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Gary the Llama posted:I don't mind second-hand gear, I just don't want to get screwed over since I'm a newb to hardware synths. Just something I wanted to throw out there, but if you're willing to look into a vintage synthesizer, the Roland Juno-106 is a very good first-time synth for several reasons. Yes, this is a machine that's pushing 20+ years at this point, but they tend to be quite reliable, and the few problems you may run into are well-documented and relatively easy to fix. That said, if having to deal with an absolute minimum of potential problems is a priority, going vintage may not be for you. However, if you do go for a Juno you will get something that no synthesizer on the market today can offer: basic, real ANALOG synthesis with few bells and whistles but everything you need to make great, honest analog sounds. Also, a couple sites dedicated to hardware synthesizers, for those interested (maybe we could add these to the OP?). Vintage Synth Explorer Sonic State The VSE forums especially are a great resource for getting information about, troubleshooting and even purchasing vintage synths via their classifieds section. Edit: Forgot to mention, Junos can typically be found around the $300-$400 range, so they're within your budget as well. Cyne fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Mar 8, 2008 |
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Mar 8, 2008 01:08
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ManoliIsFat posted:I believe that's the System Prefrences for MIDI/Audio in OSX. No special program. Yep, it's default from Apple. Applications -> Utilities -> Audio MIDI Setup
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Mar 14, 2008 00:03
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ThaNinjaMonkey posted:- Included Effect Plugins could be improved immensely Huh, that's funny, I like Live's effects so much I barely use anything else for signal processing except some Sonalksis plug-ins (love that TBK filter), so I will have to heavily disagree with this.
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Mar 15, 2008 04:45
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ThaNinjaMonkey posted:I was raised on Waves, so my expectations might be way too high. Ah, heh, that might explain it. For me a big part of the appeal in Live is definitely a function of the specific kind of music I produce. I make techno with an ambient/dub edge and basically creamed myself at seeing not less than four delay units. Basically I think for most kinds of electronic music they're perfectly functional and if you don't like them can still at least make decent stand-ins until you get some new plug-ins. For me they're perfect though.
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Mar 15, 2008 05:31
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Spy posted:Thanks for the info. Now as you say Audacity is a wave editor, I assume it wouldn't be the correct software to create your own sounds, or would it? If not, what software should I look to? You can do basic sequencing in Audacity and I believe it has some degree of VST support but honestly just don't bother. It's tedious as gently caress to use Audacity for anything but wave editing. For a functional, free DAW option, I've heard some pretty good things about Reaper, though haven't had the chance to try it out since I'm on a Mac most of the time. But yeah, like Yoozer said, check out the programs mentioned in the OP, download the demos, and if you find something you like, many of these programs have lite versions and/or student discounts you can apply if you're worried about the price.
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Mar 23, 2008 08:12
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blingasaurus rex posted:I'm getting a tax refund this year and I want to spend it on a hardware synth, specifically one that will help me learn synthesis and synth programming. I'd like it to sound as synthy as possible, i.e. crunchy synth poo poo instead of trying to replicate a violin or something. My budget's around $300, used/old gear is fine, but the main focus should be ability to program it and learn synth programming skills that I can transfer to softsynths. Any ideas? I recommended this same synth to a dude on the first page as well, but... I'm a big Juno-106 fan. As a beginner synth it really is fantastic, and will continue to serve you well as long as you keep it. I could never part with mine. Alternatively... what're Alesis Ions going for nowadays? About $500? A bit out of your price range, but might be worth a look... the Micron's not bad, but, on a basic analog style synth you really want to avoid menu diving as much as possible, and the Micron doesn't have much real-time control options for obvious reasons. I'm a strong believer in the benefits of tactile learning in this regard; I think for beginners it's important to have a knob or fader that you can actually touch and really feel the effect of what you're doing on the sound. What else... maybe one of the older Access Viruses. The keys tend to be pricey though, so you'd probably need to go with a desktop unit, in which case you'd need to supply your own MIDI controller. If you're going for something not at all catered towards emulating acoustic instruments though this could be the one for you.
