One Synth Challenge #155: Any One Synth (Photonic Wins!)

[ElVincente]

Hi !

Here's my submission :
https://soundcloud.com/user-637213504/p ... al_sharing

It's made with AudioNebula's Aurora FM synth witch is a great 6 operator fm synth.
It's again built around improvised performance, I played a lot with my Launchpad poly after-touch. Hope you enjoy it !

21 aurora instances
Bitwigs devices and some external fx :
Apqualizer2
SDRR2
MTurboReverb
MWaveShaper
MAutodynamicEQ
Vahlalla Delay
TDR limiter6

[jemaudio]

Hello everyone,

Finally finished my track. This month something different... using Super 8 from NI and a combination of commercial and free 3rd party plugins -- plus some creativity

Hoping you enjoy it!

EDIT: Made some corrections in the mix and uploaded a new file on January 30, 2022.

https://soundcloud.com/jemaudio2/jemaud ... al_sharing

Made in Reaper 6.37 with 38 instances of Native Instruments Super 8 and the following FX.

Reaper Stock FX:
ReaComp, ReaEQ, ReaGate Transient Controller, Stereo Width, ReaLimit, ReaDelay, Stereo Width, Volume Adjustment, MIDI Arpeggiator, Nostalgizer, Droplets, Butterworth 4-Pole Filter

3rd party FX:
D16 Frontier
Nitsuj ReEQ
lkjb: ReFine
Airwindows: Autopan, Compresaturator, ZBandpass, ToTape6, CStrip
Klanghelm IVGI2
TDR Nova, Limiter 6 GE, Kotelnikov
ZEEK STFU
Xfer OTT
Valhalla Supermassive, VintageVerb, FreqEcho
Softube: Tape, Dirty Tape
BlueARP
Dragonfly: Room Reverb, Hall Reverb

Analyzers:
Voxengo SPAN
Youlean Loudness Meter 2
Goniometer

[kylebenjamin]

...some synths don't give consistent perc (or other things potentially), but maybe we need to live with that, and accept "less than perfect" sounds from some synths?

No 'maybe' needed there. These challenges are all about that sort of limitations. aren't they ? Not about squeezing one's preferred sound out of any synth by any means. Hence the rules being what they are. Makes perfect sense. To me, anyway.

A little late to the party here, but this is an interesting discussion. So, I'm using a hardware synth (Behringer Model D). My sense is that if I were to record a couple layers for a kick (a sub and a transient, let's say), that *every* hit of that kick would have to be recorded directly from the synth (i.e. no copying/pasting whatsoever). In a sense, it all would have to be done live (midi or no midi). Do we agree?

This poses an interesting dilemma (which I recognize as being part of the fun). Suppose an 8th note high-hat pattern is recorded live from the hardware synth. If you wanted to change that high-hat pattern to 16th notes, you'd have to go back in and record the extra notes live as well. Correct?

[IV!]

...some synths don't give consistent perc (or other things potentially), but maybe we need to live with that, and accept "less than perfect" sounds from some synths?

No 'maybe' needed there. These challenges are all about that sort of limitations. aren't they ? Not about squeezing one's preferred sound out of any synth by any means. Hence the rules being what they are. Makes perfect sense. To me, anyway.

A little late to the party here, but this is an interesting discussion. So, I'm using a hardware synth (Behringer Model D). My sense is that if I were to record a couple layers for a kick (a sub and a transient, let's say), that *every* hit of that kick would have to be recorded directly from the synth (i.e. no copying/pasting whatsoever). In a sense, it all would have to be done live (midi or no midi). Do we agree?

This poses an interesting dilemma (which I recognize as being part of the fun). Suppose an 8th note high-hat pattern is recorded live from the hardware synth. If you wanted to change that high-hat pattern to 16th notes, you'd have to go back in and record the extra notes live as well. Correct?

Well, yes, you will either need to write down the missing notes between the eighths, or re-record the entire track with the sixteenth. And at the same time, do not forget to be grateful to progress for the fact that for this you do not need to erase/re-record the tape in the cassette and that you have an editor window where you can match tracks with each other up to milliseconds and use midi tracks for evenness, and not re-record the entire batch because of every mistake!) These are the features of working with hardware and for this reason I especially appreciate such submissions, this is a special approach, somewhat more difficult than working with VST

[FrankH]

Here is my track for this month. The anysynth month means I will start five projects and live in the mutable dilemma and decide what to post. I decided to finish a track I started for the TAL NM month.

https://soundcloud.com/user-194933727/f ... al_sharing

Synth: Tal Noise Maker
DAW: Studio One
Tracks: 9
Plugins: Fat Channel, MSpectral Pan, Beat Delay, Binaural Pan, Klanghelm IVGI2, Limiter

BX_MasterDesk
iK Multimedia Stealth Limiter

[kylebenjamin]

...some synths don't give consistent perc (or other things potentially), but maybe we need to live with that, and accept "less than perfect" sounds from some synths?

No 'maybe' needed there. These challenges are all about that sort of limitations. aren't they ? Not about squeezing one's preferred sound out of any synth by any means. Hence the rules being what they are. Makes perfect sense. To me, anyway.

