MATRIXSYNTH

Monday, August 21, 2023

Hardware Jams Weekend Challenge: Inconsistent Bars

video upload by SynthAddict

"Maschine+
Quick and dirty African/Latino fusion thingy - manually chopping up my measures as I 'DJ' my various bits and play a few live parts. Crazy stuff…"

Soma Terra meets TP-7 for a secret ambient exploration

video upload by astrophage

"Brand new instrument to explore in a brand new space!"

Prophet 5/10 - Oberheim OBX8 Comparison

video upload by SMV Producer

"Here is my video comparison between these 2 synths. They are both great and I am enjoying them so much.
Sound banks for Arturia MatrixBrute, Waldorf Quantum/Iridium, Prophet 5/10, Moog One and Oberheim OBX8 are available for purchase at:

https://gumroad.com/smvproducer

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smv_producer
Smartlink: https://ffm.bio/smv_producer

TIMELINE
00:00 Intro
00:35 Oscillators
06:05 OSC Sync
09:42 OSC Modulations
20:45 Mixer section
22:25 Prophet 5/10 Filters
26:00 OBX8 Filters
30:34 Modulation section
34:38 LFO Section
52:56 OBX8 Left Hand Modulation
56:43 OBX8 Arp
01:02:29 Arp Sound Example
01:05:00 Final thoughts"

Synth Nerd Covers

video uploads by nicola neeco

Playlist at the time of this post:
Aphex Twin - Vordhosbn (Prophet REV2 synth cover)
Aphex Twin - Polynomial-C synth riff with the Prophet REV2
Boards of Canada - Pete Standing Alone synth riff (Prophet REV2)
Aphex Twin - Flim (Prophet REV2 Synth Cover)
Aphex Twin - Iz Us (Nord Drum 3P & Prophet REV2 Cover, feat. @JannisLeWolff )
Autechre type beat with the Nord Micro Modular & Prophet REV2
Aphex Twin's ON synth riff (Prophet REV2 & Valhalla Delay)
Autechre's SLIP synth riff (Nord Lead 2X)
Aphex Twin's THA synth riff (Prophet REV2)
Aphex Twin - Curtains (Prophet REV2 Synth Cover)
Boards of Canada - Melissa Juice (Prophet REV2 Synth Cover)
Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place (Prophet REV2 Cover)
Aphex Twin - Stone in Focus (Prophet REV2 Synth Cover)
John Carpenter - Halloween Theme (Prophet REV2 & Piano Cover)
Nine Inch Nails - The Becoming (Cover - Moog Minitaur, Nord Lead 2X, Nord Drum, NI Noire Piano)
Squarepusher - Tommib (Prophet REV2 Synth Cover)
Aphex Twin - Ageispolis (Prophet REV2 Cover)
Boards of Canada - Roygbiv (Prophet REV2 & Roland SH-01A Cover)
Boards of Canada - Reach For The Dead (Prophet Rev2 Cover)
Boards of Canada - Bocuma (Roland SH-01A & Prophet REV2 Cover)
Aphex Twin - Polynomial-C (Roland SH01A & Prophet REV2 Cover)
Boards of Canada - The Devil is in the Details (Prophet REV2 & Soundtoys Echoboy) #shorts
Boards of Canada - One Very Important Thought (Moog Minitaur & Prophet REV2 Cover)
Aphex Twin - Schottkey 7th Path (Prophet REV2 Synth Cover)
Aphex Twin - Alberto Balsam (Prophet REV2 Synth Cover)
Alpha Rainbow - Boards of Canada (Roland SH-01A & Prophet REV2 Cover)
Olson - Boards of Canada (Prophet REV2 Synth Cover)
Boards of Canada - Turquoise Exagon Sun (Nord Lead 2X cover)
Boards of Canada - Kaini Industries (Prophet REV2 Synth Cover)
Aphex Twin - Rhubarb (Prophet REV2 Synth Cover)

Oberheim OB-X8: Sounds with Page 2 Features (including an OB-6 filter mode sweep)

video upload by thesrabbit

"Contents:

0:00 Intro (Notch Dream patch with delay)
3:27 Hell's Swells patch (with short plate reverb)
5:35 OB-XH patch (with delay and reverb)
6:50 OB-XH lower layer (dry)
7:11 OB-HX upper layer (dry)
7:31 Hell's Swells lower layer (dry)
7:53 Hell's Swells upper layer (dry)
8:16 Notch Dream lower layer (dry)
9:01 Notch Dream upper layer (dry)
9:51 LFooy patch (with delay)
11:01 Square Weirdo patch (with delay)
11:55 Crazy AF patch (with delay)
12:44 Dirtano patch (with reverb)
13:47 Notch Dream patch variation with MIDI Mod (with delay)
15:16 OB-6 filter mode patch variation with MIDI Mod (with built-in chorus and delay)
18:06 Outro with OB-X8 and OB-6 (Notch Dream patch and OB-6 filter mode patch with delay)

