual, so that Sumu has to be scaled down. Given my review/comment here and there, I suppose it's appropriate.
...Importing a granular synth's sound into Sumu? Really? What's the point? Adding a reverb? Really? Why? Should we not listen to Sumu standing on its own? Sumu's 3D thing in this context seems more like a gimmick and/or mask-over.

Come on Dash/Sumu users, up your game.

The emperor has no clothes.

$129's a ripoff.

The whole point of Sumu is to use a different kind of synthesis.

Granular is different to additive resynthesis so the whole idea of putting a granular sample into an additive resynthesiser is hardly some outlandish idea.

The whole point of sound design is to mix up techniques and technologies to get different results. It's a weird to complain about mixing different synthesis techniques in the context of sound design.

Your entire line of argument here is ridiculously reductive. You could regress it entirely to "what's the point of anything". Let's just all go back to a signal generator and tape splicing. Or maybe further back to hitting rocks against each other.

For instance your comment on the vector field is silly. The vector field works exactly how you'd expect sound to work in 3d space. You define a particular shape within that space. It has obvious left to right movement, distance filtering to simulate distance and simulated doppler effects if the sound moves fast enough.

In other words, it works exactly as it is intended to work. It's not "masking" anything. It works.

Nobody is forcing you to like it and if it doesn't impress you then move on but saying that it doesn't successfully do what it sets out to do is just plain wrong.

There is a very clear concept running in this synth.

Break a sound into 64 partials that consist of sines and noise and are capable of AM/FM. Use the partial map (tonal and temporal data) to drive other parts of the synth. Have a 64 part lfo/envelope generator capable of modulating the partial map or any other part of the synth. Have the ability to place those sounds in 3d space as described above. Have a main envelope and a filter.

Sumu does all of this. Name another synth that has that architecture.

You may not be impressed with the sounds you've heard but that's down to taste more than anything else.

Well said.

[Sackbut]

Nobody is forcing you to like it and if it doesn't impress you then move on but saying that it doesn't successfully do what it sets out to do is just plain wrong.

I wrote 'not yet'. You know, like 'so far'? So 'plain wrong' is your value that I don't subscribe to.

...Because, while nobody is forcing me to like it, this is a Sumu thread and so nobody is forcing anyone to speak on this forum as though they like it. Right?

[M1st]

The World Outside The Zombie Kitchen

I haven't heard anything so far (in all the vids I've watched, including the recent Dash Glitch one) from this synth that is any different or better than anything else, and Dash really didn't seem all that into it either.

Sumu sometimes sounds like cheap tape manipulations from the 70's (like the vocal 'munchkin' parts. Like what we could do with Soundedit 16.) Speaking of which, even Severed Heads could get better sounds back in the early eighties than this Sumu. Or Iris 2.

Maybe one day, someone will finally figure out Sumu in a way that can make me appreciate it and say, wow, but so far, it's disappointing.

Have you ever heard some of the-- free-- synths from NI's Reaktor library?
I get this nagging suspicion that there are a lot of people who want to like Sumu and aren't being honest with themselves.

Meanwhile, Dash hogs the screen as usual, so that Sumu has to be scaled down. Given my review/comment here and there, I suppose it's appropriate.
...Importing a granular synth's sound into Sumu? Really? What's the point? Adding a reverb? Really? Why? Should we not listen to Sumu standing on its own? Sumu's 3D thing in this context seems more like a gimmick and/or mask-over.

Come on Dash/Sumu users, up your game.

The emperor has no clothes.

$129's a ripoff.

The whole point of Sumu is to use a different kind of synthesis.

Granular is different to additive resynthesis so the whole idea of putting a granular sample into an additive resynthesiser is hardly some outlandish idea.

The whole point of sound design is to mix up techniques and technologies to get different results. It's a weird to complain about mixing different synthesis techniques in the context of sound design.

Your entire line of argument here is ridiculously reductive. You could regress it entirely to "what's the point of anything". Let's just all go back to a signal generator and tape splicing. Or maybe further back to hitting rocks against each other.

For instance your comment on the vector field is silly. The vector field works exactly how you'd expect sound to work in 3d space. You define a particular shape within that space. It has obvious left to right movement, distance filtering to simulate distance and simulated doppler effects if the sound moves fast enough.

In other words, it works exactly as it is intended to work. It's not "masking" anything. It works.

Nobody is forcing you to like it and if it doesn't impress you then move on but saying that it doesn't successfully do what it sets out to do is just plain wrong.

There is a very clear concept running in this synth.

Break a sound into 64 partials that consist of sines and noise and are capable of AM/FM. Use the partial map (tonal and temporal data) to drive other parts of the synth. Have a 64 part lfo/envelope generator capable of modulating the partial map or any other part of the synth. Have the ability to place those sounds in 3d space as described above. Have a main envelope and a filter.

Sumu does all of this. Name another synth that has that architecture.

You may not be impressed with the sounds you've heard but that's down to taste more than anything else.

As I said upthread, it really boils down to personality and values-- like taste, as you echo.

And banging rocks together and rejecting anything else is fair game if that's your thing. Seems that's the whole point.

