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radiated pancake posted:What do you goons think of Cycling '74's Max 5 software? I just downloaded the demo and I'm finding the interface surprisingly intuitive, but still finding it hard to wrap my head around building my own synths/effects from scratch. Has anyone worked with this program, and if so...how'd it sound? How it sounds is pretty much entirely up to you. Max is a modular visual programming environment that contains a lot of small objects which can be combined to make very complex things, whether that's a custom synth or sequencer or whatever. If you're just starting out with Max/MSP, don't even worry about how to make synths and such until you're already pretty familiar with how it works. You should see separate tutorials for Max and MSP in your Max application folder, and the one for Max is what you want to go through first. MSP actually refers to a set of objects for audio processing added into the original Max program. It's tempting to dive right into those, but don't. There are conventions used in the Max environment that you need to know about before you will do anything useful with it, and you will learn a LOT about Max in general by following the tutorials. Once you've gone through those plus the MSP tutorials, this is a good place to start for more on synth building.
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Aug 28, 2008 01:33
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Hey, here's kind of a strange one. I'm working on a track with the Arturia Prophet-V in Live and am getting some weird issues with MIDI note triggering. The problem is that whenever I play a chord on the Prophet, it sounds fine when it's being played but when the recorded result is played back only the highest note of the chord sounds. Everything appears to be in order - all the notes are there in MIDI, the velocity is where it should be, obviously it's not an issue with polyphony on the Prophet since I can physically play chords with it. What's the deal? Any ideas? I have several other software instruments going and they all work fine, this is the first time I've ever encountered anything like this.
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Aug 28, 2008 06:29
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radiated pancake posted:What do you goons think of Cycling '74's Max 5 software? I just downloaded the demo and I'm finding the interface surprisingly intuitive, but still finding it hard to wrap my head around building my own synths/effects from scratch. Has anyone worked with this program, and if so...how'd it sound? Max/MSP is a great package. I did two years of it for my degree and I learned an absolute poo poo load from it. My final year project was to build a synth in it, and I'm so glad I did because it taught me so much about synthesis, which is very useful to me today. If you can spare the time to go through the tutorials and figure it out, then before you know it you'll be making all kinds of funny poo poo. I've been very tempted to buy an upgrade to Max 5 and get back into it but, alas, I barely have enough time for my other hobbies these days. :-/
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Aug 28, 2008 08:19
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Cyne posted:Hey, here's kind of a strange one. I'm working on a track with the Arturia Prophet-V in Live and am getting some weird issues with MIDI note triggering. The problem is that whenever I play a chord on the Prophet, it sounds fine when it's being played but when the recorded result is played back only the highest note of the chord sounds. Everything appears to be in order - all the notes are there in MIDI, the velocity is where it should be, obviously it's not an issue with polyphony on the Prophet since I can physically play chords with it. What's the deal? Any ideas? I have several other software instruments going and they all work fine, this is the first time I've ever encountered anything like this.
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Aug 28, 2008 09:57
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I'm not very fluent in audio-interface hardware so I'm looking for some suggestions on what to buy. I've stumbled around the internet based on the suggestion in the op (MOTU Traveler) but it seems like this type of interface is totally overkill for what I want to do. I'm looking for a device that can provide midi connectivity and also have a limited number of I/O. I'm looking for something primarily for live performances so while the ability to record is nice, I'm really looking for something that can provide midi connectivity and be able to route audio to a mixer at least through two channels. XLR is fine in terms of I/O but 1/4 is preferable. Under 300-400$. Does such a device even exist? I'm such a newb. 
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Aug 29, 2008 04:04
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Anacostia posted:I'm not very fluent in audio-interface hardware so I'm looking for some suggestions on what to buy. I've stumbled around the internet based on the suggestion in the op (MOTU Traveler) but it seems like this type of interface is totally overkill for what I want to do. I'm looking for a device that can provide midi connectivity and also have a limited number of I/O. I'm looking for something primarily for live performances so while the ability to record is nice, I'm really looking for something that can provide midi connectivity and be able to route audio to a mixer at least through two channels. XLR is fine in terms of I/O but 1/4 is preferable. Under 300-400$. Does such a device even exist? I'm such a newb. Look for anything by M-Audio. M-Audio makes a lot of cheap gear, that isn't really cheap. http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.family&ID=recording
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Aug 29, 2008 04:17
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Here's another question. Does anyone of you know of some sort of MIDI-triggered gate? I'm using Cubase SX3. The problem is as follows: I'm making a synthesized distorted kickdrum, but the tail of the kickdrum needs to be cut off. Because of the distortion, I can't really control the tail without affecting the main body and the main sound of the kickdrum. There's one simple solution to this which has crossed my mind and that is resampling. Now obviously resampling is very effective, but the problem with resampling is that I can't control the note of the kickdrum anymore, so resampling is out of the question. I thought that maybe there would be a plugin that uses a MIDI signal to reopen the gate, and then I can adjust the ADSR times in the gate to use as an amplitude envelope in my kickdrum's insert. Please note that it's very important that I can retrigger it and not just use a synched LFO on it. Any solution is welcome.
