vsynths/sound-makers/synths/the like

[sinicalypse]

hello there fellow travelers, i'm finally getting around to some r&d on this whole beatmashing audiostrangulation thingy and as i'm starting to actually modernize the various computer things i fuck around with, i'm hoping to assemble a decent armada of things that allow me to manipulate sounds/waves/etc in order to properly sequence them to hell and back via a program i haven't figured out yet.

 

basically, i haven't really fucked around with any programs since around 1998-2000, when there were some virtual synthesizer-thingies like rubberduck and/or that propellerheads thing, where you had stuff laid out in front of you with virtual knobs to twirl and you could fuck around with making little synthruns that you could dump out to .wav files and then toss into a sequencer and use/chop/whatever from there... back before i completely sodded off into drugs proper horrorshow, i had a friend telling me to get a midi keyboard that i could use with vsynth programs to program the keys with sounds/notes and then actually have a tangible instrument to play sounds that were being generated on the computer, as opposed to doing it all cut and paste .wav file format, this would allow me actual human interaction with my armada of sound-twisting machinery.

 

well that was many years ago, and i assume by now it's a rather common practice to have some sort of a dummy-terminal-esque keyboard that can be programmed/fed/etc by the computer, as i'm sure it's a rather common practice. i've seen programs like reason where there's virtual rackmount equipment adn i think even vsynths (VSTs?) that you can virtually wire up together and do this and that with, but quite honestly from the groundfloor up it's rather daunting to look at, why in the other synth n00b thread there's that nord lead thing where on the screen there's all these green circuitboard looking thingies all virtually hooked up to each other all over the place and really, it leads me to wonder if there's a simple brutish thing to fuck around with right out of hte box/install/etc in order to get some primate-quality-sounds that i could then dump/grab/etc and sequence, as really i believe that mastering the art of sequencing things is the first thing to do, then you can work on becoming some sort of an impresario with the individual parts that can increase in quality and technicality and etc...

 

so what are the good programs are out there that can act like a synthesizer and, at-current computer only, be fucked around with to create some sort of sounds that can be fed into one of the sequencing programs out there?!@ then are htese programs able to intertwine with midi keyboards or some sort of dummyterminal keyboard via midi/whatever in the future when i've got some sort of investment capital to expand my area beyond that of a computer-only and start having tangible physical things around me!?@

 

as i view the future studio that barring death or complete-and-total-lunacy i shall have, i see the computer being in the center of it all, with the verstatility to be a jack of all trades in conjunction with whatever tangible/physical machines i (don't) have, figuring that there's probably some piece of software on a comptuer that can do most things outside equipment can do... right now i've got old CDs with .wav files of old juno synths and other roland/korg ones where people would literally record notes from the actual synths to files and then package them up in octaves or whatever, so i could theoretically recreate some primitive versions of playing these stagnant notes in a sequencer, which is what i've done in the past with sonic foundry acid v1.0a, however i'd like something more tangible where i could make a line or a more complex pattern at least, if not in differnet variations, to allow me to have to less with it in the sequencer, where i could then focus on the breaks and cut-n-paste drillery and all of that fun stuff... the big picture stuff...

 

so forgive my ignorance, but what's the kind of stuff people are using?!@ what can a man research these days to see what all the real people are doing!?@ thankyoudrivethrough!

[Guest Benedict Cumberbatch]

i'd highly recommend the SU8764

 

discussion going on here

[sinicalypse]

yeah, except that i'm actually serious and i could truly give a shit about what's superior... more like what's palatable: i couldn't be arsed to look at most software from say 2000-2008, so despite my inability to communicate in under 500 words, i'm just looking for a bone here... a bone that might be a relevant search term but hey hey i mean honestly where to start, and y'all wankers know all this shit to the point of sitting around and talking about it so what's wrong with a brain-pick, short of the blood oozing out and the certain death aspect of it all?!@

[Guest IRARI]

here is a list of free plugins, haven't used all of them but at least some are quality

[sinicalypse]

keep in mind that money is no object, friend.

