The "I don't get it" or your 3 overrated synths thread

[shamann]

it really is just a complaint about how your toys dont seem so great anymore though.

I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. I have other pieces of software that I love as much now as I did when I first used them. Audiomulch is probably the thing I've used the longest (since '98 ), yet it never gets old to me.

I agree with what was said earlier, a lot of it is just finding the magic in any given thing for you. We'd be on eternal overload if we found the magic in everything.

[The Chase]

Dont think I agree with much of this thread Things are so subjective about music and the instruments that make it I Can't really think of any names to list here. There are a lot of synths I don't like but I can usually see why some might like them.

One thing I really don't get that I've read in this thread are people slagging off SE synths as a whole, being a tool to make synths and all. There are about a dozen SE synths that probably no one could guess were made in SE without the tag on the interface or KvR page. I mean I know that oppinions are oppinions, but that's like saying you dont like bikes made made with a certain brand of tools.

[marvotron]

come on you dont need to be so reasonable. dont worry about why others might like them, let us know why you dont.

[tranceglobal]

I'm trying to decide what I think of Wusik. I really like the routing, but it's such a pain in the ass to import your own sounds. If it supports more formats, I'll bite. Any comments on Wusik importing?

Extreme Sample Converter + Wusik makes a powerful combo. I hear there is another product from Wusik which will do importing and mapping etc, but until then... Once I got ESC, Wusik became a very powerful tool for me (more than the ROMpler it was before). As unpopular as this opinion may be, I find it to be a jack of all trades under one convenient GUI.


As for what I do not like:

Arturia - tonally wonderful, until I try to make music, then doesn't play well with others.

HG Fortune - another line of instruments that I love to make sounds with, but don't often use. Perhaps that doesn't qualify as overrated?

D.

[shamann]

There are about a dozen SE synths that probably no one could guess were made in SE without the tag on the interface or KvR page.

If SE locked the mouse's movement to a widget's movement, instead of giving its current more than generous berth (like all SE things do, even if you jigger about with number of frames, etc), then it would be very hard for people to tell. Until that day (which is probably never since it has been a known issue for years), it's doubtful that folk wouldn't know.

I thought John's point was well explained, he doesn't like them because it always feels like it was made in SE, and SE on surface feels clunky to him. You don't have to agree that that is a problem, but he was at least clear on why he doesn't like them, which is more than what was seen in a lot of past SE pile-ups.

[ATS]

most overrated synth is mmmm in my opinion and the way I feel right now is imposcar.

[grymmjack]

what modular synth environment do you favor over it?

i've only tried reaktor and synthedit. i like reaktor cuz the quality is very high on the library it comes with and it's sorta cool how it works, i agree though that the UI is lacking very much and your comparison to photoshop is probably spot on. i can overlook that bit because i'm an adobe photoshop junky myself

which modular enviro do you like most?

I prefer modulars that allow you to build stuff on the fly very easily. My favourites would be Vaz Modular and Bidule. They both have flaws, but they really lend themselves to just opening them up and very quickly constructing bits into the sound you want. You can build really complex structures in each, but in many cases there's no need, just get the bits you need and string them up. I even like Synthedit over Reaktor in that sense (I like Reaktor over SE in other ways mind you), as if you know exactly what you want, you can just dive right in and very quickly have a result (for example, I've gone in to SE and made stuff like a step sequenced panning effect, which worked exactly as I wanted it to, in under 10 minutes).

For making music, modulars don't need to be polished for me, they need to be handy. Reaktor has so far not proven handy for me. It's one of those things that requires you to roll up your sleeves and plan, requires a lot of steps to get even the basics working. It's great for set-piece kind of things, essentially what fill the bulk of the user library (just look at how many when turned on make the music of its creator), but it isn't one of those "now I need a filter that's modulated like this" on-the fly tools.

