First hard synth ideas?

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UN!T
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by UN!T »

Hades wrote:oh yeah, if I'd have to buy a polyphonic typical subtractive HW synth nowadays,
I'd get a prophet 08.
If you buy a rack, you can get one for around 1200 euro's I think.

I've had many HW synths over the years (I think I'm at 28 by now), some vintage, some new,
so I'm not gonna say I'm an expert, but I've seen quite a few,
and when I once played a prophet 08 in a store for a few hours about 2 years ago, I was really blown away by how warm it sounded (I know I know, cliché adjective to use), nice big round sound, very easy to program, covers a big sound range,...

In my opionion you can't go wrong with a Prophet 08.
Unless you get one with the shit encoders. :D
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

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UN!T wrote:
Hades wrote:oh yeah, if I'd have to buy a polyphonic typical subtractive HW synth nowadays,
I'd get a prophet 08.
If you buy a rack, you can get one for around 1200 euro's I think.

I've had many HW synths over the years (I think I'm at 28 by now), some vintage, some new,
so I'm not gonna say I'm an expert, but I've seen quite a few,
and when I once played a prophet 08 in a store for a few hours about 2 years ago, I was really blown away by how warm it sounded (I know I know, cliché adjective to use), nice big round sound, very easy to program, covers a big sound range,...

In my opionion you can't go wrong with a Prophet 08.
Unless you get one with the shit encoders. :D
I heard something about that, but don't know any details.
care to elaborate ?
Wasn't it just the earlier versions with bad knobs ?
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by UN!T »

Hades wrote:
UN!T wrote:
Hades wrote:oh yeah, if I'd have to buy a polyphonic typical subtractive HW synth nowadays,
I'd get a prophet 08.
If you buy a rack, you can get one for around 1200 euro's I think.

I've had many HW synths over the years (I think I'm at 28 by now), some vintage, some new,
so I'm not gonna say I'm an expert, but I've seen quite a few,
and when I once played a prophet 08 in a store for a few hours about 2 years ago, I was really blown away by how warm it sounded (I know I know, cliché adjective to use), nice big round sound, very easy to program, covers a big sound range,...

In my opionion you can't go wrong with a Prophet 08.
Unless you get one with the shit encoders. :D
I heard something about that, but don't know any details.
care to elaborate ?
Wasn't it just the earlier versions with bad knobs ?
Thats right the early versions had some encoder issues. DSI offered a kit to upgrade to pots instead. I was aware of it because I was considering one. I didn't want to get stuck with one somebody might try to let off on the sly.
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by Senko »

So from a bit of research all I received was a DCO vs VCO war and how the P8 is a cold synth :D

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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by oddmyth »

BoC is pretty easy to replicate, I don't think it's hard to come very close to their sound with just VSTi's, however like I mentioned with Shed, they maintain a certain sound to their music overall, they reach very hard for a vintage sound, but you don't need expensive synths to recreate these sounds, it's mostly post processing and mixing that make those records sound the way they do.

We live in an era of being able to emulate vintage gear very well and what we can't achieve through emulation alone we can certainly strive even closer through post processing. This is usually why I suggest staying away from investing in expensive synths, but instead buying outboard analog post gear (compressor/limit/eq) - in this way you can apply that sound to any device in your chain instead of only getting it from a single device, moreover you will end up using these devices more than you would a single instrument and as such you will learn to master them more quickly.

BTW 1:17 to 1:39 in that video is very similar to
youtu.be/cLkmiHTiOZw
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by ferramus »

This thread made me look up some analogue synth videos again and now I want one again.
Why is it this addictive. I need a budget.

For the price, the microbrute looks really interesting, pretty sure that's going to be my first one.
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by Senko »

oddmyth wrote:BoC is pretty easy to replicate, I don't think it's hard to come very close to their sound with just VSTi's, however like I mentioned with Shed, they maintain a certain sound to their music overall, they reach very hard for a vintage sound, but you don't need expensive synths to recreate these sounds, it's mostly post processing and mixing that make those records sound the way they do.

