Is programmability important to you?

[Dave Bryce]

Marketing-type question...I think about these things...

 

When you buy a synthesizer, how important is the ability to program/tweak your own sounds?

 

Do you go into the purchase thinking that you only want something that already has the sounds that you want, or are you into the idea that part of the thrill of owning such a beast is that you can learn how to edit and/or create your own custom programs?

 

If you do have the urge to tweak - after you've gotten a synth, do you find that you follow through with learning the machine's architecture more often than not? Conversely, if you enter into the purchase thinking that you're not interested in delving into the architecture, do you find that necessity/curiosity make you "lift the hood "?

 

I appreciate your input - I'm quite curious about this.

 

dB

[joegerardi]

Yes. I wouldn't even consider a synth that I couldn't program. My ears hear sounds differently from everyone else's (just like eveybody else's ears) and I want to program in what I want to hear. There's been only one synth I haven't really tweaked much, and that's the QSR. Kudos to you, Dave for making those Emo patches sound so perfect, and on that, all I've done is raise its output level.

 

Additionally, sounds need to be changed in relation to the song they're placed in. My M1 had about 6 variations of the piano program because of how I wanted the piano to sound in THAT particular song.

 

 

 

This message has been edited by joegerardi on 04-29-2001 at 04:35 PM

[Graham English]

When I buy a keyboard, which isn't often enough, I'm looking to do as little work as possible. I need to know that, without too much trouble, I can program it if I have to. But I don't have the time to create all of my patches from scratch. I tweak and I like to get to know the features but I buy a synth based on its presets.

[Dan Worley]

I don't have time to do a lot of tweaking; nor do I really want to--it bores and frustrates the heck out of me; plus, I'm not very good at it. On the other hand, I like organizing and cataloging sound libraries so I know just where to get what I want when I need it.

 

Regards,

 

Dan Worley

[steadyb]

For me, yes. I love to program, but my experience in both the retail and kbd manufacturing side of things tells me I'm in the minority. When I worked at a music store, for the typical customer, it was all about presets, which is too bad because I know the folks making the synths (Kurzweil, Alesis, etc.) spend a lot of effort making products that you can really run with, if you're willing to take the time. I think great presets are important, but as a jumping off point.

steadyb

[Frosty_dup1]

Although I haven't bought a new synth for a while (last purchase was a VK-7 which doesn't really count) I must admit programmability is pretty low down the list. I use my keyboards to play live so I want:

 

Good Quality Sounds

Onboard Effects

Easy User Interface

Good selection of controllers and good controller routing

Tough and Light

 

I am really glad that there are extensibly programmable synths out there for people making original music, but I don't need that stuff. I can see the best approach being a keyboard that does the above stuff well, but to edit/ create sounds you require a PC/MAC interface. (Sounds a bit like a sampler!). Programming anything complex using a few buttons and a tiny LCD screen is a joke. Interfacing to a computer gives you a decent user interface and a means to continuously evolving sound editing/creation utilities.

 

in fact (ideas evolving) I want a keyboard that has it's own, quality sounds and effects + import sounds from any softsynth so I don't need to lug a laptop around. Onboard programmability is not required.

 

Frosty

[murph]

I love to have sounds that I can run with first and foremost, but I do also like to make sounds that I need for a particular song, or what have you. The thing that gets my goat is working with menus. Pressing menu and page buttons annoys the hell out of me. I like boards that have more function buttons than less. I don't want to have to remember that in order to alter the reverb I have to hit 'edit' then page up 23 times, then hit effects, then cursor over 12 spaces to get to the reverbs, etc... you get the idea. Even the idea of 'soft bottuns' like the Kurzweil boards have are easier to use. Plus they have a better visual interface to work with. Of course, this is what I learned on, so if I started on a DX7 or something, I may feel different.

[Gus Lozada]

When you buy a synthesizer, how important is the ability to program/tweak your own sounds?

 

IMHO, it deppends on the application.

