Let’s continue, shall we?
The early episodes misfired due to very bad microphone quality, but I’m still improving in both audio and video.
This episode is a retake on my presentation about FM synthesis I made almost 4 years ago. Got a lot of material ready to use and explain in some sensible matter, and part 2 is coming.
NI’s new flagship VST, the Massive X, was surrounded by controversy and buzz months before launch. Some claim it was a dissapointment, but I gave it a chance and it surpassed my expectations. As a matter of fact, Massive X might be my new favourite 🙂
Massive X is the holy grail combining ease of use, quick operation and vast possibilities. Beyond standard envelopes and LFOs there are also numerous handy features and options, such as “switcher LFO” or modulation bar next to every control, even synced delay times. An unbelievably flexible “performer” sequencer is accompanied by note-dependent, velocity and random modulators – all of them immediately available for quick use. No modulation matrix and no menu diving whatsoever.
In terms of synthesis options, everything is here – phase modulation / FM, sync and even wavefolders – till now rarely found in virtual synths, especially not all at once. Massive X also offers great sound quality for moderate CPU usage thanks to (brave) implementation of AVX instructions. These are commonplace in every CPU released since 2011, though many people already complained their machine is even older and thus completely incompatible with new synth. But hey, I’m up for latest tech advances!
My previous post about 4K in a DAW is still getting many hits, so I decided to continue this topic. Especially since a lot has changed since then in DAW & VST world. I also discovered some new tricks and issues that make it even more important topic to discuss.
Additionally, over last two years many plugins have received or are going to receive high-DPI scaling. Massive X, Dune 3 and the newest Cableguys bundle in particular offer drop-down menu with predefined sizes, while Ozone 9 offers free scaling via mouse drag. It is expected that also the rest of iZotope family gets it, as well as AAS – Ultra Analog just enabled this feature, though I’m only waiting for their Chromaphone 2 update. It is knows that Native Instruments also considers it – they recently even ran a poll, which suggested possible GUI resizability for Reaktor.
There are of course many others plugins with scalable GUI, which I don’t own or use however.
All in all, high DPI is getting more accessible and useful. It’s also just easier for eyes to get high-DPI monitor, such as mine 4K at 27″. So, if you consider gear upgrade anytime soon, just go for it with no hesitation.
As much as I’m very picky when choosing plugins, everyone makes mistakes. Some of them simply didn’t pass real studio test and failed expectations. Here they are:
The Mangle – despite cool and colorful interface, as well as potential for unheard harmonic clouds, this granular synth is a chore to use. Not only is the interface split among many pages and dialing in desired amount of modulation is notoriously difficult (“drag and drop”, they said). It also tends to lose / forget loaded samples after some time, under different circumstances. The Mangle doesn’t come with suitable sample pack for granular synthesis in first place, so every time I need to search for something nice before I even get started. All in all, lots of wasted time with this one. Bye, bye.
That’s right! Finally I got the most popular plugin package in the world, which is Komplete Ultimate 12. It was heavily discounted during Native Instruments‘ Summer of Sound – still, not a cheap stuff. Been looking forward to Komplete for years.
So what’s inside?
New update of Make Noise 0-Coast Wavetable Pack for Serum is here! All links updated, in case anybody asks.
Thanks to latest Serum feature I was able to align the phases of all waveforms in a wavetable. This allows them to be modulated smoothly without artifacts, despite aperiodic form and general weirdness of some waveforms recorded. Individual waveforms may no longer be exactly the same as you could see on the oscilloscope, but nonetheless they sound the same and resemble the feel of original semi-modular synth.
With new job and new tracks signed I felt like burning some more money this year. So here comes the new software:
Chromaphone 2
This unique synth simulates the behavior of physical object oscillating, which creates realistic sounds of strings, drums, bells as well as some oddball contraptions. While modulation options are somehwat limited, it works great under any settings. Awesome plucks and tube bass out of the box – just can’t go wrong with Chromaphone. While I don’t need Chromaphone for any particular purpose, it’s great plugin for organic sounds of all kind.
AAS also made some plugins for Ableton Live, especially Corpus which I use every now and then. You will be able to hear some great Corpus bass working as a main motiff for my upcoming “Meteor Ride” track.
Got this thing from JRR shop for 75 USD, normal price is 200 USD.
Orb Composer
Now that’s a big deal – automagical orchestral music composer based on artificial intelligence. It’s like having a classical-trained musican next to me: “Just write me a string section in G minor.” – snap. “Nah, another one” – snap. “Or maybe in C minor. Or faster and higher, but solo” – everything in split second. “Now, add flute accompaniament to it” – snap.
However, things get really interesting when I route this thing into state-of-art synths, utilizing complex sound design and perfect mixdown. By now I can make all the things just sound good.
So I finally decided to buy my first hardware synth (or any hardware device that doesn’t just serve as an interface for PC) – 0-Coast by Make Noise. Why this one?
I always wanted to have a hardware synth (or a dozen, you know this feeling), but realistically they are very expensive compared to functionality they offer. A cheap hardware synth is still 3 times more expensive than the best VST, such as Serum – and offers a fraction of its possibilities on paper. The hardware, however, has the advantage of fast work and also is great for learning and experimenting with hands-on experience. There are no presets in this curious box, so every time I need to make a patch from scratch. Also, it encourages experimenting and improvising.
There are a plenty of synths I considered, but they all miss something. Some have keys, some have polyphony, some have sequencers, others have eurorack connectivity – but in general their feature list is always limited. There is no one box to rule them all, and they are expensive.
However, I never gave up 0-Coast – simply because it has no replacements. It’s a truly weird eurorack-style synth using unconventional modules arranged as a traditional monosynth. Make Noise are the leaders in eurorack and develop modules which do not resemble traditional synths at all, yet still allow to build incredible musical contraptions. Evolving and self-generating, aperiodic and atonal sounds are something that not many people deal with, and something that I’ve been missing in my setup. So here it is.
Mind this is not a magic box that makes music on its own – early I encountered shortage of supplied cables. Also menu diving is abysmal, and number of signals is limited. Still, I plan to make extensive use of it. It’s great for plucks, basses, agressive synth sounds for psy-tech, but also a source of samples and wavetables for further use. Certainly there’s a lot to discover. However, I have the skills to make use of it all, and will explore 0-Coast to the max.
The summer sales are coming and I already purchased a full set of tools from my wishlist. Now that I can get tunes released, I just need to work faster and create tracks easier.
Chaos and fractals were always attracting me (pun intended) and I wanted to give them a try in audio synthesis. Here’s the first try: wavetable pack for Serum made from chaotic oscillators.
Pick them from new blog page Samples & Wavetables. These are ordinary .wav files and should work with any wavetable synth or sample player. 37 different wavetables should keep you busy for a while. Some of them are evolving textures, some of them are simple but unusual like no one would ever craft by hand.
Rendering chaotic oscillators was the easy part. The difficulty was to actually make them musically usable. Some were picked directly, others were creatively processed. Chaotic attractors tend to generate subharmonic content and successive “periods” are very different from each other. It is opposite to wavetable where every frame is similiar to previous one.
Serum has a number of different import options, but they were not able to deal effectively with aperiodic waveforms. Many of them were picked and edited manually to be musically useful. This is only first attempt, I’m hoping to automate the process and create bigger, high-fidelity wavetables with minimal processing.
Also I have distant plans of creating actual synths and other utlities which will allow to use chaotic oscillators directly. There are dozens of known attractors and probably infinite number of new ones to discover. Surely there will be more depending on your interest.
DJ Warmonger blog 