MSoundfactory design thread

[nichttuntun]

@grump,
I dont´t know about what we are really talking about, unless we talk about it. You said a lot about dots in brackets and I think that doesn´t support your questions either.

To be honest, I´m old and so I just clicked the wrong "reply"-buttom. My first answer should refer to "bmanic"

[GRUMP]

@grump,
I dont´t know about what we are really talking about, unless we talk about it. You said a lot about dots in brackets and I think that doesn´t support your questions either.

To be honest, I´m old and so I just clicked the wrong "reply"-buttom. My first answer should refer to "bmanic"

I thought so. You are old and I hope wise - can you Tell me why Threads about MSF are chronically confusing? There's usually something wrong and no Informations insides

[Chandlerhimself]

Perhaps we need a new thread. This one is a bit too long and it's hard for people to find the info they need.

[nichttuntun]

@grump,
I dont´t know about what we are really talking about, unless we talk about it. You said a lot about dots in brackets and I think that doesn´t support your questions either.

To be honest, I´m old and so I just clicked the wrong "reply"-buttom. My first answer should refer to "bmanic"

I thought so. You are old and I hope wise - can you Tell me why Threads about MSF are chronically confusing? There's usually something wrong and no Informations insides

Do you think this is the case generally?

If it should really be the case it maybe like this because MSF is one of the deepest and most versatile system at the moment and I think it could be because it's capabilities and structure is can be overwhelming people.

[GRUMP]

@grump,
I dont´t know about what we are really talking about, unless we talk about it. You said a lot about dots in brackets and I think that doesn´t support your questions either.

To be honest, I´m old and so I just clicked the wrong "reply"-buttom. My first answer should refer to "bmanic"

I thought so. You are old and I hope wise - can you Tell me why Threads about MSF are chronically confusing? There's usually something wrong and no Informations insides

Do you think this is the case generally?

If it should really be the case it maybe like this because MSF is one of the deepest and most versatile system at the moment and I think it could be because it's capabilities and structure is can be overwhelming people.

Hmmm ... I don´t really know. Again. But it sometimes seems so!°

And yes - that may be. Many Possibilities with MSF. I like. But what I like most is the quick Results I get and their brilliant Sound. I´m far off that typical "Listen to this - it´s XYZ with WXY via VWX". The Result is usually some Kind of (maybe even more stinky or wet) Fart anyway

[werzel]

Perhaps we need a new thread. This one is a bit too long and it's hard for people to find the info they need.

I'd actually like to see each plugin get it's own section (doubtful), or at least give MSF its very own.

[ralfrobert]

Or section for GUI, effects, generators, patches, general features within MSF. Just an idea.

[bmanic]

I still disagree. I don't think the "front panel" thing of MSF is ideal for building a complete synth and then letting users create presets or browse presets for this. This is where Reaktor does things better and is much more flexible.

I think MSF would work much better as an universal overall "preset mega factory" system where the front panel instead has a few well selected controls that modify specific parameters of the intended macro preset. Sort of how other synths with their 8 or more basic macro controls work, for instance like Alchemy or the smart controls in Logic for multi-presets (synth presets that consist of many layers of various plugin synths).

If the idea would be "build a complete synth" with the inner workings then we'd need a bit more low level control than is currently available.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like MSF isn't capable of arranging a bunch of modules and then calling it a unique "synth" of it's own on the front panel, but I don't think it's optimal way of working with it nor the optimal way of selling stuff and building a market. I still think it's much more optimized for traditional preset thinking. A preset being an overall vibe of a sound with well thought out controls for controlling specific parameters.

This is why I think the default templates aren't optimal at all because they allow the user to have tons of effects controls, most turned off by default and not all that smartly assigned ranges, for every single sound. It's not graphically nor user interface like thought out well enough. It's a bit random lego block like and not slick nor intuitive.

We shouldn´t forget that it´s currently 14.04 BETA Version and rapidly developing.

And what you say about "Presets Thinking" is maybe not wrong - but I´d say this a little bit different: MSF enables you to build "Presets" that really compare to the ones in the World of black Boxes with Keys. Quickly. I´d not say that you can really do that with Reaktor. Or let´s better say: you surely can. But you´ll waste thousands of Clicks for maybe! the same Thing.

And it offers all the Opportunities you need to make a "Sound Family" usable. That "Super Saw" Thing for example is simply a meaningful Selection of Options for this certain Type of Sound. Me personally I like the Approach Melda has chosen very much. In front of the Background of my Targets, Workflow and Philosophy (KISS) it seems "systematic" to me and is surely helpful for creating an own Style & Sound.

MSF is made to discover a vast universe of sound, created by yourself! Simon said "an empty canvas is your friend here". That can´t be more true. If you stick to this philosophy inside MSF you´ll always come out with something new and exiting. Who would use such an "endless" system for a super-saw or other cliched and generic sounds anyway?

Looks like nobody actually understood my post (probably including Vojtech).

