Any synth that really sounds different

[SafeandSound Mastering]

I am hoping the OP comes back to check out Rayblaster and Harmor as they were 2 actual synth suggestions that were in direct response to the topic.

I think I own close to 50 soft synths and I have used every single one of them. Some I purchased and thought I might not use but I go round the houses genre wise and so I think I have used pretty much every one of them. They have given me immense enjoyment over the years.

It all depends on what you are doing. I actively enjoy synthesizing and for 6 years have made my own sounds, now I have cut my teeth I am happy to use presets as well when I wish to. They won't necessarily make you write better music (chords and melodies, then again maybe they will as they inspire, and some sounds inspire certain melodies and phrases, which may be "of a time") but they do give the chance to make the very best versions of any sound imagined or not imagined.

When the ITB production and mixing studio got to pro level I went all in. I love them, all of them.

Most I did not pay the full price for an so the vast majority of them are £50.00 or less. So for £2,500.00 or less over 8 years I can produce the best version of any sound as far as I hear it.

I am still entirely amazed what power we have, it's literally a life's dream come true to have total control of every sonic detail in the way we do.

Most of them sound very diffferent to me, the sound qualities and what specific sounds they excel at, analogue, FM, additive, and so on. When you start to hear this you realize it is really nice to have lots of them.

[sonics]

I am still entirely amazed what power we have, it's literally a life's dream come true to have total control of every sonic detail in the way we do.

Your experience sounds very much like mine. I used to have a (large) room of physical synths. That was partly because of how different they sounded; one machine couldn't do it all. Now all that and more is handled by a computer and software, which suits me just fine.

(I'm a big fan of Xpand!2, as well!)

On the topic of synth sounds, I discovered the Kodamo Mask1 this week. Sounds lovely to me. I'm waiting for a software version...

[Arpangel]

I think 1-3 synths is more than enough for most composers - a greater choice can often lead to paralysis. My three are an Roland Integra-7, Roland D-50 and Plogue OPS7 (software FM). Between these three and sampler I can get all the synthetic sounds that I need.

I'd find it tough to compose with only three synths to hand. If I have to render parts to audio to free synths up that kills the flow for me. I want to just reach out my hand and play something.

Let's also not forget that the Integra-7 is actually a 16-part multi-timbral module, so a tad more than 'one synth', if that's the way you feel able to work. I've almost never used synths in multi-timbral mode. One synth, one job is how I like to work.

I find synths are a bit like people, you get them in to do a specific things, like in my music, building up tracks from different instruments.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

I am still entirely amazed what power we have, it's literally a life's dream come true to have total control of every sonic detail in the way we do.

Your experience sounds very much like mine. I used to have a (large) room of physical synths. That was partly because of how different they sounded; one machine couldn't do it all. Now all that and more is handled by a computer and software, which suits me just fine.

(I'm a big fan of Xpand!2, as well!)

On the topic of synth sounds, I discovered the Kodamo Mask1 this week. Sounds lovely to me. I'm waiting for a software version...

Ok so I actually need 51 ! Thanks, I will check it out.

Xpand!2 fills a gap for me that not much else fills without spening much more (when it is on offer) and being involved in auth systems that I don't want to be involved it after a brief taste.

Every individual has their own need and approach to making their music/soundscapes, all are right, unless you evolve approach or deem so yourself, how could they be wrong if result are achieved ?

As I am not a musician in the sense of the word I use, I need a DAW and synths to be able to express myself without the highly commendable but sometimes, arduous intense work of learning to play well enough to play live (keys or guitar).

Some need the software and some need the hardware and some need the mix of the 2 and as long as satisfaction happens you have the key to the lock of sonic enjoyment.

I had 15mins yesterday to make synth a sound, just a quick inspiration for a track I will start in forthcoming weeks, first I tried RP Blue III but could not work out the envelope/mod matrix well enough to get a smooth pitch modulation (less familiar with Blue III) though it is full capable of making this sound. So I dragged out the trusty Sylenth1 and made the late 80's / 90's sound in about 3-4 mins, 95pct there. Sylenth1 has a base character of being upfront, bright, solid, direct and rich and was ideal for this sound.

