Ableton Forum

Machinate wrote:

thump wrote:i've had some success running my softsynths out my soundcard, through the resonator, and back into live, [...]
is anyone else using these kinds of techniques to get more out of their software synths (or samples, for that matter)? i'd love to hear what and how and who and all that, if you are.

I play a Roland SH2 into live, adding effects, and using an Roland re-150 space echo as a send, feeding it back into itself with filters in the chain and such. With some looping going on I can really see my hardware_analogue come together with software_digital. It's grrreat fun, too.

sounds like great fun. what about starting with a softsynth? i'm particularly interested in making software sound more robust, as i'm more or less committed (for the time being) to making my studio work exclusively with software synthesis. and saying "software" as often as possible, apparently.

software.

yeah, I didn't explain that properly: I do it with softsynths as well - even just running it through the preamps of the space echo, or maybe just run the audio out of the soundcard, and back in while overdriving the inputs

The Buchla 200e :



ASS KICKIN!

and only $20,000! (or so)

Did I mention Andromeda A6


The only other synths that float my boat are my JP8000, the Buchla and Synthi

JP8000, the Buchla and Synthi

I'm sorry SJ, but the JP8000 we'll be fuckin' killed by the other two...

Machinate wrote:

JP8000, the Buchla and Synthi

I'm sorry SJ, but the JP8000 we'll be fuckin' killed by the other two...

not when it's being programmed by me !

thump wrote:

Machinate wrote:

thump wrote:i've had some success running my softsynths out my soundcard, through the resonator, and back into live, [...]
is anyone else using these kinds of techniques to get more out of their software synths (or samples, for that matter)? i'd love to hear what and how and who and all that, if you are.

I play a Roland SH2 into live, adding effects, and using an Roland re-150 space echo as a send, feeding it back into itself with filters in the chain and such. With some looping going on I can really see my hardware_analogue come together with software_digital. It's grrreat fun, too.

sounds like great fun. what about starting with a softsynth? i'm particularly interested in making software sound more robust, as i'm more or less committed (for the time being) to making my studio work exclusively with software synthesis. and saying "software" as often as possible, apparently.

software.

Ahh, nested quotations. Fun!
Anyway I do the same thing with running software-generated sounds out to hardware (including Roland echoes - mine is the RE-301 Chorus echo, so the chorus and reverb do a lot to liven up sounds)... you can hear the results in this track.

Click for link to track -- This was generated entirely from a couple of manipulated vocal samples... skip to about 4mins if you want, and check out the dub-style section at the end... the percussion (also made from vocal samples) is an Impulse being run to an aux send and through a Moogerfooger analog delay, then back in to an audio track. The guitar-like strummings were helped out immensely by running through the RE-301 Chorus Echo's preamp, chorus effect and reverb. Makes it sound skankier and more "real" (when it's actually someone saying "bang" or somesuch).

My goal since about 1997 has been to have a seamless network of hardware and software interacting to create and process audio in realtime. Live is finally helping me to bring it all together and make this happen!

controlvoltage wrote:mine is the RE-301 Chorus echo, so the chorus and reverb do a lot to liven up sounds)

oh man, you should definitely check out the Korg Stage Echo, then It has the best fidelity of any old tape delay I've heard. Mine's currently suffering from tape indigestion(heehee), but the reverb is so cool. You can even dial in how much of the reverb signal is fed into the delay, and do some amazingly complex stuff. Plus, it can go slower than my roland.
They can be found pretty cheaply, since they don't have the Space Echo name going on.

If you are going to buy a softsynth I can recomend the NWSynth. It sounds like a real analog synth!

In my personal opinion this is the best software synth on the market today.
It uses a lot of cpu, but that's the price you gotta pay if you want a really good sound.

I would rather have one good vsti, than a lot of semi-good synths.

http://www.wwaym.com/

MONOMACHINE works wonders for me!!! and you get midi sequencers wich are really nice...

i have an A6 and love it to death.

