Reproductions of "old" synths

spoimala · Post by **spoimala** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 4:30 pm

I recently started digging into Modular! So far I haven't had the courage to even touch (with exception of just playing some presets) it; "modular" sounds too scary to me

I found Jaded800, reproduction of Roland's JD-800. Are there any other this type of patches, maybe korg trinity or triton... or Alesis synths, whoaah. Or other Roland's synths?

This thing is just running away of my hands... Getting too excited.

Tomorrow I'll read the Mod manuals and explore the tutorials... Keep thumbs up for me

Maybe someone could say, how difficult it is to create a reproduction of an existing synth using ModII ?

But first some sleep.

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 9:34 am

If you know how a specific synth works, it's definitely possible to do a remake with modII. The only problem is, modII has its own character so the remake usually ends up with something else. Which is a very interesting process.

But if you're going for a specific sound, you might have to find some clever tricks. Diagnose the sound you chose as your goal, and break it down in to simpler parts, and try to imitate each of the individual parts that make up the sound you're intending to create. That makes the process easier sometimes. You'll find yourself doing this often when the goal "sound" comes before the patch. Especially with synth modeling, you have to use a bunch of tricks because the developers of the synth, probably has used their set of tricks to make the sound "characteristic".

So most of times, its much better to go with the impression YOU got from the sound, and not the schematics. That way, you can pick out the specific character you like of the sound, and sort of make an impressionistic new version of the sound. That's much more creative than creating a 100% imitation of the original. But that sort of goes into synth making aesthetics. hehe.

Anyhow, I'm glad you've found modular patching to be fun. Welcome to the deepest pits of synth programming!

just a small addition: synths you listed, like triton or trinity, are sample playback synths and these can't be imitated with modular. With mod, you're mainly looking at analogue or VA synths.

[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2003-07-20 10:39 ]

spoimala · Post by **spoimala** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 9:54 am

Ken - the Man - always giving good points! But I didn't say I find patching the modular fun... I feel like an ant on bottom of the Himalaya :| But i hope it'll become fun when I start to understand even the tiniest bit of the idea.

modII has sample pool, hasn't it? If I find - or sample myself - trinity samples, wouldn't it be there?

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 11:20 am

I think it's possible to load up samples. Sample pool is more like a wavetable thing I think. (haven't used it) But heck, it'll be so funny if we got a Triton copy with all the samples. And lots of people would probably find it useful.

Don't worry about the learning curve. Build like 4-5 synths, and you'll be pretty comfortable. And once you get creative with it, you can start designing your own synths.

spoimala · Post by **spoimala** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 12:09 pm

What does wavetable mean?

Maybe we should start a Z-project to remake some famous synths like triton and JV-1080

Or maybe it could be easier to use STS for that purpose?

I'm sure I'll fall in love doing my own synths... after a few years when I first manage to accomplish anything that sounds good.

[ This Message was edited by: spoimala on 2003-07-20 13:11 ]

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 12:14 pm

wavetables are used by synths like korg wavestation or Waldorf's synths. It's a sample of 1 cycle of a wave, and the sample is repeated to make a tone. Whereas, normal oscilators actually generate the wave. (as opposed to playing back a sample)

Anyhow, I think starting off with a simple tb303 clone is always good. Once you get that under control, you pretty much have most VA or analogue style synths under control. The rest are mostly variations.

also, as you've mensioned, sample playback synths are much easier to do on sts.

[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2003-07-20 13:16 ]

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 12:30 am

Emulations to my ears never work unless they are done with exceptional care. The Pro-One is pretty good, but NI's Pro52/53 is hopeless as far an realitic emulatoioin is concerned.

In my hardware days I used to attempt to reproduce the sounds of former synths using the new equipment and *always* failed. IMHO you will never get the same sound via synthesis alone. Wavetable synthesis may be a different matter...

More relevant perhaps is reproducing the sound-making signal processing route. By replicating the path you may be able to make sounds that have the sme complexity and character - but they will still not sound the same.