My interest in fiddling about is really slim these days, and if I am going to do that, I'd rather focus the fiddling on the music. Similarly, I find pure data and Synthmaker to be disappointing, as neither is designed to have immediate utility, they are designed to make fully formed set-pieces (well, pd kind of does have immediate utility, in its own hostile-to-the-world sort of way).

thanks for the verbose reply shamann. this is exactly what i was hoping for.

what differentiates vaz modular? you mentioned reaktor is cumbersome, and yes it is indeed cumbersome (trying to learn it is not easy and i was hoping to find a book or a video tutorial on it but have not yet found anything). because i have some programming background i can empathize with you on the encumberance/weight of a design.

reaktor seems like because it is /so/ abstract to the (now) sub-atomic level, it /can/ do anything but the number of people who can make the thing do it's magic to that degree is probably pretty small in the grand scheme of things.

i'm a bit confused though because from where i stand (and maybe this is my novice showing) reaktor has several 'levels' of complexity. on the outset there are of course the ensemble, which eat the instruments, which eat the macros and core modules. what i guess i'm saying is i can find quite a bit of fun just wiring the instruments into effects into other things so far. i do get confused on some things (and maybe this is where vaz and bidule succeed) in that i'm constantly having to worry about mono/stereo, audio/event conversions/combiners.. in ways that aren't exactly obvious. part of my gripe with reaktor level of difficulty is that the library and popup menu are VERY difficult to find things. like i can disect any ensemble surely, dive as deep as you can go, but because the program isn't built to be as friendly as it should be, i constantly hunt for the right thing to insert.

like i recently disected one of the tutorial synths (the one osc saw synth with filter env and amp env.) -- was very cool to geek out and learn how things worked inside and just by looking around and taking some notes i could do something similar, however (and this is the part that maybe the most important) i can't locate the f**king things i need quickly. like an audio->event converter, where to look for it? i am inundated by choices. what they /should/ do to make it easier/more friendly is give the PATH to the f**king thing in the property inspector.

so if i click properties for the f**king thing, it shows /reaktor factory/instruments/oscillators/saw, etc. that way i can atleast familiarize and /find/ the thing i want to put in!



ok so yeah i guess that part of it sucks, but i dont blame the system entirely. i mean, it's built for the experts and gurus, those are the guys who have put the work in like __insert__your__favorite__reaktor__guru__here__, but there has got to be some adoption for new users and sharing of knowledge if the system can become more used and recommended.

now that i've learned a bit about it though, and taken the plunge to dive deeper, i'm very intrigued. in fact, i'm interested enough to do some real research and reading and investigation. reaktor is a conquest, sorta like it's own discipline or kungfu or something. maybe i'm a philistine for thinking 90% of the factory library is /shit hot/ (to quote a famous kvrian), and the sheer number of possibilities with the various pre-built stuff really excites me. it's a frontier, and that's how i look at it. i hope to eventually make my own stuff (probably not much different besides the design and the graphics, but that's the fun part -- and i'm perfectly fine recreating something already done like a 3osc VA entirely by myself and sharing it for free because YES I AM A SICK PERSON

is there a better more 'immediately rewardable' environ that i should look at? synthedit is ok but i cannot stand the interface. i'm such a snob about that stuff, i admit it, and it is really seriously enough of an issue to keep me from bothering with it. i /know/ it's great, and i'm all for people using it and all that (despite what other people say i quite like alot of SE works) -- please dont take this as defensive also -- but it just isn't something i want to look at or use for extended periods of time. if i ever get into c++ and perhaps making some synthedit custom modules or something well, that may change..

anyway please enlighten me some more shamann. thanks!

[bugs]

This thread is great...maybe we should do the same thing with effects?

[idobs]

I would list ... Nexus as the most overrated...

Uh-oh, are you allowed to say that here? Somebody please give eduardo_b the happy pills so that he only posts positive things about this synth...

[Topiness]

I forgot to mention physical modelling synths. What a snore-gasm.

Sad thing is, i've tried 3 PM synths: Tassman made quite decent flutey sounds, Modelonia made some ok brass sounds, and String studio makes some nice plucked string sounds. WHEN YOU PRESS ONE KEY.

if you try to play a legato line with a keyboard, there's nothing in the synths to simulate the transitions between notes that would be characteristic of those instruments - something that should happen automatically with a physical model.

