Unloved synths

[Examigan]

I just meant it wouldn't be my first choice for bread and butter sounds, but yes, it can definitely cover a wide range. =)

[BONES]

Not to be contrary for the sake of it, but ArcSyn is so easy to quickly make “standard” lush pads or smooth to biting leads.

I mostly us it for basslines, as a replacement for Wasp, and you can dial those in very easily, too.

[BONES]

yeah but nobody does, because without MPE it's an underwhelming synth for 179$.

I use it more than any other $179 synth I own, except maybe for DUNE (but it would be close). In some songs I use it for two or three different parts and it is almost never the synth I play live, which means I don't use it with MPE 90% of the time. I'd buy it over Diva or Spire, or Serum every time and I would happily have paid for a license if I'd had to when I sold my Rise 25.

It's a sampler/wt that you can't import your own samples or wt's into. for 179$.

No, it's a 5 oscillator synth, plus noise, with full MPE functionality, mountains of modulation options including multiple 3 osc FM algorithms, high quality effects and a great library of usable presets. There are things you could complain about - e.g. the envelope windows are way too small to be useful and it is quieter than most other synths - but there is nothing at all to complain about when it comes to the synth itself. It sounds amazingly good, isn't a CPU hog and is eminently usable in production.

49 arbitrary waveforms are pretty obviously WTs, no VA looks like that.

Actually, it is almost exactly like Junglist/Hydra and similar to ArcSyn or Babylon - single cycle waveforms. Or maybe they could be using additive (spectral) synthesis to create the waveforms, like Thorn or Go2, or maybe it uses some other arbitrary method. Who knows? But it's not like Serum, which is an actual wavetable synth.

I wanted to use it as a "live" synth, as my seaboard workstation synth. But it's way too limited for that.

I think it's more likely that you are way too limited because I have no trouble using it live, often as a standalone, not as a VSTi (it's just been easier up to now to do it that way). But a poor workman always blames his tools.

yeah good presets, i never argued there isn't good presets in it. i argued that its artificially imposed limitations make it less interesting AS A SYNTH.

Do you not see the inherent contradiction here? If it wasn't a good synth, how could it be capable of producing good presets? "Interesting" has no effect on it's ability to deliver the goods when you need them. You're clutching at straws, moving the goalposts with every sentence you type. Give it up, you're wrong and it becomes more obvious every time you try to explain yourself.

I completely and utterly grasp what you are saying here, and I see how deliberately disingenuous you are. You made the statement with intent, and it was clearly meant to be eye-catching, provocative.

Yes, because I think anyone who calls themselves a "sound designer" is a sad wanker, which I went on to explain. It's not a standalone skill, it's something you pick up as part of a larger skillset you build as a player, song writer, producer or performer. I have a similar opinion of colourists - they get paid twice as much as a compositor, yet require about 10% of the skills. I treat them both with the disdain they deserve.

You are the one conflating doing sound design with someone self-identifying as a "sound designer."

Clearly I wasn't conflating anything, as I said "I don't do sound design" to separate one from the other. I patch synths as and when needed in order to complete another, more complex task. If you search for "sound designer", you will see that in the wider world it means something entirely different to what people here think it means. e.g. https://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-a-so ... ner-do.htm
Or this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_design
Sound design may require a bit of synth patching but, as with the other disciplines I mentioned, it is just one small part of a broader skillset.

Saying you do sound design is not pretentious, self-aggrandizing.

Not if you actually do sound design but if all you do is create patches for synths, then it absolutely is.

It's the actual, accepted term for what we do when we tweak settings on synths and effects to make sounds. There was no logical reason for you to say that you don't do sound design

See above.

If someone find joy in it, WTF does it have to do with you?

And if I think the endeavour is worthless, WTF does that have to do with you? It's a stupid question that could apply to any and every comment.

By the way, it was also so trolly and ironic that you created a new Pigments thread telling us it had to be on-topic only in the title. Was I the only one who noticed that?

To be honest, that was to stop Hink from locking it immediately, as often happens when you try to continue a discussion from a locked thread. It was said with tongue firmly implanted in cheek.