 

For quick things or projects you are sure are gonna be modified or post-produced by someone else, I guess a PRESET & GO Keyboard with good quality sounds (and the most typical things like PIANOS, BASSES, DRUMS, STRINGS... name them or well known things like those DX7 elec pianos or that famous "POLE" sound) is the way to go...

 

If you want to stamp your sign on it, you have to use YOUR sounds.

 

... or are you into the idea that part of the thrill of owning such a beast is that you can learn how to edit and/or create your own custom programs?

 

Absolutely !! I'm pursuing to get an ANDROMEDA and a K2600 because of its specs... I guess they were designed (the price must tell you a word about it) thinking in people which likes to do some serious programming... I'd be crazy if I was planning to use them only for presets http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif You get what you pay for.

 

For my money, things like REAKTOR are extremely cool... and cheap !

 

It will always be cool to have the chance on your synth to modify things, even if you only use the feature once in a life time. I guess I only know about a 10% of Reaktor's engine... still learning...

 

In the last flame war, someone mentioned (I guess it was that Bad boy called Dan) that presets sucks. Thumbs up for YAMAHA and their S series because of their expansion synth boards... Want GM presets? Buy them! ... and you can buy other specialties too. Very versatile !

 

Those were my Two Cents...

GusTraX@yahoo.com

[Guest]

Originally posted by Dave Bryce:

When you buy a synthesizer, how important is the ability to program/tweak your own sounds?

 

That is one of the most important things for me!!

I need to be in total control when it comes to my patches/programs.

If I sense that the decay on the filter needs to be longer I must be able to adjust it.

 

That is the reason to buy synthesizers, otherwise you can look at keyboards from Casio, Yamaha PSR-series etc.

 

After all, I think that creating a unique sound on a synth is somewhat similar to writing a song. It's something that you have made that nobody else have or have heard before. At least the sounds that are carrying the song forward. (like the loop on "nobody's perfect" with Mike and the mechanics)

 

 

 

 

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--Smedis,--

[Tusker]

Sure. I buy a synths for programmability, for all the reasons people have mentioned. An instrument should be an extension of your personality.

 

Secondly, I buy a synth for real time control. I think that a patch that can have morph between two or three different sounds with difference emotional characteristics (e.g. aggressive, playful, mild) is worth many times more than the best "fixed" patch. Most factory patches don't address this need.

 

Cheers,

 

Jerry

 

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www.tuskerfort.com

[pianoman_nsyahoo.com]

I will probably get flamed for this...... but I HATE programming sounds. The only reason I ever edit/create my own sounds is if I can't find a preset that will do (which is almost never with the 1000+ on my XV-88), or to make weird things such as synth pads being brought in (volume being turned up) with the modulation wheel or stuff like that. I much prefer just being able to scan through the presets, find something I like, and start playing. For two reasons.........

 

1) I love playing, I don't have the patience to sit around for 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, etc, just to program a sound so I can play. I can't stand being at my keyboard and not playing.

 

2) I'm not good at programming sounds....... I don't understand what half the stuff REALLY does and I don't understand how to get the sound I'm after. Think about it, companys train and pay people to program sounds for them. I'm definitely not as good as the people that programmed the presets..... so I just use their sounds.

 

Now I realize that for some people messing with sounds is great fun, But I can't stand having to program in sounds....... that's one of the main reasons I bought the Roland XV-88 over the Yamaha S-80, they're both great sounding synths with some great presets.... but the XV has almost 5 times as many as the Yamaha does. So I don't have to worry that I can't find the sound I'm looking for. There's my opinion, hope I don't get flamed.

 

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John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son; that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

[synthetic]

I usually don't program my own sounds. I can and have built programs from scratch, but I'm more of a "tweaker". I'll program as a form of mixing - make the sound a bit darker or punchier instead of doing this with compression and EQ. But I rarely find myself writing programs from scratch for fun.

 

I just got an Andromeda and I'm still in the tweaking stage because 1) I haven't read the manual yet and 2) many of the sounds are so complex that you can't just grab the filter cutoff and sweep. There are two filter cutoffs and they're often not doing what I think they do.

