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

Noxious · # ? Jul 17, 2015 01:08

That looks like an Ondes Martenot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondes_Martenot

I mean it's obviously not an original instrument. I'm guessing a controller. Probably this one? http://www.analoguesystems.co.uk/index2.htm

Adbot · # ? May 26, 2024 01:32

Startyde · # ? Jul 17, 2015 01:50

^yep

Bolange posted:

That looks like a pretty interesting keyboard. Details?

Asys french connection. It's an ondes style controller with ring and button, very expressive. I've been using the AK and I'm moving to a much smaller space though so I'm actually trying to sell it. Anybody in new england who's interested let me know! :v:

Tayter Swift · # ? Jul 17, 2015 02:04

drat the new Overbridge beta is sweet.

HandlingByJebus · # ? Jul 17, 2015 02:14

Startyde posted:

Here's my money pit

I'm very happy with it. Going to swap out the SuperVCO for an A-110-2. Would like to get another clock divider in there, the twiggy ring mod and asys synthi filter but if I never got another module I'd be OK. Do wish I either got wider cases or the doepfer 9U instead of 6. My aim is still to keep it man portable though, I'm trying to resist going any bigger than this.

FWIW I have a pair of a-110-1s and a pair of a-110-2s and I don't love the -2s. Why the swap, and why the -2?

Ninja: how do you like the complex envelope generator?

Startyde · # ? Jul 17, 2015 02:54

sofullofhate posted:

FWIW I have a pair of a-110-1s and a pair of a-110-2s and I don't love the -2s. Why the swap, and why the -2?

Ninja: how do you like the complex envelope generator?

It would fit. The -2 actually sounds different? I thought it was supposed to be voiced similarly but with cheaper switches. That's kind of a bummer. If I had the space I'd go three TH555-VCOs, they is very fine. Really wish there was a local-ish modular joint.

Love the 143-1. I use dummy jacks to isolate usually the last one or two ADs a lot of time time. Makes for really great shuffled trigs and funky rhythms. There's a dude who modded his with range switches which I will end up doing eventually. I think he got it to like an hourish cycle. I've got the quad ADSR on the bottom that's also a wealth of gate outs, great for self-patching. I've thought about replacing the latter with something like the Teletype or maybe PEG but I like it as-is.

HandlingByJebus · # ? Jul 17, 2015 03:22

Startyde posted:

It would fit. The -2 actually sounds different? I thought it was supposed to be voiced similarly but with cheaper switches. That's kind of a bummer. If I had the space I'd go three TH555-VCOs, they is very fine. Really wish there was a local-ish modular joint.

Love the 143-1. I use dummy jacks to isolate usually the last one or two ADs a lot of time time. Makes for really great shuffled trigs and funky rhythms. There's a dude who modded his with range switches which I will end up doing eventually. I think he got it to like an hourish cycle. I've got the quad ADSR on the bottom that's also a wealth of gate outs, great for self-patching. I've thought about replacing the latter with something like the Teletype or maybe PEG but I like it as-is.

Ah. The -2 definitely sounds different. It doesn't track as well either, and doesn't have near the useful range that the -1 does. However, if it fits, it is still a very useful VCO - I would describe the difference in sound as "grittier" mostly. The -1 / 0 / +1 range switch and poor-ish tracking in the upper ranges are the biggest bummers - I actually re-calibrated both of mine to track properly in the ranges where I tend to use them though.

I shouldn't say I don't love them - I do, they're great - but for "clean" sounds I tend to use the -1s. The expo FM and soft sync inputs on the -2 are useful, and the 4 octave range of the tune pot is also useful (if somewhat irritating to get that last last last little beat to go away).

Mr. Sharps · # ? Jul 17, 2015 04:12

Startyde posted:

The init patch is not great. It's got the FIL1 a little closed and its Q a little up for no good reason. Definitely make your own to start with, it's very easy to do on the A4 because of the 'sound' paradigm. When making swole patches mind the gain staging, it's very easy to go from beefy overdrive to buzziness that sort of overtakes the wall of sound. That is if you have all osc and subs on, OD on the filter it just sort of sounds like metal zones run into metal zones. Backing off and then increasing track volume will make rounder sounds. OSC1's feedback mode with Tri on OSC2 and is fat zone. Don't neglect that you can PWM all the waveforms, not just pulse. PWM's tri with sub on OSC2 so you can control the volume of the sub (subs not having dedicated volume is a glaring oversight imo) is great. Two(or more) voice unison with independent track sounds is great. Download the free patches and study the ones you like, biopads and synthrotron are the standouts I think.
Negative feedback OVR values on FIL1 are a softer overdrive than positive. Some people suggest just ignoring FIL1, leaving it wide open and working on FIL2 as if it's a single SVF. Might not be a bad idea until you've come to grips with it. Use an LFO in one shot as an extremely fast AD envelope. Quick modulation of FRQ on top of regular ENVF is nice for adding a punchy ring at the attack of a sound.

