Synths and Synthesis MkII: All gear is shit, Hail Satan

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Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

VoodooXT posted:

Also, guys, convince me not to buy a JD-990.

I have a JV-2080, which I think is a successor of that same line and I hate it. It's got great sounds but the way the voices are laid out really doesn't work for me at all. You know how the Blofeld has three oscillators mixed down going into envelopes and then into the filters and effects? Yeah, in the JV-2080 you've got envelopes, keytracking, filters per oscillator. Parallel structure all the way down to just before the effects. It's just so. much. work. Real time controlling parameters on the Blofeld with an external midi controller is a breeze because everything is just a cc. On the JV-2080, apart from a handful of parameters, everything is sysex that isn't documented in the manual.

You can definitely do awesome things with it, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it. Which means that in practice I'm simply not using it and thinking of selling it.

I'm guessing a lot of the same goes for the JD-990.

Also, for the newcomers to this thread: if you can get a Blofeld with properly working encoders for cheap, there's no reason not to. It's a fun and easy decent polyphonic (and "eh" multitimbral) virtual analog. Workflow is really nice and barely ever makes you feel like there's not enough knobs on the thing. Which is more than can be said for some of the other options. There's a reasonable range of sounds it does well.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2014 14:23

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 12:46

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

VoodooXT posted:

Thanks for the info. The parameters for each oscillator seems incredibly interesting but, as you say, frustrating, not to mention the whole sysex and not cc business. I'm gonna have to think about this some more. I mean, I love the sounds you can get from the JD-990 but going through that much trouble just to patch would frustrate the hell out of me.

Leafing through the manual just now, I'm reminded that you can choose different preset routings in the JV-2080 (some pretty weird) and that you don't have to be stuck with the "everything is strictly in parallel" voice structure. But the point I mostly wanted to get across is that it is not at all a simple VA thing, but rather a completely different paradigm that you'd have to learn, much like you'd only be able to transplant a small bit of your understanding and most of the vocabulary when going to an FM synth.

It opens up a lot of possibilities, but some otherwise simple things just become needlessly complicated.

Anyway, I'm talking about the JV-2080 and I'm just assuming a lot about the JD-990. Best thing you can do is find a pdf of the manual and read through it and see where on the "neat vs. gently caress that" scale it falls for you. This is recommended procedure for anyone ever buying a synth in my opinion.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2014 17:05

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Swagger Dagger posted:

I'm looking for a new midi keyboard since the M-Audio Keystation I have blows, the keys feel terrible and I hate it. Does anyone have recommendations for anything in the $150 range?

I don't need knobs or pads on it because I have a Maschine, so I'm really just looking for something with nice keys, pitch/mod wheels and either 25 or 49 keys since space is at a premium for me.

Roland A-49 if you can live with the joystick. Good keys.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2014 19:15

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

VoodooXT posted:

After reading through the JD-990 operator's manual, it seems fairly straight forward.

Well, I guess my brain is just broken. Glad you doublechecked then.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2014 12:36

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Your Computer posted:

I'm looking for a groovebox just to have an alternative to DAW+VST, but there aren't many to come by here.

Yamaha QY700 if you just want to sequence external gear, maybe. Only half joking.

I saw one for �300 a few months ago and if I wasn't considering going back to an all software setup I'd totally would have bought it.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2014 13:45

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

MJP posted:

So I was browsing at a local Sam Ash, and they took in a Korg 01/W FD as a used item. It's got one sticky F sharp key but otherwise seems in good shape. They want $250 for it, and I'd like a starter synth if for no other reason than to get a little more 80s-ish sound. I've already got a digital piano, so this would be just an extra thing.

Should I go for it or is it not a good idea for a starter synth given the price?

I wouldn't buy anything with a sticky key unless it's something super rare and sought after so that it would be worth to fix it. $250 seems even almost steep for a synth of that type that doesn't have any problems.

