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Would you be interested in a new kind of synth? (sort of)

Would you be interested in a new kind of synth?

  • Yes

    Votes: 7 53.8%
  • No

    Votes: 6 46.2%

  • Total voters
    13

MegaPixel

Developer by day, DAW tinkerer by night.
Hi,

I'm putting some feelers out there for this, and if there's enough interest I will look into building it.

Ok, the idea, modular meets classic synth, think serum meets cherry audio voltage but in a node editor like Bitwig's Grid (or unreal/blender's node editors). But leaning towards the classic synth side of things.

It is not a new idea, but it is, if that makes sense...
It is new in the sense of it takes 2 very different synth sound design methods and brings them together.

It takes the extreme complexity of voltage modular and makes it simple by combining it with classic synth style modular components.

The take from this is that it unlocks the full potential of classic synths, allows DAWs that don't have Bitwig features to no longer need them for synth sound design. It also surprisingly makes classic synths very basic at the same time, but that would be down to the sound designer, they could make something insane or very simple, but either way more time would be spent on sound design and music creation.

The only limit is your machine's CPU.

So, how people many would be interested in this?

The attached images are:
1. A very very very rough concept drawing.
2. A very very rough more detailed to the idea concept drawing.
3. An example taken from no 2 of how things could be re-arrange, minimised and maximised.
 

Attachments

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Cool initiative! I am not sure if I understand the premise correctly. So the complexity of Voltage Modular paired with the UI of Serum kind of conjures up images of Falcon / Phase Plant / MSoundFactory. To me.
 
Well it's like a lot of things but this keeps it closer to a classic synth, no fixed modules or wired modular routing.

When doing those mock ups I was like saying to myself, omg this would be so much easier and quicker for sound design and only limit is your creativity and your cpu lol
 
Cool initiative! I am not sure if I understand the premise correctly. So the complexity of Voltage Modular paired with the UI of Serum kind of conjures up images of Falcon / Phase Plant / MSoundFactory. To me.
The opposite direction, the goal is simplicity without limitation.

Modular without being a classic modular monster requiring you to google every 3.142 seconds to work out what is going on.

In essence, break apart every GUI/UI of the best classic synths (serum, dune 3 etc) you can think of and make them re-usable component you can put anywhere.

I have a lot of ideas, there would be a 16 to 32 macros (will see if I get to the point of building this). But I may also build a macro designer, this can control sub non daw exposed macro buttons but scalable.

Lot of ideas...
 
In essence, break apart every GUI/UI of the best classic synths (serum, dune 3 etc) you can think of and make them a re-usable component you can put anywhere.
Well… this to me sounds you’re looking to make something even more granularly modular than the current modular offerings. I am still looking for how this renders simplicity.

That said, if you can pull off the sense of simplicity, kill any need to look up how something works, while at the same time making things more flexible: great! ;)
 
The arpegiatior is after the osc. shoudlnt it be before?

IT looks a little like Dune3 if you separated the elements. Dune3 has right click to assign modulators to lfo and envelope sequencers to most parameters.
 
The arpegiatior is after the osc. shoudlnt it be before?

IT looks a little like Dune3 if you separated the elements. Dune3 has right click to assign modulators to lfo and envelope sequencers to most parameters.
No ARP in there, they are key range assignments for sections of your keyboard, this is very early concept drawings. I will only go full on UX design mode if it gets enough interest. But it will allow people to break conventional sound design routes offering up new ways of routing things. It will also allow for features that synths don't typically have such as sample maps (single key or range) to sit next to a sound source such as OSC, Sampler & Granulator. Signal merging 2 way, 3 way with different methods etc.

The Dune3 right click to assign modulators to lfos would become visual, and a single LFO can be routed to 1 or many of any. LFOs will also be no limits, full pattern shape editing with play modes, bounce, one, trigger, poly etc.
 
No ARP in there, they are key range assignments for sections of your keyboard, this is very early concept drawings. I will only go full on UX design mode if it gets enough interest. But it will allow people to break conventional sound design routes offering up new ways of routing things. It will also allow for features that synths don't typically have such as sample maps (single key or range) to sit next to a sound source such as OSC, Sampler & Granulator. Signal merging 2 way, 3 way with different methods etc.

