Post your DREAM SYNTH features

[wwwjd]

- 4 analog oscilators per voice

- 32 voices

- 76 light weight synth feel keys (not the weighted kind)

- knob / slider for each parameter

- 2 or more performance touchpads or joysticks in addition to standard wheels

- built in multi-effects: verb, phase, chorus, delay, EQ

- quality output amp, low noise or hiss

- graphic chording display (tells what chord you are playing)

- dark purple case

 

share your dreams!

[Bernard]

''DREAM SYNTH'' ?

 

Something that sounds NICE... ;-)

 

I get the feeling that some makers occasionally go OTT on MI products and it just does not sound good. I wish they would focus on sounding good as priority one, rather than a feature list...

[TropicThink]

 

''DREAM SYNTH'' ? Something that sounds NICE... ;-) I get the feeling that some makers occasionally go OTT on MI products and it just does not sound good. I wish they would focus on sounding good as priority one, rather than a feature list...

 

 

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. This should be sent to all manufacturers of electronic music equipment.

 

Although, I don't know.... They do probably check out what the market wants from time to time, an dudging by what you read on forums like these a lot of the time, sound is the least important thing.... Bells & whistles, now that's where it's at! Korg Kronos threads have 50,000 pages, discussions over gigabytes and SSDs and engines and processors and tech stuff and bla bla bla, but not nearly as much about the SOUND. Weird stuff. Very, very {censored}ing weird, to be honest.

[wwwjd]

oh come on, play along. a "Sound" is a given.... "Sounding Nice" will be always be subjective.... this thread is about FEATURES!! Maybe something weird no one has done yet? Built in laser harp? a retina tracking filter? a farvinnargin attachment?

 

just thought of another one:

 

- random patch generator button

[Meatball Fulton]

It has to have all the circuitry from a MiniMoog, VCS3 and Odyssey as well as a world class sample-based synth engine, fully polyphonic (at least 128 voices) and sell for $99.95.

 

Korg Kronos threads have 50,000 pages, discussions over gigabytes and SSDs and engines and processors and tech stuff and bla bla bla, but not nearly as much about the SOUND. Weird stuff.

 

What people expect from Kronos is the strengths of a softsynth (huge sample libraries, multiple synth engines, etc.) in hardware so all the big questions are going to be technical. Sound, well it's a Korg so it's gonna be similar to Oasys and M3. Not very much to discuss there

[mcdowella]

Smart timbral assignment. I would like a system that chooses a timbre for each note based on the notes near to it in time and space, so that you could have different parts in different timbres without worrying about crossing over a keyboard split or needing multiple manuals, and so that the timbre of a part could change in response to the tempo of that part. The goal, of course, is to play Switched on Bach like effects without having to lay the parts down one at a time.

[poserp]

Since I'm a guitarist and not a keyboard player, my dream synth starts with six independent monophonic voices and an interface that responds like a guitar (i.e. you can bend strings, scrape them, blow on them, etc and capture the nuances of the sound). A guitar string doesn't just vibrate in two dimensions, so the guitar interface would need something that sensed x and y motion separately. Since a metal string vibrating in a magnetic field is essentially an oscillator, I want "oscillator" sync -- the 3-d motion of the string determines the duty cycle of the oscillator or oscillators (or, electrically, you could do the reverse and limit the duty cycle of the string in three dimensions). Most oscillators are essentially 2-d signals (voltage fluctuating over time), I'd like 3-d oscillators where voltage also fluctuates over some spatial dimension (to go along with the 3-d osc sync). I've done experiments with using rapid changes in pan position to create an "oscillator", this would be an acceptable third dimension for my purposes. It'd also be cool if this sensor could pick up on how waves travel down the strings, so that you could use that data as a control source or sources as well.

 

This setup would need special speakers, something designed to deform in continuously-variable ways (i.e. the top left corner of the speaker is moving out while an inch away the speaker is moving in the opposite direction), so as to play the 3-d representation of what the string/oscillator is doing accurately. You can approximate it with a pair of speakers in stereo, but it'd be potentially interesting to hear a single speaker move like that.

[wwwjd]

wow those last two are killer. still tryign to wrap my head around the timbral one. sounds good though.

 

I understand the guitar one easier. sounds like fun. might be kinda bulky in the end.... why not just play a real guitar and effect each string sound via pickups? kinda the inverse of what you said? Also, I messed with this

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1378.html

Revitar, which, although not near as advanced as what you were describing, does some pretty interesting things within the realm of synthezing a guitar. You can alter so much stuff, I don't even understand all the settings. a guitarist might. But that is a plugin and doesn't count

[Minocan]

Waldorf Q + Waldorf Wave + John Bowen Solaris + 76 keys with poly aftertouch/ release velocity + nice interface + Eventide H8000 effects chain, with mod matrix = Dream Synth

Hmm say 48 polyphony for it (with analog filters)

 

LOL dreaming it makes me droooool

[honeyiscool]

I only have two wishes:

 

1. Has a keybed rivaling a Korg M3-61.

2. Has a general purpose DSP chips that can be custom programmed.

[Sad Darwin]

An Access Virus with anti-aliasing oscillators and sample oscillators.