It is a good thing to be able to synthesize as it can speed things up a bit if you know what you want, you start to hear how sounds are made in your own head. Having many synths is not essential by any means but once you have understood many synths, you can work out what synths will be best suited and make the sound very quick and a very good version of it. That counts in sound design and making music.

And in time/practice you can use the best version according to your own ears and can pre-empt what synth is likely will work best from knowing the sonic base character and synthesis type it excels at (as well as type of sounds, basses, pads, supersaws, effect type sounds, lead types etc.

[Arpangel]

I still believe the sound is in us, to a large degree, not the instrument, sure, some instruments will take us there easier, but even then, there's not much difference.
Every synth I approach I do the same things, it could offer me all sorts of fancy synthesis types etc, I always reach for exactly the same things.
So basically, I could use anything, as long as it’s got the basics, Korg, Yamaha, Roland Nord etc etc etc, doesn’t matter, I’m happy.
I chose my day to day keyboard because it was cheap, it had all I needed, I could have spent more, but it would have been a waste.
If I want anything more exotic I’ve got my modular, which is totally built for me.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

I think it depends on your need or desire to sound design and its importance in your music/soundscapes/ sonic goals. Harmor can produce sounds I have never heard any other synth ever make.

Liquid metal sounds of the future as one example.

I will try and knock something up in the next 48 hours to let you hear some of the stuff harmor can do and export it as a 24 bit wav.

[Folderol]

Over a period of time, I've found that with Yoshimi I can either directly emulate (or actually improve on) all the sounds my hardware synths can produce. On top of that I can produce sounds that nothing else I've used could. After some 15 years I am still discovering new things I can do with it.
These days, for new compositions it is the only synth I use.

[Arpangel]

I think it depends on your need or desire to sound design and its importance in your music/soundscapes/ sonic goals. Harmor can produce sounds I have never heard any other synth ever make.

Liquid metal sounds of the future as one example.

I will try and knock something up in the next 48 hours to let you hear some of the stuff harmor can do and export it as a 24 bit wav.

Ha!
When I think of metal, it’s my old DX7, that was the title of a sound I made for mine, it was the sonic equivalent of liquid running metal.
You’re right though, depends how important sound design is in your work, it was for me many years ago, but I rarely make new sounds for synths these days, if ever, I use the same ones I made years ago.
My modular doesn’t really count, as you have to make new sounds all the time, it's the nature of the beast.

[R_A]

That's interesting. Most of the guys I know who are primarily Sound Designers work with processing and layering audio in a DAW they never really touch a synth.

I think this is true of a lot of 'dark ambient' artist: eg Lustmord when asked what synths he was using (Reddit AMA) replied 'I'm all about manipulating audio rather than synthesis'.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ ... ?rdt=64389

We all work differently

[SafeandSound Mastering]

That's interesting. Most of the guys I know who are primarily Sound Designers work with processing and layering audio in a DAW they never really touch a synth.

I think this is true of a lot of 'dark ambient' artist: eg Lustmord when asked what synths he was using (Reddit AMA) replied 'I'm all about manipulating audio rather than synthesis'.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ ... ?rdt=64389

We all work differently

I think sound design is an umbrella term. Sound effects for film and sound design for music can be similar or very different. 2 words that encompass vast scope.

Much of inharmonic / textural / non musical sounding ambient uses granular as I understand it for sonic reverberant washes etc.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

Over a period of time, I've found that with Yoshimi I can either directly emulate (or actually improve on) all the sounds my hardware synths can produce. On top of that I can produce sounds that nothing else I've used could. After some 15 years I am still discovering new things I can do with it.
These days, for new compositions it is the only synth I use.

This looks like a monster synth.

Harmor is the only synth I know that can turn a basic starting point of psychedlic bells, into liquid flowing to modem data in the twist of 2-3 knobs.

