Growth

My.  It's been so long since I've posted here that Blogger has changed entirely since my last visit.

I've not been ignoring music... I am quietly honing skills, synths, and patch-libraries behind the scenes. In the news: I updated Largo from 1.0 to 1.5 (it's awesome), I bought Gladiator (it's quite good), and I bought Sylenth1 (also awesome).  I ditched Morphine and SynthMaster.  And I've spent a whole lot of time re-learning my scales (useful) and organizing/editing my patches.

For now, that's all.  No music written, really, other than the equivalent of "thumbnail sketches" (of which I've done quite a bit).  But it sure feels like music is coming.

Keyboard Tracking

On synths where the keys light up as they're being played, you can't see the "black" keys being pressed clearly (if at all).

...Why don't synth makers lighten the dark keys the same way they darken the light keys?

[shakes head]

My Studio, January 2011

...Obviously, this doesn't include Ableton Live, nor the effects that I use (mostly just Ambience, the Blue Tubes reverb, and Live's built-in effects).

And, honestly, I have not been impressed with SynthMaster.  It keeps crashing on me and refuses to render its audio, sometimes.  :\  I may abandon it and write it off as a loss.

Synths I'm thinking about picking up right now are ChronoX and Drumaxx.  Nothing else, at the moment.  I think after getting those two, I'll be heading toward the world of hardware synths.

Yeah, I was bitten by the Synth bug again.

So, yeah.  I made it a few years without being struck by synth-lust... but here we are again.

I realize now, though, that hardware synths aren't so much about the sounds.  Between Omnisphere, Surge, Massive, Absynth, FM8, and Predator*... there really isn't much sonic territory beyond my capabilities.  And I love them all dearly.

But they are not hardware synths.

After much consideration, I decided that hardware isn't about the sounds, really: the sounds might be marginally better than a soft-synth, but my level of skill with sound--though I consider it well-trained--is not to the point where I can tell if a track was made with a $2000 Access Virus or with Rob Papen's $200 Predator, barring the "signature" sounds and presets of each.  It seems silly to me to spend ten times as much for perhaps a 5% improvement in sound quality.  And I prefer the interface on soft synths: I can get a sound out much faster.

But softsynths, while attractive on-screen, lack something in charisma that only hardware can provide.

And though the ReMOTE 49SL has a really nice keyboard... the knobs kinda suck, and the LCD feedback isn't quite as useful or cool as I'd hoped it would be.  And it's lacking a bit in... sex.  I guess I'm just not fond of that grey grid look over the interface.

There's also a small but non-neglible sense of "collecting" involved with synths.  A greater sense of ownership.  ...of identity, even.

Plus they look awesome.  And they're fun.

Fun is a key concept when looking for what synths to invest in. Perhaps better, though, is the idea of enjoyability.  How much would you enjoy owning a given synth?  ...Balance that against cost, and you might find that while an Roland Jupiter 8 might be a joy to own, for 1/16th the cost, a Korg Radias--perhaps less enjoyable to own--is a much bigger bang for your buck.

So that's what I'm looking for.  Enjoyable synths.  For reasonable prices.

Of course, as usual, this is all an exercise in futility for me, since my synth budget right now is around $50 a month, and I have a few more soft-synths to buy** before I'm satiated there.

Still, a large part of the fun here is thinking about it.  And though it may be three years before I buy my first piece of gear, I'm enjoying the process of thinking about it.  Quite a bit.  :)

Which synths would you say brought you the most joy to own?


* For the record, I also presently own SynthMaster 2, Stylus RMX, Morphine, and MicroTonic.  And I like/use them all, too.  Just meant to emphasize the synths with which the sonic palate expands.


** Largo, Drumaxx, ChronoX, and an update for my aging version of Absynth.  Maybe Albino, Zebra, and Gladiator.  Not sure.