 

One exception is when I need sounds that don't exist. I've programmed a bunch of Breath Control programs for the S4 Plus and Wavestation, because I'm in a very small minority of people who use these sounds. Too bad - you can get some incredibly expressive sounds this way. I can't wait to write a few for Andy. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/cool.gif

 

To answer your question, I would love to have a few dedicated knobs which control commonly-used parameters on a synth (basic Minimoog parameters). These knobs might be macros, where the filter cutoff is actually doing three things at once. -jl

[dansouth]

VERY IMPORTANT!!!

 

No synth is going to have presets that match every musical application - especially if you're aiming for a unique sound - so you either have to customize existing patches or roll up your sleeves and invent new ones. This is the whole reason I got into synths in the first place, to explore their timbral possibilities.

[marino]

I came to electronic music in an era when sample playing was unknown, and "synthesizer" was synonimous with "new sounds". When the sample playing thing started (with the D50, then the M1) I was appalled by the weakness and inefficiency of those sounds, compared with acoustic intruments, analog synths, even FM or additive. They were almost unplayable to me (Of course, today's sample players are much better). That was the beginning of the end of the programmer/player: You got cheap imitative sounds, and few programming options.

 

Programming (and playing) my own sounds is THE my reason I got into this whole mess in the first place. I spenth years programming things like the Rhodes Chroma, Matrix-12, TG77 (aargh), Wavestation, K5, and Kurzweil. I did this because I like to understand sounds at the deeper level, and to play sounds that express my intentions. I actually used all five LFO on the Matrix-12 channell!

 

Except a few things that I bought for live use like the Micropiano, I would never consider a wondefully-sounding thing without the programming depth (the Kurzweil PC2, for example). This doesn't mean that I like to fight absurd operating systems or lose my sight on aging displays; only I like to create my own sounds for every project I'm involved in.

 

Hope my opinion got through... http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

marino

[Tusker]

Originally posted by synthetic:

I've programmed a bunch of Breath Control programs for the S4 Plus and Wavestation, because I'm in a very small minority of people who use these sounds. Too bad - you can get some incredibly expressive sounds this way.

 

Synthetic, that sounds cool. I have a question for you, because I got a BC2,programmed for it for awhile and then regressed to using pedals and sliders. The one area I found it worked for me was in volume and overblowing emulation. (ie. doing swells after soft attacks by controlling the Amp envelope, putting a little pitch-up into it.) But this was a very

emulative application, and I got tired of it. I found it easier to control the other stuff (growl, VCF, even lfo mod and lfo rate) with other controllers.

 

What does it do for you that the other controllers can't do in a "non-emulative" application?

 

Just curious.

 

Cheers,

 

Jerry

 

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www.tuskerfort.com

 

This message has been edited by Tusker on 04-30-2001 at 07:20 PM

[coyote]

Yeah I want 'programmability'. But there are many facets to it...

 

1. On my base 'natural' sounds I don't really want it. I want a piano that sounds like a real piano, no tweaking neccessary.

2. On 'common' sounds I want 'common' effects which operate naturally. For example, the Rhodes had a tone control and often had tremolo - and adjusting them was as simple as turning a knob or two. Clav, Wurli, etc patches should also come w/ the standard sound control parameters preprogrammed onto front-panel controls. I shouldn't have to dive into submenus to get this.

3. The current analog & VA synths have programmability right. Some cool presets, ability to easily create & store your own presets, and ability to change them in mid-performance, in realtime via dedicated controls.

4. Aside from (and even on) 'natural' and 'common' sounds, yes a synth should allow programmability - after all, no two people hear exactly alike and the synth should allow those whose minds hear something other than the presets to change the sounds to get what they hear in their heads.

 

PEACE

[realtrance]

Pulling this (and some other threads) up from the bowels of history, mainly because the discussion is so cool.

 

My own little take on this one: I don't think people need to feel ashamed of using presets -- as many have said here, if your focus is on _playing_ you don't want to be spending hours programming before you play.

