MATRIXSYNTH

Friday, September 25, 2020

Introducing Roland ZENOLOGY Pro: ZEN-Core Software Synthesizer for Roland Cloud

RolandChannel

"Harness the vast power of the ZEN-Core Synthesis System and dive deep into the world of custom sound design with ZENOLOGY Pro. You get the amazing sound quality and efficiency of ZENOLOGY, plus an expansive interface to craft all-new sounds that inspire your music.

Below are the chapters of this video that introduce the key features of ZENOLOGY Pro for you to discover:
00:00 Introduction to ZENOLOGY Pro
00:30 Overview of 'Visual Edit'
02:00 A Closer Look at Partials (or Oscillators)
05:25 Filter and Modulation Features of ZENOLOGY Pro
06:27 The LFO Section including Step LFO
08:20 Building Drum Kits
09:14 Saving User Banks and Exporting to ZEN-Core Hardware

ZENOLOGY Pro has over 3500 acoustic and electronic instrument sounds, including classic analog, vintage digital, and modern hybrid synth sounds. These sounds are crafted using ZENOLOGY Pro’s thousands of oscillator waveforms, 10 different filter types (including JUPITER and other iconic models), and 11 LFO shapes. Then add a huge selection of ready-to-go drum sounds, including famous Roland rhythm machines, and over 90 classic and new effects to inspire your next track or production.

Want even more sounds? You can expand your library to over 7000 ZEN-Core sounds with Model Expansions, Wave Expansions, and ZEN-Core Sound Packs—all available in Roland Cloud.

But if sound design is more your workflow, then ZENOLOGY Pro gives you the deepest access to the ZEN-Core Synthesis System for producers who want to heavily modify existing sounds or design custom sounds from scratch.

With ZENOLOGY Pro, start your sound designs with four oscillators, or “partials”—each with 9 virtual analog waveforms plus Supersaw and Noise to choose from. Then, dig into 1840 PCM waveforms (easily expandable to over 7000), 10 filter types, and 11 LFO shapes, including tempo-synced Step LFOs with 37 curves per step, letting you create sounds you’ve only imagined!

After you’ve designed or tweaked your tones in ZENOLOGY Pro, you can use that sound in your DAW, and ZEN-Core equipped hardware instruments. For owners of FANTOM, JUPITER-X & JUPITER-Xm, MC-101 & MC-707 GROOVEBOX, AX-Edge, and RD-88, download and explore ZENOLOGY Pro and bring new life to your ZEN-Core patches."

'70s style Modular, Hammond & Solina - Sep 24, 2020

SynthMania

"Sorry, the 3rd camera's SD card failed and didn't record the Synthesizers.com modular playing view. You can see some of it on the Solina view. A '70s hard-rock / progressive style jam I recorded tonight. I play the modular, organ and Solina live in real time straight to stereo 2-track. Play loud :D
Synthesizers.com Studio-88 modular: synth bass
Hammond XK-3c System: organ
Leslie 122XB: rotating speaker on the Hammond
ARP Solina String Ensemble: syn strings
Electro-Harmonix Bad Stone: phase shifter on the Solina
Roland RE-201 Space Echo: tape echoes
Steinberg Cubase Pro 10: Drum loops, recording, plate reverbs"

Thursday, September 24, 2020

flight of harmony Infernal Noise Machine (INM-E) Eurorack Module on Kickstarter

First announced in July, and featured in a few posts, flight of harmony's Infernal Noise Machine (INM-E) Eurorack Module is now on Kickstarter.

The original Infernal Noise Machine was in desktop form (pictured below) and has been featured here on MATRIXSYNTH over the years. You can see the prototype here. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails had one as seen here.

The following is some info pulled from the Kickstarter (be sure to click through for more):

"The Infernal Noise Machine is actually the first device ever created at f(h), back in 2007. Designed as a standalone, or "desktop " device. It was later released in multiple limited-run batches over the years, with all available units sold out during preorder each time."

"What is it?

The Infernal Noise Machine is a sound synthesizer, not a music synthesizer.