~$60-$150 should buy you some Roland module that gets you sounds in the same ballpark, roughly (if your digital piano has midi out). Yamaha QY70 or something if you need a sequencer.

I used to frequent a local Cash Converters and I've learned quickly that you shouldn't buy anything just because it's right there in front of you. Take your time and do your research and never assume that any quirk will be a benign challenge rather than just an obstacle. Floppy diks, how quaint! Well, no. It's a royal pain in the rear end. What does it really have to offer that makes that worth it?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2014 14:24

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Laserjet 4P posted:

I thought the plugin sandboxing was supposed to prevent that?

That would prevent crashing plugins from bringing Bitwig down with them, not Bitwig crashing of its own accord.

So, tying into the earlier discussion we had about this; can anyone confirm if it needs Java installed or not?

e:

Your Computer posted:

have there been any info on version pricing?

This was in a mail I got from them a few weeks ago:
Box: USD 399.99 / 329 EUR
Download: USD 399 / 299 EUR

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Mar 26, 2014

# ¿ Mar 26, 2014 21:16

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

ExiledTinkerer posted:

A bit tangential as it was in the old thread, but still interesting and chock full of history, so here's part 2 of the big Impulse Tracker Post-Mortem and Story Time with Jeffrey Lim with probably more devs due to come outta the woodwork again to respond same as with Part 1:

http://roartindon.blogspot.com/2014/03/20-years-of-impulse-tracker-part-2.html

As someone who for about three years on average put three hours a day in Impulse Tracker, this is mighty interesting and I hope you keep posting whenever an update on it comes out.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2014 11:13

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Radiapathy posted:

I've read that some DAWs either lie about peaks or engage some built-in soft-clipping to let users push their signals harder than they should, but if your metering is accurate, you should never touch zero.

The only thing of the kind I've heard of is some DAWs maybe, potentially triggering the clipping light early to help prevent permanently destroyed audio. That's something from Bob Katz' book and I think he's talking about hardware DAWs, where that would make a bit more sense because they don't have the same flexibility and didn't have near infinite storage capacity back then (so you would occasionally bounce things to free up space or tracks).

If it's something that's done in software DAWs today, I have no idea.

Radiapathy posted:

Something I've noticed about Live is that when you use the Normalize option when rendering audio (which just raises the overall volume of the track until the highest peak in the song reaches zero), the rendered track almost always clips, if you analyze it in Audacity or WaveLab. I don't know what Ableton's doing there, but when I use Live these days I'll just aim for a mastered final that's as high as I'm comfortable with in Live, and then just normalize the WAV to -0.3dB in WaveLab after that.

Clip detection is not as an exact science as you'd hope it would be. A value reaching the maximum can (technically, mathematically) be intentional and doesn't need to be an indication information was lost. Iirc, most clipping detection algorithms decide that three subsequent samples at the maximum value very very likely means clipping has occured. But it essentially can only guess; it can't know if information was lost or whether it was never there. Other algorithms play it more safe than sorry and raise the alarm when a single sample reaches the maximum value.

It's like you're looking at a photograph of a painting. Are you seeing part of the painting? All of it? How would you know? If you can see all four edges, then ok, it's all of the painting. Otherwise you may be seeing a small cutout or just the left half or whatever and you wouldn't know for sure. Maybe the photographer just cropped it pretty tight.

Now consider that it's pretty much the point of normalizing to give the highest peak sample the value corresponding with 0dB. It's pretty logical that from a certain point of view that waveform is considered to probably have clipped, almost by default. I don't think there's something particularly weird going on with Live's normalizing.

At 16 bit and expecially if the target medium is MP3, a peak at is indeed -0.3dB is the highest you can 100% safely get away with. MP3 decoding can turn an MP3 made from a WAV that wasn't audibly clipping into distortion, which is why.

