KVR Audio

schiing · Post by **schiing** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 5:42 pm

Yup, thanks to HrastProgrammer!

At first sight this task seemed rather daunting to me for my second challenge, but it's turning out to be a smoooth synth once I got to know it a little. I love the sounds I'm getting from this thing. I was getting worried as my track is progressing, and with all the problems other users are having, that someone might stage a revolt - but it really is quite an excellent synth!

And it's a Challenge, right??? This is nothing compared to what synth programmers had to go through with fickle hardware and whatnot before 1980! I'm in luck, though - I haven't had any crashes yet.

mostlyjustj · Post by **mostlyjustj** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 6:22 pm

schiing wrote:Yup, thanks to HrastProgrammer!

At first sight this task seemed rather daunting to me for my second challenge, but it's turning out to be a smoooth synth once I got to know it a little.

Wow. Still finding this one rather opaque, haha

Gonna chip away at this for a while today, but so far I've found a lot of things about this synth baffle me! I believe it's called the One Synth *Challenge* so I guess I can't say I wasn't warned, haha

TheNeverScene · Post by **TheNeverScene** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:00 pm

I think it’s synths like these that push you to really explore what everything does. You have to crawl all over it just to get your first couple of basic patches going. The more you crawl, the more happy accidents, the more things come together. Diodow has a ton of capabilities going on under the hood. Sound design might take a little longer but i think it will be well worth the effort.

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:03 pm

TheNeverScene wrote:I think it’s synths like these that push you to really explore what everything does. You have to crawl all over it just to get your first couple of basic patches going. The more you crawl, the more happy accidents, the more things come together. Diodow has a ton of capabilities going on under the hood. Sound design might take a little longer but i think it will be well worth the effort.

Exactly. I've been working with this synth now for 19 days and I'm still finding new stuff. It's mother synth, Tranzistow, is a beast of a whole other order and will probably take me months to really get the hang of it.

If I could make some videos showing how to use this, I would. But for some reason, my Cubase, Voicemeter and Camtasia aren't playing nice together these days and I can't figure out what the problem is.

When I get it sorted, I'll have some tutorials posted.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:05 pm

wagtunes wrote:It's mother synth, Tranzistow, is a beast of a whole other order and will probably take me years to really get the hang of it.

Fixed that for ya

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:07 pm

EvilDragon wrote:
wagtunes wrote:It's mother synth, Tranzistow, is a beast of a whole other order and will probably take me years to really get the hang of it.
Fixed that for ya

Neh, I don't think so. Granted, it's a lot. But if you take it apart section by section, it's manageable.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:16 pm

Did you go through all the hidden pages? Double click the Patch/FX button, you're now in reverb tweaking matrix, which is huge. Alt-click it or right-click it to go to more hidden pages... This is happening on pretty much all the tabs on top. This thing is like a black hole.

TheNeverScene · Post by **TheNeverScene** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:17 pm

Frontline, great idea on the envelopes. A build your own sort of thing.

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:25 pm

EvilDragon wrote:Did you go through all the hidden pages? Double click the Patch/FX button, you're now in reverb tweaking matrix, which is huge. Alt-click it or right-click it to go to more hidden pages... This is happening on pretty much all the tabs on top. This thing is like a black hole.

Actually, yeah, I've gone through all the hidden pages. I've also discovered that, with some pages, when you go from one tab, say oscillators, to FX, and then back, you get the "other" page for that section. I notice this specifically with the filters where I have to keep clicking to get back to the screen with the envelope controls. Diodow behaves the same way. So you have to be very careful when switching tabs that you're actually where you think you are because many times you're not.

Confusing? Yeah, a bit. Especially when you're tired and not paying attention. But as long as you're aware of the behavior you'll at least know enough to just click on the tab again and you'll get to where you want to be. At age 60, I'm not as fast as I used to be and it does take me 30 minutes to an hour to create a patch for this thing using most of the functionality, but it's worth it. This is ALMOST like having an open ended modular with the exception that you still do have a limited number of oscillators and filters and stuff, but it's pretty close.

I don't remember the last time I had this much fun programming a synth. And as jaded as I've become with them at this point, that's saying a lot.

mostlyjustj · Post by **mostlyjustj** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:50 pm

TheNeverScene wrote:You have to crawl all over it just to get your first couple of basic patches going. The more you crawl, the more happy accidents, the more things come together. Diodow has a ton of capabilities going on under the hood.

Hahaha.... reading this, my mind just went straight to this song... Just replace all of the instances of "She" and "Her" with "Diodow":

TheNeverScene · Post by **TheNeverScene** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 8:07 pm

Ha! I think I'm gonna need some of what they've got.

I see now how tricky the patch saving can be and why a back up folder is a good idea...oopsie!

Guenon · Post by **Guenon** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 8:20 pm

schiing wrote:I was getting worried as my track is progressing, and with all the problems other users are having, that someone might stage a revolt - but it really is quite an excellent synth!

And it's a Challenge, right??? This is nothing compared to what synth programmers had to go through with fickle hardware and whatnot before 1980!

TheNeverScene wrote:I see now how tricky the patch saving can be and why a back up folder is a good idea...oopsie!

Hah, yepp. Again to recap, for anyone tuning in, the most important thing: in every individual instance of the synth, save the patch using a unique filename. Do this instead of having a bunch of "init" patches while you're editing -- or having otherwise identically named patches, in duplicated synth instances for example.

As long as you keep the names unique right off the bat, and save your changed patches (i.e. when ever you change a patch and wish to keep the changed version, save it as such), you're golden.

Remembering this, I haven't encountered any mixed patches or parameter weirdness all day at this end (using Live). Still keeping backups of a couple of generations of the patches, though, to be sure

. After getting used to that archaic type of patch handling, and using in-plugin MIDI CC assignments for parameter control, it's pretty much about exploring this thing and its character.

TheNeverScene · Post by **TheNeverScene** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 8:23 pm

I am going to come out of this MUCH SMARTEREST!!

Hmmm....I think I just named my tune. Should be a walk in the park from here on out.

Frostline · Post by **Frostline** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:09 pm

EvilDragon wrote:Did you go through all the hidden pages? Double click the Patch/FX button, you're now in reverb tweaking matrix, which is huge. Alt-click it or right-click it to go to more hidden pages... This is happening on pretty much all the tabs on top. This thing is like a black hole.

Are you sure you are referring to Diodow (which is what the contest is using)?

I see no Patch/FX button on any of the 4 tabs at the top of my version of Diodow or on any of the tab pages themselves both single and double clicked(and tried alt-clicking things as well).

I do see a Patch/FX tab on screenshots of the Tranzistow GUI though.

Was really excited about a reverb tweaking matrix, but can't seem to find one in Diodow yet.
Not claiming it is not there, just that I am having great difficulty finding it.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:18 pm

I was talking about Tranzistow there, sorry. All that stuff is Tranzistow only.

One Synth Challenge #108: Diodow by HrastProgrammer (Schiing Wins!)