Really though? Use the CV track to drive a Pulse or Grenadier or euro beauty case. You can certainly get there with work but it's not at its heart a ripping monosynth. One monomachine voice could tear more cones than the A4's unison.

cool thanks backing off on the oscillator volume on my patches has helped a lot, at least when using filter 1. seems like a lot of the settings have a pretty narrow sweet spot on this synth, gotta learn what it's good at i suppose

AxeBreaker · # ? Jul 17, 2015 05:59

apparently there is an electribe 2 editor. The author has no plans for an electribe 2 sampler editor, though.

http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=633366#633366

field balm · # ? Jul 17, 2015 08:07

I just finished this up, using 100% sounds from my own synthedit creations (Im too poor for real synths)(there are a couple of curb your enthusiasm samples too): https://soundcloud.com/fieldbalm/sets/vertiphage

Synthedit stuff gets a bad wrap for being innefficient or whatever but you can do some clever stuff with it. Having said that, thanks to whichever goon has been talking about their patchblocks - it got me off my rear end and I'm just about ready to switch over to using nothing but my own chuck programs and puredata patches.

You can still get close to the metal without spending money on modular y'all!

Noxious · # ? Jul 17, 2015 08:20

field balm posted:

I just finished this up, using 100% sounds from my own synthedit creations (Im too poor for real synths)(there are a couple of curb your enthusiasm samples too): https://soundcloud.com/fieldbalm/sets/vertiphage

Synthedit stuff gets a bad wrap for being innefficient or whatever but you can do some clever stuff with it. Having said that, thanks to whichever goon has been talking about their patchblocks - it got me off my rear end and I'm just about ready to switch over to using nothing but my own chuck programs and puredata patches.

You can still get close to the metal without spending money on modular y'all!

ChucK is pretty fun to use actually. It certainly helped me wrap my head around a lot of synthesis concepts. I didn't like puredata /MAX/MSP as much mostly because I felt like it's a bit clunky compared to just writing straight up code to model whatever you imagine. I get the appeal of it though, it has a lot more visual components that make it seem less intimidating to people who might not be comfortable with a purely text based interface. It also has a much larger community with a lot more guides to doing things. But I don't think it beats ChucK for simplicity and power.

snorch · snorch Jul 27, 2009

Matlab

Startyde · # ? Jul 17, 2015 12:42

sofullofhate posted:

FWIW I have a pair of a-110-1s and a pair of a-110-2s and I don't love the -2s. Why the swap, and why the -2?

Neglected the why, I like the supervco's saw but it's a proto. Sync doesn't work and it's scaled poorly, only tracks well a little better than an octave and a half. I suppose I could go with a Dixie1 and not even have to shuffle things around.

Mr. Sharps posted:

cool thanks backing off on the oscillator volume on my patches has helped a lot, at least when using filter 1. seems like a lot of the settings have a pretty narrow sweet spot on this synth, gotta learn what it's good at i suppose

Supposedly anything over 100 VOL is intended to be overdriving but Transistor Rhythm is right, Elektron has always done gain staging poorly. My starting point is usually 70-80.

Tan Dumplord · # ? Jul 17, 2015 13:00

field balm posted:

Having said that, thanks to whichever goon has been talking about their patchblocks - it got me off my rear end and I'm just about ready to switch over to using nothing but my own chuck programs and puredata patches.

Awww yiss, hop on board the roll-your-own DSP train.

I whipped up a code generator yesterday that spits out Patchblocks blocks from a WAV file with configurable bit depth and sample rate. Now I'm going to add sync and emulate my SQ80.

Of course my test sample is the Fairlight hit. Sounds crunchy at 4 bit.

Supersonic · # ? Jul 17, 2015 15:51

One thing I'm trying to figure out with the Electribe 2 is how to get the audio in working properly. I'm trying to run my Microbrute through the audio in so I can use the filter effects (I'm using audio in as the osc plus have audio thru setting turned off), but the sound either comes out very low or doesn't play at all.

Tan Dumplord · # ? Jul 17, 2015 15:52

Don't have an Electribe 2, but I have a KingKorg. Is there a global menu with a Mic / Input Gain setting?

Mr. Glass · Mr. Glass May 1, 2009

Supersonic posted:

One thing I'm trying to figure out with the Electribe 2 is how to get the audio in working properly. I'm trying to run my Microbrute through the audio in so I can use the filter effects (I'm using audio in as the osc plus have audio thru setting turned off), but the sound either comes out very low or doesn't play at all.

maybe stupid questions:
1) is the "input level" knob set appropriately?
2) is the channel you have set to the audio in osc playing a note?
3) is that channel's filter all the way open?

snorch · snorch Jul 27, 2009

sliderule posted:

Awww yiss, hop on board the roll-your-own DSP train.