In general, if your material has entered the digital domain with a good SNR (recorded from analog optimally or as the output of a vst), the floating point mixing engine in a DAW makes it pretty pointless to toe the 0dB line too closely. Within reason anyway. You may end up with a mix that peaks at -12dB and that's just fine; boosting the digital mixer output by that much afterwards doesn't net you any perceptible quality loss, if any at all. As long as it hasn't left the DAW's mixer. After that, yes, quality loss in theory, in practice: eh. Won't likely be the biggest problem with your mix by a long shot. Respect a healthy headroom so things don't clip and stop worrying about it. Which is why the Bitwig thing totally makes sense.

edit: to clarify: when recording from analog to digital, headroom does matter a lot. But if you're recording/tracking at 24 bit, 6 dB is totally peanuts.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Mar 28, 2014

# ¿ Mar 28, 2014 20:14

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Radiapathy posted:

LAME bailed out, reporting errors when attempting to convert them to MP3.

Yeah, ok, that's pretty weird.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2014 21:24

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Wouldn't $600 get him a JP-8000?

I'm sure it's poo poo in some ways, but it should best a Volca Keys at least. Right?

# ¿ Mar 30, 2014 19:04

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Radiapathy posted:

Sooo close to selling the Virus TI Desktop, but the gearslut in me says I still need the Virus's hypersaw oscillator. (The hypersaw lets you dial in up to 9 detunable saw waves off a single OSC slot, and is separate from the additional Unison feature.)

Is there a softsynth that does something similar to the Virus's hypersaw OSC for supersaw-type sounds? I normally use Massive as a Virus substitute, but it doesn't really work like the Virus in this one specific area.

I have seen people talk about Spire, Zebra, and Sylenth1 for hypersaws, and am curious to hear any confirmation of them, or suggestions of other plugs that do something similar.

Starting to get annoyed that every time I want to recommend something, it turns out to be 32 bit/Windows only :argh:

Was going to throw SuperWave and JP6K in there as not-amazingly-flexible but classic supersaw emulations. Not insanely expensive either. But lack updates for the new era.

From looking at the screenshots, Spire, Zebra and Sylenth1 all allow for a similar thing in principle at least. Haven't listened to any of them, but Spire seems to have an excellent user interface. I like it for that.

Completely unrelated: I'm too lazy to do a huge writeup on it, but I still want to plug CableGuys Curve as an awesome synth plugin. Custom spline based everything: oscs, lfos, envelopes. Love it.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2014 20:10

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

TZer0 posted:

I'm currently considering the following midi-keyboards:
Roland A-800PRO

This fella often gets dismissed on account of the lack of mod/pitchwheels, lack of advanced DAW integration and sometimes the price. If none of that is a major point for you (and I'm guessing it isn't, considering it's still on your list), just go ahead and buy it. There's nothing else wrong with it. It may not have some of the seemingly spectacular features of some of the others, but it delivers solidly on everything it promises.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2014 00:24

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

TZer0 posted:

If you've tried the Roland, how sensitive is the stick? Will I frequently tweak the pitch while adjusting mod or vice versa?

Thankfully no. The springs in it are fairly stiff.

My annoyance with the stick is that you can't leave modulation at any other value than zero. This is mostly solved by mapping the leftmost encoder to transmit modulation values, to use if you need to dial in a static value.

The problem with this stick isn't that it isn't well made or unusable or anything. It's that most people are a lot more familiar with and generally prefer wheels. If this were your first and main keyboard, it wouldn't need to be a downside.

Now, if you want wheels, I don't blame you and you should certainly look at the other suggestions and preferably see if you can get some hands on experience with some of them.

I was just saying that if the stick didn't bother you in particular, the Roland is a solid option. I'm really wondering on how many sales Roland is missing out because of it, by the way.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2014 02:33

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

TZer0 posted:

Agh, that sounds annoying. Makes me kind of unsure. If it was just a stick without auto-zero for mod, it would've been okay.