What's the point in physically modelling a trumpet if you're not going to model the fact that a trumpet is not played with a keyboard??

[musikmachine]

I would have said absynth based on the presets it ships with but to all those that have it and feel that way have you checked out any of the free user banks?Theres a bank called Absynth as a VA which has made me think twice.When i hear some of the sounds come out of that thing i'm like wow i want to create sounds like that but when i consider i have to do it all with a mouse(RSI?)there's no way i can.Then again a good trackball might make all the difference...?

[pdxindy]

I prefer modulars that allow you to build stuff on the fly very easily. My favourites would be Vaz Modular and Bidule. They both have flaws, but they really lend themselves to just opening them up and very quickly constructing bits into the sound you want. You can build really complex structures in each, but in many cases there's no need, just get the bits you need and string them up. I even like Synthedit over Reaktor in that sense (I like Reaktor over SE in other ways mind you), as if you know exactly what you want, you can just dive right in and very quickly have a result (for example, I've gone in to SE and made stuff like a step sequenced panning effect, which worked exactly as I wanted it to, in under 10 minutes).

For making music, modulars don't need to be polished for me, they need to be handy. Reaktor has so far not proven handy for me. It's one of those things that requires you to roll up your sleeves and plan, requires a lot of steps to get even the basics working. It's great for set-piece kind of things, essentially what fill the bulk of the user library (just look at how many when turned on make the music of its creator), but it isn't one of those "now I need a filter that's modulated like this" on-the fly tools.

My interest in fiddling about is really slim these days, and if I am going to do that, I'd rather focus the fiddling on the music. Similarly, I find pure data and Synthmaker to be disappointing, as neither is designed to have immediate utility, they are designed to make fully formed set-pieces (well, pd kind of does have immediate utility, in its own hostile-to-the-world sort of way).

I have Tassman4 and Zebra2 as far as some sort of modular synth. I love the sound of Tassman. The GUI is clunky though. Switching back and forth between Builder and Player to hear a sound is tedious. I can do it, but then I end up settling for a result that may not just hit it for me because of that. The low levels in Reaktor are too abstract for me. They are too far from the sonic result. I am finding Zebra is about the level of modularity which I most enjoy. If I want to eq the wet signal of a delay, for example, it is easy to do. And on another level, Ableton Live is a modular environment I like, where I can combine any synths and effects easily into savable presets.

I might end up liking Bidule too, but I am so far from fluent with it that it is not enjoyable yet.

[vespers75]

This thread is great...maybe we should do the same thing with effects?

Great idea, actually...as of late, I've been more into various effects than synths anyhow

[nexussynth]

rather than yet another synth with a boring minimoog emu or glistening pad sounds etc....

alot is being talked about all these synths and how boring or samey they are. agreed.

how about plugins that allow us to change our music itself? there are all kinds of things that could be done to midi tracks and processing live midi note streams and i'm not just talking arpeggiators here (but there are not any terrific arpeggiators being done, except Project 5 v2. but that is still only the tip of the iceberg imo).

i personally am bored with noisemakers and desire music makers. Algo programs like Tangent and PnF were not deveolped further either. i don't want something to just spit out canned music in a particular style like HGF's Wheel of Fortune stuff (not to dis..WOF is clever and nice sounding)

anything that can inspire or aid in the producrion of notes not just ear candy.

my two pennies worth..

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Symptohm: Melohman - I won it (thanks Ohmies!), and wanted to make use of it, but it's just beyond me for the most part. It seems like it's more synth than sampler when I'd really like just as much of both. For instance, if this were the player for Sampletank you'd see the most kick ass ROMpler ever, but it's not. It stays on my drive for the day I will learn to make better use of it.

PolyAna - Sounds good, but uhm...it's huge and has lots of knobs and switches and stuff...more than I know what to do with. Basically: too many options!

TB303 Clones - I decided to cop out and use this generalization to round out my top 3. Sure TB303's can be cool, but for all the work it seems you have to put into a real TB303 to make it sound like the "TB303-sound" everyone thinks of, seems to me like you just could have used a better synth.