Any FM in u-he's future?

[Urs]

Hmmmm... too early to be into any NDA's I'm thinkin', but THIS guy: would be my (personal) wet-dream to see you get involved with...

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... sc&start=0

Yeah, that's pretty interesting. As impressive as it looks, I'm curious to see if I can bond with... (as I posted elsewhere, I'm too dumb for freeform modular environments)

Urs

[Shabdahbriah]

Hmmmm... too early to be into any NDA's I'm thinkin', but THIS guy: would be my (personal) wet-dream to see you get involved with...

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... sc&start=0

Yeah, that's pretty interesting. As impressive as it looks, I'm curious to see if I can bond with... (as I posted elsewhere, I'm too dumb for freeform modular environments)

Urs

Yeah, I can relate to that, at least from the standpoint of never having used "automation", which is one of this apps strengths. I move 'controller' knobs/sliders in real-time... sooo there could be a serious learning curve for me, to be sure.

Regardless - isn't IT just COOL!!!

[hakey]

I don't think any suggestion is even close though

In that case I give up.

[Urs]

I don't think any suggestion is even close though

In that case I give up.

No worries. I'll let you know.

[standalone]

There is no mistery really. It will be a new free 7000 presets bank for Zebra kindly donated by Elhardt.

Full classic and baroque orchestras included.

[xh3rv]

There is no mistery really. It will be a new free 7000 presets bank for Zebra kindly donated by Elhardt.

Full classic and baroque orchestras included.

Sometimes restoration of old paintings involves filling in areas where the paint has been taken away. When this is done well, it's clear if you focus on it but the real technique is making the touch-ups fade away when going over the original work.

I keep thinking about that thread. I feel like the discussion with Elhardt in that other thread was actually pretty relevant. The critique Elhardt had of the way synthesis is done was at least worth hearing. Actually working with synthesis from his perspective of being as uncompromising as possible has merit. Although, I think conflict that arose in that thread ... it's not *exclusively* the only way to use a synth with merit.

One thing that keeps bugging me (enough to post now ...) is people accused him of using samples - if the goal is complete authenticity, one might wish to be accused of using the real thing. Samples have plenty of baggage. There's just so much in idiosyncratic articulation with the 'real' thing, though, I think ultimately that may be more difficult than the abilities of synths to produce the sounds, especially when trying to achieve some kind of virtuosity. That's a criticism of samples as well. I think synths can do their own thing but 1-to-1 matching the real thing is limited, has to be very carefully constructed case by case and note by note - not always worth it!

Sort of really feel like plugging Michael Kastrup's stuff in this light, a good number of patches he's done for Diva and Zebra have the restoration sensibility - it sounds right in context, but reduced of details that clash with artistic articulations of the 'real' thing.

I feel better now

[hakey]

My favourite bit was where Elhardt said that Zebra's limited module count was too restrictive for synthesizing realistic timbres, then complained that synths that implement Karplus-Strong (like Zebra) make synthesizing realistic timbres too easy!

In other words, it's not about the end result, it's about showing off!

[Rimwolf]

OK, now I'm curious to see this discussion. Who is Elhardt? What thread?

[pdxindy]

My favourite bit was where Elhardt said that Zebra's limited module count was too restrictive for synthesizing realistic timbres, then complained that synths that implement Karplus-Strong (like Zebra) make synthesizing realistic timbres too easy!

In other words, it's not about the end result, it's about showing off!

He didn't build his own computer from the soil himself, or develop the coding language, the OS or the software he is using. A real man would do those things of course as well as building the generator to produce the electricity... then there is the fuel...

[hakey]

He didn't build his own computer from the soil himself, or develop the coding language, the OS or the software he is using. A real man would do those things of course as well as building the generator to produce the electricity... then there is the fuel...

True

[Urs]

OK, now I'm curious to see this discussion. Who is Elhardt? What thread?

Don't worry. It was a thread about Hans Zimmer saying "Inception is 99% Zebra" going out of hand by the doubt of some opinionated sceptics. The insulting bits have been removed from the thread, so it's basically all gone.

[hakey]

The removed section ended up here.

[KBSoundSmith]

The removed section ended up here.

Well, that was a strange pissing contest. It's the type of position as displayed by Elhardt that solidified my decision not to go for a doctorate. You can't study music and synthesis at school without some academic schmuck telling you that you can ONLY use Max/Csound/Supercollider/physically-build-your-instrument to be considered legitimate. Not interested in seven more years of that bs; I'm a musician first, a pseudo-scientist second (or something like that..?..).

Honestly, if you have the time to program a 1000+ oscillator and filter bank, with each band going through it's own dynamics and effects processing in Csound, just to produce a 5 second sample which is then going to be used as the basis for your granular algorithm which requires a python script to generate 20,000+ lines of Csound code to generate another 5 seconds of audio (I'm not making shit up), then you clearly are not (and never will be) responsible for ever achieving any real-world results which other people are going to rely on. You are, at best, a musical hobbyist. So go outside, pet a dog, take a deep breath, and then go back inside and realize your time is probably better spent on other things.

[Rimwolf]

Honestly, if you have the time to program a 1000+ oscillator and filter bank, with each band going through it's own dynamics and effects processing in Csound, just to produce a 5 second sample which is then going to be used as the basis for your granular algorithm which requires a python script to generate 20,000+ lines of Csound code to generate another 5 seconds of audio (I'm not making shit up) ...

And honestly, most of us who consider ourselves musicians don't have that kind of time. One of the attractions of FM synthesis is that you can get a wide variety of musically useful timbres and timbral modulations with a relatively small number of parameters and modulators. And of course it's one of the attractions of the standard subtractive setup. I think a challenge in synth design is to provide that "power per parameter" for other synthesis techniques. The Zebra oscillators, for instance, offer a very usable interface for additive synthesis.

[KBSoundSmith]

Honestly, if you have the time to program a 1000+ oscillator and filter bank, with each band going through it's own dynamics and effects processing in Csound, just to produce a 5 second sample which is then going to be used as the basis for your granular algorithm which requires a python script to generate 20,000+ lines of Csound code to generate another 5 seconds of audio (I'm not making shit up) ...

And honestly, most of us who consider ourselves musicians don't have that kind of time. One of the attractions of FM synthesis is that you can get a wide variety of musically useful timbres and timbral modulations with a relatively small number of parameters and modulators. And of course it's one of the attractions of the standard subtractive setup. I think a challenge in synth design is to provide that "power per parameter" for other synthesis techniques. The Zebra oscillators, for instance, offer a very usable interface for additive synthesis.

Huge agreement there. It's one of the many reasons why I have come to love zebra: the ability to quickly get great results without a ton of fussy programming. It really has the right balance of features and power. In fact, to use Diva as an example, one of the reasons why I've learned to treasure u-he synths is the design philosophy; with Diva, there's just enough modules to get varied results, but that largely restricted architecture, combined with Diva's modification and trimmers tabs, produces a lot of friction that forces you to be creative with the instrument in order to get the results you want.

Anyway, the actual topic is FM, right? Yay, FM!