Can't say I agree about sound design not being a critical feature of a synth. Half of the fun for me is devising my own sounds so that my compositions have a unique and particular character. It's why I can't relate to people who just use presets...that's discarding half of the creative process right there. If I couldn't patch my own sounds I'd probably just play the violin or something.

I'm the same but, as you note, it is nothing more than part of a larger process. People around here seem to lose sight of that rather too easily.

[Sinisterbr]

TAL-mod is a incredible sounding synth. I've been finding it complements Diva quite well.

TAL Mod is so under hyped I can’t believe it.

Totally!!!

[Sinisterbr]

And I've got to agree with XILS Oxium in this list. Really under-the-radar synth. It just deserved a better interface.

[JoeCat]

...I use Equator in more than half of our new songs, it has a great sound and is so easy to fit into a mix. In terms of bang for your buck, it ships with more usable presets than any other synth I have tried. If I go through a bank of 128 presets for any synth, I reckon on average I would probably only find maybe 3 or 4 that I'd mark as potentially useful but with Equator I found dozens. All those oscillators make it's pads and leads particularly good. If it has a limitation, it's in the filter, not in the oscillators. I don't find it particularly good for basslines, for example.

I'm confused (and I've agreed with / disagreed with you in the past, but never been confused):

The people creating those presets are doing sound design for its own sake (not in the service of a composition, etc.), so wouldn't that be a legitimate use of the term "sound designer"? Especially for synths (not Equator obviously) that are emulations, where there's work involved in recreating sounds Though I guess in that case "designer" might be a misnomer, but you still need the skill-set to have some pretty deep knowledge of the synth to do it right in the case of something complex (for example, the DX7).

As a matter of fact, the original DX7 would be a pretty good example of the value of sound design for its own sake, as few people who bought the synth could have every programmed, say, the harmonica patch. At the time the body of knowledge around making natural sounding instruments from sine waves was a lot more limited also.

In any case, I do find myself doing less of the "patching of the synth" (didn't use the S* D* words there ) for it's own sake, just to toss those presets aside and never use them, and more of the "design for the composition". When I'm learning a synth though, I like spending some time making good templates of patches as starting points for different types of sounds, especially more complex synths were there are some good "tricks" to be had for routing, etc. For example, using the mapping generators in U-he synths for round-robin of some common parameters is something I often forget about, so I've setup some starting patches. That kinda discovery is fun and sometimes takes place just tinkering about without a purpose in a track.

[Dirtgrain]

Yes, because I think anyone who calls themselves a "sound designer" is a sad wanker

There you go again, thinking this is a site for people to give disparaging opinions about others instead of about music.

It's not a standalone skill, it's something you pick up as part of a larger skillset you build as a player, song writer, producer or performer. I have a similar opinion of colourists - they get paid twice as much as a compositor, yet require about 10% of the skills. I treat them both with the disdain they deserve.

More of the same. Are you sure you aren't sounding like a sad wanker (sounding like--don't mean to dismiss you as a human being like you are doing to others), having to push others down to make yourself feel higher?

Clearly I wasn't conflating anything, as I said "I don't do sound design" to separate one from the other. I patch synths as and when needed in order to complete another, more complex task. If you search for "sound designer."

You just seem to intentionally ignore semantics. Here, you seem to think sound designer can mean only one thing. Do you not do synthesis because it is a term used in chemistry and biology? And why ignore the way it is used on sites like this? Did you really post Wikipedia links? (My cousin Annette has been a sound designer in the German film industry for thirty years--I've seen her at work in 1988 or 1989. I imagine things have changed for her--maybe she designs sounds on VSTs now.)

but if all you do is create patches for synths

Which is referred to as sound design by many who are into synths, so . . .

"All" you say, dismissively, somehow putting you up high to look down on them, right? Maybe you should just skip demeaning others and just directly toot your own horn.

And if I think the endeavour is worthless, WTF does that have to do with you? It's a stupid question that could apply to any and every comment.

