Members grumphh Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Originally posted by cold truth the art is the final piece of music, not neccesarily the materials used to create it. This is the line of thinking that has made GM possible :D:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Array Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 By the way, I know of some artists who do indeed mix their own paints using, sometimes highly toxic, pigments. Another thing that some artists do is, instead of using gray from a tube, mix 2 complimentary colors. They say that this gives their grays a lot more life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jerrythek Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Here's a thought. The sounds delivered by a manufacturer are quite often programmed by some of the most skilled people in the industry. Whether they are employess of the companies, or qualified independent programmers, they are a huge resource for the user. If the user takes some time to actually study them, not just play them they can learn a wealth of information about how to use the given voice architecture, how to make different types of emulative sounds, etc. etc. They are an incredible resource for the person looking to learn more about programming that speciifc synthesizer and synths in general. So perhaps the issues isn't with the concept of Presets themselves, but the lack of people thinking of them as a learning tool. Just a thought... regards, Jerry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jchas Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Originally posted by myteeGTi well yeah, its a sense of self satisfaction in a way. You made it and you're proud of it. Most if not all people out there wouldnt appreciate what you did, but in a way EVERYTHING you do that is creative is the same way. atleast thats the way I feel about it. You can draw a kickass duck by tracing it but drawing it from scratch, although it might not look like a real duck in the end its your duck but at the same rate, if someone doesnt want to do that, they just want to draw the duck and dont give a {censored}. More power to you, enjoy! have fun, thats all that matters to me. Have fun... Of course there's the self-satisfaction - but would it be appreciated? Probably not. Creating sounds is not like drawing/painting a duck - it's creating the colors and textures used to draw/paint a duck. Colors have often been used to describe sound - from the textures created by different instruments to the coloration added/subtracted by the environment used to capture the sound as well as the manner in which it was captured (rooms, mics, preamps etc.) I can certainly understand someone wanting the self-satisfaction of creating the colors used to paint a duck - but the bottom line is what do others think of your duck picture? Does anyone care that no-one has ever mixed paint with just 2/3 of a drop of yellow before? Or unlike any artist know to man - you added the yellow BEFORE the black and not AFTER? Or that unlike any artist before you, you added a drop of RED to create the green color? No - they look at the duck and say - NICE DUCK!!! or THAT DUCK SUCKS!!! It simply doesn't matter to the masses how much time and effort went into creating a custom color - there's far too much similarity to the other 1,000,000 colrs to choose from. But how did you apply the color? How did you blend them with such flair. How in the world did you paint such a nice duck? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fear My Potato Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Originally posted by Jerrythek If the user takes some time to actually study them, not just play them they can learn a wealth of information about how to use the given voice architecture, how to make different types of emulative sounds, etc. etc. They are an incredible resource for the person looking to learn more about programming that speciifc synthesizer and synths in general. Oh my god it's actually Jerry Kovarsky I'm actually glad to see you here, it'll be nice to actually hear from the people being accused here...maybe you'll be able to put this to rest. I actually agree with Jerrypiece on this thread though. Each synthesizer is different, and each can be maximized if used and programmed a certain way. ROMplers are no exception. The best person to teach you how to maximize the synth is indeed the person who designed it. When I build organ patches, I take a preset and I change which samples are being used. If I want more grime I pull out a sample I don't want and put in a sample of a dirtier organ. It's a lot easier than building the patch from scratch. Diving into the menus of the XP-30 is a total bitch, so it's nice to just take a similar sound and tweak tweak tweak. Organ patches are actually easy. The Who patch I did myself was a real pain in the ass because there was nothing to base it on...I can only imagine if I had to do that for everything. It's nice to have guides on patch design (aka presets). And what about when you're jamming with a band? A lot of you guys bashing the presets obviously don't play with bands. You ever try to build a patch in thirty seconds from the ground up? What happens if the band gets into a groove? Should I raise my hand and say "excuse me guys, just give me ten minutes to reprogram my board here...". OUTTA THE BAND. It's discouraging to be accused of "sponsoring corporate greed" because I own a ROMpler that has presets. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I bought a ROMpler because I don't have the money for the gear? Let's make a list of what I'd need if I didn't have an XP-30: 1) Hammond B3 clone - around $2000 2) Digital piano (Yamaha P120) - around $1500 (not sure) 3) Hohner Clavinet - $700 4) Wurlitzer - $600 5) Rhodes - $700 Those are rough figures but we're already in the four grand range. I paid $1000 new for my Roland XP-30 and $100 for the "Sounds of the 60s&70s" expansion card. Now I have over a thousand high quality samples at my disposal to build the organ patches, and other things, that I use in my music. I'm a student, and I'm currently unemployed...unless one of you {censored}ers wants to mail me four grand, don't {censored}in criticize me for owning a ROMpler. Have a nice day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fear My Potato Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Originally posted by jchas Of course there's the self-satisfaction - but would it be appreciated? Probably not. I suppose it comes down to if you're in it for the art and the music, or if you're in the for the masses. A lot of the ducks being painted by people like Britney Spears and Fifty Cent that are so loved by the masses are the {censored}tiest ducks I've ever seen That's just my opinion though. It's about expression people, not right or wrong. If you need some color that's never been seen before to paint your duck, mix your own paint, if you don't, don't. However, just using the 24 colors in the box and not stopping to use them creatively (aka playing just the presets) it's still lame though, no way around that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fear My Potato Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Originally posted by grumphh Also i believe apparently most romplers include "synthesizer" soundsets (or they can be bought as an add-on), which makes it seem preposterous to claim that it is an actual synth, instead of just admitting to playing (synth) sounds out of a can. What do you mean by synth sound out of a can? The samples in the XP-30 I know for a fact are just samples of straight synth waveforms, so if I want it to sound like one of your "real synthesizers" I have to get dirty and program it like a real synthesizer. So if you start with the same waveforms, program them to act the same way, and in the end they sound the same (or close to), how is one a synth and the other not? And you're mixed up with the ROMpler add-ons. Some cards (like the MOSS board for the Triton) adds new synthesis abilities to the keyboard, it doesn't make it a synthesizer. It would be like if you could add FM synthesis onto your Minimoog...it's still a synth, it just can do more. Other expansion cards will add samples, which doesn't make it able to synthesize any more than it did before, it just gives it more waveforms to work with. Synthesis means the creation of something using artificial methods...so technically (although even I'm not keen on nitpicking), some that plays a piano sound without being a piano is a synth. Personally, I wouldn't go that far, but if you want to get technical, that would be a synthesizer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mytee2.0 Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Originally posted by jchas Of course there's the self-satisfaction - but would it be appreciated? Probably not. I dont really care my music (if you want to call it that ) is for me. Yeah sure some other people might hear it now and then but its my hobby. I hate poetry but its a good parallel. If you write poetry do you honestly care if people appreciate it or not? I certainly wouldnt. Who cares if people like/hate/care-about your work or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members grumphh Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Originally posted by Fear My Potato What do you mean by synth sound out of a can? The samples in the XP-30 I know for a fact are just samples of straight synth waveforms, so if I want it to sound like one of your "real synthesizers" I have to get dirty and program it like a real synthesizer. So if you start with the same waveforms, program them to act the same way, and in the end they sound the same (or close to), how is one a synth and the other not? ..snip Synthesis means the creation of something using artificial methods...so technically (although even I'm not keen on nitpicking), some that plays a piano sound without being a piano is a synth . Personally, I wouldn't go that far, but if you want to get technical, that would be a synthesizer... Totally agreed on the first one - if you have the parameters, it is a synth - frankly i don't care whether waveform generation is digital or analog or steamdriven... I don't know your XPZYX_3000 or whatever the names are, but what i referred to was that in some Roland synths at least, you could actually buy the synth sounds on extra expansion boards (at least that is how i understood it). Again - if you put a fully featured VA/FM synth/whathaveyou into a keyboard as an expansion - that is a synth too. But stuff like Yamahas AWM is not a synth - and AFAIK that is rompler technology. It sounds ok in my TG77 but even thoough i get a filter, LFO's and a few nice EG's, the synth part of that module is in the FM section. Likewise with the "synth section" of the groovebox i have (Yammy as well - only AWM2) You get an awful lot of samples and the modifiers i mentioned before - yet it definitely is not a sound creating device that lets you explore many textures, and i would not call it a synth. BUT: Parameters alone do not make a synth - the result you get from fiddling