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Aug 29, 2008 10:29
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The Fog posted:Here's another question. There's mgTriggerGate, which I believe you can trigger on and off via MIDI. You should also try Dyno, it lets you (among other things) put an arbitrary volume curve over hits, which it recognizes automatically. OR you could just automate the volume itself, I guess? I don't know if Cubase can route MIDI to arbitrary parameters, I'm so spoiled by Buzz, where I have a machine called PeerADSR that provides triggerable ADSR control for any parameter I choose.
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Aug 29, 2008 10:51
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wayfinder posted:There's mgTriggerGate, which I believe you can trigger on and off via MIDI. You should also try Dyno, it lets you (among other things) put an arbitrary volume curve over hits, which it recognizes automatically. OR you could just automate the volume itself, I guess? I don't know if Cubase can route MIDI to arbitrary parameters, I'm so spoiled by Buzz, where I have a machine called PeerADSR that provides triggerable ADSR control for any parameter I choose. Thanks for this, I shall try out the free one! Re: MIDI-routing to arbitrary params, I'm afraid there's no such thing in Cubase as far as I'm aware. I know for a fact that FL Studio does this, but I've never seen (or heard) it being done in Cubase
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Aug 29, 2008 11:36
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Cubase can do all of that stuff. Most signal processing effects can be done the old fashioned way in pretty much any DAW. For example: 1) A gate/compressor can be made with an amplifier and an envelope follower. 2) A chorus can be made by cloning any channel and adding a time delay (in milliseconds) to one of the channels. Then you can route the output of one of both channels to an independent LFO (which can modulate pitch for example). 3) A de-esser can be made with a compressor and a band pass or high pass filter connected to the compressor's sidechain. etc. etc. It actually helps to get used to making effects this way just using routing tricks if only to get a decent understanding of how they all work.
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Aug 29, 2008 13:24
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Cyne posted:Hey, here's kind of a strange one. I'm working on a track with the Arturia Prophet-V in Live and am getting some weird issues with MIDI note triggering. The problem is that whenever I play a chord on the Prophet, it sounds fine when it's being played but when the recorded result is played back only the highest note of the chord sounds. Everything appears to be in order - all the notes are there in MIDI, the velocity is where it should be, obviously it's not an issue with polyphony on the Prophet since I can physically play chords with it. What's the deal? Any ideas? I have several other software instruments going and they all work fine, this is the first time I've ever encountered anything like this. Does the sequencer record the whole chord or just the top note.
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Aug 29, 2008 21:33
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Quincy Smallvoice posted:Does the sequencer record the whole chord or just the top note. All of the notes are there. Also, if I create a new project and record the Prophet there everything's fine, it's only in this specific project that it's acting up. I'm thinking I may just create a new project, record the couple chords that I'm using from the Prophet there and then just bounce it to an audio file. That synth's a resource hog anyway. Still I would like to get this figured out in case it happens again.
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Aug 30, 2008 02:39
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Cyne posted:All of the notes are there. i think its set in unison or monophonic mode so it can only play one note at a time
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Aug 30, 2008 07:11
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oredun posted:i think its set in unison or monophonic mode so it can only play one note at a time He allready covered monophonic, but check unison mode if its on. I dont have the arturia prophet, but the pro-53 (also based on prophet V iirc?) refuses to play chords in unison mode when I tried it just now, so check that out maybe.
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Aug 30, 2008 20:58
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Yoozer posted:Exactly what you're looking for. Thanks, I have to check this out.
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Aug 31, 2008 02:23
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Quincy Smallvoice posted:He allready covered monophonic, but check unison mode if its on. I dont have the arturia prophet, but the pro-53 (also based on prophet V iirc?) refuses to play chords in unison mode when I tried it just now, so check that out maybe. unison=monophonic
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Aug 31, 2008 16:29
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oredun posted:unison=monophonic No, unison is at most a subset of monophonic. Synths can be monophonic without having unison.
