One Synth Challenge #95: HY-Mono by HY-Plugins / hyakken (Carl_saved wins!!!)

[Taron]

Oh man, BJ, hahaha, this is really why I didn't push mine forward, yet, because I'd honestly understand it, when people get frustrated. It's really one thing, if it's some compatibility issues, that's really super unfortunate, but when there are a certain amount of fundamental flaws against a certain amount of features and the ratio is off by a wee bit too much, it's tough to manage the "sandwich" skills... I really am afraid of that, but not so much for myself, but for the possibility I might do that to all of us, if my synth cause that kind of discomfort.

Let's make a quick sandwich, because everybody deserves one:
- The GUI is brilliant! I love that he found a solution for the scaling and wished he would share his "trick", hehe!
- ...(thinking)...AH, yes, I like that he made the delay time change flaw a feature, which I almost did, too... that's sweet and not as easy as one might think!
- ...(thinking harder now)... Eh...maybe the SAW<>PULSE is a nice touch, yeah. But it's hard to compliment oscillators that end up south of the DC mean.

Here comes the meat:
- oscillator DC offset
- modulation is next to entirely useless
- somehow can't keep automation? (Should be a fairly easy to find coding flaw, unless he was using some weird as platform/environment to put this together?!)
- choice between frequency and pw modulation is dreadful, never would I do that!
- retrigger doesn't work
- GUI may change design by surprise, which I thought was entertaining...anybody else had that? Sudden change in fonts and such, hehehe (maybe that's not a flaw?! Haha)
- at this point it's almost redundant to list more troubles, but I also can't think of much more off the top of my head

Now the sandwich needs the bun on top:
- The GUI is great! (sorry ) ...no, the simplicity of it is promising, even if I don't like certain choices, but it would be quite good, if it didn't have the current troubles. He's got every reason to resume his work on it and a great chance to learn something from all of this, which should truly benefit him!

[bjporter]

It's hard for some people to criticize something constructively after being frustrated, or maybe disappointed at the chosen monthly synth. Unfortunately though in the past year I found out we'd scared off some synth devs and they didn't come back. Some of these guys spend hours upon hours coding, and there were harsh comments about their work, so hopefully we can change the tone, and be an inspiring influence

[.jon]

He seems to be really nice guy, very responsive normally in his thread over in the Effects forum, no need to be rude. I think he's maybe just more focused on his FX plugins, which are really nice imho.

[Taron]

I can imagine it's a walk on a tightrope for you, bj, always having to surprise the gang with a choice each month that is more or less "new" to the majority. Maybe for those of us, who tend to get heated in such cases, it would be a good idea to become conscious of the challenge this is to you, too. We have every reason in the world to always be utterly grateful about what you're doing and should be happy to take a chance together with you on these synths. On cases like this one I do have to remind myself of that, too, but I happily do so right now.

And, yeah, I remembered that there were some really nice HY plugins, as much as I remember not having been too thrilled about his synth then with a mild disappointment. But there are companies, who only create effect plugins and would never dare to venture off into the scary lands of DSP sources rather than treatments, so to say, hehe. It's a different beast altogether!

I sincerely hope, he can find the energy and desire to jump in as soon as he can, if he has the time, to have a look at some of those issues above. It's a hardcore beta/alpha group that will be the most outspoken source for feedback imaginable... "no mercy" can be a good thing sometimes, I imagine, as long as he understands that we do truly appreciate that he's creating a new instrument for all of us!

[bjporter]

Maybe for those of us, who tend to get heated in such cases, it would be a good idea to become conscious of the challenge this is to you, too.

Thank you! I'm really thinking of the devs though, I'm totally fine. Every synth will have a lover and a hater, and some a lot of haters, but it's always a challenge

[Cruba]

Some options are not working as they should,that's my main problem and speaking about a monosynth with less possibilities, it's a hard cut when from less possibilities additionally things don't work.

It's ok for now. My biggest problem is still the bassdrum and all in all when I compare the hm let's call it "power" it feels like the synth sounds way too thin. Can't descripe it better, but when I try to spice things up, I get clicks, pops and sounds start to distort.

Just what I noticed, maybe I'm totally wrong or just can't handle the synth.