All the sounds i make with it are increadibly rich and full sounding, which is great most of the time. But there are times when i just want a small tinny, digital sound to lie over the top of the mix while not taking over the track, or muddling things up in the middle. have you A6 owners been able to get it to do this consistently? If so, what oscillator type (sine, triangle, saw, square), and what type of filter? A bit of a bandpass?

I find that all my A6 sounds are either really rezzy sounding leads, nice bass sounds, or warm sine pads. I can't seem to make it create a thinner sound. To make these sounds, i usually open up Absynth and create them there, but i know the A6 is capable of creating them. I am just not a good enough programmer. Can you guys help?

sweetjesus wrote:and ill take my a6 over your softsynth and RSI any day.

RSI ha ha! that made me laugh out loud, waking the other people in the building...thnx dude

eturnol wrote:i have an A6 and love it to death.

All the sounds i make with it are increadibly rich and full sounding, which is great most of the time. But there are times when i just want a small tinny, digital sound to lie over the top of the mix while not taking over the track, or muddling things up in the middle. have you A6 owners been able to get it to do this consistently? If so, what oscillator type (sine, triangle, saw, square), and what type of filter? A bit of a bandpass?

I find that all my A6 sounds are either really rezzy sounding leads, nice bass sounds, or warm sine pads. I can't seem to make it create a thinner sound. To make these sounds, i usually open up Absynth and create them there, but i know the A6 is capable of creating them. I am just not a good enough programmer. Can you guys help?

Hey mate,

I haven't had the chance to use my A6 for quite sometime, but I will again in the coming weeks... from memory, running the filters with the top filter feeding a highpass to the low pass filter will let u cut out a lot of the bottom end and also control how much top end is in there.

Also cheaper VA synths tend to have slower envelopes, so in the "engine/optimise" area of the menu system you can set your A6 to have slower reacting envelopes.

Other things to try is, on OSC1 use .. say a square wave and on the OSC2 also use a square wave with some slow PWM which is coming from an LFO.

The two waveforms will phaze out at certain points creating a more colder sound and slightly tinnier sound.

sweetjesus wrote:

eturnol wrote:Other things to try is, on OSC1 use .. say a square wave and on the OSC2 also use a square wave with some slow PWM which is coming from an LFO.

The two waveforms will phaze out at certain points creating a more colder sound and slightly tinnier sound.

Word - the farfisa effect. Actually I find that the best way to go "thin" is to do a static pulse width change. Set the pw to 10-30% and you have the basis for the thin stuff. I'd be careful with the pwm though, because pwm usually makes things fatter than they are.

I have a 1-osc analog which has all sorts of goodies in there, including pwm, and it can sound big as a whale if I go pwm on a sound.

Machinate wrote:

sweetjesus wrote:

eturnol wrote:Other things to try is, on OSC1 use .. say a square wave and on the OSC2 also use a square wave with some slow PWM which is coming from an LFO.

The two waveforms will phaze out at certain points creating a more colder sound and slightly tinnier sound.

Word - the farfisa effect. Actually I find that the best way to go "thin" is to do a static pulse width change. Set the pw to 10-30% and you have the basis for the thin stuff. I'd be careful with the pwm though, because pwm usually makes things fatter than they are.

I have a 1-osc analog which has all sorts of goodies in there, including pwm, and it can sound big as a whale if I go pwm on a sound.

for a 1osc synth the pwm would make it fatter

in case of the andromeda, the single osc with pwm (fat sound) combined with an equal but static waveform from the other oscillator will result in the desired thinning effect due to how the two oscillators react with each other.

just for reference, so people don't think A6 is limited only to two oscillators, each oscillator can output all its wafeform types simultaneously meaing OSC1 can have Sin, Saw, Sq, Tri and (i forget other waveform) all turned on and so can OSC2 giving you a total of 10 waveforms running at the same time. run this on its 16 voices and in theory you can have 160 waveforms running altogether!!!!!!