 

The only contrast to that, from my personal experience, is that I've moved away from being a classical pianist and towards being an synth improviser _precisely_ because I've always loved what some would call "tone." As a keyboardist, traditionally, you don't get to fiddle with your instrument the same way a violinist or guitarist would, or as a flutist would with technique, to develop your tone. There _is_ a kind of tonality you can perfect with your mastery of your instrument as a pianist, but it doesn't have the kinds of satisfaction you get in really constructing your tone from scratch.

 

So, I see the practice of developing my own tone on a synth as _finally_ opening up to me, as a keyboardist, something I've envied in the way guitarists and string instrumentalists work. I can enjoy hours of sculpting my own tone, and _then_ using it to play/compose/improvise with.

 

Based on that, I really like to have a range of presets on an instrument that can essentially help guide me, as a relative novice (5 years' synth practice, on my own), towards new techniques for developing tonalities on the synth.

 

Just as an education in music will save you time in not having to reinvent the wheel, having a bunch of great presets in an instrument will give you basic instruction on how to create a range of sounds on a synth.

 

There's nothing I love more than happening upon a preset and wondering "how the hell did s/he do that?!" and then digging in to discover the things that makes a particular sound tick. I may then try to replicate that on my own, or change certain elements based on other cool stuff I've found in other presets, and I find I learn a lot, quickly, that way.

 

rt

[Gus Lozada]

Wow

 

I read what I wrote a year ago... still think the same.

 

For my new CD, I decided to create my very own sounds. Of course, having a virtual analog with all those knobs is almost impossible NOT tweaking them to get your unique touch.

 

Cool thread. Yes, it is important for your own sound. Presets are perfect for quick setups or generic sounding music.

 

[Markyboard]

I hate the idea of having remnants of anyone elses parameter combinations in a sound other then my own. I hate sample playback although I make an exception with the Wavestation. This one takes extra work to make a sound i can truly call my own. Also the B3 piano and drums sounds I'll make exceptions for as these are instruments unto themselves. I wont use someones draw bar settings however although I'm sure many of mine duplicate whats already out there.

PS.

 

I'd like to know the first person who programmed a sine wave. Thats a bitchin sound.

[Krakit]

I love to program and use custom made sound almost exclusively. The only peice of equipment that produces sound that I bought WITHOUT the sole intention of changing all the sounds to my own liking is the Alesis QSR. However, I would NOT have bought the QSR if there were no way to program it.

 

I will make my own QSR sounds eventually, but I have been quite happy with the internal sounds and expansion cards that it has so far.

 

Programming your own sounds is half the fun of synthesis, if you don't do that you're missing about 80% of what it's all about.

 

Carl

[R_dup1]

The ability to program is critical to me. Tweaking the existing presets is a great starting point and eventually leads me into doing things from scratch as well. The initial presets and how inspiring/high quality they are in showing off what you can do with the synth is very important as well. If I like the presets, then I know I can do lots of sounds that are more "me" just by tweaking to start with. Then that gets me under the hood to doing more programming.

[Dan O]

Cool thread .......

 

Personally I want as authentic sounds as I can get .

Piano is #1 . E.pianos , Organs (w rotor speed) , Brass , Strings, sax and some good synth lead sounds are the top pick for me .

 

I do not program sounds . However , I do like to add portamento , aftertouch to synthlead type sounds . Throw in some modulation .

 

I like the abiltity to split the keyboard and layer sounds .

dano

[RABid]

Very much so. I have never found a synth that came with lead patches that do everything I want. If I cannot program growls, squeals and other controllable tonal variables I dont feel I have an expressive lead instrument.

 

Robert

[Magpel]

Programming is extraordinarily involving, fun, frustrating. I simply love it, and I still suck at it!

There's also something really rewarding about building the sounds for your own compositions--soup to nuts

 

All that said, time is a huge factor. If you're programming, you're not writing, you're not recording, you're not mixing. Like so many of you, I attempt to do all this by myself, and I think every element suffers a bit, certainly synth programming, because lord knows you've got to spend some serious time deep in the bowels of the Z1 to start getting it under control. So I love to program, but there's a place for great presets as well. I wish the Z1 had better presets.