You are the one posting on a internet forum that these people are sad wankers, etc. You give this same response any time someone calls you out here for crap like that.

[BONES]

The people creating those presets are doing sound design for its own sake (not in the service of a composition, etc.), so wouldn't that be a legitimate use of the term "sound designer"?

No, that would be "synth programmer" or "patch programmer". It's something Martin Gore from Depeche Mode pays someone else to do because he's got more important work to get done. We lesser mortals just have to do it ourselves.

As a matter of fact, the original DX7 would be a pretty good example of the value of sound design for its own sake, as few people who bought the synth could have every programmed, say, the harmonica patch. At the time the body of knowledge around making natural sounding instruments from sine waves was a lot more limited also.

That was more a reason for people like us to buy something other than a DX-7. It is certainly the reason I got rid of my DX-9.

When I'm learning a synth though, I like spending some time making good templates of patches as starting points for different types of sounds, especially more complex synths were there are some good "tricks" to be had for routing, etc.

I tend to do similar things but I rarely save the results until I feel confident with the instrument. It sounds like you probably spend more time on it than I do, I am mostly happy to get a feel for an instrument, rather than learn all it's unique features. I tend to leave that sort of stuff until I need it. e.g. I use ArcSyn all the time but I still don't really know how it's fancy LFO stuff works, nor do I care to learn anything beyond what I need it for. Sometimes I'll hear something interesting in a preset that I want to work out but mostly I use them all for the same things and they all do the basics the same way.

There you go again, thinking this is a site for people to give disparaging opinions about others instead of about music.

But these are people who don't make music, so should we pretend they don't exist?

Anyway, I am not going to bother reading the rest of your post. I have no interest in anything you have to say and, as you point out, it's all OT anyway.

[Ploki]

I use it more than any other $179 synth I own, except maybe for DUNE (but it would be close). In some songs I use it for two or three different parts and it is almost never the synth I play live, which means I don't use it with MPE 90% of the time. I'd buy it over Diva or Spire, or Serum every time and I would happily have paid for a license if I'd had to when I sold my Rise 25.

Yes but you're a preset surfer, you said so yourself. And i never said it's weak preset wise.

No, it's a 5 oscillator synth, plus noise, with full MPE functionality, mountains of modulation options including multiple 3 osc FM algorithms, high quality effects and a great library of usable presets. There are things you could complain about - e.g. the envelope windows are way too small to be useful and it is quieter than most other synths - but there is nothing at all to complain about when it comes to the synth itself. It sounds amazingly good, isn't a CPU hog and is eminently usable in production.

Yes, and 2 of those oscillators are Samplers, which you can't import your own samples in, and three of those are a single scannableWT (the PWM) and 48 random wavetable waveforms.

You can actually import your own samples but it's via an ancient SFZ format and a pain in the ass. While all other normal sample based synths in 2020 support drag&drop. I wonder why they didn't choose AKAI format.

Actually, it is almost exactly like Junglist/Hydra and similar to ArcSyn or Babylon - single cycle waveforms. Or maybe they could be using additive (spectral) synthesis to create the waveforms, like Thorn or Go2, or maybe it uses some other arbitrary method. Who knows? But it's not like Serum, which is an actual wavetable synth.

Single cycles doesn't mean it's not Wavetable. Wavetable doesn't imply scannable multi-frame waveforms, that's what Serum popularised but its by no means the norm. In any case:
https://www.musicradar.com/news/rolis-e ... lone-synth
https://www.emusician.com/gear/review-roli-equator

I think it's more likely that you are way too limited because I have no trouble using it live, often as a standalone, not as a VSTi (it's just been easier up to now to do it that way). But a poor workman always blames his tools.

I don't have trouble using it, i have trouble recreating sounds that i need to use live with it.
I have no issues recreating them in Hive2, which is my go-to live synth. (because it has good enough MPE support, is very light CPU and a blazing fast construction engine)
I've recreated sounds from Wiggle, Repro, Serum, Diva and probably some more in Hive2. It's not 1:1 but enough in the ballpark to be usable live.