 

oh also see thats another type of thing i need to ask... from putzing around here it seems like these VST things, which i assume are virtual synthesizer (something-that-starts-with-T) are used in conjunction with sequencing software like ableton!?@

 

i mean back when i fucked around with this shit there were standalone programs like rubberduck that you'd use outside of the sequencer, nowadays are most of htem lumped together via albeton/reason/whatever-sequencer-people-use?!@

 

but yeah, i'm going to pop my delorean and go to cornwall in the mid-late 80s and just gank richard's homemade shite and then mass-release his music from now back then and become aphex twin and hey how do you all know i'm not already secretly aphex twin and i've just always paid that ginger fuck to pretend to be me!?@ eh?!@

[Guest IRARI]

keep in mind that money is no object, friend.

 

[south park]i'm not your friend, buddy![/south park]

[Guest hahathhat]

[south park][/south park]

 

the board should have some tags like this.

[Guest Glass Plate]

so, yeah most stuff is VSTi now which is Virtual Studio Technology, and they can be anything from a synth, to a sampler, to a delay, to reverb, distortion, etc. Can do a ton of stuff. Lots of different programs can use them. I think adapting yourself to some sort of core program can be VERY helpful in modern computer electronics. Abelton seems to be one of the most popular, renoise is good for tracking stuff, but I think that's far from what you want to do, I personally use FL, but that's because I'm too stubborn to switch to something else. Abelton is what most live performers and big names I see, seem to use.

 

KVRaudio.com, has probably the largest collection of VST's out there, all the free stuff, all the expensive stuff, there you'd find what you need for your computer music wants. They also link to lots of open source sample archives I'm pretty sure. (berklee has a collection online of like 2.3 gigs of percussion and other types of samples or something.)

 

So yeah, I dunno Im not an expert, I mainly use hardware now.

[sinicalypse]

so, yeah most stuff is VSTi now which is Virtual Studio Technology, and they can be anything from a synth, to a sampler, to a delay, to reverb, distortion, etc. Can do a ton of stuff. Lots of different programs can use them. I think adapting yourself to some sort of core program can be VERY helpful in modern computer electronics. Abelton seems to be one of the most popular, renoise is good for tracking stuff, but I think that's far from what you want to do, I personally use FL, but that's because I'm too stubborn to switch to something else. Abelton is what most live performers and big names I see, seem to use.

 

KVRaudio.com, has probably the largest collection of VST's out there, all the free stuff, all the expensive stuff, there you'd find what you need for your computer music wants. They also link to lots of open source sample archives I'm pretty sure. (berklee has a collection online of like 2.3 gigs of percussion and other types of samples or something.)

 

So yeah, I dunno Im not an expert, I mainly use hardware now.

 

thank you very much kind sir!! seriously this is a proper shot-in-the-arm of what i needed to hear... i've got a few things i have to fuck around with, ableton, reason, fruityloops8, and well... i'd love to find out whatever happened to sonic foundry acid altho i think a google/wiki/odyssey oughta do that.

 

right now i just want to experience new and better ways to churn out the song ideas i have in my head, and i spose it's really going to come down to a whole lot of time put into this sort of thing and then borne of that effort will be worthwhile endeavors in sonic fuckery, so really, thank you for helping me to cut a few corners early on in this'ere game.

[Guest Glass Plate]

yeah, the most important thing is getting the learning curve on the few sequencing program, and then every time you don't know how to make a sound you want for your music, look around online, and then you will simply get better at the program you're using etc. It's a constant process I feel, of discovering new techniques of making sounds you want, and how to connect them all together. It can become VERY time consuming indeed, but if you're successful it's well worth the time. It took make ages to get to the point I am now with FL which is why I'm hesitant to switch to something that is probably more powerful because I've reached such a comfort zone. Lots of practice and experimenting is one of the biggest first steps though for sure.

