One Synth Challenge #99: vst2413 by Keijiro Takahashi (J.Ruegg wins!)

[nickamandote]

Since comments can help us improve I will give a honest comment to your entry if you give a honest one to mine, easy as that. Thanks!
updated link!
https://soundcloud.com/nickamandote/nic ... reggae-mix

PS: for last contest I had a comment like "Great!" and the rating was 1 to all contestants except one - seriously? who are we fooling here, pure trolling to try influence your vote

[baalisoda]

Since comments can help us improve I will give a honest comment to your entry if you give a honest one to mine, easy as that. Thanks!
https://soundcloud.com/nickamandote/nic ... reliminary

PS: for last contest I had a comment like "Great!" and the rating was 1 to all contestants except one - seriously? who are we fooling here, pure trolling to try influence your vote

I was one of the first comment on this track as soon as you uploaded it (5 days back). In fact, I even commented on your last month's track which I liked (gave full 5 points as well).

I doubt that I got any comment from you about my tracks, so far (for both last month's for which you gave 3 points and this month's). BTW For this month's OSC, i have uploaded my entry way earlier (you can check it on this thread's second page).

[nickamandote]

Since comments can help us improve I will give a honest comment to your entry if you give a honest one to mine, easy as that. Thanks!
https://soundcloud.com/nickamandote/nic ... reliminary

PS: for last contest I had a comment like "Great!" and the rating was 1 to all contestants except one - seriously? who are we fooling here, pure trolling to try influence your vote

I was one of the first comment on this track as soon as you uploaded it (5 days back). In fact, I even commented on your last month's track which I liked (gave full 5 points as well).

I doubt that I got any comment from you about my tracks, so far (for both last month's for which you gave 3 points and this month's). BTW For this month's OSC, i have uploaded my entry way earlier (you can check it on this thread's second page).

No worry you will get a comment back today, it's something I'm considering for everyone who comments this month. Thanks!

[] Peter:H []

I use saturation (Saturation Knob) pretty much every OSC and have yet to be DQ'd. The trick is to keep it transparent: increasing loudness, clarity, and maybe warmth, but keeping the character of the dry synth sound. My rule of thumb is that, at least with Saturation Knob, if the clip light is flickering on, even a little, it's too much.

Think of the spirit of the rule: represent the sound of the synth. Distortion can turn any oscillator's input into a square wave. That makes your sound's contribution ratio 0:100 (synth:fx). Don't do that. But 85:15 is probably cool (although typically that 15% would be the sum contribution of all insert fx: compression, saturation, EQ, reverb, etc.). At least, that's my approach.

Another example is bitcrushers. Used blatantly, they create a distinct bitcrushed sound that is also 0% synth, 100% fx. Surprisingly, ppl have got away with that in OSC, when it fits the genre. So, you're probably safe anyway. Used sparingly though, bitcrusher can supposedly enhance cymbals etc. without masking the synth's character, which is why it isn't banned outright.

Another approach I take, to avoid DQ when I want to use actual distortion (beyond saturation), is to put the distortion effect on a Send channel and keep it's mix at least 6dbfs. This works well for me, but wouldn't suit every genre.

Frankly, with the regularity these discussions come up, I think the "don't go to 11" rule should be dropped: distortion is just plain allowed. I would vote down any track that turns it up to 11 anyway, because it'll sound so awful.

So we have guys that admit, they're using fx not allowed, we have had violations of submission limit dates...all that goes without further notice and stays uncommented and everybody shruggs off. But unusual voting scheme though covered by the rules...most inconsistent and hilariously unreliable community one can be part off...

[574X]

Sample rate reduction, bit depth reduction, and harmonic saturation are completely legit and have gone hand in hand with every form of recorded synthesis ever.

I definitely support the use of basic stereo widening chorus, though you've got to draw firm, arbitrary lines somewhere.

Since comments can help us improve I will give a honest comment to your entry if you give a honest one to mine

I doubt that I got any comment from you about my tracks

Ooooh - Called Out!
Just clowning around.

It's really great to give and take comments. I used to comment on everyone's tracks to show support for their music, until z made some negative remarks about how people were commenting on everyone's tracks........

I should've pulled up my britches and spoken up right there, with my scalding, terrifying retort!!!:
One of the greatest gifts I like to give is a positive comment, followed by some tactful advice IMO.

[aluode]

Here's my initial entry with the really grungy sounds. They are what I wanted to do after playing around with the sounds from this beasty!

Broken bass speakers (so the bottom end is just garbage), horns which the players can't tune, really bad keyboard amp, guitar player is perhaps the only one who gets away with it this time round (and only just) And you know what, they think they are great!