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Mar 24, 2008 10:15
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Yoozer posted:gently caress the 106. You can buy this though which allows full real-time control. With the onboard sequencer this is actually a pretty nifty little synth but I don't think I'd recommend it over a Juno.
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Mar 24, 2008 22:15
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matblack posted:In USB audio interfaces on the cheap I'm liking how the new PreSonus USB unit looks. Doesn't ship until next month, but their FireWire units have a great reputation, so it may be worth waiting a little bit for.
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Mar 27, 2008 02:41
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Holy gently caress this is some evil poo poo right here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBVqsNJh2vg I guess if you make noise or industrial ambient or whatever you just found your next synthesizer. Edit: The gently caress is with that Neuron vid that's 11 seconds long? What a cruel, cruel tease. Cyne fucked around with this message at 10:57 on Apr 3, 2008 |
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Apr 3, 2008 10:53
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This does seem like a piece of kit that Mr. James would enjoy, now that you mention it. Kinda reminds me of the stuff he does with the MS-20, another great gently caress-poo poo-up synth.
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Apr 3, 2008 11:14
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Altoidss posted:I need help on another patch! Sorry for the deluge of requests but synthesis is my major weakpoint. Sounds like that's all 303 for the first minute or so. If you don't already have Rebirth (808, 909 and 303 emulation by the developers of Reason) you can get it here: http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/
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Apr 11, 2008 03:23
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Siamey posted:Hey guys, how do I go about getting the singing simpletext style poo poo in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey0hM5ZQzy4 Funny this should come up, I'm actually working on a tune now with "Vicki." On OS X the text to speech program is in System Preferences -> Speech. However I'm pretty sure in that Cylob track (great tune by the way - remember buying the 12" some years back) he's just using a vocoder.
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May 14, 2008 06:31
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On the subject of presets: Normally I'm all about completely making everything totally from scratch. The thing is that I just really enjoy the process of sound design, I love hearing a sound take shape and I really love when something unexpected happens and I end up with a sound I'd never even dreamed of before. With all the possibilities of synthesis, it seems like a waste to limit yourself to stock sounds. That said, I actually just recently was in a situation where I was working on a track, loaded up a softsynth, played a little melody right when it came up and it just sounded absolutely perfect, and I knew that I couldn't make a better sound for this specific song no matter how hard I tried. So of course I am not wholly opposed to using presets, but I could never imagine using them exclusively. And even in the case above I found it necessary to put my stamp on that sound with reverb, EQ, filtering etc. to get it just right. One of the issues is that electronic music is becoming a very crowded field. Anyone can download a copy of FL Studio or something (not to diss FL Studio - just using it as an example of well-known production software), fire up generic trance lead #1423 and off they go. Sound design is now more than ever an extremely crucial aspect of the production process. I think when you take the time to get things just right it will be apparent to your listeners. The Fog was correct when he said that most of your audience probably isn't going to be calling you out for using a preset or stock loop or something, but I think if you consistently ABUSE the usage of presets or stock loops then they will, on some level, notice that your tracks are starting to sound stagnant and lifeless. The bottom line for me would be that the amount of effort you put into your work is always apparent, whether that means making every single sound on your tracks from scratch or just finding creative ways to make a preset sit just right in your mix.
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May 24, 2008 00:42
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Mannex posted:I asked my dad if he had any easy-to-use hardware synths down in the basement and he dug out one of these. Your link needs fixing, it just goes to the VSE main page. As a vintage synth enthusiast I'm eager to see what you've dug up here.
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May 24, 2008 10:07
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Mannex posted:http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/octavecat.shtml Oh man, that is really cool. Take care of that thing, maybe get it looked at if you've the cash for repairs/servicing. That's a really cool find for something that was just collecting dust in the basement. You should try to find out what else your pops has got down there.