The current thinking, based on Vojtechs specifications and the default templates, MSF is intended to build "complete" sound systems with a ton of user tweakable elements. This increases development "cost" and complexity for the process and also runs the risk of "feeling generic" as people will then be lazy and just use the default template over and over again (one of Melda's biggest critiques is that it's all rather vanilla and generic feeling, no matter how complex it's truly under the surface).

What I was trying to say:

I think it's smarter to sell "macro presets" instead. Where every single front panel MSF "preset" is a contained sound with carefully thought out controls that are within sensible bounds for the preset in question. This way the user knows from immediately playing the preset what it is intended for. A pad will mainly be a pad and all the built-in "mini presets" are just variations on the theme. A pluck will still be a pluck most of the time, no matter how you tweak the included controls. There's no need for every "macro preset" to have a Reverb, Chorus, Phaser, Flanger, Delay, Filter, Compressor etc effects included. Only the ones that make sense for the preset and a few utility FX like EQ and compression.

This would cut down on cost of developing unique "macro preset" banks and could be easily sold in sets of 64 or 128. Try creating and selling 128 "synths" with 32 to 64 "presets" within them. As you see, it becomes very silly very quickly.

"Macro presets" would also be much easier to categorize and easier for the potential customers to sort through in the browser and actually use for music creation.

Bigger, more complex, more options, is definitely not at all always better.. and most definitely not for the masses. Every single hugely successful synth out there has sold well because of two things: Ease of use (which does NOT mean it's simplistic!) and amazing presets + possibility of buying a large library of more presets for it.

Look at Massive from NI. It became huge because of exactly these things. The row of 8 macro knobs, right at the front of the preset browser makes it immediately highly tweakable yet very easy to use for the vast majority of people. Yet the synthesizer itself is complex and capable, which in turn caters for the sound designer. This then created a HUGE ecosystem of people selling sound banks for it and it basically created a whole genre.

Same goes for Nexus and the like. It became so successful due to the inherent capability of the synth engine itself, which is only accessible by the sound programmers, yet the extreme ease of use and massive amount of presets sold in various categories.

MSF could easily be an extremely capable Nexus type of thing, but one that is more focused and can be much more personal as each sound designer could keep the parameters unique for each preset, thus giving proper flavor to each sound bank.

[David]

That's certainly a much clearer explanation of your original point, for me anyway—thanks!

But how could any device in MSF, macro or otherwise, ever offer access to the full complex capabilities of the synth/FX engines, in the same way that, eg., Massive's simple interface is a doorway to the whole thing? A central feature of the Easy Screen, esp. for the not-full versions of MSF, is to NOT allow access to every feature users of the full version can access in Edit Mode.

And since devices can't be combined except in Edit mode's FX grid, how could you, for instance, separate generator macros from FX macros, offering, for example, users who are happy with some particular sound maker access to their own choice of FX? No doubt that's part of the logic behind having a standardized FX tab in the current template.

[MeldaProduction]

You can certainly create just these macro presets, but the whole idea is that you can do more. Kontakt is also successful, and the instruments there are much more complex usually. The main point is, that unlike Massive, which is just a one type of synth, MSoundFactory is modular, so the "internal stuff" may be very complex, or very simple, either way it would require the user to first understand all that stuff. So the potentially very complex easy screen can be a proxy to that and in a way you can build any kind of instrument in it. The "template" just defines the Globals, which are good to be preserved, for ease of use. The rest of it are just predefined effects and these are implemented just to speed up instrument development. You can destroy all of them, or some of them, or just start with the "Minimal template" in the first place, which just defines the Globals.

Just in case it has been missed by some of you

[David]

I think it'd be handy, and certainly less potentially confusing, to have separate MSF Design threads, at least one each for:
A: Full-version users who want to explore the endless potentials of device design for their own pleasures and unique desires, and…
B: Anyone wanting to design devices—for free or sale—for not-full-version users, to help create the "massive" buzz MSF certainly has the potential to gain amongst "most" users.

The main challenge in either case will, I think, be to find enough willing, interested, and well informed posters and commenters to keep these threads active!

[nichttuntun]

Hi. I just don't want to interrupt too much. I just want to describe my perspective towards MSF. Not having the perspective of a developer or a company providing soundpacks or programming synths- or sample library instruments, brought me here.

For cool sample instruments I use Halion and I got so many hardware and software synths that I in fact don't need another small or bigger "synth" on top of a vast system like MSF.

I don't like to be limited by a system and want to use all kind of multiple modulations without boundaries, want to integrate my own field recordings, want to use granular and samples and combine them together with many more sound producing modules, modulators and synthesis forms plus re-synthesis, as well as all kinds of wave manipulators, physical modeling and more.

Loving to build everything from scratch, so the outcome is unique, surprising and different each time, my choice for MSF was very easy.

Exactly for that freedom, including the freedom of protection mechanisms Vojtech established, I love MSF. I already know I'll never will make an instrument within MSF, I don't have any use for that. My world of sound lives within the modules grid and I tweak and invent things from there for fitting them into a composition context. I do some macro buttons for the front panel, making it easier to automate in the DAW. That's all.