[YEK]

i went to a thrift store last night and they had a yamaha pcs...? pc something... basically one of those cheap yamaha synths that have like 10 presets sounds, cept. the cool part was, it had modulation abilities... nothing crazy, but sustain, detune, and stuff like that. i played with it and was pretty into it, then the priice tage of 90 dollars made me laugh and walk away

[Guest pantsonmyhead]

yo learn to re-wire reason into abelton or FL for better sound quality

reason has some rad shit but it's summing amp is totally ass

 

 

or better yet just rap

[acid1]

Sini, I used to fuck with rebirth back in the day. It was nice because it had 2 synths and 2 drum machines built right into the thing. I used to try to get all the different themes to pull off other sounds in the 909. I wanted to program my own amens so I moved to a tracker (Buzz) which was great for that sort of thing. I know this is gonna tick off a bunch of people, but after using trackers for years I found them less then inspiring in the melodic creation department. This was probably due to my lack of music theory knowledge and stuff. I moved to energy xt which was actually meant to be a temporary solution to my tracker problem as it allowed me to open up a 'piano roll' in a tracker. I found working in a piano roll much more inspiring via being able to see the relationship between the notes easier.

 

You have to be careful when you talk about music software because some people love what they are using so much they are willing to die for it pulling drive bys on the companies that make up the competition.

 

Back to your question.. it seems to me like you are looking for an all in one package, but I really think you should check out what VSTs have to offer. Some people build up small collections of VSTs much like you would build a studio with real hardware. You could easily make something like rebirth if you picked out 2 synths and 2 drum machines. That being said, a real good all in one package is FL Studio. It comes with a drum machine and some synths and multiple views to look at the music your are editing. Its really easy to jump into, and much harder to master. A purchase grants you free updates for life, and its easily expandable (or you could just try to find some super XXL producer master pro edition on the net). They also sell a bible for it at your local book store if you are into the wonk type shit.

 

The cables and green boards you saw on the Nord Modular and Reason are actually supposed to make synthesis easier to understand. That being said, with VSTs you don't actually need to hook up little cables. Trackers for instance just look like you are entering data into an excel spreadsheet. It has a steep learning curve but in a row you can do anything from playing notes or triggering drums or tweaking sounds all over the place with extreme accuracy. Plus the freedom you get by typing in your music has an incredible quality to it that i'm sure you would enjoy being a rampaging poster in this forum. That being said, you would probably have to read the manual if you got a tracker, vs something like FL that you might be able to figure out just by fucking around. Renoise seems to be the tracker at the moment with the brightest future, but i'd be doing the universe injustice if I didn't recommend the highly powerful yet equally broken Buzz (which happens to be Free).

 

Some other things to consider are whether or not you plan on doing any multi-track recording (like recording a couple MC's all at once), playing live, or just want to do insane audio editing. Most of programs can do any of these tasks, however some are far better then others. Most of my buddies who write music find a workflow that works for them, and usually gravitate towards whatever host makes that process easiest for them. I like to organize collections of ideas and quickly switch between them and swap elements in and out of anything real fast. Thats why I gravitated towards Ableton. The session view lets you set up "scenes" of music and trigger them in any order you want. When I got what I want, I can hit record and jam out a song instead of meticulously programming it from start to finish. After its layed out, I can go back in with a magnifying glass and edit/rearrange/tweak/reprogram anything until its done.

 

My favorite DAW changes pretty much every year so don't take anything I say as "this is the best and nothing can top it." Hope this helps.

[BCM]

Sini - you would do well with an AKAI MPC, a mic and a shit load of samples. The new MPC's you get now have sliders etc on so you can tweak all your samples (cutoff, resonance etc) and adjust the envelopes like on a synthesizer, you can jam out your own beats on the pads and easily create sequences that you can then assign to a pad and punch in and out when you want. really fast to use, hands on stuff.

 

[Guest catsonearth]

i've been using acid and sound forge for about 8 years now and it's never done me wrong. for the longest time i used sonic foundry acid 4.0 (after that is when sony acquired it and for awhile it was less than stellar), but this year i finally upgraded to acid 7.0, which has worked out a lot of the kinks that resulted from sony trying to tack on midi/vst support to the previously audio only/direct-x only program. now it works pretty well with a few minor annoyances that get less annoying as the program becomes second nature.

 

the way i think about it is this - at it's core, acid itself is basically your sampler and your sequencer rolled into one, so you don't need to bother looking for a sampler, you just open up your samples in the sequencer and arrange them as needed. now, since it's got full vst and midi support, you can think of that as your rack mount rig that's got every other thing you could possibly need in it's infinite depths. but they're all individual things you have to seek out and put into the program yourself, as if you were physically going out and picking out hardware to add to your rack - synths, effects modules, drum machines. as someone already said, you can find vsts all over the place, you just have to take the time to go through and find the ones you like just like a piece of hardware because it's mostly a personal preference.