The Dune3 right click to assign modulators to lfos would become visual, and a single LFO can be routed to 1 or many of any. LFOs will also be no limits, full pattern shape editing with play modes, bounce, one, trigger, poly etc.
ah gotcha.

Im looking at phaseplant and im understanding more your concept. The added multisample/sampler would be cool indeed .
And a less restictive gui than phaseplant would be cool. The envelope/lfo would be nice like it is in omnisphere and can be visually added as a node for different things.
An arp sequencer/midi piano roll module would be cool too have. to sequence note or step modulate stuff.

At the same time, being too modular might be overwhelming for some. Which is why i like the way phase plant has it where it has an enevelope preset for the soundsource. If its a mix of this and modular like reaktor with modules it would be nice. I didn't like much the sound source images you mocked up just because its not something id like to encounter right up front. Maybe if its a sound source block like in phaseplant and THAT have an edit button where you'd go to another level/pop/etc with that mockup you added then cool. And having preset modules would be nice. I really dont want to be adding an envelope to every soundsource or to a filter module everytime i create one. but like having the option to remove or do something else to it if that makes sense.


From the looks of it, seems more like the nord modular. where it has a similar graphical way to add modules. i really enjoyed it back in the day. Its a little steep learning curve but once learned its pretty cool.
But again, i rather have some premade blocks for this. And reaktor for example is way too much.
its a tough thing to do. it can have all the amazing things a modular system can have but if users, even sound designers, find it dificult to use it wont be adopted and time=money. And on the other hand, making it too easy and simple would be competing with the big players already established and have plenty of marketing resources.

big i would really dig it and i think its a neat concept. having multi samples along with granular, oscilators and wavetable is a big plus imo.
 
ah gotcha.

Im looking at phaseplant and im understanding more your concept. The added multisample/sampler would be cool indeed .
And a less restictive gui than phaseplant would be cool. The envelope/lfo would be nice like it is in omnisphere and can be visually added as a node for different things.
An arp sequencer/midi piano roll module would be cool too have. to sequence note or step modulate stuff.

At the same time, being too modular might be overwhelming for some. Which is why i like the way phase plant has it where it has an enevelope preset for the soundsource. If its a mix of this and modular like reaktor with modules it would be nice. I didn't like much the sound source images you mocked up just because its not something id like to encounter right up front. Maybe if its a sound source block like in phaseplant and THAT have an edit button where you'd go to another level/pop/etc with that mockup you added then cool. And having preset modules would be nice. I really dont want to be adding an envelope to every soundsource or to a filter module everytime i create one. but like having the option to remove or do something else to it if that makes sense.


From the looks of it, seems more like the nord modular. where it has a similar graphical way to add modules. i really enjoyed it back in the day. Its a little steep learning curve but once learned its pretty cool.
But again, i rather have some premade blocks for this. And reaktor for example is way too much.
its a tough thing to do. it can have all the amazing things a modular system can have but if users, even sound designers, find it dificult to use it wont be adopted and time=money. And on the other hand, making it too easy and simple would be competing with the big players already established and have plenty of marketing resources.

big i would really dig it and i think its a neat concept. having multi samples along with granular, oscilators and wavetable is a big plus imo.

RE: Making it easy & simple
That's the goal, this would take it to an extreme, it would be possible to generate an output from just adding a sound source and plugging it in to the midi on the left and an out module. The synth will assume the rest, no adsr just binary on or off.

RE: Making it simple with starting templates
Easily done, could add either patches which are labelled starting saw, sine, square, pad etc, or could add a page to component selection in the drop down so that area becomes scrollable for starter template with mini visuals (image based), which would just load up a built in template. Opening it up to user template options and sharing.

RE: First thing you see
Interesting, I didn't think of that. I could work out a translation for the modular to a classic synth ui and then when you hit the advanced button it will go modular. Once the modular side of things is built with the components of a normal synth then it would be relatively easy to just map them to another GUI.