I hope MSF isn't becoming a pure sales platform for 3rd party programmers one of day. I truly hope, in its original core, MSF will always be the open minded sound researchers wet dream and it will get better and even more huge as it is today. It is in need of a very good and non-latency granular sampler-module for example. And I wish for real analog behaving modeled filters like ladder, SEM, the 3 ARP Oddisey filters, a Parker-Steiner or a MS-20 style filter and so on. Add analog modeled filter self oscillation and convincing filter FM on top and I will be in sound heaven

I can imagine that it's teasing for some people to program cool MSF synthesizer-systems with fancy panels for sharing and selling them. I didn't find a reason to limit myself within the walls of such a micro system, when I can play and explore regions within a whole universe. Yes, my best friend in MSF is the empty grid, which I compare with an empty writers page or an empty painters linen.

May the module be with you.

Have joy and be sound and happy modulation.

[missjan]

This

[David]

I've no doubt what you describe, nichttuntun, is exactly what most who love MSF love about it, too!

I'm certainly with you, too, but I've also no doubt that bmanic is spot on with this:

Bigger, more complex, more options, is definitely not at all always better.. and most definitely not for the masses. Every single hugely successful synth out there has sold well because of two things: Ease of use (which does NOT mean it's simplistic!) and amazing presets + possibility of buying a large library of more presets for it.

MSF is definitely at or near the top in the "bigger, more complex, more options" category as well as in the "blank canvas" category, but it's hardly at all easy to use with a large library of amazing presets with many more available all the time from many sound designers.

Hopefully, there will be more designers like Simon Stockhausen who create global presets for edit-mode users, though I so far only know of 2 others…but I wonder how well these guys are doing with their patch sales, since as a "blank-canvas, DIY" sort like you myself, who thinks bigger and more complex is definitely better, or at least as fascinating as having lots of immediately available great sounds, as with eg. Omnisphere, I'm not really all that eager to buy other people's MSF global-preset patches. I'd love to hear them, but I want to tweak any patches by others I find in any synth, and edit mode even for already-made patches doesn't exactly wear its powers on its sleeves for easy, quick access, nor do global presets feel, to me anyway, as easy and quick to run through as the presets in most other synths…

As far as I can tell, I'm also in an even smaller group of MSF users, as well:

A: Full-version users who want to explore the endless potentials of device design for their own pleasures and unique desires.

IOW, those who are interested in designing Devices for it, and have read this thread through many times over, AND watched all the official and chandler videos on device design, AND have made quite a lot of devices already. The unique powers devices offer that I particularly appreciate (as I've described in several previous posts right here) grabbed me right away with MSF, and they have kept me interested ever since…but I have yet to see any great flowering of other devices, or heard any rumblings from any growing masses of similarly enthralled device makers! This thread alone until just recently has been like an abandoned factory for many months:)

What I fervently hope for, and think will be absolutely necessary for MSF to ever flourish with the "masses" of "most users" who only want quick results with a bunch of already created great sounds, will be even one great device that pulls together both many of MSF's great and unique sound potentials and is easy to save new presets for, so that the masses can look no further, and feel that MSF's potential has already been realized. In short, MSF needs to have at least one [even mini-]Massive already inside it!

I still don't really get bmanic's vision of a bunch of sort of upper-level, easier to use modules or macros, since I can't see how these would ever be easy to combine together to create new sounds with, for users who don't want to use, or don't have access to, edit mode, or how even a lot of them would ever be very compelling without the possibility to regroup them into something more personal, or could ever really give the feeling of access to MSF's truly unique versatility and depth. Altho in another sense you might argue that the existing devices are already good examples of this idea.

But I hope he's right, and/or that he or some others can give that idea a good workout, or that the great device-genius will appear. It'd be a great shame if the fantastic potential of MSF remains only appreciated by the likes of…well, me! I've never been a good example of what the "masses" will like. In MY experience, in SO many areas, anything that I truly love and can buy, will surely be discontinued sooner rather than later, in favor of other things that I didn't really like at all!

[nichttuntun]

"I've never been a good example of what the "masses" will like."

David, that could be me as well. It began in early childhood days, when I listened to the cool records of the much older sons of my parents friends. I was "spoiled" forever and never could go back fully to commercial.

"Bigger, more complex, more options, is definitely not at all always better.."

Of course not, that´s why I love M-TronPro VST so much or synth like my Hardware MS-20, Doepfer MS404, Juno106, Waldorf Pulse1, Casio CZ series and many many more. BUT they all are so much limited and then I tend to go for MSF, Avenger, Biotek2, Waverazor, Zebra and the likes. The above quote isn´t made for sound explorers. I can´t answer the question why a common EDM supersaw-sound user should use MSF anyway. It seems clear to me, that this system is made for "the other guys" Of course it can get a great sales platform for Melda too and I do hope they make a fortune out of that, so there always will be enough resources to build MSF up more

Happy modulating.