It was designed towards the creation of noise, sound effects, and for the general field of sound design. Having said that, the INM can create a full range of “musical” tones and sound, but that was not the primary goal. It can be used completely independently, but is intended for use with external control voltage (CV) sources to affect or modulate various parameters, which is where the INM truly comes alive.

So what can you do with it? Incidental sounds and ambiances, unholy caterwauling, soundscapes from melancholy to manic, even percussion and traditional musical sounds. The Infernal Noise Machine is particularly effective for making drones that evolve with time, with no external sources required. The internal architecture allows for a wide range of self-evolving, beat-frequency style tonal variations over an infinite range of rates. There is really no simple way to describe what the INM can do – you have to find out for yourself. This is a unique device. It requires a bit of time and patience to get a feel for how it works, but it is worth the effort."

"The new Infernal Noise Machine has the same sound, features, and potential as the original, but has been completely redesigned and refined. Each format brings its own needs and possibilities, so the system has been expanded to allow even more utility than the original, while keeping it as compact as feasible without impacting the philosophy behind the design."

Roland JX-3P or JX-8P? Smoothness Wars!

Espen Kraft

"For years these two synthesizers have divided opinions. Which one is the one to get?
The 3P with its sequencer and stylish casing or the 8P with unison and mono modes?
Do they sound the same or is it best to have them both?

Be aware that an original JX-3P has very limited MIDI functionality, it's in constant Omni-mode, and therefor cannot be in a MIDI sequencer chain without problems. It cannot receive or send MIDI sysex either.
The 8P is not 8-voice polyphonic even if the "8" should indicate that. It's 6 voices like the 3P. The 8P also have a custom fluorescent display that can be tricky to upgrade and the transformer can often become very noisy (acoustically).

The demo track that starts the video can be found here:"

Prophet 6 , Flames & Oceans , Analog Synth preset 135.

Bob I. Gomez

"Original tune for the Prophet 6 synthesizer. I use my own version of preset 135, which I call, Unknown."

The Lost Child - Dave Smith Instruments Poly Evolver (STEREO)

Reuben Jones

"Making the Poly Evolver sing.

PolyEvolver ➤ Molot Compressor ➤ BootEQmk II ➤ Sennheiser AMBEO Orbit ➤ Valhalla Reverb"

Hypercube VST: Reduce 100+ Synth Parameters to Just 3

Novel Insight Software

https://www.novelinsight.fi

Here is an interesting program in via Novel Insight Software. In short it uses artificial intelligence to pick from all available parameters in creating a three new parameter. The three act as macro controls for the parameters selected and they can change over time. One of the thing that makes the Yamaha DX-200 and the newer Reface DX are the macro controls allowing you to morph multiple FM parameters at the same time. And of course there's the macro knob on the Yamaha MODX series.

The following is what Novel Insight Software had to say about the software:

"We have been developing a new (still beta) software which makes it easier to find new sounds from VST synths. (Novel Insight Hypercube VST).

The freeware software uses machine learning to analyze presets and reduces the number of parameters to three making it easier to find new sounds. Currently VST2 plugins are supported.

The algorithms start from a random starting points so the results are a bit different everytime parameters are calculated, especially when there are no large number of presets available (machine learning methods require large amount of data and typically the number of presets are only in hundreds meaning the results depend on a random starting points).

Software is also quite slow on laptops, it can take 10 minutes or hours to calculate parameter reduction for a single VST instrument. I’m developing GPU acceleration which should speed up calculations significantly."

And via their website where you can find the download and a few demos: https://www.novelinsight.fi

"Hypercube VST is a parameter reducer plugin for VST2 instruments. It reduces the number of synthesizer/effect parameters to just three (3) which makes it easier to find new sounds than changing 100+ parameters that may be available through the normal user interface.

In order to to do parameter reduction a VST module must have roughly more presets of good instruments/effects than there are synthesizer parameters. The existing good presets are used to find "three dimensional space of good sounds", which can be then explored by using only three parameters: X, Y and Z.

Hypercube VST currently supports only 64bit VST2 modules. Support of 64bit VST3 instruments is planned in future releases. This software requires 64bit Windows 10 (earlier versions not tested) and 64bit Java (plugin generator user interface).

License

Hypercube VST is free to use (freeware) but closed source."