This is the underside of the same type of stick in an old Edirol PCR-30:

You can pretty easily and non-destructively unhook the vertically pulling spring to disable the auto-zero for mod. I haven't bothered with my A-800 Pro and I'm not saying it solves everything (pitchbending while keeping the modulation at 50% or something would still be hard to do), but it's definitely something you could give a shot.

If it really doesn't work out for you, you can use the software to make the stick not transmit modulation ccs at all and buy a midi pedal for that.

EDIT vvvvv Obviously. I even mentioned that's what I did earlier.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Apr 2, 2014

# ¿ Apr 2, 2014 16:01

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Which reminds me I still have got these online:

Fixed Waldorf Blofeld CC list (the one in the manual has got some errors)
TB-303 and Xoxbox inspired square wave wavetables for the Blofeld
Collection of Saw wave wavetables for the Blofeld

Last two don't really optimally make use of the amount of information you can cram into a wavetable; it just morphs gradually between two waves per preset. The sysex is per preset, but you need the wavetable editor to change which preset position they go to.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2014 17:28

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I think the factory presets focus on controlling your DAW's mixer. For controlling plugins a generic set of CCs is better.

You've probably got it figured out by now, but just download a preset with working transport controls to the editor and change the function of all the knobs and sliders to CCs and save it over one of the presets you'll never use.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2014 21:12

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Your Computer posted:

My new MIDI keyboard only outputs from its MIDI port when it's powered by an AC adapter and not through USB.

Check the status of "MIDI I/F Switch". Check page 66 manual. It describes how midi is routed when the keyboard is connected to a USB port.

When set to off, playing on the keyboard will send notes (and other midi) to both the keyboard's DIN midi out and the keyboard's USB midi out, but you won't be able to route notes from your DAW to the synth connected to the keyboard's DIN midi out.

When set to on, playing on the keyboard, notes will be sent to the keyboard's USB midi out only and the keyboard's DIN midi out will output whatever it receives on the keyboard's USB midi in.

Are you with me? Here comes the important bit. The I/F switch ON is what you likely have and what you want, because it enables you to record what you play and then play it back to something connected to the DIN midi out. However it requires you to loopback the midi going out of the keyboard back into it if you just want to play the synth without recording it. For that you will have to create a track in your DAW that monitors the "A-PRO 1" input (from the perspective of the computer) and route it to "A-PRO MIDI OUT".

I know it's pretty confusing, but just look at the diagrams in the manual. The things labeled PORT 1 and PORT 2 are the signals your keyboard generates. Just follow the arrows. You'll see that in OFF mode there's no path from the computer to the DIN midi out. In ON mode there is no direct path from the keyboard to the DIN midi out, but because the path is broken inside your computer, you can draw your own arrow using software.

This is completely sensible; it means you can play a vst with the keyboard or a synth connected to the DIN midi out and all you have to do is switch which midi track in your DAW is set to monitoring (or whatever that's called in Live).

Your Computer posted:

I have a Roland 9V adapter which in theory should be exactly what it wants, but it doesn't even turn on with it. It's also a pain (and expensive) to get a new one.

This is probably a problem with amperage. I have an old Roland 9V power supply with the right polarity that's rated for 500mA, which is what the A-Pro supposedly needs and it doesn't work. I also have a generic switching power supply with a bunch of different tips that does the job fine. It's rated for 1.5A. I paid like �12 for that. Any large brick and mortar electronics retailer will have one for sale although I don't know at what markup. You could probably find one for cheap on the internet. This is the one I have and it's good.

Your Computer posted:

Am I correct in assuming that connecting the synths (i.e. several) through a USB hub would introduce unacceptable latency?

I don't actually know, but I don't think it's much of a problem. Midi signals don't take up a lot of bandwidth. As long as the devices that do are on other ports. Someone tell me I'm wrong or right, here.

e.: You'd probably need a powered hub though.

Flanky posted:

A local-ish music shop has a used JP 8000 for under $400. Should I go for it? I'm a big fan of early-2000s trance and UK hardcore. I may be able to exchange my Nocturn keyboard for credit toward it too, as long as I can use the JP as a general MIDI keyboard. Dunno if that will work that way or not, I haven't looked into it.