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May 25, 2008 00:49
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Mr. Pharmacist posted:Probably a "classic" one, I want it to really sound like a drum machine. This could be difficult to pull off with your budget. Vintage drum machines go for pretty crazy amounts nowadays, but you can find a few deals. - Roland TR-707. The 909's little bro. Sounds very similar to the 909 and carries virtually none of the mystique that has driven up that machine's prices in recent years. - Alesis HR-16. Supposedly the 'B' model is the one to go to for more electronic-oriented sounds. Cheap as hell too.
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Jun 28, 2008 05:37
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Hey dude, scram. I'm THIS close to pawning off my old TR-505 to this guy. It's vintage. Actually I think I'm just gonna use it as a ghetto MIDI controller.
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Jun 28, 2008 08:40
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Yoozer posted:Otherwise, mod the living hell out of it. Hey, that sounds really nifty. I might just go for that patchbay mod. Also, what about a Novation Drum Station? I've seen both the original and v2 version going for pretty cheap on eBay. I've never used one myself but I know a ton of folks who love those Novation boxes. Cyne fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Jun 28, 2008 |
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Jun 28, 2008 21:21
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Mannex posted:Does anyone know how to make that ringy xylophone sound that Boards of Canada uses in The Color Of The Fire? That is indeed a pretty typical FM sound. Bell tones and other metallic type sounds are definitely a strength of FM. Just shuffle through the presets on any FM synth and you'll almost certainly come across a reasonable facsimile.
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Jun 29, 2008 11:15
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Rkelly posted:I sang the Carmina Burana with a full orchestra. Intense is a good word. Robert Miles and Brian Eno?  I don't see the connection.
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Jul 14, 2008 03:23
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Lynx Winters posted:Man, am I glad I found this thread. While I'm stuck out here in the Middle East, I'm in the process of figuring out the two things I have: Reaper and the DS-10 I got a couple of days ago. Here's a copy of the owner's manual for the MS-10 synth which the DS-10 was based on. There's some useful information on this page as well: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Pit/1208/
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Aug 19, 2008 02:10
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Yeah I would probably spend a few more bucks and get a 2x2 interface just in case down the road you want to add anything to your setup. I'd probably go with the MOTU Fast Lane personally but it really doesn't matter as much with MIDI interfaces. It's audio interfaces that you don't want to skimp on. Actually I'm kinda surprised there's no USB MIDI on the MicroKorg. I mean yeah it is like six years old at this point but since it's still going strong you'd think they could've made a couple little updates to keep it in line with the times. By the way, this is a MiniKorg. 
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Aug 23, 2008 00:03
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Yoozer posted:Exactly what you're looking for. Hey that looks pretty drat neat, wish there was a demo version to play around with.
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Aug 25, 2008 23:46
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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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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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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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Kai was taken posted:There's an Operator tutorial on how to make percussion sounds. Yep, Operator and FM synthesis in general are great for drum sounds. Nowadays I synthesize pretty much all my own drums and use Operator pretty heavily for that task. FM synths have a reputation for being unwieldy but Operator is very accessible and you can work with it in a very analog way if you're not quite ready for the FM aspect.
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Oct 10, 2008 08:25
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tylertfb posted:
This is fantastic. I don't think I really have much in the way of criticism here, it all comes together very nicely, and I think the kick sounds fine for the more mellow kind of feel you seem to be going for.
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Oct 11, 2008 08:37
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Kai was taken posted:Any word on Live 8? I'm still rolling with 6, and I want to try and just skip 7 and go to 8, since it's this late in the cycle. Although, I don't know if it's worth it, if 8 is going to be out within any reasonable amount of time. For a while Ableton was really rolling these suckers out but I get the feeling we're gonna be sticking with 7 for a little while now. That's just a hunch though, I don't have any inside info or anything. To be honest if you're happy with Live 6 I'd say just stick with it unless there's some really compelling reason you have for wanting to upgrade. I just recently upgraded from version 5 and really I don't think that there are a ton of big deals that the average Live user would miss by not upgrading.
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Oct 12, 2008 05:47
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Re: x/y MIDI controllers - you could try using a Wacom tablet. The MIDITab software available here can help facilitate this process, or if you have the technical facility to do so by all means go hog wild in Max/MSP.