Anyway, I think it's more fun to build on what went before - even be inspired by it - but not just slavishly copy it.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Aug 02, 2003 5:32 pm

Spoimala, you may get yourself an old copy of Emagic's Sounddiver, there were even demos but I dunno how restricted those are.
Anyway since you don't want to control a real synth via midi you may be able to open the editors of the synths you mention, or other ones that may interest you.
The graphical representation in Sounddiver gives a good hint of the synth's internal structure which you can use as a starting point to re-model.

cheers, Tom

aMo · Post by **aMo** » Sat Aug 02, 2003 5:50 pm

And that would b real cool, only if it were'nt THE MOST BUGGY SOFTWARE EVER!!!!

My Sounddiver Virus (came with virus obviously) crashes my system, never finds any midi-interface, never finds A VIRUS SYNTHESIZER (DOH!), and hangs when transferring banks of patches...

I tried the editor for virus, it was kewl, would be kewlest thing ever, if it worked..

For proof check out one of the unofficial Access Virus user forums, and search for Sounddiver, I'm sure you'll find lot's of positive remarks about it.. NOT!

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Aug 02, 2003 7:23 pm

well, that tells us that midi isn't that easy, not even for the Access wizzes

But I didn't mean to actually 'use' it, just open the program without any midi connections and pick one of the editors to see how the synth parameters are organized.
Hopefully that doesn't crash the machine

For just a peek I wouldn't even mind where the program comes from, 'get' doesn't mean buy

But honestly, SD can deal with some rather complicated setups, so the Virus troubles may be an Access specific issue.
Since I have only old synths like DX7 etc a cheap version 2.0.x is sufficient for me.

cheers, Tom

valis · Post by **valis** » Sat Aug 02, 2003 9:19 pm

Sounddiver actually works fine with the virus & all my other synths--though it is DEFINATELY slow in some respects, which I suspect is a byproduct of having the same coding since the original pentiums were the top of the line cpu.

For sounddiver to see the virus there is a mode that must be changed in the virus's OS, I forget where but if u need I can check and post back. Without changing this setting the Virus doesn't respond to external sysex requests and sounddiver will appear to 'hang' for a long time. You can change the timeout however in one of the option panels so when you forget to change this setting you don't need to wait forever upon opening SDiver.

Also let it be noted that I am a great fan of Logic (even tho i'm still on pc) but I do *NOT* use SDiver & Logic together. I find I prefer to use SDiver for offline sound design & patch archival & retrieval.

aMo · Post by **aMo** » Sun Aug 03, 2003 4:00 am

I know how to setup the virus to work with sound-diver, no problem there, but that won't help Sounddiver from crashing..
And whenever it crashes, or I close the program, it wont unload from memory, so I have to restart my pc to start it again...

I have actually used the editor there, and it IS cool, if it just wouldn't crash after 10minutes...

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Sun Aug 03, 2003 4:42 am

As Ken said, when you know the structure of a Synth you can try to reproduce it. With Modular you´ve got most of the necessary modules you need. I tried a reproduction of a Waldorf Q+ and got nearly the same sound but only monophone. That´s the biggest problem, Hardwaresynths are nothing else than very powerful computers for one thing and you need many many DSPs to reach that power.
You should go for unique Synths created in modular only and not try to copy big Hardware Synths, you´ll never reach the exact original.
Small Synths can be reproduced nearly to 100% but the real JD-800 always sounds better than the mod from Ben and you´ll never had the briliant hardware surface of the real JD-800.

Your way is right go through the tutorials, read the minimalistic manual and start with a small patch. I started to enhance existing patches before I build my first big patch. After some time you´ll understand the main atoms of a synth and you´ll get many new ideas what you can do with the mod modules. The modular can be very inspiring, once you understood modularity.
For example, also you can build a effect device or filterbank or a combination of that for external audio sources.
You´ll have a great time with a powerful tool.
cheers