 

if you used the old SF acid, it still looks exactly the same and works pretty much the same, so it will be familiar. but now you can also open up a piano roll within that interface and assign it to control a vst synth, which opens up a whole world of possibilities that the program didn't offer before. in the days before they added vst support, i had to use 2 programs running concurrently because i loved the audio sequencing aspect of acid, but i needed another program for hosting and programming my synths, then once i'd perfected all the synth elements of the track, i'd render them as audio files and resequence them in acid, which allowed further control over the audio. it was complicated and ghetto rigged, but it worked. now that they've integrated both, it's a much more rounded application.

 

if you just want to fuck around for awhile, i'd definitely recommend checking out acid 7, but you'll also need to get sound forge (or some other audio editing software), a library of audio samples and a few vsts or you'll essentially just be staring at an empty application that can't do anything. those are your basics, you can pretty much do anything you want from there without having to keep relearning new programs. a lot of people think acid is a toy application, but the only limits to the program are your skill level and ingenuity. that's true of most programs, really. if you become familiar enough with the ins and outs, you can usually make them do whatever you need them to do although it might not always be the traditional way.

[YEK]

that's funny that you do all that in acid cats cause it seems like such a long way to do things.... i'd use acid again if i had a piece of hardware to sample from. using acid with it's newish midi sequencing ability is not that great.

[Guest catsonearth]

that's funny that you do all that in acid cats cause it seems like such a long way to do things.... i'd use acid again if i had a piece of hardware to sample from. using acid with it's newish midi sequencing ability is not that great.

 

what can i say, i likes what i likes and at the time i would rather do the roundabout way than have to learn a new program that probably wouldn't give me the same control over the audio that i wanted. i made due with jumping back and forth between programs for 2 or 3 years, so by the end it wasn't hard or time consuming at all, just not the most efficient. but that's one of the great things about electronic music - you can do pretty much anything. if you like one aspect of one program and another aspect of a second, you can just figure out how to make them work together to make things come out the way you want them. you don't have to be limited by the programs.

 

the midi/vst has gotten better with acid, but still isn't perfect, but the audio sequencing is still the main reason why i use it. for the most part the vst stuff works pretty well now, the only thing that's annoying is that it doesn't remember the vst settings when you save and close the program sometimes. it will save the vsts you were using, but will just load clean to the factory presets so you have to go through and load your patches individually to get your proper sounds. dunno if it's like that on other programs or not, but it's pretty tedious.

 

also, the newer version requires you to remember a lot more keyboard shortcuts to get to things. like now i have to press ctrl alt 3 to access my clip properties (like if you want to make something a loop/one shot/beatmap, etc.) when it used to just available at all times in the bottom window. maybe there's a way to change it, but i haven't been using 7.0 for very long, so i'm still trying to figure out all the little details.

 

what program do you use now, yek?

[perunamuusi]

it kind've shows in CoE's stuff, i think, lots of wave editing in things like "and you will never know" . the sort of stuff that you need to go outside of pure piano roll step sequencing to do and it always sounds far better and is infinitely more rewarding than using out of the box "glitch" vsts like, for instance dBGlitch.vst. I love writing beats in soundforge cause you can do stuff that you just would not do in a quantised environment like a piano roll.

 

Hey Cats. if youre reading this can i ask you when you did tracks like the one mentioned and his fathers grave and what versions of those wares were you on?

 

those 2 among others are to this day some of the most enjoyable music ive heard on here (or anywhere really).

[Guest catsonearth]

it kind've shows in CoE's stuff, i think, lots of wave editing in things like "and you will never know" . the sort of stuff that you need to go outside of pure piano roll step sequencing to do and it always sounds far better and is infinitely more rewarding than using out of the box "glitch" vsts like, for instance dBGlitch.vst. I love writing beats in soundforge cause you can do stuff that you just would not do in a quantised environment like a piano roll.