A little late to the party here, but this is an interesting discussion. So, I'm using a hardware synth (Behringer Model D). My sense is that if I were to record a couple layers for a kick (a sub and a transient, let's say), that *every* hit of that kick would have to be recorded directly from the synth (i.e. no copying/pasting whatsoever). In a sense, it all would have to be done live (midi or no midi). Do we agree?

This poses an interesting dilemma (which I recognize as being part of the fun). Suppose an 8th note high-hat pattern is recorded live from the hardware synth. If you wanted to change that high-hat pattern to 16th notes, you'd have to go back in and record the extra notes live as well. Correct?

Well, yes, you will either need to write down the missing notes between the eighths, or re-record the entire track with the sixteenth. And at the same time, do not forget to be grateful to progress for the fact that for this you do not need to erase/re-record the tape in the cassette and that you have an editor window where you can match tracks with each other up to milliseconds and use midi tracks for evenness, and not re-record the entire batch because of every mistake!) These are the features of working with hardware and for this reason I especially appreciate such submissions, this is a special approach, somewhat more difficult than working with VST

Well said. Having started out decades ago recording on a cassette 4-track, I've certainly come to take for granted the fact that we can do nearly anything now with just a computer. As for the hardware stuff, thanks for your insights. I think you're definitely right. As for me, looks like it's time for a last minute ambient track!

[shiihs]

I found out about this challenge yesterday and spent the day creating a track "Bright Night" with free and open source synthesizer Yoshimi. Yoshimi produces all sounds in this track in a single pass using 6 parts out of 16 available. No external effects are used.

https://soundcloud.com/stefaanhimpe/bright-night

Have fun!

[IV!]

I found out about this challenge yesterday and spent the day creating a track "Bright Night" with free and open source synthesizer Yoshimi. Yoshimi produces all sounds in this track in a single pass using 6 parts out of 16 available. No external effects are used.

https://soundcloud.com/stefaanhimpe/bright-night

Have fun!

A very beautiful track, and the second one here, made with Yoshimi, wow!) As I understand it, this is an upgraded ZynAddSubFX for Linux, which allows you to use up to 16 parts at the same time, including drums. But is the percussion part just synthesis or samples? Because the second variant does not satisfy the rules.

[folderol]

The drums are done by synthesis, probably the same set that I used - they really are very good. Yoshimi actually has 64 part capability (in certain combinations).
P.S.
The only reason Yoshimi is restricted to Linux is that we don't have any developers on-board for the other platforms - Volunteers would be welcome!

[IV!]

The drums are done by synthesis, probably the same set that I used - they really are very good. Yoshimi actually has 64 part capability (in certain combinations).
P.S.
The only reason Yoshimi is restricted to Linux is that we don't have any developers on-board for the other platforms - Volunteers would be welcome!

Ah, then everything is fine, and these are really good drums! I hope that Yoshimi will find a way to other platforms (at least on Windows ), I'm not a developer, but a big fan of the unfairly forgotten ZynAddSubFX!

[ELEX]

Well said. Having started out decades ago recording on a cassette 4-track, I've certainly come to take for granted the fact that we can do nearly anything now with just a computer. As for the hardware stuff, thanks for your insights. I think you're definitely right. As for me, looks like it's time for a last minute ambient track!

Well, I'm certainly not taking anything for granted anymore. Had a go with the Behringer 2600 myself, and got my butt kicked, workflow-wise. To the point that I've given up on it. The track, that is, not the synth - that's awesome as can be. So, hats off to anyone taking the hardware route, esp. with synths without patch memory !

[doctorbob]

I did a lot of recording and re-recording of my DX-11 tracks last hardware round ...

viewtopic.php?p=8337769#p8337769

... and the result was ... viewtopic.php?p=8013651#p8013651

dB

[IV!]

And my Soviet electric organ turned off the some keys right during the game!
Ahem, it's actually sad... Now I need to find new capacitors for them. But it was a very interesting experience with hardware!

[liqih]

So I wanted to have some fun with my beloved synth.

https://soundcloud.com/liqih/sinmad-the-shamest

Made using 12 x Sinmad synth.
DAW: Ableton Live : Ableton FXs: Delays, Reverb, Compressor, Equalizers
+ BeatSkillz Max 1

[Leonard Bowman]

it's been sitting on my hard drive for the past week and not really getting better, so I guess it's time to release my entry.
https://soundcloud.com/anotherbenjamin/level

this might be the second time I've ever made a simple, 4-on-the-floor dance tune. It was honestly quite liberating to abandon all of my new methods for making complex music and just focusing on the groove.

Made in Reaper 6 with
24 instances of Humonica
10 ReaEQ, 1 ReEQ
7 Echo Cycles
5 ReaComp
2 MAutoPan
2 OTT
2 GClip
1 MIDI Transpose, 1 MIDI Arpeggiator, 1 Droplets
1 Channel Mapper-Downmixer
1 Atlantis Reverb
1 Channel Router w/ Polarity
1 ReaGate
1 Distance2
1 ReaLimit

btw: if you want to try Humonica, Echo Cycles, Atlantis Reverb, or Droplets in a DAW other than Reaper, you'll need a JSFX host like YSFX
also: Humonica is very dependent on sample rate and block size