Vision Take Two

• Novation controllers, because they are the best controllers available for reasonable money.
• Blue microphones, because they are elegant, functional, and unique.
• M-Audio monitors and interfaces, because they're cheap and they work.
• Spectrasonics synths, because they sound better than anything else, and are really flexible.
• Tone2 filters, because they sound better than any others, and the software has a superb interface.
• Massive, because it's got one of the best interfaces to modulation I've seen, combined with a huge, wavetabliciously digital sound.
• Vember Surge, because I love it: the WT sound, the interface, the modulations, the "I'm digital, now deal with it" attitude.
• Audjoo Helix, because it sounds awesome, uses WTs, and takes so little CPU.
• Rapture, because of it's uniquely digital sound.
• MicroTonic, because it sounds great doing the "electronic percussion" thing.
• Drumaxx, because it sounds great doing the physically-modeled percussion thing.
• Ableton Live, because it has a great workflow, decent mastering tools, and an elegant interface.

...This "plan" will be setting aside some truly incredible synths, some of which I already own, but... I like the message this setup sends, I love the sounds, and I think this will be enough to keep me inspired for a long time.

Messages

I made a post on a Synthtopia article where I mentioned, loosely, that we don't buy synths because of the sounds they make, but because of the message they send just by using them.  This is a combination of the state of mind they put us in to use, the "type" of sound they make and how that influences our music, and, of course, directly in how we "advertise" the synths we use.

I started wondering about the "message" of the synths I was touting in the last post... and even about the synths I'm presently using.  And keeping that in mind, I'm (once again) not sure I like the selection of synths I've come to.  :)

Synths that tell a clearer story of who I am are... mostly wavetable synths like Massive, Surge, Helix, and Rapture... but also the kind of "fringe-awesome" synths like Rhino, Zebra, and Blue.  I also think there are some synths who's sound lends itself to the updated-Berlin-school sound that I'm looking for: Predator and Albino 3 leap to mind.  And for drums, Microtonic and Drumaxx speak my language pretty loudly.

There are other synths that I don't "mind" the message much: Omnisphere is incredible (if a bit over-inflated), RMX similarly works because of its electronica slant.  FM8, Morphine, and Absynth aren't quite my "bag" in terms of lining up perfectly, but they're not too far off-target, either.

The whole of Komplete, though, kind of rubs me the wrong way.  It's massive in a bad way.  Hmmmn.  Perhaps I need to spend some time thinking about my message.  :)

Studio Update

Here's what I want my music-production studio to look like (bold means I don't own it yet):

• ReMote (controller 1)
• LaunchPad (controller 2)
• iMac (computer)
• Studiophile DX4 (monitors)
• HD555 (headphones)
• Blue Yeti (mic)
• Ableton Live (mixer) [I am stuck at version 6, want to upgrade]
• Snapper (editor)
• Omnisphere (rompler 1, modular 1)
• Surge (wavetable 1)
• Komplete (wavetable 2, fm, effects, modular 2, rompler 2)
• Rapture (digital)
• Morphine (additive)
• Helix (wavetable 3. Hey... I love WTs!)
• Stylus RMX (drum loops)
• MicroTonic (synth drums 1)
• Drumaxx (synth drums 2)
• FabFilter Creative Package (analog sound 1, delay/phase/flange/filter)
• Predator (analog sound 2)
• Albino (hybrid sound)
• Zebra (modular 3)

...So the "elegant" solution here is a concept of patronage. I like and support and use hardware from Apple, Novation, M-Audio, Sennheiser, Blue; and software from Spectrasonics, Native Instruments, FabFilter, and to a lesser extent, Image Line; and three of my favorite synth developers: Claes Johanson, René Ceballos, Magnus Lindström, Urs Heckman, and Rob Papen*. ...and quite possibly Jonas Norbergs, though it's a little early to say. :)


It's also worth mentioning that I'm clearly trying to be "a software guy". I love Access, Elektron and Waldorf hardware, but I cannot justify the cost for it, since this is only a hobby for me. :)

I won't be getting all of the products from all of these sources, of course. I don't need everything. But these are the ones I watch, the ones I support, and the ones whose stuff I use most (and most proudly).

So there.