Dr. Synth
Meditadditive HWJ Weekend Challenge Sines & Distortion
updated
I'm soooo over the digital thing ;). But if you want to check out that kinda thing, this track is 100 % RefaceDX: youtube.com/watch?v=v2avZQmcjBs
Gear:
1887 Steinway B
TipTop Buchla Rig w/Verbos Electronics Touch Keyboard
added modules: Weston Precision Audio AD110 Analog Drums; Tobinski Sequencer & Expander; Erica Synths Pico VCF 3; Roland 531 Stereo Mixer
Effects: Erica Synths Pico Reverb, Dreadbox Nostalgia, Happy Nerding FxAid XL and GFI System Specular Tempus
There's 5 dedicated LFO's for patching, multiple wave forms, tempo sync and a 'step' mode, the performance LFO for vibrato, plus another 5 LFO's if you consider loopable envelopes are also LFO's with variable waveshapes.
So threw that all in a blender using them to control pitch and volume of every available audio sources - 3 Oscillators, the Ring Modulator and noise -- to turn the Hydrasynth into a controllable groove box with drums, baseline, melody line, clanky rhythm synth.
DX7 solo Improvisation over C-Lab's Commodore 64 Sequencer MIDI tracks controlling a Yamaha TX7, a Kawai K3, and (via Roland MPU-401) a Sequential Circuits Pro One & ARP Odyssey. Drums are a Sequential Circuits DrumTracks
Effects are a Yamaha REV7 (reverb) & DeltaLab Effectron II (delay)
Live recording to Nakamichi 480 cassette.
DX7 - Synthy vocal formant lead (A Section & reprise) & brassy lead synth solo (B section)
TX7 - Rhythmic bells (Intro, A section & reprise) & rhythm synth comp (B section & reprise transition)
K3 - Reedy melody (Intro) & sustained synth choir ( A section, B section & reprise)
Pro One - Synth bass
Odyssey - Noise whooshes
TopTop/Buchla Rack & Yamaha SY99
Something old - the old faithful SY99 for drums, keys, synth pad & lead
Something new - my newest TipTop Buchla gear for unique electronic textures
Something borrowed - the Montage using a borrowed Performance of synth rhythms secondary drums from my "When Will it be Summer" jam
Something blue - why the 3rd Wave of course !
... it gets a little atonal in parts towards the end, sometimes the TipTop Buchla stuff doesn't do what you expect !
Programmable Pulser Model 242t and the Tobinski (Dannysound) Sequencer+Expander.
They join:
266t Source of Uncertainty Model; Two 245t Sequential Voltage Sources; Two 257t Dual Voltage Processors; Two 281t Quad Function Generators; Two 258t Dual Oscillators; Two 259t Programmable Complex Waveform Generators; Two 292t Quad Lopass Gates; 285t Frequency Shifter; 296t Progammable Spectral Processor; 207t Mixer/Pre-Amplifier, a Verbos Electronics Touchplate Keyboard and Happy Nerding FX Aid XL
Using the trio of the Yamaha Montage, SY99 and RefaceDX
My take is using three synths making a jam built on three melodic motifs, and limit it to no more than 3 minutes.
I had to knock it out in a hurry, able to pull off an only slightly sloppy jam based in my favorite C/Fmaj7 progression.
SY99 - Drum pattern
RefaceDX - Rhythmic, echo synth accent
Montage - Layered Piano with aftertouch morphing FM pad
(the clips of the Tobinski sequencer were just for show...)
This jam features pad textures from the my other favorite child, the Yamaha DX7II. Run through a Strymon Mobius for the tempo tremolo effect and the Specular Tempus for some nice shimmer reverb. It still sounds fricken' great and unique.
Supported by the SY99 for the sequenced backing tracks, enhanced in spots by the Moog Muse for some fat synth bass sustained notes.
... the Operators must be growing 'cause the feedback keeps on glowing, and harmonics are not showing any signs that they are slowing !
Link to the mentioned "Escher Algorithm" video : youtube.com/watch?v=pFNhTTs8MXU
A quick and dirty VL1 & NiftyKeyz/Befaco improvisations over TipTop Buchla modular textures and sequences. This was take 4.