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Aug 31, 2008 18:42
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wayfinder posted:No, unison is at most a subset of monophonic. Synths can be monophonic without having unison. I think he means unison is only available in monophonic?
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Aug 31, 2008 19:28
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So, in essence he's saying: Unison -> Monophony rather than: Unison <-> Monophony or: Unison = Monophony Correct?
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Aug 31, 2008 19:36
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The Fog posted:So, in essence he's saying: Why do i feel like im on thin ice, but yes, thats my understanding haha
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Aug 31, 2008 19:44
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Vanguard has polyphonic unison iirc 
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Aug 31, 2008 19:58
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The way I gather it, monophony means that you only play one note and one voice at a time, whereas unison means you play several voices AND one note at a time. This would mean that while unison is only one note in itself, but several voices, you could have another note playing in unison with itself. Monophonic doesn't imply that there are several voices, it only limits the amount of notes that can be played simultaneously.
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Aug 31, 2008 21:19
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Unison just means it stacks several voices for each note you play, presumably with some detune or stereo spread or what have you. The unison mode may or may not be monophonic also, it depends on the synth. On many synths it is, and on many others it isn't. It is certainly a possibility though.
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Aug 31, 2008 21:29
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So after watching some videos I've fallen in love with the elektron machinedrum, but at $1500 it's pretty well out of my price range. Are there any cheaper (preferably hardware) alternatives that compare?
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Sep 1, 2008 22:20
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The Fog posted:So, in essence he's saying: yeah thats what i meant you bunch of synth snobs
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Sep 1, 2008 23:44
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If anyone lives in Vancouver, there's a little guitar store on Granville Street (before downtown) that has a Juno 106 and a Juno 60 on sale. I'm not sure about the prices, somewhere in the 400-500 dollar range each. If you want to sound like Boyz Noize though. . . .
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Sep 2, 2008 01:57
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The Fog posted:So, in essence he's saying: Prophet-5 unison stacks all 5 voices onto 1 note so playback is effectively monophonic. Access Virus C is 32 voice polyphonic so you have a range of unison modes. For instance x2 unison stacks 2 voices onto 1 key which means you can only play 16 notes before hitting the polyphony limit. x4 unison stacks 4 voices onto 1 key which reduces the total polyphony to 8 and so on and so forth. There isn't an option for it but if you could make it 32x unison then playback would be effectively monophonic since all 32 voices are stacked on 1 key. It does this because its DSP is only capable of sounding 32 voices at any 1 time. Some software synthesizers don't really have an effective polyphony limit or it doesn't reduce the voice count to any meaningful degree (like reFX Vanguard). Pressing more notes simultaneously or using high unison count just uses more CPU cycles which is good and bad. Its good because you don't really ever hear dropped notes. Its bad because playing with high unison RAPES your computer. Analogue polyphonic synths always have low polyphony compared to digital polyphonic synths. Take a Juno-60 for example. It is 6 voice polyphonic and has 1 oscillator per voice. There it a total of 6 oscillators and when you play 6 notes simulataneously all those oscillators sound at the same time. Each oscillator is its own discrete circuit so you can see how making a 64 voice polyphonic analogue synth with 2 oscillators per voice could be a problem. You would need 128 discrete oscillator circuits and then there are the independant LFOs and filter/amp envelopes per voice. This would make the synth freaking gigantic, really heavy, really really expensive and complicated to assemble. For most people in the business of making and selling synths they are increasingly impracticle and not at all economical. Sure the guy who made the Sunsyn (probably the most well specified non modular analogue polysynth ever made) stopped making them after 200 units or so, citing near bankruptcy, the unavailability of VCA parts and a desire not to waste his life building the fecking things. 16 voice, 2 oscillator polyphonic analogues are already big, heavy and expensive so yeah. Modern analogue modelled synths save money, manpower, size and weight by simulating everything in software that is crunched by a tiny microchip processer (a DSP). They can have loads of oscillators and loads of voices and amazing routability and the capability to stack one or more voices onto a single key and its all programmed and you don't need a person to handwire it or anything. WanderingKid fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Sep 2, 2008 |
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Sep 2, 2008 13:54
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WanderingKid posted:Pressing more notes simultaneously or using high unison count just uses more CPU cycles which is good and bad. Its good because you don't really ever hear dropped notes. Its bad because playing with high unison RAPES your computer. Case in point - z3ta. My god that thing will murder just about any cpu on any of those arp and effect heavy patches.