We live in an era of being able to emulate vintage gear very well and what we can't achieve through emulation alone we can certainly strive even closer through post processing. This is usually why I suggest staying away from investing in expensive synths, but instead buying outboard analog post gear (compressor/limit/eq) - in this way you can apply that sound to any device in your chain instead of only getting it from a single device, moreover you will end up using these devices more than you would a single instrument and as such you will learn to master them more quickly.

BTW 1:17 to 1:39 in that video is very similar to
youtu.be/cLkmiHTiOZw
That elongated sweep pad in this track is spot on! Those are the types of sound I aim for. I do a "decent" job emulating with the VST plugs I have, but it's never just right. I guess that comes along with being inexperienced as well. To be fair i've been fondling digital knobs for quite some time and am just curious of the fuss about "analog". But this will only be the first piece of kit of many, and by many I mean what my wallet can afford. At the moment i'm at null. Laptop and monitors. Figured a synth would be a good pick. I'm sitting on the pretense that only vintage Waldorf and Korg gear can produce those fluent chords and pads that sound much different than say a Juno-106 string.

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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by oddmyth »

Fair enough, everyone should explore, no doubt I have :). I definitely enjoy having some knobs to figure stuff out, but for pad sounds there's definitely a wealth of really good VSTs on the rise, that are about 1/10th the price of a decent piece of hardware. The top three I would look at are:

D16 - Lush101
U-he - Diva
Camel Audio - Alchemy

I'm also going to take a look at Synapse Audios Dune 2 when I get my stuff back up and running as that appears to be a pad monster of a soft synth. But since we are talking about Claude Young and pads why not throw another Claude track in the mix

youtu.be/HBbpxesIAHs
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by Senko »

As far as analog goes, guessing Prophet 08 is the beast that can do these types of things?

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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by Hades »

Senko wrote:So from a bit of research all I received was a DCO vs VCO war and how the P8 is a cold synth :D
the whole idea that DCO synths are "cold" is just pure bullshit !!!
Juno 60, 106, alpha juno 1 & 2, JX-10/MKS-70, Matrix 6 or 1000,...
all of them are DCO synths,
none of them are considered "cold" synths.
In fact, these are usually all praised as having a typically "warm" analog sound.
Tons of famous songs have a juno in them.
The "hoover" sound for example was originally made on an alpha juno.

One can compare synths and say synth A sounds "warmer" than synth B for example,
but one can't just say "ow it's DCO so it doesn't sound "warm" at all.
(and boy do I hate the term "warm", even worse is when they speak of "fat")

It's bit like that old discussion of VST vs HW synths.
One of my favourite synths in the studio is Omnisphere. They sampled almost every legendary synth (vintage or not) to build it's library, and the sound of Omnisphere is just superb.
I can load up patches on Omnisphere and play them, then turn around and play the exact same patch on my JX-10. No one will be able to tell the difference. (ask Ariff, he was in my studio once when we did that little test)
I can do this for my K5000 as well, which is all digital and additive.
I can also play sounds on my Juno-60 and play sounds on that freeware TAL-U-NO, and you won't be able to tell the difference.
That is of course if you have a good soundcard and some proper monitors and you program some proper presets into the thing.

It's all so much depending from synth to synth.

Anyways, I can say that the Prophet 08 sounds very nice analog, "warm" if you like,
and I can say that I've played enough analog synths over the years, DCO and VCO,
I still have DCO and VCO synths in the studio, and VST, FM, additive,...
They're all tons of fun and great tools if you know what to use or abuse them for.
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

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oddmyth wrote:Fair enough, everyone should explore, no doubt I have :). I definitely enjoy having some knobs to figure stuff out, but for pad sounds there's definitely a wealth of really good VSTs on the rise, that are about 1/10th the price of a decent piece of hardware. The top three I would look at are:

D16 - Lush101
U-he - Diva
Camel Audio - Alchemy
I have Lush101 and Alchemy.
Though both are nice synths, they are completely blown out of the water by Omnisphere if you are looking for pads.
Well, Omnisphere can pretty much do everything very well, but it definitely excells in pads and textures.
I have no idea why no one here uses Omnisphere or ever talks about it, but it really is one fantastic synth.
Comes with well over 5000 presets, very well organised, and it's dead easy to make your own (though you'll mostly be blown away so much by the presets that you'll usually just tweak them more than start making sounds from scratch, and this is coming from a guy who usually doesn't like presets at all).
Omni has dual filters, 17 different filter types, highly flexible envelopes that can do great rhytymical stuff if you want. It can do waveshaping, ring modulation, basic FM, granular,... It has 6LFO's per patch,...
But really, all you gotta do is hear some of the patches.
If you're looking for atmospheric stuff, or just any kid of pads, whether they are airy, hollow, warm,... it doesn't matter. Omnisphere offers them all.

