Madrona Labs Sumu

[Shabdahbriah]

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.

Precisely.

[dayjob]

er.. i'm getting interesting very usable and musical sounds out of it. it's fun to combine sources and partials and all that stuff w/vutu and then load them up in SUMU and get to making patches. some really amazing choirs and pads and stuff. also, all kinds of ear candy for layering into things.

i think of SUMU as a success in doing what it does and totally musical and useful. ymmv of course.. but i wouldn't pigeon hole this synth as "catnip for tinkerers".. not that there's anything wrong with tinkering.. i enjoy it and do it w/every synth i own at one time or another for the pure joy of exploration and sound design.

[synth_nyc]

Hi there,

Following my 50 custom patches for Kaivo, I thought I gave Sumu a shot.
Sumu is even pushing further the sonic boundaries; you can create some never heard before sounds.

I have designed 50 custom patches from scratch (using the Default patch) for Madrona Labs Sumu (1.0.0b15)

You can listen to them in high resolution (24bit 96kHz PCM WAV masters, FLAC encoded) on my site (optimized for Chrome on MacOS and Windows):
https://synthnyc.com/index.php/album/ma ... es-bank-1/

or in low resolution on my bandcamp:
https://synthnyc.bandcamp.com/album/sum ... hes-bank-1

All sound demonstrations have external FX.

The first 25 patches are using factory Partials.
The last 25 patches are using PPG WaveTerm samples / transients
https://www.hermannseib.com/english/syn ... htm#sorted
http://ppg.synth.net/waveterm/wt_lib.shtml
which I transformed into Partials using Vutu (0.9.9).
Those are my favorite PPG sounds; I have used them in my Waldorf M ‘The Blue Journey’ sound bank.
https://waldorfmusic.com/produkt/sounds ... e-journey/
From patch 25, each patch name and sound file name has the PPG Transient name embedded in it; e.g. Sumu 34 T864 is using PPG Transient T864. I invite the audience to listen to both the PPG original sample and Sumu patch I created from it to assess the transformation (the objective is to create something new and different, not a 1:1 replica).

Starting from Patch Sumu 17 Clouds (and almost exclusively used till Patch 50), I’ve discovered an another way (compared to Default patch / most factory patches and user manual recommendations) to patch the Sumu Partials module. This opens up Sumu to ultra innovative sounds; you can use Sumu as a granular synthesizer with each grain harmonic having a different envelope / amplitude…

Sumu has become one of my all time favorite digital synthesizer along with Waldorf Iridium, Fred’s Lab Manatee and Korg modwave native.

I hope you’ll enjoy the sound bank as much as I enjoyed programming it.

Lastly, Madrona Labs has acquired my 50 Sumu Custom Patches, they will be free Factory Presets in an upcoming release.


All the best,


synth_nyc
synthesizer custom patches
https://synthnyc.com/

Hi there,
Madrona Labs released my Sumu Custom Patches [Bank 1] as FREE Factory Presets in Sumu 1.0.0 major release. Please note Madrona Labs renamed the last 25 patches and categorized them.

Enjoy!

synth_nyc
synthesizer custom patches
https://synthnyc.com

[pekbro]

Still pretty unusable for me due to cpu, will pass on a Madrona synth for the first time...
I think they need to hire some real programmers if you ask me, clearly a lot of inefficiency
going on in the UI and whatnot... *shrug

[CrystalWizard]

Come on Dash/Sumu users, up your game.

? I'll have a hit, too.

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

very nice!

I haven't had time to demo, i'm hoping my i7 10750H 2.6G CPU can handle it (even just four voices) and i'm more than happy to freeze tracks. That thing looks serious! I'll read the manual for fun soon.

[Sackbut]

Foggy-Matrix Sick-Awesome Zombie-Laundromat Game-Changing Preset-Packs

The World Outside The Zombie Kitchen

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...

That's just added in for good measure. We all know 'awesome' is plastered everywhere these days as if there's no other adjective.