[realtrance]

It's mainly due to my own limits and experience so far, but even though I do like some of what I patch up on my own, from scratch, I find that my ear "likes" a certain kind of palette and, consciously or no, I tend to steer towards creating patches with that kind of palette.

 

So, over time, if I replace all the synth's sounds with my own, the variety on the instrument -- because of what I do -- tends to suffer.

 

If I keep a mix of my own original work in there with the presets I like, and even some I initially hate, I'm more likely to head in different directions than my ear tends to guide me.

 

I especially like to take a patch that seems initially totally unmusical to me, start by playing it enough to start improvising in a way that seems more "intrinsic" to that patch, discover a style and musical approach that makes that patch really work (to my ear, that is), and _then_ I'll go tweak it to add or subtract something according to my tastes. For me, at least, I find I stretch a little more that way.

 

OTOH I also like the kind of "patch puzzle" some synths provide, where there's this really magical sound (I can think of Zon's "Goliath" on the Nord Modular as a good example), spoiled for me by some dreadful element (for my tastes ). If I can remove that dreadful element and keep the sound I like, not only have I gotten a sound I enjoy playing with, but I've learned that little bit more about how the patch is constructed.

 

rt

[Magpel]

Originally posted by Rabid:

Very much so. I have never found a synth that came with lead patches that do everything I want. If I cannot program growls, squeals and other controllable tonal variables I don't feel I have an expressive lead instrument.

 

Robert

Robert, where you do start when going for growls? What sound parameters do you focus on, and then how do you set up controlling it?

 

Now how about squeals? Resonance to aftertouch?

 

Just curious. Growling and squealing are important.

 

John

[Slowly]

Gotta have some tweaking. Songs that I write sound good on my keyboard but it was "that" sound that inspired the song. Using a different sound is just no good. So I tweak until I get their board to sound like mine. Kcbass

[RABid]

There are many types of growl. One I use a lot is with the LFO controlling the filter. If the LFO can be set at a high enough rate you get a nice buzz and the joystick or mod wheel makes for good control. Experiment with different wave forms. Square and saw work well. The LFO's on some synths can not be set fast enough to do this. If you combine this effect with a tonal variation, such as adjusting oscillator sync with the same controller you can get various types of growls.

 

Here are two methods for squeals. A nice but hard to control method is feedback. Not the guitar type. Some synths have loop settings in the filters. These can be very touchy to set up but pay big dividends. I think this is how the old Rhodes Chroma patches did it, and I have found nothing that does it any better. Cross fading is a simple but effective way to set up fake feedback. Set your mod wheel or joystick to fade out one oscillator when a higher pitched oscillator fades in. It helps if these are parallel oscillators running through the same filters and effects. If you have 4 oscillators to pull this off you can again mix in some other tonal variances to give a bit more life to the lead patch. Oscillator synch works, and just a touch of ring modulation can make it interesting.

 

If you set out to make a new sound rather than trying to fake a guitar's feedback you can really get some interesting patches. Have fun and dig deep. You never know what you will find.

 

Robert

[BP3]

Presets at times inspire playing. For me, they don't as often as something I either edit from a preset, or build from scratch.

[aeon]

Dave Bryce asked:

When you buy a synthesizer, how important is the ability to program/tweak your own sounds?

It is of the utmost importance.

 

Do you go into the purchase thinking that you only want something that already has the sounds that you want, or are you into the idea that part of the thrill of owning such a beast is that you can learn how to edit and/or create your own custom programs?

Sound creation is the thrill of owning such a beast! I will listen to the sounds that come with a synth, but they are not a purchasing focus at all. That said, if a preset moves me, then great!

 

If you do have the urge to tweak - after you've gotten a synth, do you find that you follow through with learning the machine's architecture more often than not?

I always learn the architecture of any programmable device I own...including effects processors. I consider this a must in order to intuit the real nature of the design.

 

Maybe that is why I *heart* my Clavia Nord Modular and Q so.