They go for �500 here, so $400 doesn't seem to bad. You can probably use it as a midi keyboard, just check the manual on how to switch "local mode" to off. That probably means just the keyboard though, I wouldn't expect the knobs and sliders to transmit midi on a synth of that vintage.

e2.: It isn't a simple local mode switch, but you can play external gear with it, see p93 in the manual.

I love the idea and the sounds that thing makes, but I don't know how good or bad the workflow actually is.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Apr 4, 2014

# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 11:56

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Your Computer posted:

You're a friggin wizard. Absolutely everything you said is spot on (and so quick!) and I got everything working perfectly now. I tried ctrl-f'ing the manual (it being 90 pages long) with several keywords to try and find this info, but somehow it eluded me. Thanks a million!

As for the power supply, you're absolutely right on that too. I might have a similar model, as I just checked and mine's 500 mA as well. I've checked all the shops I can think of here and it's hard to find something with 9V that has even 1A though (and I've yet to find a single place selling 9V 2A). Probably won't need that anyway now that you fixed the problem for me though!

No biggie.

The neat thing about powering the controller from a power supply means that you can still play the synth with your computer powered off. You don't have to do anything for that. When the controller doesn't sense a connection over usb, it will revert to the mode that sends the notes to the DIN midi out automatically. This functionality may or may not be worth it to you to look into (eventually) getting a power supply anyway.

This feature is what made me buy the Roland. I knew it'd work like that, because it was the same on my old Edirol.

renderful posted:

These are the same problems you'd run into if you had 8 USB ports on your machine, though.

From what I've seen in desktop machines, there's usually 4 ports per "internal hub" (header on the MB). Now I don't know poo poo about whether all that traffic goes through the same controller anyway or what, but I've had a couple of (non-midi related) usb problems solved by plugging poo poo into ports that went through a different header (ie. ports that were on the mainboard vs. ports that came through a breakout cable to a backplate in the case). For stuff up to 4 ports you're definitely right and I'm not confident enough to say you're wrong on the other account, but at the very least there's some extra layer in between that can gently caress up stuff.

Also daisychaining hubs can give you problems because power and bandwith is assigned to ports as a percentage of what is available. It isn't simply first come, first served.

A single, powered, good hub plugged into a usb port shouldn't give you problems with a couple of midi devices as latency is concerned though, I don't think, unless maybe they're all constantly dumping sysex through it.

What is indeed important is that you don't cheap out on the hub. A very great deal of hubs are terrible. Don't let my malinformed pedantry take away from that.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Apr 4, 2014

# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 13:44

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Radiapathy posted:

I recorded a MIDI chord progression and designed a bare-bones supersaw patch on the Virus and six different plugins.

The Massive one is extra chorusy, which makes it stand out somewhat.

I prefer Alchemy the most, then Spire, for thickness and high frequency sparkle. A lot of this is comparing filter implementations in the plugins just as much as what the supersaws sound like. Especially Alchemy's filter has a nice low rumble with the filter closed. To me, these two just sound better than the Virus, in fact.

The fairness of the comparison depends somewhat on how close you got the settings to each other though.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 16:07

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Radiapathy posted:

This was as much about programmability as it was sound, for me.

Is there one other than Massive that jumped at you in a positive way as far as that is concerned?

And for science :science:

, since you've now got the comparison material at hand, I'd be very interested in how close you can actually get with Curve using this general technique to fake a supersaw:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0a-OPbCI88

If you don't care for trying yourself, could you give me some more clues as to what values you used to create the patch?

# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 18:36

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Radiapathy posted:

Which you can find right here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4apm4il6t9rc7b1/SupersawStuff.zip

Thanks man, I'm gonna see how close I can get in the coming week.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2014 19:08

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

net work error posted:

The Arturia Beatsteps have come out already, has anyone had a chance to play with or use one yet? They're so well priced I kind of want one even though I don't need it.