It's so aped that I'm pretty sure my navel has caught some of its lint floating around everywhere that you're talking about. You have to gaze at it sometimes just to clean it up.

If recalled, Dash Glitch uses 'sick' in the Sumu video I mentioned.

I've also made him aware of this thread. (A Glitch in the Matrix?)

The navel-gazing is about the 'look at me'-type You Tube videos where they seem to think we need their bobbing/babbling heads, sometimes flailing arms, (and of course the clickbait everywhere) to be jammed into sections of their screens, etc., throughout their entire videos-- at the expense of the synths' GUI's, etcetera.

The synths (etc.-- whatever they're hyping/peddling/mountebanking), themselves, are really just, or flirt with being, 'token vehicles/window-dressings/excuses' for the main attractions-- that's .

[Sackbut]

Soul-Commodification

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.

Have you got something to show for it if you have it?

So far, I have not heard anything to inspire me to bother with it/its demo, just sort of often-munchkin-sounding demos or drones that sound like granular synths 'resynthesizing' (so to speak, since there's the question of whether granular synths are bona-fide synths or just fancy samplers) Sumu that's resynthesizing granular synths.

Also, demos often get in the way of the creative flow where they throw different sorts of noises, disconnects and/or limitations. It's like renting/leasing something, rather than owning it. It ends up owning you. For a price.

It's easy to say one is 'blown away' by something, maybe especially where one has just invested a pretty penny in it or has some kind of contract with the company.

Maybe it's more about the culture than the synths, though...

If one lives in and somehow echoes a 'dead' or 'dying' culture, I suppose its tools matter far less.

[kingtubby]

...

So, in summation, you're not convinced.

[Sackbut]

"You Glad, Bro'?"
~ someone's comment posted, some years ago, beneath Cream's linked song/video

...

So, in summation, you're not convinced.

Correct.



---

"γνῶθι σαὐτόν" ~ kingtubby

And your surrounds.

[aMUSEd]

Sumu is becoming one of my new favourites. Getting lots of great sounds from this and it’s just so much fun to tweak.

[kraster]

Sumu is becoming one of my new favourites. Getting lots of great sounds from this and it’s just so much fun to tweak.

Yeah I love it.

A really cool thing to do is to get some harmonically rich source, Like an orchestral chord or something. Add some noise to the pulses section and have an lfo sweeping up the center parameter

Detach the amplitude of the partial map to the oscillator amplitude and feed the pulses section into it instead. Also attach it to the attenuated time input at a low level. Crazy stuff.

Some other stuff I've notice is that the hi-scale will sync with pulse clock if it's at even multiples e.g. 2,4,8

So if you have it synced to a host with the high scale will generate different rhythms depending on where you connect it. Mod index level is a good candidate.

Experimenting with envelope shape, the rhythms and quantization settings will give you further variation in rhythm.

Sumu is great for rhythmic stuff.

[martinjuenke]

It takes 85% of my CPU

[Sackbut]

'Reverse Engineering' Sumu?

Could Sumu be somehow duplicated, echoed or improved in Plugdata? Probably. Maybe get 64 'sinebanks' ('sinebank abstraction/module') and patch them up with various kinds of 'blocks/abstractions/modules'? What do you think? Anyone up to it? Maybe 16 (and less [finer resolution], user-defined, depending on CPU) 'sine banks' of 2048 (or more, user-defined, depending on CPU)? How hard/easy could it be? Free, if for a suggested $149 donation (--price-match-- whatever Sumu's going for)... if one is motivated by such things.

I mean, what are most if not all instruments we use hereon but rips or remixes of what came before and/or what is, maybe in large part by student/taxpayer-funded university research?

The results could of course be fed back into Sumu, and locked back in, for a price.

[foosnark]

It takes 85% of my CPU

It's not quite that bad for me, but it's the only synth I use where I can't get away with a buffer size of 32 samples (unless I limit it to being monophonic). 96 works if I'm careful about what else is running. It's a hungry, hungry hippo...

[CrystalWizard]

I see the dumb troll is still poking about.

Has Sumu had any optimizations?