Sumu took too long since its announcement and so tacking on the 3D thing, aside from the gimmick, seemed a bit of a misapplication of priority, especially when it is offered from a number of sources outside of the synth and people are waiting around. It's not like 3D sound is a unique feature. Put it in later if you must. Adding reverb to a synth demo might be a red flag too, but in any case, I wonder if it's in poor form-- like Dash Glitch's takeover of the screen realestate, at the expense of the synth. A lot of people on YT do this. Some suggest it's a kind of narcissism. A desire for fame, recognition and/or...

...don't forget to click the 'like' button, subscribe to my channel and help support me and my sponsors...

Sumu sounds great, or at least, interesting, on paper, but in practice? Not to my ears. Not yet. Then again, I might end up picking it up and making stuff that shows me what it can do for me, not what others can do for me with it...

Maybe resynthesize banging two rocks together and making some kind of percussion with the sound. That, to me, easily beats importing a granular synth sound for example, which is a bit too 'masturbatory/inward/feedbackloopy/incestuous/overprocessed' for my taste.

Go out there and 'mate' with the greater world and leave your navel-gazing back at home. And bring back results that don't look more like that Eraserhead baby... unless of course that's your thing.

Oh and, while I'm at it, try on other adjectives besides 'awesome' and 'sick'. There are lots of them out there.

Where did they used 'awesome' or 'sick' in their post?
Also telling them to leave their navel-gazing back at home? You really couldn't be less self-aware if you tried...

[martinjuenke]

C'mon, let this SickBut rest in peace.
At least he's bringing a lot of trafic and attention to this thread and the marvelous SUMU.
Very good advertising!
One might think he's a shill in disguise with his paradox behaviour.

Oh, one thing missing:
he hasn't shown his tasteful own music creations yet...

[zerocrossing]

Really? The soundscapes he made at around 23min mark sound very good to me, sort of a Scorn soundtrack vibe, very organic and complex sounding.

I think part of the catch is actually showing us what the sound was before it got imported. We often don't get that, so it's less possible to know what Sumu is doing to the sound that makes it worth investing in. Like in Iris 2 for example, it's trivial to narrow a selection in the spectrum and have the scanning lines go over it back and forth with some 'odd sounds', but so what.

If you try the demo yourself you would see that your assumptions are wrong concerning SUMU.

That’s what I did, and I was blown away. I didn’t hear a single demo of it, but tried it based on my experience with Aalto. I liked it so much, I went for Madrona’s full bundle. Awesome stuff.

Well you just wrote, 'awesome', as if there's no other adjective out there. Awesome never really was used in that way, was it? Like 'sick' too. So sure, let's all get Sumu and exclaim how awesomely-sick it is. And this spring, don't forget to comment on those awesome blossoms.

Do you have any examples to listen to? Has anyone done any of their own samples yet and if so, what? Pinging a wine glass (or running a wet finger along its rim) or metal bowl? A mosquito buzz? Why take the sounds of other synths and dump them into yet another synth? Why this wobble (Reese?) bass?

It's not just the instruments of course, but also the creativity, that maybe the instruments might help inspire.

Hm… if only there was a way a potential customer could try it… sort of like a demonstration… nope. Can’t think of anything.

[foosnark]

Sumu is not the kind of synth where it makes any sense to me to watch someone else's demo video. You're wasting time that you could be spending just downloading it and trying it yourself, getting a feel for it.

It's a unique synth. You don't have to use it like a typical spectral resynthesizer, you can completely ignore the Partials section and patch the oscillator bank from the envelopes and Pulses. Pulses is a unique modulation source I haven't seen anywhere else. The whole thing is a sound design playground. Most of what I use it for is some kind of weird spectral drone (*) and sometimes the Partials aren't patched amp-amp and pitch-pitch, if at all.

(*) this is probably going to shift a bit once Sumu gets MPE support.

If you're curious about synth hardware, unless you happen to live close to a great shop the best you can do is read the manufacturer's description and manual, and watch videos. So you have to filter through other peoples' styles of making music that are not your own, the other gear they might use with it that is not your own, their ability to understand and explain things, their personalities and presentations, and biases generally in favor of the companies that sent them free stuff.

But this is Sparta software! Just freaking download it and play with it. Don't watch videos and then complain about the videos, and assume the synth sucks because the videos aren't to your liking.

This is a thing I have never understood about KvR. Why rely on someone else's skills and opinion when you can use your own?

And then...

[Dirtgrain]

To be clear, Sumu is not noob-friendly.

[foosnark]

To be clear, Sumu is not noob-friendly.

That's true. And even if you're experienced with a lot of synthesis methods, modular patching etc. it still takes a bit of time to grasp what's going on with Sumu (because it's a unique approach) and really appreciate and take advantage of its design.

It's definitely not what some people are looking for in a synth. It's catnip for tinkerers and nerds like me though.

Still I have to laugh at people crying out for "more innovation" and then when they see innovation, they run away, because new and inventive things are weird and scary The only reason FM managed to take off is people treating the DX7 like a preset machine.