Would you like to talk about our Lord and Saviour Ensoniq (Synthesizer Thread)

[Rimbo 26128]

I feel like we've talked about everything music on this board except for synths.

Now that I've moved into an office of my own, I've been toying around with software synths in my minimal spare time. This generally means downloading free versions of synthesizers I used to have, or wished I have, and gettin' all wistful and nostalgic. Specifically

• Dexed, a free DX7 emulator/plugin,
• Munt, because I idiotically thought I could replace my LAPC-I for cheap with an MT-32 back when I got rid of it. I mean, I could've then, but now they go for $300 a pop. It's nice enough, but doesn't seem to respond to MIDI SysEx, so how the heck am I supposed to upload new sounds to it? I'm now sorely tempted to cough up real money to get a "lifetime license" to Roland's D-50 VST.

And then banging around on my ancient, well-loved, but badass-sounding, Ensoniq VFXsd.

After revisiting the 1980s, it occurred to me that I could actually do something a bit more modern, so a quick internet search or two later, I had downloaded the insanely good freeware/open-source Surge XT.

It's nauseatingly capable of doing all kinds of crazy shit -- FM synthesis, virtual analog, wavetable, physical modeling, ... pretty much anything you can imagine a synthesizer doing, it does.

But the odd thing is, the 1989 Ensoniq sounds better than all of 'em. Something about that phat-ass DAC...

 

So. Tell me about your synth setups. Tell me what you like about your synths. Tell me what you hate. How do you synthesize sounds, when you do?

Edited May 3, 2023 by Rimbo

[sidis 9832]

software: uhe zebra and diva are my go to.  hard to beat it.  i like serum as well like basically everyone.  i have countless, countless other ones including ni's massive, reaktor, etc...   of all the major ones out there, the only one i haven't really used as much is omnisphere.  just haven't really had occasion.

on hardware, cs-80 or go home.  kidding.  i'd take a juno 106, jupiter 8, prophet 5, or minimoog as well.

i recommend to anyone that is just starting out with softsynth to start with serum because it is as close as possible to teaching you how to actually work the shit which is kind of an important step unless you just want to prince your way through the presets (nttawt).

[PRONG HORN 3159]

Is this a synth song?

 

 

[sidis 9832]

My amazing wife and kids got me a very fun birthday present. My first real moog analog. Fucking pumped. 

 

[Rimbo 26128]

On 7/5/2023 at 11:48 AM, sidis said:

My amazing wife and kids got me a very fun birthday present. My first real moog analog. Fucking pumped. 

 

[tbone_ 14166]

Subscribed. Although I won’t understand any of this

And I thought I’d post this:

https://pitchfork.com/features/overtones/stevie-wonder-and-his-dream-machines-synth/

[Rimbo 26128]

2 hours ago, tbone_ said:

Subscribed. Although I won’t understand any of this

And I thought I’d post this:

https://pitchfork.com/features/overtones/stevie-wonder-and-his-dream-machines-synth/

GREAT article. Some money quotes in there about how synthesis used to be about trying to reproduce real instruments... what a waste of time and effort THAT was.

[tbone_ 14166]

I remember hearing back in the day, but couldn’t find it online, that someone (synclavier? Maybe someone different?) produced a synth with a grand piano sound or maybe sample that Stevie Wonder apparently couldn’t hear the difference between it and the real thing.

Don’t know if that was an old wives tale or not. But it always seems like a pretty bold statement on the tech back then.

[Harrison Stafford 3336]

My first recollection of a tune with a Moog synthesizer was this song by the Doors from 1967.  Ray Manzarek tinkling the ivories.

[Rimbo 26128]

www.rolandcloud.com

The free version had my interest; signing up for a trial of Pro has my attention.

So, the free synths are very, very capable. But compared to these, they're absolute garbage.

Not only the Zenology app, which is basically the same engine that's in their modern day hardware, but hardware level emulation of classic synths like the Jupiter 4/8, Juno series, D-50, TB-303...

it's glorious

[Rimbo 26128]

So it's funny. I paid for Roland Cloud largely to get the D-50, since I was missing out on my old LAPC-I sound card (an MT-32 + MPU-401 MIDI interface; larger than modern high-end GPUs and almost as heavy).

But it turns out that the 2 reasons I enjoyed my MT-32 -- the analog synthesizer, and the great TB-x0x-like drum samples -- are done so much better by the Jupiter-8 VST and Zenology Pro (respectively) that I hardly ever touched the D-50. And I was wondering why I even bothered with the D-50 (I guess so I can sound like Enya, perhaps?) until this week, when I finally figured out what the CHASE button does.

In short, the D-50 splits each patch into an upper and lower half. And what CHASE does... is it adds a delay between them. You can have either a straight up Upper + Lower, or ULL (Upper, then Lower, then fade out on Lower), or ULU (Upper, then Lower, then fade out going upper, lower, upper, lower....)

Amazing atmospheric effects that way.

So the D-50 actually does have a reason to exist other than "I want to sound like Enya."