I still have a funky rackmount FV-1 dev box that is currently collecting dust due to lack of time and energy. It's shameful really because it makes for some kickass possibilities, being the same platform the Halls of Valhalla reverbs were built on.

Supersonic · # ? Jul 17, 2015 16:20

Mr. Glass posted:

maybe stupid questions:
1) is the "input level" knob set appropriately?
2) is the channel you have set to the audio in osc playing a note?
3) is that channel's filter all the way open?

1)Input level is good, I set it to just under where the display says 'clip'
2) Channel isn't always playing a note, but it doesn't seem to react when I use the tribe's keyboard to play notes
3) Channel's filter is open

So far the only way I've gotten it to work is by running the brute's sequencer and then using the gate arp or trigger on the touchpad. Same happens with the Volca Bass.

HandlingByJebus · # ? Jul 17, 2015 16:29

Supersonic posted:

1)Input level is good, I set it to just under where the display says 'clip'
2) Channel isn't always playing a note, but it doesn't seem to react when I use the tribe's keyboard to play notes
3) Channel's filter is open

So far the only way I've gotten it to work is by running the brute's sequencer and then using the gate arp or trigger on the touchpad. Same happens with the Volca Bass.

Is the patch set to enable the input? Other (older) Korg gear I've owned in the past needed the ext in to be turned on / off per patch.

AxeBreaker · # ? Jul 17, 2015 17:32

Try a /channel with all the notes set to TIE that the Brute isn't on and press play and play some notes from the microbrute into it. If that works set up a different channel that the microbrute is on, close the filte, press play and play some notes on the electribe. If that works you should be able to sequence on that channel and process on the first one.

Tan Dumplord · # ? Jul 17, 2015 17:44

snorch posted:

I still have a funky rackmount FV-1 dev box that is currently collecting dust due to lack of time and energy. It's shameful really because it makes for some kickass possibilities, being the same platform the Halls of Valhalla reverbs were built on.

Is that chip floating point? Can't find any details on the DSP core.

Startyde · # ? Jul 17, 2015 18:57

sliderule posted:

Is that chip floating point? Can't find any details on the DSP core.

http://www.spinsemi.com/knowledge_base/coding_examples.html
The spin is also tiptop's zdsp euro module. A few other modules makers use spin chip but not flashable.

Mr. Glass · Mr. Glass May 1, 2009

Supersonic posted:

1)Input level is good, I set it to just under where the display says 'clip'
2) Channel isn't always playing a note, but it doesn't seem to react when I use the tribe's keyboard to play notes
3) Channel's filter is open

So far the only way I've gotten it to work is by running the brute's sequencer and then using the gate arp or trigger on the touchpad. Same happens with the Volca Bass.

i know there's some trick to this that's just straight up slipping my mind. try twiddling the osc edit knob on the audio in part maybe?

snorch · snorch Jul 27, 2009

The FV-1 is kind of an interesting DSP and I don't think there's any other quite like it. It was the brain child of the late Keith Barr, also known for founding Alesis and teaching himself ASIC design from the ground up, even writing a rather good book about it. He was also responsible for the analog voice chips found on the A6 Andromeda.

So basically the FV-1 was built to be a single-chip solution for guitar amp FX and whatnot, featuring built-in 24-bit stereo converters, three dedicated pins for potentiometer knobs and three pins that act as a binary selector to switch between up to eight different programs. There are 32kSamples of delay memory on board that use a proprietary 14-bit floating point format. Instead of some multi-megahertz clock, you clock it directly at the audio rate you want, which is usually 32khz but can vary depending on application.

The clock is multiplied up to give you 128 instructions per sample in the strange and fantastic SpinASM language. Some of the instructions you can use are compound operations that let you keep the instruction count low for common audio operations such as the all-pass filters commonly found in reverbs. Additionally you have 32 registers where you can store samples and intermediary values at the full 24-bit fixed point precision that most processing happens in.

The combination of low instruction count and ample delay memory gives rise to mostly old-school effects: granular pitch shifting, FDN reverbs, interesting delays, etc. but people seem to be getting very creative with it judging by the things I've seen done with the Z-DSP...

snorch fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Jul 17, 2015

Mr. Glass · Mr. Glass May 1, 2009

just picked up an old tascam cassette portastudio on ebay because i'm a big dumb idiot and think it's gonna make recording my eurorack sound better

Tayter Swift · # ? Jul 18, 2015 05:21

Use it to a cover of Bruce Springsteen's entire album Nebraska.