with the parameters counts as well. And if all you can do with those parameters is finetune a predefined tone you have a rompler, not a synth As for the text i marked in red: Exactly - a tape recorder could be a synth by that definition, and quite obviously, my definition of synth is narrower than yours Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fear My Potato Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Originally posted by grumphh and quite obviously, my definition of synth is narrower than yours Only slightly... I just think you've got the wrong impression about most ROMplers though. Most ROMplers don't just let you "finetune" (although that's what most ROMpler programming is), they allow synthesis. I think you're impression of ROMplers is that the sound is the sound of the sample, but that's not the case on most patches. I'm amazed when I disect patches to find out how their built...it's weird stuff sometimes The sample on synth patches is almost always a raw wave...triangle, square, pulse, whatever. Then it goes through the filters which offer you triangle, square, pulse, etc...and gets shaped using subtractice synthesis (right Yoozer, the XP-30 does use a form of subtractive synthesis?). Most organ, piano, orchestra, brass, etc patches are almost straight samples...but the synth patches tend to be heavily filtered and processed. 90% of the custom patches on my keyboard are just finetuned presets, and the other 10% are built from the ground up...not based on anything else except how you'd have to program it on any other synth out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeebus Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 GODDY! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fear My Potato Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Originally posted by grumphh BUT: Parameters alone do not make a synth - the result you get from fiddling with the parameters counts as well. I think you'd be surprised how good you can get a ROMpler to sound when you do it right. I wish we could A/B stuff like they do in the Guitar Forum...they had a Made In America Fender Stratocaster snippet posted with a Squier Stratripoff snippet and it was a 50/50 draw between who thought which was which. I got fooled...I voted for the Squier I have a feeling the people that got it right were mostly by luck. Having a 50/50 split on a two-choice test generally is pretty clear I'll bet there'd be some pretty surprising results if we threw samples of Jupiters up against real Jupiters... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jerrythek Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Originally posted by Fear My Potato Oh my god it's actually Jerry Kovarsky I'm actually glad to see you here, it'll be nice to actually hear from the people being accused here...maybe you'll be able to put this to rest. Put what to rest? The OASYS controversy? Or just the Jerry-bashing? I actually agree with Jerrypiece on this thread though. Thanks - I think a lot of customers who buy ROM-based synths do what you do. And I keep pushing Korg all the time to help you by making more designs that have modular cut-and-paste options for programming. Are you familiar with the Ensoniq TS-10/12? They could copy each page of parameters into buffers and then paste them into another Program. So you could easily "gather" some parameters groups and use them in your programming. I think this type of "Frankenstein" programming, taking advantage of programming done by the experts is a reasonable way to make your own sounds, or to tweak things to your taste. Not everyone has the time to always program sounds from scratch, or to wipe their synth clean and re-program the whole thing. But to not take advantage of the fact that all these instruments are highly programmable is a shame - so often I see people judge a synth soley based on the presets, when with a little adjustment they could make it better match their tastes, touch etc. regards, Jerry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Darkstorm Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 If a synth doesnt have at least a handfulof presets I really like. I wont buy it. Sure you can create yor own sounds. But a synth whose presets dont give me anything of the sounds I want is worthless & imo uncapable of doing what I want well. I love modding liked presets & useing presets as starting point for new sounds. Some presets are used as is. Presets are there for two reasons. First to show what synth can do. If its not showing me what I want a synth to do, it isnt going to do it ina reasonably easy way. 2nd presets show the synths basic flavors and music genre compatabties For example I like the Karma idea but find the synth oriented to jst pop & mainstream music. Not suitable for me. Novation, Access, & Nord lead2x are synths made for the types of music I want. Their presets confirm this. They get my endoresment as synths capable for what I want synth to do. I'd never buy a guitar that had a sound I didnt like even though pup change is simple. No reason for me to buy a synth that doesnt allready have sounds I like either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members grumphh Posted May 30, 2005 Members Share Posted May 30, 2005 Originally posted by Fear My Potato I think you'd be surprised how good you can get a ROMpler to sound when you do it right. I wish we could A/B stuff like they do in the Guitar Forum...they had a Made In America Fender Stratocaster snippet posted with a Squier Stratripoff snippet and it was a 50/50 draw between who