Shame the design remit was... "Ok let's make the most complicated, unintuitive synth that ever existed."

[The Elf]

Shame the design remit was... "Ok let's make the most complicated, unintuitive synth that ever existed."

They failed. There's the Osmose, or rather its Haken engine...

[Folderol]

I think the takeaway from this entire thread is that there is at least one system that is perfect for every conceivable mindset

[SafeandSound Mastering]

Here are some harmor examples, most of the sounds I made myself (H-delay and LX224 verb and a few with a gate as this is how they ended up being used when I used them.) The file is slightly bandwidth limited, you will understand why, just to stop any extremes and rougly uniform in volume, creep it up something like -15dBFS peak level.

Some of them may sound like S+H but they are not at least not in terms of using a random/square type LFO modulation, no LFO is involved. Some are FM like but again only as a side effect of parameter interactions, not with intent.

Link lasts 7 days (dithered down 16 bit .wav at it ended up being 6 mins)

https://we.tl/t-S5YbpPEpKf

At some stage I am going to have to plumb the depths of this synth properly as it always amazes me when I have a go.

[Folderol]

Very interesting sounds. The synth seems to be more focused on Sci-Fi sound effects rather than music.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

Thanks, these particular sounds yes I do agree. However, this shows why it is different, not that it does SFX which any synth can, a basic subtractive being one, but the way the sound can evolve in ways that are somewhat unheard for 2-3 knob turns.

I thought these would demonstrate its unique ability as opposed to doing a supersaw of which it quite possibly does the best one I have ever heard.

Arguably better than the classics Virus and JP8000.

I have actually been looking for these sounds for years for a specific genre. The Virus TI2/Snow was the original synth capable of doing something similar using something called Formant Complex synthesis which gave you parameters that could make things start to sound a little similar. It gets a little "time stretchy" and seems to interpolate in a very interesting way.

You can hear the distinct clarity and cleanliness that harmor achieves compared to the Virus TI2 when it starts sounding in this direction. You can hear its somewhat wiry, ragged but still present sound. The cleanliness is gone, though that is what made the Virus a special synth it has a bag of character.

I still use a Virus Snow here. It also does things as you can hear that are super interesting and evolving, that other synths do not achieve IMO. (16 years old !)

Harmor is closest and cleaner making it truly unique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVMlYge ... =SamiRabia

Harmor can do anything other synth can pretty much and then has its own abilities.

It does an immense amount and this scratches the surface. It is different in the sense that the clarity is unmatched, like due to its additive nature, it sounds like very fluid and uninterrupted DSP. It is also different in the sense that it is barely comprehendable for a good while. (at least in any conventional subtractive/wavetable terms).

The thing with a synth that is sounding different is that sometimes you have to be careful of what you wish for as it is unlikely to work as any other synth and cause some learning to be required.

[The Elf]

Sounds OK. I'd give it a try, but no VST version.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

OK I never heard those textures in anything else and trust me I have tried. I have got close in one or 2 though.

I use the VST here in Cubase. Maybe they do not sell the VST anymore ? That is rather a shame.

Check 10:59

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rqDvt9HW5Q

If you have time on your hands, it is different for sure, with mind boggling scope.

I vaguely recall the programmer was a bit of a whizz and left Image Line somaybe they cannot VST3 it and pulled it, not sure of reasons. I will drop them a line and see if they reply.

This is the only synth that is truly different that I know of, or buy a Virus TI2/Snow second hand. That is still sufficiently different enough compared with any software synth. Some get close.

When people ask for different sometimes I think what they mean is, something instantly familiar and different, which is not realistic.