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Sep 2, 2008 17:23
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I just bought an Oberheim Xpander so I'm now in the market for a semi weighted velocity sensitive midi controller keyboard with aftertouch (preferably something between 49 and 76 keys and as small as possible). My local stocks alot of the keyboards you can find on Thomann and I did try the more compact m-audios, novations and CME keys but I didn't really like any of them. The novation 4 octave keyboard was alright but it was outrageously expensive for what it was. For not much more money I could just buy another Access Virus only this time with a keyboard attached. I've played a kB and I thought the keyboard was better anyway. So I'm sort of looking for options outside of what you can find here: http://www.thomann.de/ie/midi_master_keyboards.html You know, things I can try out on home trials to see if they suck or not. I am not averse to buying synth keyboards if they are really good keyboards but obviously if the price of the synth makes the keyboard like more than 500 euros then I'm going to have problems since I dropped 1.5 grand on the Oberheim and am alot poorer now than I was yesterday. I briefly considered an Alesis QS 6 or something and I remember tinkling one ages ago but I can't remember if I liked it or not. Really interested in user reviews and opinions from owners if any folks have the time to say just why their keyboard is so good, it does their washing up for them. WanderingKid fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Sep 2, 2008 |
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Sep 2, 2008 23:29
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WanderingKid posted:I just bought an Oberheim Xpander quote:so I'm now in the market for a semi weighted velocity sensitive midi controller keyboard with aftertouch (preferably something between 49 and 76 keys and as small as possible). Basically, all controllers suck and I was disappointed that my Xboard was one of the best of 'm. Alternatively, a Yamaha CS6x has a few knobs and feels nice. tgijsola posted:So after watching some videos I've fallen in love with the elektron machinedrum, but at $1500 it's pretty well out of my price range. What is your pricerange, by the way? A Korg ESX will do the job with samples, and the quirky sounds of the MD have to be remade then - so you record a bunch of different synthetic drums of all kinds and you get the lit buttons and the nice programming, but not the flexibility in sounddesign. IanTheM posted:If anyone lives in Vancouver, there's a little guitar store on Granville Street (before downtown) that has a Juno 106 and a Juno 60 on sale. I'm not sure about the prices, somewhere in the 400-500 dollar range each. If you want to sound like Boyz Noize though. . . .  . Massive will.
Laserjet 4P fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Sep 3, 2008 |
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Sep 3, 2008 12:05
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Yoozer posted:Holy poo poo, congratulations. Believe it or not, this was my comfort buy after I lost an ebay auction for a Jomox Sunsyn. The auction price started high and jumped £1,500 STG in the last minute. I got to the point where I was typing £3,000 STG in the box before I realised this was madness and just retreated. For that sort of money I could buy an Xpander for 1,250 an XBase 999 for 1,000 and still have cash left over to buy a small used car. I bought the Xpander anyway and the rest is going into savings account for the time being. quote:Sadly, the kB's keyboard can nowhere be found - I don't think Fatar puts it in a separate keyboard. On the other hand, the Fatar controllers may be what you're looking for - it's just that they're knobless so you want to have an extra box w/ sliders and knobs. I was afraid you would say that. And it is equally disturbing to find the Virus kB nowhere to be found because they keyboard on that thing is really quite decent and I regret buying the rack module. On the subject of good keyboards I remember Novation Supernova having a pretty decent keyboard but I'm loathe to buy too many new toys at the same time. Really 1 toy a year is enough for me otherwise I get all confused. Have you tried any of the Fatars? I don't mind knobless/sliderless keyboards since I intend to control my Xpander and Virus using their control surfaces anyway. I guess I will miss softsynth hands on control but I never had any so I don't know what I'm missing. :O quote:No such thing. Pretty much reiterating that the Machinedrum has absolutely nothing that compares to it. Its a pretty unique drum machine. I am constantly lusting after a Machinedrum or an XBase 999. I find that the only real solution to this sort of thing is to get it out of your system. Work and put away some money every month until you can afford it and just buy a machinedrum and scratch that perpetual itch you have. If you still like it and use it a year from then then it paid for itself. If not you can always sell it for close to what you bought it for. Same goes for the 999.