[Redhotpoker]

Oh, so it sounds just like my Motif XF8.

 

Hahaha, I need/want a pocket sized magic lantern and a genie like Shaq inside,,,.

 

When ever I'm too tired to play, Shaq could write,compose,play the xf

and I can spend more time reading these endless fun threads...

It's all good.

 

Chas

[psionic11]

Rather than describe the technology under the hood, I'd want the results, however it's achieved under the hood --

 

I'd simply *think* the sound, or give it broad parameters then fine tune it, and it just *plays* the most awesome rendition of that sound, whether it's a stadium-size jazz French trombone or an unholy 6D pipe organ or a jizz-alicious bass/lead/squelch or talking sitar flute or supernaturalistic singing sympathetic resonant ultra grand piano choir sparkling UFO.

 

All, of course, supported by automatic mastering of superb unheard-of FX, scalable auto-accompaniment, and AI-suggested production techniques.

 

And always recording.....

[Chando]

A modern equal to a JEN SX1000.

With MIDI

and patch memory

and under $500

 

I'd buy 4 of um right now..

[tagutcow]

 

Smart timbral assignment. I would like a system that chooses a timbre for each note based on the notes near to it in time and space, so that you could have different parts in different timbres without worrying about crossing over a keyboard split or needing multiple manuals, and so that the timbre of a part could change in response to the tempo of that part. The goal, of course, is to play Switched on Bach like effects without having to lay the parts down one at a time.

 

 

Some big workstation dealie- PC3? Motif XF?- has a feature where if you have a keyboard split and play a scale run in one hand, it will intelligently adjust the split so you don't cross over into the other sound. I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about.

[mcdowella]

 

(trimmed) Some big workstation dealie- PC3? Motif XF?- has a feature where if you have a keyboard split and play a scale run in one hand, it will intelligently adjust the split so you don't cross over into the other sound. I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about.

 

 

That sounds like an example of what I am thinking about, or at least stage one.

[Gaul]

1. Video output

2. Something surpassing limitation of 16 channels MIDI - or extending the standard to 32 or 64 MIDI channel's (and on-board sequencer accordingly)

3. Independent Multi-EFX section for every MIDI timbre

4. Bullet-proof key-bed, casing, LCD screen, outputs and buttons

5. 3D Graphic view for every parameter, that shows what is actually changing when the parameter value is changed

[wwwjd]

you really need more than 16 or 32 channels of midi?

 

I just thought of another one:

 

light operated controls for parameters (no moving parts): you have an IR sensor with about a 6 inch range, plus a rainbow coloring LED.... you move your finger up or down over the sensor and the LED changed from black (off) through the rainbow to yellow and white for full on. One glance of the color tells you where you are in the setting. Would that cost a lot more having those sensors than knobs or sliders?

[poserp]

I understand the guitar one easier. sounds like fun. might be kinda bulky in the end.... why not just play a real guitar and effect each string sound via pickups? kinda the inverse of what you said?

 

That's fairly close to what the Roland GK-3 pickup does -- i.e. it has six little pickups (one for each string) instead of a single pickup. Since the GK-3 just sends electrical signals, you could theoretically hack it for use in another system...

 

The Moog guitar gets fairly close to treating strings like oscillators. I'm not sure how they cause the strings to move, but their technology seems promising w.r.t. getting the string to "sync" to another oscillator.

 

So bits and pieces of what I'd like to see are available. Perhaps some hybrid Moog Guitar/GK-3 thing run through the VG-99 v-Guitar module would do a fair amount of what I'm thinking. The next thing would be getting another oscillator's signal into the guitar to get "sync" working.

 

EDIT: Playing a guitar whose strings were synced to another oscillator would be an interesting experience -- the strings would be vibrating in unnatural ways and would probably feel funny under your fingers.

[pilg]

4 octave 16 voice Poly Evolver, with low, hi and band pass filterering, 4 part multitimbral with independent mutli-effects per part, usb midi/audio interface, and NO wooden end caps.

[DJ RAZZ]

A Roland Jupiter 8 with midi, 20lbs lighter, and $3,000, brand new remake for all of us who missed it the first time.

[Gaul]

 

you really need more than 16 or 32 channels of midi?

 

 

32 will be sufficient while 16 often isn't. But what synthesizer has 32 channels of MIDI anyway? I remember some older EMU modules, a couple of later Roland SC modules, and that's it. At present, I can not remember any current synthesizer offering 32 channels.