My Reaper installation just crashed with any VST2413 (32 and 64 bit ones, original and Taron specials!). So, I prepared the MIDI files and then rewired FLStudio passing the MIDI from Reaper and getting the audio back from FLS into Reaper. This was such a PITA to setup and make work consistently, I gave up and imported the MIDI into FLS standalone, rendered WHOLE tracks with VST2413, and then imported them into Reaper for mixing. Any changes I needed to make to the soundsets meant going back to FLS, tweaking the VST2413 instance, and re-exporting, and then back to Reaper.

BJ said the rewire route was OK, but I now hope the above is also OK. In essence I am only using FLS as a VST host and MIDI player (no FLS FX used at all). If it's deemed not OK in the spirit of the OSC, I can of course withdraw the track.

Track Details
13 * VST2413
13 * ReaEQ
2 * TAL Reverb 4
3 * TAL Reverb II
3 * TDR Feedback Compressor II
3 * Classic Master Limiter
3 * LFX- 1310
1 * Pecheneg Tremolo
1 * JS Bass Manager/Booster

Master
SlickEQ
Ferric TDS
Limiter No.6

DR:11

Please enjoy the "retro sound" and the blues, of course!

https://soundcloud.com/doctorbob/doctorbob-db-blues

Absolutely incredible work. I have participated on these always using default patches, you
sound designer guys really amaze me. Having said that, I think I am going to sit this one out
since there are no default patches for the thing..

If only I had another lifetime I could learn the whole sound design thing. But I think
it would be too much of a hassle for my old brain..

Antti

[RichardSemper]

If only I had another lifetime I could learn the whole sound design thing. But I think
it would be too much of a hassle for my old brain..

Antti

Try these:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zgj8hfk1o1moh ... r.zip?dl=0

These are patches I've created so far for this thing. They are not really sorted out very well, but if you can use them I would be happy

Naturally they are also free for anyone to use.

[doctorbob]

WoW! Thanks Antii, glad you liked it and appreciate the sounds! The preset sounds with vst2413P version can sound quite good with a little processing. Same for the "drum" sounds with the vst2413R version ... if you have a track done midi-wise ... why not give it a go - you may surprise yourself, I did as I thought I was going to have to miss this one too ... but, it all worked out - lots of effort, but it worked!

dB

PS Don't worry about your "old brain" - mine's nearly 70 years old, and still sort of working! - your tracks have been getting better all the time - so would be nice to hear one from you - placing in the "OSC Charts" is irrelevant for most of us - just getting help and advice with our music making etc is all we crave!

[aluode]

If only I had another lifetime I could learn the whole sound design thing. But I think
it would be too much of a hassle for my old brain..

Antti

Try these:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zgj8hfk1o1moh ... r.zip?dl=0

These are patches I've created so far for this thing. They are not really sorted out very well, but if you can use them I would be happy

Thanks Richard. I try to make song every morning.
I may look into doing one for this osc with your
presets.. One of these mornings.

Antti

[aluode]

WoW! Thanks Antii, glad you liked it and appreciate the sounds! The preset sounds with vst2413P version can sound quite good with a little processing. Same for the "drum" sounds with the vst2413R version ... if you have a track done midi-wise ... why not give it a go - you may surprise yourself, I did as I thought I was going to have to miss this one too ... but, it all worked out - lots of effort, but it worked!

dB

PS Don't worry about your "old brain" - mine's nearly 70 years old, and still sort of working! - your tracks have been getting better all the time - so would be nice to hear one from you - placing in the "OSC Charts" is irrelevant for most of us - just getting help and advice with our music making etc is all we crave!

To me Kvr has been THE place to find free synths
for a very long time now. I do not need to do well
in osc, I just like to participate.

I like making free songs for youtubers. I am not in it to be a hit producer. If I lose these things. That
is fine, I began making music at age 26 (17 years
ago) and the skills of you guys really amaze me.

I make my songs usually in about hour and repeat
myself a lot. But that is due to my anxiety disorder. I can not stress about anything. Including making songs.. If I worked harder I would start hating the process (stress gives me anxiety attacks). So I work fast so that I wont hate
the process.

I know that osc is kind of aimed at sound designers to make more great patches. But it is
still interesting to me to try synths I otherwise would probably not use..

In my songs I make for youtubers I end up using
same vsts and patches over and over again.. So it
can be refreshing to break free of that every now
and then..

Having said that one of my favorite synths is Valo
I wonder if that could be osc synth sometime.
I absolutely love its string pad..

Antti

[doctorbob]

Antti I have PM'd you ...

dB

[aluode]

My entry VST2413s Aluode:

https://soundcloud.com/antti-luode/vst-2413s-aluode

It uses 12 active instances of the synth. Few effectors as reverbs, few limiters and one stock flstudio delay.
Delay was ok right?