The modules used are in the video title pop ups...
It been 40 years since I spent much time with the originals back in college, there's a LOT to remember all the crazy things they can do. And, they very much remind you that 'a little goes a long way' with all the timbral modulation and shaping possibilities.
It also lets you hear how the final patch sounds !
youtu.be/cyK-GIQLmY0
Nerding about with FM synthesis demonstrating some phase modulation tricks for virtual analog oscillator behaviors.
Fired up the Muse, PolyBrute12, Hydrasynth and (mostly) got them synced up; Revved up the AX80 for some sweet synth strings, and did three takes of live improvisations,
This is take 2
The continuously variable Oscillator waveforms, the Mod Oscillator options, and bi-directional Oscillator FM cross modulation gives a lot of sonic possibilities.
The Macro Knob can be used for multiple simultaneous modulations to create Patch morphing.
Every Patch has two separate A and B Timbres, so with the Macro Knob you can have '4 Patches in one' !
Recorded direct with no additional effects.
All the gear used:
TipTop Buchla 200 series: Two each: 245t, 258t, 281t, 257t, 292t with a 266t & 207t
Two Weston PA0's, one TZ0
Cre8Audio Capt'n Big-O
Mutable Instruments Plaits
Doepfer: A-126-2 Frequency Shifter, A-143-2 Quad ADSR, A-135-2 Quad VCA
Black Corp Rachael
Klee Sequential Shift Summation Array
Verbos Electronics Touchplate Keyboard
Erica Synths PicoDSP & Dreadbox Nostalgia
Based on simultaneous rising and descending pitch modulations of different sonic elements to give a creepy 'closing in' feeling.
Using the new kid -- TipTop Buchla rack w/ the Klee Sequential Summation Array for the heavy lifting. Using the Weston Precision Audio based analog FM rack for the drone and pitch shifting elements -- two Weston PA0's and a Cre8Audio Capt’n Big-O controlled by a TipTop Buchla Sequential Voltage Source playing a 5 over 4 pattern. All oscillators being cross PM'd & FM’d, plus pitch EG modulated, triggered with the gate switch on the Doepfer joystick. Weston AD110 for the snare and cymbal/hi hat.
And the SY99 of course, sounding lush and awesome as usual...
Deep dive of all the parameters settings for the patch
Excuse the click-bait title LOL! That said, pick your favorite vintage or modern analog or digital synth and the SY99's core AFM engine can still slap it silly... ;)
This sawtooth synth pad patch sounds bigger, fatter & better than the best synth pads you can conjure up without effects from the:
Oberheim OB-X, OB-Xa & OB-8x, Xpander, Matrix 12, Matrix 6, Matrix1000;
Yamaha CS80, Montage 8M;
Rhodes Chroma, Polaris;
Moog Polymoog, Memory Moog, Moog One;
Roland Jupiter 8, Juno 6, 60 & 106, D50;
Korg M1, Oasys, Kronos, Nautilus;
Kurzweil K2000; K2500, K2600, PC4, K2700
Elka Synthex;
Sequential Prophet 5 or 10;
Behringer UB-Xa, Deepmind12;
Novation Peak & Summit;
Arturia PolyBrute;
ASM Hydrasynth;
So I put together a jam of subtly shifting, variable patterns... "A maze of twisting little passages, all different..."; "A twisty maze of little passages, all different..." etc....
Different gear this time -- a little SY99 (of course !!) but this is first time using my recently completed '4 Voice' NiftyKeyz eurorack based on 4 Befaco Pony VCO's driven by the ZetaOhm FLXS1. The Pony VCO's do through zero FM, and there's also 4 filter variations in the rack: EricaSynths' VCF1 & VCF3 and 2HP's LPF and MMF.
There also 4 Morphor Dual ADSR's, a bunch of Doepfer -- A135-2 Quad VCA, A145-4 Quad LFO & an A183-5 Quad Attenuator & A138s Stereo Mixer. Finishing it up the case are two 2HP Unity mixers, two SynthroTek Buffered Mults and a Frequency Central WaveRunner LFO.
