dubdisciple

I keep saying I will try this, but the way my laziness is setup...

2 hours ago, Fleer said:

That CZ in the Arturia bundle is quite something. 

I find myself using it for sounds that conventional wisdom says the DX7 would be the right choice. One example is lead RnB keys

1 hour ago, LAGinz said:

For those desiring to pay even less than $10 ….actually zero….for some nice FM sounds, don’t forget about Dexed. Definitely one of my favorite free synths.

I have Dexed and it is awesome for free but head to head it falls very short.  The $10 is an absolute and audible upgrade that is worth it.

23 minutes ago, User 905133 said:

I never cared for the sound of the DX7 and the others in the DX line.  Too boring for my tastes.  I opted for Casio's iPD [interactive Phase Distortion] in the form of the VZ-8 which was the same as FM or was totally different depending who was making the legal argument. 

From what I have seen, yup!!  Even though I have found FM8's implementation to be quite intuitive, I found a number of very helpful videos to fill in some gaps in my personal knowledge base and hands-on experience.  

I owned a cz3000 which was basically two cz1000's. I found it possible to get FM like sounds.  It was also the secret weapon to getting a particular type of bass sound popularized in Jersey house. I do appreciate those DX electric pianos though.

I think there is a similar nostalgia based reason for the popularity of both 303 and 808 over the years.  The 808 was never really great and had a limited soundset.  It was , however used in a ton of 80s and 90s music. Granted that soundset is so ubiquitous it is still used today...except for that's not entirely true. The term 808 has become one of the phrases like Jello or Zipper that is used even when we are not referring to original sound. "808s" are all over modern pop, EDM, Hip-hop , etc, but except for niche artists looking to showoff vintage gear, the sounds are made with other synths. the original 808 kick sample struggles to make melodic gliding bass sounds used in Drill or Grime. Much easier to make in Serum( or similar synth) or even a sampler. I remember when Roland owned cakewalk and reminded us that they gave us " the original samples" used from their drum sounds. I thought that was so cool ..and never used them because other products out Rolanded my original samples. people forget a lot of engineering went into getting that sound. the same tricks (layering a sub sine wave  for example) sound even better with other sound sources.

4 minutes ago, Fleer said:

True, that Arturia DX7 is remarkably close. But FM8 and definitely F.’em do much, much more with than the original. 

FM8 definitely carved it's own niche that goes way beyond simply emulation. I just wonder if it's worth my while to dive that deeply into a synth when i have too many already lol. One upside of FM8 is there are a ton of resources for learning

I think Juno love is more about nostalgia for genres and classic songs that used it rather than the technical capabilities of the synth itself.  back before the days of having a 100 soft synths, countless aspiring dance music creators could often afford a limited setup.  For those who know the history of Deep House, Larry heard created House classics like 'Can You feel it" using a Roland 707 and Juno 6.  The simple bassline was the 707 triggering Juno. The simplicity of creating sound on a Juno was for many a more usable option for many compared to other budget options like casio.  This also create a copycat effect.  Nostalgia has a habit of giving us reverence for things that were never the sum of our adulation. I do, however find that occasionally limiting myself to the budget tools of yesteryear helps trigger my beginner mindset and sparks creativity that scarcity sometimes provides. I have a template that is basically a Juno, 909 and sampler.

I'm on the fence. $10 seems like a nobrainer but I honestly think that that Arturia's DX7 sounds slightly better. Other than recreating skrilex-esque bass growls, I'm unsure if it's worth it

Damn. I already have PB freebie lol. I suppose it's a sign I don't need more plugins I won't use.

3 hours ago, John Maar said:

Being a keyboard and bass player, I never tried that feature. Gonna have to play with it.

It's really the best part of 1. I have not tried 2 yet. I was going to see which is free gift for August from PB lol

Vital is definitely more intuitive by miles.  

Same guy does a similar through walkthrough on Vital.  I have thought about getting Serum, but owning Vital and Pigments it seems somewhat redundant, especially since both will load Serum wavetables

Surge is one of the most powerful synths free or paid. Just not a fan of interface.  This is the best walkthrough I have seen on it and exactly why Cameron didn't go into great detail:

6 hours ago, abacab said:

To anyone who has both, is Instachord superior to Scaler?

Scaler is better overall, but I have discovered (after letting instachord sit for 2 years) that for guitar parts instachord works slightly better for love input on guitar parts because of the ability to have multiple strum patterns and speeds. They work well together

On 7/27/2022 at 3:21 PM, kevin H said:

I bought from Pluginboutique.  Trying to see if I’m able to register with FW and then upgrade using their website.  Will update.

I originally bought from PB and offer was still in my account

It's been free on gamepass for awhile and it is just as weird as it sounds

If studio one turns to trash I am going with Logic

I did not take his words to mean they were getting rid of pro but trying to create entry point that is usable without reading an actual manual. The strategy in the past was to give out an an "entry level" version of the pro version which requires you to have an understanding of the pro product to use but with less features.  The core is identical but has locked features and less auxillary content.   A DAW is going to be pretty hard to document in a manual less than 150 pages considering all the hardware products it replaces.  Take every manual to every hardware console, processor, effect etc and you are still going to have a lot of documentation. For many of us, most if the manual is redundant. Most of us don't need a manual on an EQ and will simply start using from day 1.  Fender, like other hardware manufacturers in the past make the fatal mistake when getting into software business of trying to recreate nostalgia of the "good ol days" of buying a 4 track and having a few friends plug into a cheap mixer in the garage.  The truth is the customer base is too diverse for that to work. 

27 minutes ago, abacab said:

Pigments is one of the best, IMO!!!

It is my primary synth now.   I often find myself using it for everything. Most of my bass even comes from it these days

Pigments is a known cpu hog but my computer handles it pretty well. I got upgrade. Worth it imo.

my computer wouldn't install. said it had a trojan and deleted install file lol

I think i will trigger today

2 hours ago, abacab said:

Augmented Strings is actually not that much of a memory hog! For example, Augmented Strings + the displayed preset is only using 362 MB total. Augmented Stings is actually more of a synthesizer than sampler, so it's mostly CPU intensive. The installed sample library for the 300 presets is only a 2.5GB footprint.

So in theory, you could run dozens of instances of Augmented Strings loaded into your DAW tracks, as long as they were not all playing in unison, or simultaneously!

Here is the Augmented Strings library displayed by file/folder size on my sample drive. You can see that Arturia was very frugal with the sample sizes, unlike Soundpaint, LOL! 🤣

I actually meant to say CPU hog but I am glad I messes up since you gave a good explanation

17 minutes ago, abacab said:

And if you are wondering how "CPU hungry" Augmented Strings is...

Running it standalone:

See the little 8% in the lower right corner of the image above? This is the usage of this preset just idling. But it is just using one core of a 6-core i5 running at 4.35GHz. If I play a 3-note triad, then the attack jumps the CPU usage to about 25-30% of that single core. The notes sustaining use about 16%, then release goes back to 8%.

YMMV.

I expect such an instrument to be a memory hog. I tend to freeze these types of tracks early on. 

2 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

Ha! But you use Pigments more too!

Touché, but I do use the others, just not as much. A workhorse main synth is just bound to get more work than niche synths.  It would be kinda weird to use a Mellotron daily😂