The FLP file is at: (144 VST2413s aluode.zip)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1t5a ... kVvUnFPMkk

Thanks to Richard Semper for the patches!

Antti

[] Peter:H []

Absolutely incredible work. I have participated on these always using default patches, you
sound designer guys really amaze me. Having said that, I think I am going to sit this one out
since there are no default patches for the thing..

If only I had another lifetime I could learn the whole sound design thing. But I think
it would be too much of a hassle for my old brain..

Antti

I have watched a producer talk about the way he get's work done. He works in two modes, one is called "night sessions" the other he calls "day sessions". The important part about it is not the time of day, but what the characteristics/working mode/goal of the two types are. The "night sessions" are those sessions to try out things, play around, sort patches, sort samples, find favourite and analyse patches. There's no actual goal set to this sessions but get better prepared for the "day sessions". "Night Sessions" could also take place he says, when he's not so focused and energized and probably wants to have some beer and enjoy fiddling around with equipment . Day sessions are different, with a clear set goal, i.e. to finish a track within this day...

That said, I suggest to you to try out things in "night/fun sessions", that can be how a envelope works or how reverb can be used to created space. And at least for me this is just a lot of playing around, trial and error accompanied by "it happend by accident", "did I do that, cool?"!
If I'm interested in how something works, I look for a set of youtube tutorials watch them and try to copy what I see with my own equippment that I know pretty well.

And btw.1: There's even whole online courses, so called MOOCs, about synthesize. Cool thing about online courses, they are most of the time self paced. Go over to http://www.kadenze.com for instance. Afair they have a whole set of vidoes for Reactor 6 where they explain what each part of the synth is doing...(https://www.kadenze.com/courses/sound-s ... aktor/info)

And btw.2: Find some of my "spare" Patches in the Attachment...Everybody is free to use them, as long as the use is stated in the submission post.

[zerofox97]

https://soundcloud.com/zerothefox/zerof ... orted-chip

Through exploiting a flaw that this VST accurately captures, I was able to acheive a sound very similar to distortion or saturation without actually using any saturation plugins. however, I did need to use a LOT of compression to make the specific sounds audible.

FL Studio 12

16x VST2413S
1xVST2413R
0xVST2413P

2x Fruity Envelope Controller
19x Fruity Parametric EQ2
15x Maximus
1x Soundgoodiser
4x Fruity Convolver
4x Fruity Delay Bank
1x Fruity Filter
5x Fruity Reeverb 2

[psmacmur]

I use saturation (Saturation Knob) pretty much every OSC and have yet to be DQ'd. The trick is to keep it transparent: increasing loudness, clarity, and maybe warmth, but keeping the character of the dry synth sound. My rule of thumb is that, at least with Saturation Knob, if the clip light is flickering on, even a little, it's too much.

Think of the spirit of the rule: represent the sound of the synth. Distortion can turn any oscillator's input into a square wave. That makes your sound's contribution ratio 0:100 (synth:fx). Don't do that. But 85:15 is probably cool (although typically that 15% would be the sum contribution of all insert fx: compression, saturation, EQ, reverb, etc.). At least, that's my approach.

Another example is bitcrushers. Used blatantly, they create a distinct bitcrushed sound that is also 0% synth, 100% fx. Surprisingly, ppl have got away with that in OSC, when it fits the genre. So, you're probably safe anyway. Used sparingly though, bitcrusher can supposedly enhance cymbals etc. without masking the synth's character, which is why it isn't banned outright.

Another approach I take, to avoid DQ when I want to use actual distortion (beyond saturation), is to put the distortion effect on a Send channel and keep it's mix at least 6dbfs. This works well for me, but wouldn't suit every genre.

Frankly, with the regularity these discussions come up, I think the "don't go to 11" rule should be dropped: distortion is just plain allowed. I would vote down any track that turns it up to 11 anyway, because it'll sound so awful.

So we have guys that admit, they're using fx not allowed, we have had violations of submission limit dates...all that goes without further notice and stays uncommented and everybody shruggs off. But unusual voting scheme though covered by the rules...most inconsistent and hilariously unreliable community one can be part off...

Um no, did you actually read the rules? Under "Effects - what is allowed" "Distortion: Please use distortion / tape saturation / bit crushing sparingly. Use your best judgement. Try to keep the original sound recognizable."
I was describing my technical interpretation of sparingly, best judgement, etc. You're certainly not the only one to be confused about the distortion rules; this comes up nearly every month, and when I was a newb here I shied away from distortion entirely. On the other hand, I didn't whine about the rules on the forum or troll the vote...