Another very cool feature of the Befaco's is they have a built in VCA, so a lot of versatility in just 4U.
The drums are the Weston AD110 Analog drums. Also using a Dreadbox Nostalgia delay & EricaSynths Pico DSP (Reverb) for effects.
If you're wondering why no snare? I ran out of gates !!
So he's my jam with a lot of 'wrong' sounds -- blended with some 'right' ones so it's not a cacophony catastrophe ! Threw in some other random 'wrong' (or at least very unexpected) things as well. Hope you enjoy!
'Talking Bass' -- 3rd Wave
'Not Strings' FM Pad & Organ -- C15
'Piano' Drums, 'Drum Roll' Lead, 'S/H Rise', 'Arpeggio' Sync lead, synth pad w/ bass (and 'normal' drums) -- SY99
'Not a lead' Synth percussion -- EuroMini, which is a NiftyKeyz case with Befaco Pony oscillators, and assorted EricaSynths & 2HP filter types
Whipped up some spacey textures on the 3rd Wave, SY99 and C15, and this is what manifested from the Cosmos….
3rd Wave - doing the old school analog drum machine thing and bassline
SY99 - everything else and reliving the vintage experience having fun finding a tempo that mostly synced up with the SY99 LFO's...
Apologies again for the few audio glitches. Still never sussed out why OBS studio will randomly glitch when recording, thought using SSD drives would help, but not so.
Using the 3rd Wave, SY99 & C15
99% SY99, with 3rd Wave synth brass and a bit of C15 clavinet.
(was up waaaaay to late sorry to the simple vid)
Then switching between the sequences by taking a S/H from a mix of 3 different rate LFO's for some random unpredictability. The Drums from a Weston AD110 shifts rhythm patterns along with the bass sequences.
On top of all this I attempt some improvisations on the Nonlinear Labs C15 and the Hydrasynth, with the Hydra have 3 LFO 's interacting to select a random wave position in the wavetables with every note-on.
There you have it!
I really enjoyed doing my Voice Bank for it and truly appreciate Stephan, Tim and the gang at Nonlinear Labs indulging my request for a unique color for a unique instrument !
Check out all the videos in my C15 Playlist to hear examples of the patches in my Voice Bank, which are downloadable from the Nonlinear Labs website:
https://www.nonlinear-labs.de/support/presets/sound-designer-banks/sound-designer-banks.html
Also check out this segment from @Doctormix at NAMM 2024 youtu.be/lwA9NMctUWE?feature=shared&t=1641
99% SY99, featuring some Hydrasynth at the end.
Live improvisation over the bass and drums. Did three takes, this sucked the least LOL. Good to be back and jamming, though quite a bit rusty... only forgot where I was twice in this one :)
Here's my take, with the SY99 doing most of the heavy lifting & a little flavor from the 3rd Wave and Hydrasynth
Still a work in progress, but I'm getting happier with the tonal results over the whole keyboard range. Ultimately I want to try to get it down to 4 Parts.
Decided to test it on a little homage to a Bills Evans take on the classic Miles' tune. I did not play this in real time; Was pieced together each hand separately usually 4-8 bars at a time after studying & playing along to a MIDI file. Took me the weekend to get it together LOL. I apologies to all my accomplished pianist friends!
Watch my original video series here on the synthesis approach:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcMphamGDM_I_QL9tVCufOukjjRsEgDKC
A few tricks that make this sound so fat -- it's not just detuning the Oscillators and/or putting a lot of drift in the atrophy settings for the Oscillator pitches.
First trick is LFO 1 is doing a low and slow pitch mod of Osc 1 simulating a chorus; The second trick is using keyboard modulation of Detune so the tuning Oscillators are sloppy (more of detune) in the low notes, but tighter (less detune) in the high notes. Not quite the same as a fixed Hertz detune but similar, I think I have it set for like 1 Hz beating in the low end and around a half Hertz at the top. And then the atrophy settings for the drift are on top of that.