 

Hey Cats. if youre reading this can i ask you when you did tracks like the one mentioned and his fathers grave and what versions of those wares were you on?

 

those 2 among others are to this day some of the most enjoyable music ive heard on here (or anywhere really).

 

thanks! glad you like them.

 

at that time i was using acid 4.0, sound forge...5, maybe? and i was using some random cheapo program called muzys (discontinued now) as a vst controller. it worked pretty well, the main downside being that things were a bit...permanent (if i wanted to change one note of a synth line after i'd already gone through the rendering or recording process, it was a production in itself).

 

having to do that was a good thing though because it forced me out of the music theory side of things having to deal with audio samples instead of notes on a piano roll. i think my music tends to come out better when i'm not as focused on formal aspects like what notes are being played and instead concern myself with how the sounds themselves interact with each other. i still use that technique even though i can do it all in acid now - render synth tracks as audio files and then mess around with that audio (also lightens the load on the processor if you've got a lot going on ;) ).

[YEK]

what program do you use now, yek?

 

i was using hardware for a bit, spent lots of money on it and didn't have much to show for it so i sold it all and bought a technics setup

i'm feeling the need to write again though and it' been awhile. i know a handful of programs and was going to try ableton and...recently downloading the audiorealism vsts... this topic has kinda inspired me to drag out the gear that i didn't sell and use acid again,

i'm already tossing around ideas in my head that i can do

i have a large mackie mixer, a 707 with no midi, and a casio sk-5 with sampling abilities

gotta pull it out of my closet...

pz

[Guest Wall Bird]

With all of this talk I would just like to highlight the virtue of being extremely good with one synth or application, mastering it and knowing its limitations and strong suites. It will be infinitely more beneficial and make you a stronger musician than going out and buying say... the Komplete bundle from Native Instruments which would leave you with 8 ridiculously powerful programs but would almost certainly spread you out thin.

 

Now my recommendation - and this goes somewhat against what I just said - would be to buy Logic Studio for the $500 price tag. It has to be the best deal that I can think of when it comes to delivering a set of production, synthesis, and composing tools and it's all quality. It comes with everything you would need to compose, record, and produce a track. That should keep you busy for some time.

[Guest aron]

acid pro 2.0 ftw

i still use that shit sometimes, and i love it

[Guest Glass Plate]

it kind've shows in CoE's stuff, i think, lots of wave editing in things like "and you will never know" . the sort of stuff that you need to go outside of pure piano roll step sequencing to do and it always sounds far better and is infinitely more rewarding than using out of the box "glitch" vsts like, for instance dBGlitch.vst. I love writing beats in soundforge cause you can do stuff that you just would not do in a quantised environment like a piano roll.

 

Hey Cats. if youre reading this can i ask you when you did tracks like the one mentioned and his fathers grave and what versions of those wares were you on?

 

those 2 among others are to this day some of the most enjoyable music ive heard on here (or anywhere really).

 

yeah, but yuo can do it in piano rolls, I love turn off the quanitization completely, randomly going from like 1/63.7ths to 1/17ths, spurted out randomly, on 12 different glitched samples. Time consuming but crazy effect. (though I haven't programmed anything in ages, been doing all hardware these days)

[perunamuusi]

it kind've shows in CoE's stuff, i think, lots of wave editing in things like "and you will never know" . the sort of stuff that you need to go outside of pure piano roll step sequencing to do and it always sounds far better and is infinitely more rewarding than using out of the box "glitch" vsts like, for instance dBGlitch.vst. I love writing beats in soundforge cause you can do stuff that you just would not do in a quantised environment like a piano roll.

 

Hey Cats. if youre reading this can i ask you when you did tracks like the one mentioned and his fathers grave and what versions of those wares were you on?

 

those 2 among others are to this day some of the most enjoyable music ive heard on here (or anywhere really).

 

yeah, but yuo can do it in piano rolls, I love turn off the quanitization completely, randomly going from like 1/63.7ths to 1/17ths, spurted out randomly, on 12 different glitched samples. Time consuming but crazy effect. (though I haven't programmed anything in ages, been doing all hardware these days)

 

 

 

hmm not exactly what i was referring too, plus i said "would not do" not "could not do"