thought which was which. I got fooled...I voted for the Squier I have a feeling the people that got it right were mostly by luck. Having a 50/50 split on a two-choice test generally is pretty clear I'll bet there'd be some pretty surprising results if we threw samples of Jupiters up against real Jupiters... *LOL* I probably would be surprised, yes - because technology most definitely has advanced since the TG 77 was made, and i have never really considered owning a workstation/rompler thingy As for the A/B ing - with guitars there is always the wood as a factor; even the cheapest korean instrument could have a tone that rivals the most expensive customshop US made guitar - there is a lot of chance in this family of instruments. And of course there is no point in comparing a Sample of a synth to the synth - since they are the same sound. But one is a sample, and thus not alive What you could do, is of course what Per Christian (?) did a few weeks ago. Take a classic piece of synth music and recreate that on the rompler. How about "Autobahn" by Kraftwerk? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members keyman_sam Posted May 31, 2005 Members Share Posted May 31, 2005 IMHO Its down to this : If you are satisfied with the presets and dont have the time/necessity/patience to program, good, you continue with presets. If you are not satisfied/want to utilize the power of the synth in your own ways/want to create everything from scratch, then go do it. But dont criticize the one who uses presets. If The one who uses presets can play 5x the one who programmes patches who is given more credit? The one who plays better is given more credit. Its the MUSIC, then its the sound. Among us musicians, one knows that the other plays better and the other knows that he can program better. Simple : To each his own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members aeon Posted May 31, 2005 Members Share Posted May 31, 2005 Originally posted by Array This whole thread now seems to be about your inability and/or lack of drive to properly learn synthesis. That statement is very telling as to your perspective and bias (and nothing wrong with them), but I think it is way off the mark. Not everyone is interested in synthesis and sound-design, hard as that may be to believe for a sound-designer and patch programmer like you or I. And ultimately, as much as I love sound-design and programming, and as much as they can be satisfying in and of themselves, I still see those activities as things that serve the mix that serve the performance that serve the most important thing of all, the song/composition. Originally posted by Array Just go on any CG forum and ask then how they feel about artists using "Poser" in their scenes. You will get many responses in the same vain as this.... Right, because CG/3D is a scene that is absolutely ripe with insecure people flaunting their egos and endlessly discussing the merits or lack thereof of various apps, platforms, etc., completely forgetting that they are nothing more than tools to realize a creative vision. Not everyone of course...but back when I was into that stuff heavy, it blew my mind how many pricks there were in that scene...a higher percentage than any other human endeavor I have ever been interested in, save perhaps high-end biking, hehe. cheers, aeon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fear My Potato Posted May 31, 2005 Members Share Posted May 31, 2005 Originally posted by Jerrythek Put what to rest? The OASYS controversy? Or just the Jerry-bashing? Hopefully both. It's unproductive and has provided very very little useful info on the Oasys. The only thing I learned in this whole situation is that people in internet forums can be real idiots...the rest I could've gotten off the Sweetwater website and NAMM press releases... Thanks - I think a lot of customers who buy ROM-based synths do what you do. And I keep pushing Korg all the time to help you by making more designs that have modular cut-and-paste options for programming. Are you familiar with the Ensoniq TS-10/12? They could copy each page of parameters into buffers and then paste them into another Program. So you could easily "gather" some parameters groups and use them in your programming. I think this type of "Frankenstein" programming, taking advantage of programming done by the experts is a reasonable way to make your own sounds, or to tweak things to your taste. Not everyone has the time to always program sounds from scratch, or to wipe their synth clean and re-program the whole thing. But to not take advantage of the fact that all these instruments are highly programmable is a shame - so often I see people judge a synth soley based on the presets, when with a little adjustment they could make it better match their tastes, touch etc. This is exactly why it would be awesome to have company R&D reps in the internet forums...instant feedback in both directions. Cut and paste of settings and parameters would be awesome, it would save a ton of time in the studio and live when you don't want to waste time redoing all the work you already did, when only small things need to be changed. Changing the samples being used in a preset is quick and effective, but often runs into problems. I changed the samples in one preset the other day and for some reason I can't get tones two and four to make a sound. I still haven't had the time to rip the patch apart to figure out why...some sort of categorized template would be nice for this sort of thing. Have all the ideal parameters predone for categories like PIANO, BRASS, ORCHESTRA, ORGAN, etc and maybe even have three different choices for each...so you just pick the samples you want, stick em in, and go. Two more suggestions on ROMplers I'd love to see done are actually pretty simple:1) BUILT IN EQ...WHY DOESN'T EVERY KEYBOARD HAVE THIS? Few things make a keyboard or any instrument sound better than proper EQ, but often times gigging musicians don't have the money for mixers that allow each channel to be properly EQed...just put it on the board. 