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Oct 25, 2008 02:03
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mezzir posted:I've been thinking of trying max/msp or buzz for a while now, but the learning curve just always seemed ridiculous. However, with the number of people i've seen cropping up there's gotta be something to it, so is there any good intro / for dummies type tutorials out there that people could vouch for (I know google will turn up plenty of hits for this but with something like this it'd be better to just go with something i know has worked for someone) Max/MSP and Buzz are a bit different actually. With Buzz you can get started making music very quickly after loading it up, while Max/MSP pretty much requires going through the tutorials and becoming familiar with how it works before even beginning to start on building your own synths/effects/sequencers/whatever. Also, the objects in Max are generally small, relatively simple building blocks which you combine to make complex tools, while the Buzz objects are more macro level, i.e., you can just drag a pre-made synth right on there instead of having to assemble it from the individual note pitch, gate, envelope objects and such. In Buzz if you want to use synths or effects you made yourself you have to actually be able to code in C++. Of course I'm not trying to rip on Buzz, it's a very cool piece of software, just pointing out that if you're intimidated because you think it's as difficult to learn as Max/MSP you'll probably be pleasantly surprised at how accessible it is.
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Oct 28, 2008 01:37
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TurnpikeLad posted:Hi there, You can adjust latency in Preferences > Audio.
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Nov 4, 2008 02:54
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Nigel Tufnel posted:Well sure it's cheaper but is it a piece of crap? M-Audio MIDI controllers are pretty reliable across their range in my experience. I've got an old Radium 49 that's been with me for about six years and still doing just fine. It's basically just a question of what you need in a MIDI controller. There's no single "best" but assuming you want a decent complement of knobs and faders for controlling Reason's synths and such I'd say the Oxygen 49 represents a good balance of controllability and number of keys for the price. What you get with the Axiom is semi-weighted keys and pads in place of the faders on the Oxygen. So basically just pick whatever you think meets your needs better. You might also consider the CME U-Key which has 49 semi-weighted keys, 8 knobs and 8 pads and costs the same as the Axiom.
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Nov 18, 2008 12:40
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Yoozer posted:Seriously, it -is- sampling old TV shows, reversing parts and pitching things up. Yeah you pretty much nailed it. It's funny how a sound that was so unique when it came out can be reduced to formula so easily. That doesn't take away from how interesting and creative it was when we all first heard it on Music Has the Right to Children, though like a lot of other formulaic sounds it's becoming pretty played out these days and I really have no interest in hearing any more BoC clones. If you do want to work with this type of sound, use it as a jumping off point for your own explorations, don't just straight up ape BoC, that's boring.
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Nov 30, 2008 00:56
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Oh, yeah, I totally get the purpose behind what you're doing with those tracks. I wasn't really directing those comments towards anyone specifically, just some general thoughts. 
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Nov 30, 2008 01:43
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dookie posted:Probably a stupid question, but how do I run a high pass filter through my instruments? I'm using Reason. If you want to be able to apply it to any of your instruments, set up an aux send/return on your mixer. To do this just connect a cable from the aux send to the the input of the filter, then connect the output to the return on your mixer. You're now able to control how much, if any, of the effect is sent to a particular track on your mixer.
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Dec 7, 2008 11:55
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dookie posted:But what module would I use to tweak high pass filters? Ah, the filter module in Reason is called the ECF-42 Envelope Controlled Filter.
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Dec 7, 2008 12:00
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colonp posted:Won't that also have the original signal coming through? I remember it working like that. A send basically just allows you to control how much of a given channel's signal you're sending to the connected device. The primarily benefit is being able to route multiple channels to a single device. If you just need an effect on one track then insert effects work just fine too. Edit: Ah, my bad on the filter, I don't spend too much time in Reason nowadays.
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Dec 7, 2008 12:26
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squidgee posted:I just really hope they give us an LFO module. Live needs to do that too. They're still working on the vocoder for Live.
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Dec 7, 2008 18:40
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