If those are the same encoders and pads from the MiniLab -and I think that's fairly likely- then that thing isn't worth considering, really. Because those were garbage.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2014 17:15

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Radiapathy posted:

"softsynths that sound like Virus hypersaw"

I tried my best, but I think I lost track of what I was doing a bit because most of it is "the coolest supersaw I can get from this plugin" and not as much "as close to the Virus as possible". I had to guess with the effects, because I don't have the ones you mentioned. A bit of delay (TAL Dub 2), a bit of reverb (Ambience). fake edit: Woah, you used a lot more reverb and longer release times - don't know how I missed that.

I think I've been a bit heavyhanded with the filter automation. The instantaneous flip from 100% open to 50% open doesn't end up sounding graceful with some plugins.

https://soundcloud.com/flipperwaldt/sets/supersaw-compariso

It's former freeware supersaw superstar SuperWave P8, contending alledged JP-8000 clone JP6K, Tone 2 Firebird, KV331 Audio SynthMaster CM, Cableguys Curve 2 with the "fake supersaw trick" (3 OSC used with different offsets + 9 voice unison) and then a mixdown of all of them because why not.

The first two are Win/32 bit only, so forget about them, they're just there because in their time they supposedly were the greatest at supersaws. Firebird is Win/32 bit & 64 bit, has become free recently and is a neat VA with some special oscillator tricks without complicating stuff too much. SynthMaster CM is a Computer Music special edition you should be a ble to get for free with a copy of the magazine and for a slimmed down version it doesn't even feel crippled at all. Win & Mac/32 & 64 bit. Curve... does allright for faking it, I think. I could have complicated the patch more because you can make every oscillator a mix between two waveforms and then modulate that. Could have added some more differently offset saws there, but I didn't think of it at the moment and the demo doesn't reload settings or presets, so, eh.

If your goal is supersaws and you're doing it on the cheap, you could do worse than SynthMaster CM and/or Firebird. Curve is awesome but for different reasons. And I guess todays protip is: layer that poo poo; the mix of all the different implementations (approaching 50 oscillators simultaneously!) sounds best to me. More is better.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2014 22:51

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Radiapathy posted:

For the standalones I liked your Firebird patch the best; did you add noise to it or is that just the saws doing that?

I don't really know, to be honest. There's a knob called analog dirt that I turned up a lot, which I guess probably includes noise as well as a whiff of random pitch modulation. Filter emulation was set to Noisy Moog and again I'm not really clear on what sort of noise it introduces. So... probably?

Firebird isn't your typical subtractive synth, it uses harmonic content morphing synthesis (whatever that means) and as a consequence you can only guess what a parameter does exactly. Yet I never felt lost in the interface; the routing setup is very simple and most of the character comes from the list of complex oscillator waves and mathematical modifier list. You can just set up a patch and then very easily audition various combinations of those. The presets hint at serious dance/trance potential.

I still like SynthMaster CM a lot because you can set envelope curves which can make for pretty snappy attacks, which you can hear in the example. It was also the only one of the plugins that gave me explicit control over the supersaw pan spread, which is a weird omission in all the others. The full version is such a beast, way over my head. This is just at my level.

Radiapathy posted:

EDIT: Oh Flipperwaldt- something I meant to ask you- do you have any docs on the Blofeld MIDI implementation? The only CC I know is Filter 1 cutoff (69). I've been searching, but all I find are a bunch of ancient 404ed links. And the Waldorf site's surprisingly less useful than Access's. The manual's also very skimpy on details.

Apart from a few mistakes, the manual has the full list in an appendix. My list doesn't add a lot of details then.