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Sep 3, 2008 13:50
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It's not even so much the sound - I think you can get pretty close in terms of weirdness with Reaktor or a Nord Modular, but then you have to build your own drummachine and you lack the interface which contributes a good deal to the goodness of the MD in the first place. Agreed about the Supernova (II it was) - but shortly after that Novation hit lights off so I don't know if they're stable. I heard the Nova II was a bit of a drag in that aspect. Currently I'll be happy enough already if I can get myself an FP7 to polish my rusty chops - and to make things worse I'm also looking into starting with a modest modular setup (Synthesizers.com entry system, or DIY - but that'll take ages and may not be actually cheaper since I plan to be picky about parts).
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Sep 3, 2008 15:09
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I got 2 questions. How do you bind a midi controller to the XY pad vst controller thing in ableton? Second, anyone know about binding arturia software synths to midi?
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Sep 3, 2008 17:52
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Rkelly posted:I got 2 questions. How do you bind a midi controller to the XY pad vst controller thing in ableton? quote:Second, anyone know about binding arturia software synths to midi?
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Sep 3, 2008 20:31
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Is there any way to assign racks in Live to buttons on my controller so that I can switch focus quickly? Also, I'd really like to have a VST that will show me in a large display the current tempo and also count off the beat. Basically a metronome but very simple and clear. Does anything like this exist? Elder fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Sep 3, 2008 |
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Sep 3, 2008 21:20
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Is a $200 hardware verb worth a drat? I was looking at the TC M350 or the Lexicon MX200 for a cheap reverb. Currently, I'm using Live's built-in one, for reference. Mainly I just want to offload the processor some and I can make a global send to it.Elder posted:Also, I'd really like to have a VST that will show me in a large display the current tempo and also count off the beat. Basically a metronome but very simple and clear. Does anything like this exist? I'd imagine it'd have to be specific to the software, unless there was a beatcounter or something, but even then it may be off a little.
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Sep 3, 2008 22:16
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Quick question. I do all my composing in Guitar Pro, and then I make the songs in Garageband. A lot of the software instruments are pretty lovely in Garageband though. I actually like a few of the instruments that you can use in Guitar Pro better than their Garageband counterparts, so I was wondering if it is somehow possible to use the Guitar Pro instruments in Garageband. I'm most interested in the piano, so if what I'm talking about isn't possible, are there any decent piano plugins in the 50ish dollar range? Edit: To clarify, I'm looking for a realistic piano sound rather than an electric piano or whatever dizzywhip fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Sep 4, 2008 |
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Sep 4, 2008 01:13
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Request (If it's legal, I forget the perfect legality of things like this) Can somebody with a JP8000 (or equivalent) sample me out that generic supersaw trance/euro lead that was huge in the late 90's? I'd like just a single C3, held for 20 seconds or so, no effects, open filter. The reason is I was going to load it up in Simpler in Live and it works better with long-rear end samples like that.
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Sep 4, 2008 02:27
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Kai was taken posted:Is a $200 hardware verb worth a drat? I was looking at the TC M350 or the Lexicon MX200 for a cheap reverb. Currently, I'm using Live's built-in one, for reference. Mainly I just want to offload the processor some and I can make a global send to it. I actually made a thread a while back when I was looking for a decent cheap reverb unit, and I think someone (RivensBitch maybe) recommended that TC unit. I ended up going with the MX200 though. I think the reverb sounds fine for what I was expecting from it and some of the delays are pretty useful too although I generally prefer to just use the stock delays in Live. There's also the Alesis MidiVerb too. The old Quadraverbs were the standard in affordable rack reverb for quite some time but I'm not sure how the newer generation stands up. Oh and thanks everyone for the advice but I couldn't get that stuff with the Prophet V sorted out, guess I'll just go with my original plan of bouncing it down to audio in another track. Oh yeah and definitely props to WanderingKid on the Xpander purchase. Beautiful machine that.
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Sep 4, 2008 04:53
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MX200 is pretty decent if you want Lexicon-ish sounding plates. Same applies with TC plates which are quite different. If CPU load is a problem for you then I would probably consider one of these machines, otherwise you can make better verbs with software like Voxengo Pristine Space and a bunch of Lexi PCM91 or TC system 6000a impulses from noisevault. If money was no object, I'd still buy an Eventide over anything else (DSP3000 or Orville if I had a big wad in the bank).
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Sep 4, 2008 06:15
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