Recorded into Logic, then added the Eventide BlackHole reverb Plugin. Used an edit of the "World's Largest Reverb" preset
Spent a few days digging into progamming it to capture what to my ears was missing, and rolled my own Saw/PWM string pad, which is one of the classic standout special sounds of the OB-X and OB-Xa for me.
I'm happy to say I'm MUCH more pleased with the result, sound is much closer to the the special character of vintage Oberheims in the string pad timbres. I revise my grade to a 90-95% emulation success of the OB-Xa and OB-8 sound.
The original OB-X is quite a different synth than the -Xa and -8, For the emulation of the OB-X sound, I'd still say 80-85%. Key reasons, the resonance isn't quite right, and the filter is too clean to my ears.
One unexpected disappointment -- I'd mis-interpreted the spec of the Mod Matrix, expecting Osc Cross Mod as one of the enhancements. I thought the "OSC1Fr" was the Osc wave output, but it's the sum of all controlling voltages _to_ Osc 1 frequency via the Frequency Knob & Mod Section settings like LFO to pitch etc. DOH! So, while having Hard Sync is good, lack of Cross Mod is definitely a let down.
I tried to make an "FM" patch anyway ;)
I tried to channel the bouncy, cheery feel of "Baroque Hoedown" which always puts me in a good mood.
SY99, VL1, Montage, 3rd Wave, MatrixBrute and Kobol Expander join in the fun.
Sorry I went a little crazy with the video, and forgot some dissolve transitions.....
So, my Black Friday treats were the Behringer kobol Expander and Cre8 Audio's NiftyKEYZ. The kobol expander is the main featured synth, backed by usual suspects Yamaha SY99, Waldorf Iridium, Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave and Yamaha Montage.
Needless to say the Iridium & 3rd Wave were prior G.A.S. additions !
** Apologies for the titling typos -- they're ADS style envelope generators, ADR**
3rd Wave - opening repeating bass synth
Iridium - intro arpegggios
MatrixBrute - synth bass
Hydrasynth - textures and middle section arpeggios
VL1 - synthy lead bits
Montage - intro 'gong', ending extra drums and Shepard tone effect
SY99 - everything else - drums, synth pad, stabs, bells
Using SY99, VL1, Hydrasynth, 3rd Wave, Montage and featuring the MatrixBrute on 'lead bass' in the opening section.
(Apologies, the dang audio glitch bug is back in OBS studio, I thought I'd had it sussed out )
3rd Wave - solo string and power synth
MatrixBrute - synth bass 1
Hydrasynth - vocal textures, synth bass 2, rhythmic textures
SY99 - everything else; synth strings, tinkly bits, synth pad, drums & percussion
I had grand plans for this, but time got short :(
Super late so had to go with the first take... so moments of content ;)
Using the Montage, Hydrasynth, 3rd Wave & SY99 (playing my favorite super-secret massive FM pad patch)
Sorry about the audio glitch halfway through, gotta figure out when what happens sometimes with OBS Studio....
MatrixBrute - Baseline with some fun front panel & Mod Wheel tweaking
Montage - 5- Wispy note pad
SY99 - Morphing FM square wave riff, Hellish (for me) beats and three Heavenly pads
The analog FM Eurorack does the drone and a fun 'radiophonic' workout - using 2 Weston PA0's, a Weston TZ0, a Cre8 Audio Capt'n Big-O, and Black Corp Rachael, controlled by the Doepfer joystick and a Dreadbox Noatalgia & EricaSynths Pico DSP for effects.
The MatrixBrute lays down the bass.
The SY99 does everything else.
Here's my take, stepping out of my usual with an all analog synth Jam using:
Arturia PolyBrute;
A bunch of Behringer Moog 55, ARP 2500 & Roland 100 stuff;
Weston Precision Audio PA0, TZ0 and Black Corp Rachael;
Effects are Erica Synths Pico DSP and Dreadbox Nostalgia.
Yeah, yeah I know... no FM, just a T-Shirt ?!? Get it here:
zazzle.com/non_stop_6_op_fm_synthesis_appreciation_tee-256002088592002387
First take, had two minor goof ups, but the mosquitoes we're being a bit too aggressive to try to get it perfect