I'd switch to Equator in a heartbeat if it unlocked WT import and Sample import.

Do you not see the inherent contradiction here? If it wasn't a good synth, how could it be capable of producing good presets? "Interesting" has no effect on it's ability to deliver the goods when you need them. You're clutching at straws, moving the goalposts with every sentence you type. Give it up, you're wrong and it becomes more obvious every time you try to explain yourself.

What? I'm not.
Sonic Couture's the hammersmith has great presets. But they're all f**king piano.
Nexus has great presets, but as a synth it's absolutely limited, you can't do shit with it.
Equator has great presets, but they're limited to WTs and Samples ROLI has granted you... And nothing else. You can do ANYTHING ELSE with it.
It doesn't have the sound quality of actual VA synths, and it doesn't have the flexibility of WT synths. It's the worst of both to be honest...
And it's absolutely limited for absolutely no reason at all.

[lastmessiah]

Equator is plenty versatile and powerful. The internet loves to complain about not being able to import samples whenever that feature isn't available, but I've never found it to be all that limiting. Equator's approach is to mix samples with synthetic waveforms - it isn't a granular sample mangling thing. You can achieve some really nice tones by adding a low level of a string sample to a wavetable, modulating some parameters, etc. Once you do this, the particulars of the sample you are using become less important.

Also, the point about Equator's sound quality being inferior to "VA" is dead wrong. I'm not even sure how you came up with that one.

[Ploki]

Equator is plenty versatile and powerful. The internet loves to complain about not being able to import samples whenever that feature isn't available, but I've never found it to be all that limiting. Equator's approach is to mix samples with synthetic waveforms - it isn't a granular sample mangling thing. You can achieve some really nice tones by adding a low level of a string sample to a wavetable, modulating some parameters, etc. Once you do this, the particulars of the sample you are using become less important.

Also, the point about Equator's sound quality being inferior to "VA" is dead wrong. I'm not even sure how you came up with that one.

Who said anything about granular mangling?
Equator's attempt at being a "VA" (what bones insinuated) is poor compared to dedicated VA synths. But that's not its strength at all.
Its strength is being tightly integrated with the seaboard with a great modulation engine dedicated to the seaboard.
Having the ability to import your own WTs or Samples would not limit you or BONES to use only stock sounds in any way, it would just enable people who want to use their own samples and wavetables to do so...
It's not hard to implement and it's not such a huge request at all.

And since there's plenty of threads about importing your own samples, apparently the request is pretty common and not dumb at all.

[Dirtgrain]

But these are people who don't make music, so should we pretend they don't exist?

"If it bleeds, we can kill it." If it exists, Bones must disparage it. Maybe you feel the same way about instrument makers--sad wankers who don't publish music.

Anyway, I am not going to bother reading the rest of your post. I have no interest in anything you have to say and, as you point out, it's all OT anyway.

Now you say that . . . okay. I'll try not to be bothered by your posts, as well.

[e-crooner]

To me a sound designer is someone who may or may not be a musician as well. Sound designer implies a professional level, someone who makes and sells sound sets most of all or works directly for musicians.

I design my own sounds, but I am not a sound designer. It's like with singing: I may sing in the shower every day, but that doesn't make me a singer - unfortunately

[DJMaytag]

Reason’s Malström. It might be my favorite software synthesizer, and obviously one of the oldest. I wish they made a hardware Eurorack modular version of this thing.

As far as VSTi’s go, I’ve come back around to TAL UNO-LX. It was one of my first few VSTi purchases, and I got away from using it for a number of years, but have come back around to it in the past 6 months.

[ecasasmusic2]

Hi! New to the forum here (I use to read posts but this is the first time I write).

In my case it would be Air Music Hybrid 3. Hundreds of great sounding presets, easy to make sounds, and it has a bright quality to the sound that makes it sound always clear in any mix. I like to combine it with other "bigger" synths and the combination is always great. I got it for 1 euro a couple of years ago (usually for sale around 15 euros which is still a no brainer IMHO).