RE:Reaktor, Nord Modular, Cherry Audio Voltage
All way too complicated and not needed these days, well not from my point of view.

RE: Concept Designs
Those are just very early scratchings, if this gets enough interest I'm sure I will be on UX and UI design over the better part of 1/2 a year with 2 others, while we program also.

Ideas main modules
  • Far more streamlined component container
    - Custom naming
    - I dont want wires everywhere so connections will go to the hooks (of which I think there will 8)
    - Everything will have an expanded version and minified version (some minified version will be informational only
  • Keeping it even cleaner - the linkage module
    - a module which will have a drop down listing all the names of anything that you have added to your design, why? Don't want all those wires going everywhere? Well this will stop that. Add 1 LFO and a linkage module next to anything and everything and you got access to jump anywhere in your design to any module you want. Will have hint such as glow and minimap item glow or ping.
  • Module - LFO (I'm thinking 1 kind of LFO to rule them all, also want to look into bringing into assembler not c++ for even more efficiency). There will also be a fixed DAW LFO, which everything can use and you can bring a phase shift module into it to shift / offset the signal phase.
  • Module - Sample Map
    Light version of kontakt basically, drop a single sample to a key range or 1 sample to many keys over a range, which can then sit alongside anything, which in turn can all be key mapped and enveloped at any stage. So quality samples at multiple octaves are possible to sit next to wavetables, osc shapes and granulator sound engines/sources.
Ideas macros
  • 16 to 24 or whatever the max is will be made available to the daw
  • will have basic map to (not sure on ui for this yet, might make a node editor group just comprised on macro knobs, inner synth knobs and linkage knobs). The inner synth knobs will allow you to connect anything up in a chain or in parallel which can be used to change the values of anything with 1 macro or you can dial down their % or offset them or dial back their range from min to max (I can't think of anything else you could want beyond that for macro capabilities, but being a modular design for macro knobs, once built it wouldn't be too hard to expand on)
Signal merge
  • Drag a merge module in and with each sound source you add into it, it will dynamically change to merge 2, 3 or 4 signals into 1, which then opens up the possibility of XY pad to control this even better which can be in turn macro mapped.
  • There will also be multiple different types of merge (volume shift xy style kontakt basics, merge wavetable, signal with mix, sum, subtract etc (may need different types of merge modules for this though, 1 gui in a module to rule them all I don't think will cut it or keep it simple).
File Management, Preset/Path rating and keeping things tidy
  • JSON based presets, which link to folders based on username, which can be renamed to whatever they wish.
  • I would like to stop the likes of WAProduction etc from doing what they do best and proudurally generating presets as the parameters to the preset are exposed and simple enough to change in a text editor and thus a basic script in py, node, or even php could generate presets. And there's a lot of peoples/companies out there who just pump out preset banks like this. See Babylon from WAProduction, I bought it for a laugh, $19 or something with all preset banks. Stupid amount of procedurally generated presets, if you could map select next preset to an envelope in the daw you would see everything just evolve over time like you were doing the envelopes yourself. Quite comical... So that being sad, I might make my own encoded format for the parameters / build of the path but keep a json file next to it for sample mappings etc.
  • Patch Browser will be what I would expect from the best, a full fledged browser with star rating system, scroll, patch rating will be stored in the preset so they are not lost on rescan etc. I have various ideas, many of which I have built many a time and am amazed these basics are not in every vst made these days.

I got a lot of ideas... And welcome to hear more...

If I get enough interest, I will take it further and spend a week or 2, doing more advanced designs and mapping it all out and maybe even take it to a usable concept gui. If that gets enough interest I will look into dedicating my time and 2 others to it for an estimated 1 to 1.5 years to build it.

If there's enough interest... 2000 to 3000 people are needed, if I get that I will put all my company work to the side for this endeavour. If it works out I will keep updating for many years to come, if not it will be put on github open source and hopefully a community will come together and keep it alive and I will maintain when I can. Then I will pick up where I left off with my company work and move on...
 
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