Anyway, I'd be willing to update it if you find something useful lacking or still wrong. If anyone knows which sync parameter cc#49 "Sync" affects, I'd be interested to know too.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 12:38

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Apparently Caustic was also on iOS all along, so check that out I guess. It's optimized for low processing power as gently caress, so not everything in it sounds great, but it has a shitload of toys to try out and even a modular synth. Has mixer, effects, decent step sequencer for everything.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2014 19:45

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

renderful posted:

Most synths do not have computer control(Arturia *Brute for instance), but it's becoming a more popular feature. [...] Certainly don't assume this is the case when buying synths, and confirm that this feature exists if you care about it.

And don't assume that because the feature is in the promotional material for the synth, it (still) works for the platform/DAW of your choice.

On the other hand, the occasional synth that never had this to begin with has neat third party stuff.

Researching is key if you care about external control.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 19:12

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Radiapathy posted:

I'm keeping the Blofeld, since I love its sound, it's easy to program from hardware, and it's pretty much fully automatable.

On topic, SoftKnobs is aparently working on a completely new version of the Blofeld Controller vst, which includes a 64 bit version! Looks like it will include some sort of patch librarian as well. Looking forward to that; it's looking good.

Possibly some sort of mac version as well, but he's shy about that.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 21:27

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Your Computer posted:

That stuff isn't vaporware? I could swear it looked like that last time I checked. If I could control my Blofeld like a VST that'd be the most amazing thing ever

Can't say I looked into it that deeply. Last update of the page you can download some sort of alpha from was in january. Guess I just was happy to see some movement beyond the 32 bit version from 2010.

Looking at the recent changes of the Wiki, he updated some pages on a parallel project he's doing for the Pulse 2 in the last 30 days somewhere.

So... the guy's not dead yet and still interested in Waldorf synths? That's good, right?

Edit: the old 32 bit plugin still works fine if you have a way to accommodate for that, I guess.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Apr 22, 2014

# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 22:45

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Radiapathy posted:

You already can (if you're still 32-bit). Getting it set up so that you can both edit patches AND audition them if you have a Desktop model took me a while to figure out (wrote a blog post about how to do it a couple years ago).

Actually, if you don't care for the bidirectionality, just using the din midi works as well. Shouldn't be touching the controls on the Blofeld then though, because the plugin won't know.

And since using the usb midi creates a terrible groundloop in my setup... eh.

Radiapathy posted:

Alternatively there's also this guy with Blofeld, Rocket, and Wave editors (says he's working on a Pulse 2 one too). The editors are standalone, but all have "experimental" VST and planned AU modules. Cross-platform and 32/64. But SoftKnobs was there first.

Hadn't seen this one. $50 isn't too bad. Not even a real screenshot on the website though and it isn't even linked from the software section. That's just bad marketing, 'cause it looks good and doesn't seem to be the standalone-editor-hacked-into-a-vst that the SofKnobs one is.

Have you used it?

# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 23:54

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Radiapathy posted:

I'm waiting for someone to guinea pig these too.

I haven't even turned on any of my hardware in the last six months or so, so that guinea pig probably isn't going to be me :smith:

Love the Blofeld, but I think hardware synths are an evolutionary dead end for me. Beyond owning and drooling over them, I mean.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2014 00:24

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Bolange posted:

I don't know how to figure out what a device can do or how to setup some global configuration where I configure it once and then everything magically works the next time I power up all the gear.

What the device can do is in the device's documentation, ideally. Setting up a template or whatever is DAW specific, so it'd help if you at least mention what you're using.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2014 17:01

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

david mammoth posted:

I can't decide if it looks interesting or like a total piece of poo poo.

Those aren't mutually exclusive :v:

Anyway, is it even out yet?

# ¿ Apr 30, 2014 18:17

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Your Computer posted:

Now I just need to find a working soundfont VST. Any tips on that?

VstSynthfont works adequately for me, but it's another 32 bit affair.

Now I see ShortCircuit has SF2 support to, so I don't know why I'm not just using that. Again, 32 bit, sorry.

These things potentially might work in Bitwig.