2) Hammond/Leslie overdrive insertable in the gain structure. For some reason, rotary sims don't let you adjust the overdrive of the Leslie preamp, which is where half the tone of a Hammond comes from. Even with the expansion card, my Roland has only ONE sample that has a Hammond with full overdrive. You can add gain on the patch, but then you'd have to use the OVERDRIVE effect instead of the ROTARY effect, defeating the purpose. The Roland lets you add a "booster" to the gain structure, which results in overdrive, but it's aimed at synth sounds and not classic rock sounds. It's overwhelmingly distorted and there's no way around it. A Hammond specific overdrive should be added either in the gain structure or it should be attached to the rotary effect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fear My Potato Posted May 31, 2005 Members Share Posted May 31, 2005 Originally posted by grumphh What you could do, is of course what Per Christian (?) did a few weeks ago. Take a classic piece of synth music and recreate that on the rompler. How about "Autobahn" by Kraftwerk? If I could record and host stuff I'd blow you guys away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Array Posted May 31, 2005 Members Share Posted May 31, 2005 Originally posted by Darkstorm If a synth doesnt have at least a handfulof presets I really like. I wont buy it. What if suddenly your style of music went out of fashion and not a single keyboard on the market had a suitable preset? Would you stop buying synthesizers all together? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fear My Potato Posted May 31, 2005 Members Share Posted May 31, 2005 Originally posted by Array What if suddenly your style of music went out of fashion and not a single keyboard on the market had a suitable preset? Would you stop buying synthesizers all together? No, you just buy vintage gear like all the rest of us who's styles of music have gone out of fashion Remember those? They all didn't just spontaneously combust when the Moog modulars started coming out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sizzlemeister Posted May 31, 2005 Members Share Posted May 31, 2005 Originally posted by Fear My Potato Remember those? They all didn't just spontaneously combust when the Moog modulars started coming out That would have been cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members grumphh Posted May 31, 2005 Members Share Posted May 31, 2005 Originally posted by Fear My Potato If I could record and host stuff I'd blow you guys away Hehe, you have a PC, right? Loads of freeware out there that will let you do just that Now, put your money where your rompler is, and get to making some clips :D No hosting you say? Look around on the web, loads of free space around too ...hmmm - you seem to have run out of excuses here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Meatball Fulton Posted May 31, 2005 Members Share Posted May 31, 2005 Sounds like the ROMpler bashers haven't looked at many. My Motif ES has real resonant filters: bandpass, low pass, notch, high pass, 2 pole, 3 pole, 4 pole are all available, more than any single synthesizer I have ever used before... It has EGs, LFOs, all the stuff you'd find in a typical subtractive synthesizer. It doesn't have every possible synth feature (what synth does?) but it's definitely a real synthesizer. It's ALSO a full blown sampler as well as a powerful sequencer. Nothing wrong with getting it all in one box the way I look at it. I've owned a few ROMplers over the last 15 years and they were all real synths. In fact ALL of them had far more synthesis features than a TB-303. The distinguishing feature of a ROMpler is that instead of oscillators they play back samples which can be anything from simple waveforms (I've yet to see a ROMpler that lacked saws and squares) to complex loops. I've owned "real" synths...Odyssey, SH-101, modular analog (long before they became hip and sought after)...so it's not like I don't know what I'm talking about. I am not going to apologize for using presets, either. A good sound is a good sound whether I programmed it, some guy at the factory programmed it or I bought it from some third party. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Meatball Fulton Posted May 31, 2005 Members Share Posted May 31, 2005 Originally posted by grumphh What you could do, is of course what Per Christian (?) did a few weeks ago. Take a classic piece of synth music and recreate that on the rompler. It's too easy to point out that parts of Autobahn used real instruments (guitar and violin) processed to the point of sounding like synths. It's also too easy to point out that you'd be hard pressed to reproduce many of Autobahn's synth sounds with a lot of "real" synths. It's also too easy to point out that some "classic" synths are essentially preset. The best example is the TB-303, there's an extremely limited set of things you can actually tweak. Most of it's proponents would be quite insulted if you told them they are just using a preset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.