Startyde · # ? Jul 18, 2015 11:15

Mr. Glass posted:

just picked up an old tascam cassette portastudio on ebay because i'm a big dumb idiot and think it's gonna make recording my eurorack sound better

The four track secrets Richard Devine doesn't want you to know!!

Scatterfold · # ? Jul 18, 2015 11:49

Mr. Glass posted:

just picked up an old tascam cassette portastudio on ebay because i'm a big dumb idiot and think it's gonna make recording my eurorack sound better

idk about 'better' but i record to a tascam 4track and love it; it makes me really think about nailing a take and not relying on editing and, counterintuitively, helps me finish tracks faster rather than slower b/c of it. every time i finish a side of C90 i'lll bounce that down to disk, but not until then...

cubicle gangster · # ? Jul 21, 2015 17:14

Well I'm officially waiting for an email back from kelly at make noise in which I asked how best to give him money for a shared system w/ cv bus. I wish he'd hurry and reply and get this over with.

khysanth · # ? Jul 21, 2015 17:35

Here is yesterday's goonsynth:

https://songadayforamonth.com/#/song/-JuiRipYRmtAHTWBmQcJ

If you want to listen to the other tunes I've put up this month just click on my name there: International Aural Sex

khysanth fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Jul 21, 2015

Mr. Glass · Mr. Glass May 1, 2009

cubicle gangster posted:

Well I'm officially waiting for an email back from kelly at make noise in which I asked how best to give him money for a shared system w/ cv bus. I wish he'd hurry and reply and get this over with.

i really wish they sold the cv bus separately

VoodooXT · # ? Jul 21, 2015 19:19

khysanth posted:

Here is yesterday's goonsynth:

https://songadayforamonth.com/#/song/-JuiRipYRmtAHTWBmQcJ

If you want to listen to the other tunes I've put up this month just click on my name there International Aural Sex

Very John Carpenter-y.

I love it.

cubicle gangster · # ? Jul 21, 2015 20:59

Mr. Glass posted:

i really wish they sold the cv bus separately

I really wish he'd respond to me and take this money before i change my mind. it's only been 24 hours but this is tense.

Trig Discipline · # ? Jul 22, 2015 17:32

Finally got hold of my Minilab. I guess people say the build quality is uneven or something but mine seems p drat cool. Definitely better than my QX25 as a travel controller.

Flipperwaldt · # ? Jul 22, 2015 19:01

Trig Discipline posted:

Finally got hold of my Minilab. I guess people say the build quality is uneven or something but mine seems p drat cool. Definitely better than my QX25 as a travel controller.

I'm suspecting more and more that a couple of months in they started making an updated version with fixed hardware, more specifically after the Beatstep came out, because that thing never got all the complaints.

So Math · # ? Jul 23, 2015 22:57

I would like to send the clock signal from my Beatstep Pro into my Volca Keys. I have the Beatstep clock running in one step mode, but the Volca will frequently skip steps. The same problem happens if I try using one of the drum gates instead. How can I get this working?

The Skeleton King · # ? Jul 24, 2015 22:17

Does anyone here have any recommendations on books to learn how to use digital synthesizers? I am wanting to learn how to make the sounds I want without having to resort to presets. I know only the basics of how subtractive synthesizers work, and I want to do more.

magiccarpet · # ? Jul 24, 2015 22:26

http://www.amazon.com/Welshs-Synthesizer-Cookbook-Programming-Universal/dp/B000ERHA4S

net work error · # ? Jul 24, 2015 22:43

So Math posted:

I would like to send the clock signal from my Beatstep Pro into my Volca Keys. I have the Beatstep clock running in one step mode, but the Volca will frequently skip steps. The same problem happens if I try using one of the drum gates instead. How can I get this working?

I've been trying this as well but its been a no go. I haven't checked but if you can adjust the clock voltage to 5V then you might be able to clock it since that's what the Volca manual suggests is the sync input.

Adbot · # ? May 26, 2024 01:32

Sizone · # ? Jul 24, 2015 23:34

The Skeleton King posted:

Does anyone here have any recommendations on books to learn how to use digital synthesizers? I am wanting to learn how to make the sounds I want without having to resort to presets. I know only the basics of how subtractive synthesizers work, and I want to do more.

Find a copy of sounddiver, get a digital synth and start patching. If you want to figure out the timbrle quality of an FM patch apriori, then you do a bunch of maths, only doing those maths takes longer than just messing with the frequency ratios and listening to the result. Rompler patches are, like, 90% layering and mixing sounds, something else that you do by doing it, not by theorizing about it.

In short, reading about synthesis is a pretty poo poo way to learn about. Reading about it after you know it is o.k. because it can make you a bigger rear end in a top hat when you post about it.