Also, Lush101 is a lot more CPU hungry than Omnisphere.
And isn't Diva rather CPU hungry as well, or am I mistaken in that (don't have it, think I read it somewhere) ?
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by Senko »

Lush101 is quite CPU intensive, but Diva? I thought they patched it to where it's not so bad.

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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by Planar »

Hades wrote:I have no idea why no one here uses Omnisphere or ever talks about it, but it really is one fantastic synth.
It's never crossed my mind as it's pretty expensive and needs a big install as well. Zebra and Absynth seem to have it covered between them for me. I'm not bothered if it sounds analog or not though, I don't even really know what that actually means in real terms.

Monark is another to be considered in the CPU hogging-is-supposed-to-sound-like-hardware stakes.

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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by innovine »

Most of the decent vsts today sound just as good as the hardware synths, and oftentimes they are plenty better. But thats kinda missing the point. Hardware frees you up from needing a vst host (or a computer at all, sometimes), has a well designed workflow and physical interface (as opposed to some midi mapped controller which always misses something or requires remapping and fiddling all the time), and of course, holds its resale value really well. You can buy a used virus and sell it again next year for the same you paid, which is not often the case with vsts.

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Re: First hard synth ideas?

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innovine wrote:has a well designed workflow
I don't think this is something you can claim as a universal truth at all, it's too dependant on the hardware/software. Something like Zebra 2 has an exceptional work flow with incredible flexibility and very fast to use and it's not something you could easily build a hardware version of. FM synthesis seems to work very well in software. I get the one-knob one function thing, but lets not pretend some hardware also include menu driving and multiple functions assigned to single buttons etc.

VST's emulating hardware (and, yuck, their interfaces in software) this totally applies to though.

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Re: First hard synth ideas?

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Planar wrote:
innovine wrote:has a well designed workflow
I don't think this is something you can claim as a universal truth at all, it's too dependant on the hardware/software. Something like Zebra 2 has an exceptional work flow with incredible flexibility and very fast to use and it's not something you could easily build a hardware version of. FM synthesis seems to work very well in software. I get the one-knob one function thing, but lets not pretend some hardware also include menu driving and multiple functions assigned to single buttons etc.

VST's emulating hardware (and, yuck, their interfaces in software) this totally applies to though.
exactly, there are many many MANY synths out there that have a horrible interface to work with.
Most synths from the late 80's to mid 90's suffer from that problem, but even nowadays there are still enough HW synths made with interfaces that make you scratch your head far too often.
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

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This is also why I always try to point out to 1st HW buyers that they should consider the interface, not just the sound.
If you want to properly learn sound design and have lots of fun with a HW synth, it's far more important in my opinion that the synth has a good interface than if it's analog, vintage,... blablabla
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by Senko »

Currently it's between Polysix, Prophet 8, Waldorf Q and Waldorf XT (Racks). Expanded my budget just a bit more. But I thank you guys for all the feedback and recommendations :D

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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by oddmyth »

Agree w/ Planar, lots of terrible design on hardware, especially once you start looking at poly/multi osc machines, unfortunately the dimensions of synth don't naturally lay themselves out for clarity in signal routing. Something that is much easier to get right, and change in software.

Sure hardware can hold its value, but lately plugins are doing alright in that respect as well and again at a fraction of the cost.
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Re: First hard synth ideas?

Post by UN!T »

I agree that the synth needs to work for the individual. Vintage or analog is not as important to me as loving the sound I get from it and I can connect with the interface in a meaningful way.

As far as VST and Plug ins go. Well even some of them aspire to be more than what they are.

http://nonlinear-labs.de/projects/emphase.html
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