[WYG_E]

Some of these guys spend hours upon hours coding

Then they give us their work for free! Some thing we shouldn't forget or take for granted.
The nature of this contest is something of a stress test for these plugins, stretching them to their limits.
Yes, this one could use some more work, but Synth1 is a hard act to follow.

Those clicks though...
But I like the randomize feature!

[WYG_E]

I'm going to see if this makes a difference with the clicking;

https://www.wiregrind.com/doffset

[bjporter]

Just what I noticed, maybe I'm totally wrong or just can't handle the synth.

You're not wrong, it's just part of the challenge

[WYG_E]

I'm going to see if this makes a difference with the clicking;

https://www.wiregrind.com/doffset

Nope.

[objectman]

Very inspirational way to procrastinate. I'm going out on a limb here but as someone pointed out - a lot of man hours are invested developing VSTs. Sometimes more hours are spent making tunes than developing the synth, but can I say this

ALL OSC SYNTHS ARE GREAT

This competition is the most supreme of all work procrastinations.

Here I am, during "office hours", uploading a fourth version of my entry into the OSC. I don't expect to win. I came 3rd once. But hey - I just snagged a really good harmonic ending to the piece just submitted that I'm happy with - even after extending the solipsistic musical "reprieve" at the beginning.

It might be a bit clunky, but I love the 1970 electric hum of this synth. It reminds me so much of early Tangerine Dream. Moogy stuff. I just went with the mono-ness of it (because I don't know enough to do otherwise).

Now that I'm a lot happier with the track (it's a very annoying 6+ minutes) I sort of get what Tangerine Dream were doing with their loooong melodic sequences interspersed with no-mans-land musical gaps providing an opportunity to "solo" the sounds you like.

Normally I'd go for the bass, mid and usual sound preset suspects and then tweak them a little. But I couldn't get that working here (I'm sure he'll fix this and other clicky things in time). I just hit randomize and saved the resulting sounds I liked as armed tracks. And then just used my typewriter keyboard to play the notes.

MY 2c. As you were. *cough*

I'll get me coat...

[Cruba]

Some of these guys spend hours upon hours coding

Then they give us their work for free! Some thing we shouldn't forget or take for granted.
The nature of this contest is something of a stress test for these plugins, stretching them to their limits.
Yes, this one could use some more work, but Synth1 is a hard act to follow.

Those clicks though...
But I like the randomize feature!

You know how rand feature works? I'm way too dumb, just see the checkboxes...

[RichardSemper]

You know how rand feature works? I'm way too dumb, just see the checkboxes...

The randomise option is activated from the preset selection drop-down menu. The checkboxes are for selection of which parameters will be randomised.

[Paree]

The synth is very good. My only problem is that the presets get initialized each time i start the project.
However, it can be minimized by freezing tracks.
I've decided to make drumstep/Drum N Bass with this thingy.

[RichardSemper]

Thanks to the Dev for offering the results of his hard work for free
I downloaded this synth along with all the other Fx from his website (I wish we could use those effects in the OSC without breaking the rules - there's some wonderful creative possibilities with delays, filter, tremelo, chorus etc.) The interfaces and modulation options are all Great, the workflow is easy and fun!

I tried them all in cubase 7.5, and while all the effects work fine the synth has glitching problems. When the synth is loaded random spikes occur in sound engine/cpu, even when no sound is being played. These happen every few seconds, often accompanied by clicks and scratchy noises. This makes the synth practically unusable in this environment.

Mulab to the rescue - The synth works fine in mulab, several instances running and no glitches or spikes at all! This is fine because I much prefer to use mulab anyway

A quick assessment - this synth does have some interesting possibilities, with the built in modulatable delay, and randomisation features. The sound overall is good, making this a characterful monosynth.
Unfortunately the envelopes let it down. It is very hard to get a sharp transient, so acoustic and percussive sounds are pretty much off the menu (of course it may be possible to get around this with automation, stacking, transient shapers and other trickery) Perhaps the stages are linear when logarithmic might be better? (I don't know really, never designed a synth myself). Also the filter does not appear to go the full range. And of course, we all always want more modulation options

Its good to have a more limited synth in OSC, it is after all a 'challenge'. Will be interesting to see what comes out of this.