[whitesun]

I agree with the harmor obsessed guy. You can uninstall all synths if you have harmor because all of them are like presets for harmor as you can make any sounds with it. It can't replace wavetable and granular synths however as it can't play back wavetables. There is no replacement of harmor on linux and will never be. Btw drivers included into linux kernel package are not part of kernel, including alsa. It's like separate drivers installed into ms windows from cd disks. They do not.run in kernel space. Kernel space uses posix low level threads faster than fake realtime user threads set by chrt. Beware that even under root account you remain in user space and all you can do also runs in user space. In order to see kernel processes you have to install ftrace program by Rostedt, read his interviews. So alsa is not part of the kernel and won't provide ever real rt. Oss v3 could do it but it all ended in 2002. So with preemtion kernel you don't get real rt, perhaps even with rtai as alsa will remain in user space. I don't see any attempts on part of linux programers to do proper audio functionality. It's like they do not want to make linux a professional audio os. May be they think that preemption is enough for us. If you want to try already tuned rt linux better install rtai version of cnc-linux but it's only 64bit but it's close to customized preemtion based rt kernel based on rt patches by Rostedt and co in terms of performance. I myself was shocked when i had learned that audio driver had been pushed out of kernel space. With oss v4 you'll get same user space based performance.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

Clearly responding with an on topic, valid response does not make you obsessed, but there you go. Just a shame the VST plug in was pulled.

Image line ticketing system is broke. Received an email saying there was a reply, logged in, checked their 4 conditions boxes after clicking on the relevant ticket, and it takes you to a create new ticket page.

Very helpful that.

Ok second time lucky...

"we did not have the time and resources to continue working on these plugins.

We currently have a developer working on VST variants of some plugins, but plugins like Harmor are most likely too complex to add major new features.
The creator of the plugin is not working for Image-Line any more.

It is still unclear, if these plugins come back to stores."

I have suggested they reconsider and that they are denying people an extremely powerful and unique synth by not having it available.

Also I was not asking for any new features so not sure where that came from.

We shall see.

[merlyn]

... So alsa is not part of the kernel and won't provide ever real rt. Oss v3 could do it but it all ended in 2002. So with preemtion kernel you don't get real rt, perhaps even with rtai as alsa will remain in user space. ...

Where are you getting this? Part of ALSA is drivers, and they are part of the kernel. That's how Linux works. This diagram might help:



There are ALSA utilities that run in user space, but these utilities are not drivers.

There are realtime operating systems around, but Linux, Windows and MacOS aren't among them. The best that can be done is to get one of these general purpose OSes to be more like a realtime OS.

[whitesun]

Your diagram does not explain anything, besides both jackd and pulse break realtime confirmed by Rostedt for jackd. Drivers run in kernel space? Not sure. And that info was told me on alsa irc channel by knowledgeable people and confirmed by other knowledgeable people. Btw dos was realtime os as per Rostedt. Who told you that linux is not realtime os? With rt patches by Rostedt and own customization i run reaper with 100 tracks at buffer 16 for recording or at buffer 32 for mixing with latency less than 1ms which is considered realtime as per definition. Rtai can make it hw rt, it just replaces the scheduler. Any os can be made hw realtime but only linux currently gives such powers.
Re harmor it's not a suprise that this product will be removed from everywhere. Those who have managed to get it are the lucky ones. It kind of harms to programing business everywhere by saying that progress has stopped here with no need to continue. The interesting thing about it that it can emulate real instruments as well.

[whitesun]

It's the most scientific synth to put it generalized. Btw, do you know most scientific reverb? May be you can add some data to my topic called most scientific reverb?

[merlyn]

Drivers are part of the kernel, that's pretty fundamental.

There's a difference between hard realtime and soft realtime. An example of a hard realtime system is ABS brakes. Hard realtime means that there is a guaranteed deadline for an output, in this case for the brakes to kick in. Although Linux can get pretty close using a PREEMPT_RT kernel, it's not technically hard realtime.

Personally, I wouldn't be too keen on using brakes that were also running a screen, storage, memory, a network connection ... How about you?

[Folderol]

You're wasting your time. He's got some fixed ideas in his head and nothing will shift them. I don't know why he bothers to come here if all he does is tell everyone they are wrong.