If you have an OB-X8 and you're not using the Page 2 features, you're missing out on half the synth. Nobody seems to talk about these features or explore them. The OB-X8 is indeed a very versatile synth capable of many different timbres, not just the classic sounds from the original OB series. There are so many things you can do with modulation envelopes, LFO phase inversion, different SEM filter modes, and layering, just to name a few things. The OB-6 is limited by comparison. I find it pretty frustrating to use sometimes after making sounds on the OB-X8. It does have other tricks up its sleeve of course, and it sounds beautiful. It's definitely its own brand of OB with its own flavor. Similarly, the addition of 3 SEM filter modes and ability to mix and match OB-8, OB-Xa, and OB-X components and features make the OB-X8 its own beast, and I feel like a lot of people don't really appreciate that. It is so much more than a reissue.

Rant aside, my main motivation for this was to see how close I could get to emulating an OB-6 filter mode sweep. I think I got pretty good results here regardless if the sound is close or not, but I'll let you be the judge. Let me know what you think. There's no way to match perfectly because the filters sound different, and I believe a lot of it has to do with the differences in the oscillators, and maybe gain staging. The OB-X8 filters are more aggressive, with more prominent resonance. Crank the resonance on the OB-6 with the filter in the notch position. It barely does anything. Do the same on the OB-X8 and you'll hear those "sing-song harmonics" as you sweep the filter. And although they're not as loud as they are in the other filter modes, they are still very noticeable. There is also something magical about the high pass filter in the OB-6. Again it might be due to the oscillators. I find the high pass on the OB-6 very comforting, not that the one in the OB-X8 is bad in any way at all. It's just different. I also find the notch filter in the OB-X8 to be more "chewy". This is probably the result of it being more aggressive. In a battle of the filters, I'd choose the OB-X8 for lowpass and notch, and the OB-6 for bandpass and highpass. Anyway, I'm sorta ranting again.

Ultimately, I hope you enjoy these sounds and if you have an OB-X8, I strongly encourage you to explore all of the Page 2 features. I'm sure you've noticed that I have the pinstripe overlay for my X8. While I do prefer the pinstripe look, I really got it because it has the Page 2 function labels on it, and this is huge for me. Page 2 doesn't have to be menu-diving, it can simply be shift functions, which tons of synths have and they're easy to use. Having the labels and changing Page 2 parameters on the panel is a game changer for me. I don't have great eyes, so the small screen can get tiresome after awhile. If you don't want to splurge for the overlay (it's pretty expensive), maybe there's another option for adding labels to your synth. For me it's totally worth it.

Lastly, I think I may have inadvertently ripped someone off in the outro. It sounds like it could be from a movie, but I can't place it.

Enjoy the video.

MIDI Mod for iOS and Apple Silicon Macs:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/midi-mo...

Bandcamp:
https://hypergol.bandcamp.com"

0000 0000 1000 0110 1001: Live in the studio by Hypergol (Oberheim OB-X8 instrumental)

video upload by thesrabbit

"Here's a live in studio version of track 3 from my latest EP "More Voices"

This track utilizes the first patch I made after unboxing the amazing OB-X8 from Oberheim. It's a nice, lush, unmistakably 'Oberheim' pad sound using the OB-Xa 24db filter. It starts off with the patch split, with an arp on the upper layer and then moves to double mode (stacked) with 4 voices panned hard left and 4 hard right. On the album version, I didn't do any stacking, opting to double track instead so that I could get the full 8 notes of polyphony. There are some challenges when limited to 4 notes, particularly with envelope triggering. It's fairly obvious here in the latter section of this live performance, as there are some notes that aren't nearly as soft as I'd like them to be. The beautiful modulated plate reverb from the Audiothingies Doctor A helps to make things less jarring. In this performance, I occasionally sweep the filter of both layers (rather poorly) with a foot pedal. The battery on my real camera is dead, so no fancy moody bokeh in this video, unfortunately.

Check out the original track over here on my bandcamp page:
https://hypergol.bandcamp.com/album/m..."

Short Manatee Demo

video upload by Fred's Lab

"Short Improvised Demo / Extracted from the 17/08/23 live stream. [posted here]

Manatee is the latest 4 part 10/16 voice digital synthesizer from Fred's Lab.
It produces a wide variety of classy sounds based on a unique take on Spectral Synthesis, 2 OP Linear FM and several modern Virtual Analog algorithms. Per part delays & equalizers in addition to a global master reverberation unit are also included in the sonic package."