# ¿ May 3, 2014 23:10

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Updating with TX16Wx, which has a 64 bit version. Haven't used it yet, but it looks like the sort of thing.

e.: It loads programs individually instead of the whole soundfont, which I guess is what you didn't like about the Ableton sampler.

It also doesn't seem to interpret amplitude envelope release times correctly; makes the very short.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 00:13 on May 4, 2014

# ¿ May 3, 2014 23:17

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Your Computer posted:

working ADSR

Still not really getting what you mean by that, because essentially the amplitude envelope in TX16Wx works for me. It's just not loaded right from an SF2. I couldn't find confirmation that is was a paying feature somehow, it just seems a bug in the implementation to me. I got reminders about all the other paying features, but not that.

It's all totally moot, because the plugin half crashed when I reloaded my project and then couldn't even open an SF2 anymore without error messages until I restarted Cubase and a new instance, so gently caress that noise. But it bothers me that I'm not sure what you mean.

e. Well gently caress me, DSK_SF2 doesn't load envelope settings from my SF2 either!

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 03:02 on May 4, 2014

# ¿ May 4, 2014 02:57

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

VoodooXT posted:

Anyone know if there's a program for OSX that lets you upload user wavetables to the Blofeld?

Like you've got the sysex files for them already and you want to upload them, or like you want to make your own? Because I think you're poo poo out of luck for the latter.

The former can be done with anything that can send sysex to a midi port. Shouldn't be too hard to find.

# ¿ May 15, 2014 01:37

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

A MIRACLE posted:

Does the Mininova have an arpegiattor with a latch? I'm going to be covering both pads / drums / bass for my new gig (with a folk singer...) and I need something that can latch to midi clock.

Don't know if this answers your question, because in my opinion you're using the terminology weirdly, but:

Page 7 & 13 from the manual:

quote:

LATCH button: applies the Arpeggiator effect to the last note(s) played continuously, until a subsequent key is pressed. LATCH can be pre-selected so that it is effective as soon as the Arpeggiator is enabled.

quote:

Parameter: Clock Source
Displayed As: ClkSourc
Default value: Internal
Range of adjustment: Internal, USB, MIDI, Auto

The MiniNova uses a master MIDI clock in order to set the tempo (rate) of the arpeggiator and to provide a time base for synchronisation to an overall tempo. This clock may be derived internally or provided by an external device able to transmit MIDI clock. The ClkSourc
setting determines whether the MiniNova�s tempo-synchronised features (Arpeggiator, Chorus Sync, Delay Sync, Gator Sync, LFO Delay Sync, LFO Rate Sync & Pan Rate Sync) will follow the tempo of an external MIDI clock source or follow the tempo set by the TEMPO knob.

You can play notes to it and you won't have to keep holding them down. What the arpeggiator produces can be synced to an external clock.

e: Mind you that the Blofeld can do all that too, theoretically, but utterly fails syncing the arpeggiator in practice. So I don't know if those are empty promises. I don't have a Mininova.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 00:19 on May 22, 2014

# ¿ May 22, 2014 00:17

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Kilmers Elbow posted:

So, hardware is not for me.

Basically I couldn't spend money on technicalities and directed it towards synths and synths only, because those were the fun toys. When it came to the point that I would need more cables and a mixer and freeing up space to put it all and whatnot, I apparently couldn't be bothered.

I "only" put around �1000 into it before I realised that I should just buy a beefier computer that could run more than 8 vsts concurrently, which is what I thought switching to hardware would solve for me.

I'm keeping some of it as toys, but should I ever get over myself and start making music again it's not likely any of the harware will feature in it.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2014 01:08

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 12:46

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

MrLonghair posted:

Gotta find the right stuff. I started out making .mod music on Amiga so I like working with some restrictions and limits.

Bad example for the case though. It's rather an example of how super tight intergration of instrument and sequencer does trump other considerations.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2014 02:52

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Musician's Lounge > Synths and Synthesis MkII: All gear is shit, Hail Satan

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