How to choose a synth

A video for people who keep asking:
– Which synth is the best
– Which synth has best presets
– How to sound like X
– How to learn synthesis etc.

Let it serve the generations of wannabe music producers.

The Making of: Full Moon Remix

The remix of “Full Moon” by Matthias Bishop got quite some range and positive feedback. It was also an occasion to record a video about sound design for this track. The video is my most popular episode on Youtube by far, go check it out:

Recorded back in the summer, recently edited with great (and free!) DaVinci Resolve 16. That certainly is quite an advancement since early episodes, but I won’t stop here!

The Video features Reaktor Blocks, now with awesome Toybox expansion which suddenly became my favourite tools of trade. Feels nice to use, looks great, but most importantly, sounds gorgeous. Indeed there’s something about all these “analog” and analog emulations.

Massive X is a great synth

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!

Make Noise 0-Coast Wavetable Pack for Serum

What can one do with this semi-modular contraption? Nah, not the music. Sample the hell out of it!

This new wavetable pack explores a variety of controls and timbres 0-Coast has to offer. Some of them are simple knob sweeps of high quality, others feature aperiodic and overall bizarre shapes and sets. These are simple .wav files, so should work in other synths and programs, but were made using Serum. Enjoy!

Download (Google Drive, 56 MB, .zip)

Feel free to share the link as long as you feature me in the credits. This took quite a while to make, you know.

And yes, I’m going to make a track with all these sometime this year.

Make Noise 0-Coast

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.