All the soft pads: OB-X8, OB-6, Nord Lead 2, JUNO-6, JX-3P, JP-8000, Reface CS, Eurorack

video upload by thesrabbit

"Warning: The recordings in this video have a LOT of bass, even with a 30Hz EQ low cut. Maybe some of that will get trimmed off in YouTube compression.

Contents:
0:00 OB-X8 with TAL chorus I
1:34 Nord Lead 2 with TAL chorus I
3:04 OB-6 with built-in chorus
4:36 Juno-6 with built-in chorus II
6:06 JX-3P with built-in chorus
7:35 JP-8000 with built-in slow chorus
9:06 Reface CS with built-in chorus
10:43 Polyphonic Eurorack with Mimeophon
12:14 OB-X8 with reverb
13:53 Nord Lead 2 with reverb
15:28 OB-6 with reverb
17:04 Juno-6 with reverb
18:41 JX-3P with reverb
20:15 JP-8000 with reverb
21:52 Reface CS with reverb
23:29 Polyphonic Eurorack with reverb

I had to reupload this due to being a Davinci Resolve noob. There were all sorts of weird artifacts in the audio with the original upload. Hopefully it's fixed now.

I'm not sure if there's a point to this video at all. I love soft pad sounds. They're warm and comforting. I decided to make a pad sound on the Roland JX-3P and one thing led to another and of course I had to make a similar sound on ALL of my analog and virtual analog polysynths, including Eurorack, as I now have all the components to make a 2-VCO 4-voice polysynth. All of these pads are based on a simple 2-oscillator sawtooth, with a little detuning and pitch mod to one of the oscillators, if possible. On the Juno I there's only 1 oscillator, so there's maybe a little more LFO to pitch than on the other synths.

In the beginning, you see me play the notes on the Oberheim OB-X8 (Yes, it's an X8 and not something vintage, I have a pinstripe overlay, mostly for the Page 2 labels). I used that "performance" to capture the MIDI, which is then routed to all the other synths that are featured here, including the Eurorack setup. Before tracking the modular stuff, I removed some notes from the recorded MIDI so that there wouldn't be all sorts of crazy unpredictable voice stealing.

I used the built-in chorus on the JX-3P, so I figured it's only fair to use chorus on everything. I used the TAL Juno Chorus plugin on the OB-X8 and Nord Lead 2, setting 1. I used the built-in Chorus II on the Juno-6, and the "slow chorus" on the JP-8000. For the Sequential OB-6 and Yamaha Reface CS, I went for a similar type of slow chorus. The chorus on the OB-6 is very usable if you keep the rate low. There are sweet spots to be found. For Eurorack, I used the Mimeophon with a short delay time. It doesn't really do the chorus thing so much, but it does sort of act as a stereo widener. So if it sounds a little clangy, that's probably why.

Eurorack 4-voice poly is assembled like so:
Voice 1: 2 VCOs from the System-500 512, System-500 521 VCF, System-500 VCA, System-500 envelope
Voice 2: 2 Eowave Titan VCOs, System-500 521 VCF, System-500 VCA, System-500 envelope
Voice 3: 2 VCOs from the Wavefonix Dual CEM 3340, G-Storm SH5-VCF, Doepfer VCA, Doepfer Envelope
Voice 4: Dreadbox Erebus all internal VCOs, VCF, VCA, and envelope
All voices are mixed together and then fed into the Mimeophon
There is some additional filter modulation applied to all filters via the Erebus LFO

After the first round, all recordings are played again with the wonderfully lush Audiothingies DoctorA modulated plate reverb, approx 50/50 wet/dry mix."

Boss DM-101: First Jam with synths - Oberheim OB-X8 and Roland JP-8000

video upload by thesrabbit

"I got the DM-101 yesterday and immediately fell in love with the character and stereo modes in particular. I decided to make a quick jam that features my favorite mode so far, the stereo "pattern" mode. This mode has some nice stereo width and interesting tempo sync'd delay repeats. Since the repeats are a bit on the long side, for a BBD, there's plenty of lo-fi goodness, which almost sounds like a bit crusher.

I ran both the JP-8000 and OB-X8 into a mixer, and then FX sends from the mixer to the DM-101. I had no problems sending the mixer line-level signal to the 101. I thought I might have to use a re-amp box to bring the the level down, but I didn't have to, which is great.

I was lazy and recorded straight into Mainstage, which is not great because I couldn't mix the dry synth track and FX track after. Sometimes the balance is good, other times not so much. Oh well, it was a quick live jam so whatever. I just wanted to record something with this particular delay setting, which I have since saved as a preset of course.

Sorry the videography is so boring. My room is a total mess and I don't have anywhere good to position the camera right now.

All of the OB-X8 patches will be included in my upcoming soundset. Release date TBD."