What Synth you need/want Presets for in 2021?

[digitallysane]

Falcon.

 

[Pier]

LION is a synth a lot of forum members happen to have, but I agree it is hardly a first contender when it comes to “media composer synth darling of the year”.

I'm surprised. I would have expected LION to be a pretty obscure synth.

 

[doctoremmet]

I'm surprised. I would have expected LION to be a pretty obscure synth.

Well… PA has monthly sales. Unfiltered Audio is a pretty cool developer, and eventually all of the PA stuff ends up costing $39.99 at some point. PA customers get a monthly $25 loyalty voucher. Yada yada yada. All PA customers now own ALL synths for $15 each. So I am willing to bet at least hundreds of forum members will own bx_oberhausen, Knifonium, Thorn AND LION. (And BYOME and TRIAD too, which are the multi-fx that are also part of LION). For $60 you’d be a “fool” not to… right?

Truth be told, LION is a pretty capable synth and a welcome breath of fresh air, in the sense that UA seem to have actively avoided “normal” sounding oscillators and have incorporated some truly original sounding stuff (albeit kind of harsh sounding).

 

[Pier]

Truth be told, LION is a pretty capable synth and a welcome breath of fresh air, in the sense that UA seem to have actively avoided “normal” sounding oscillators and have incorporated some truly original sounding stuff (albeit kind of harsh sounding).

I haven't used it, but from the demos I kinda agree. Somehow LION always reminds me of the stuff by Glitchmachines which is designed specifically to make weird stuff.

 

[doctoremmet]

Well… it ain’t Vital. Oh wait. Where’s Vital?

I’ll see myself out!
(OP: merely having fun! I’ll stop now)

 

[emptyvessel]

LION isn’t on the list and I largely agree with your assessment of the presets. But I want to point out that @Empty Vessel has created a couple of awesome presets for it (and also for Thorn by the way). I highly recommend all of his stuff, but these LION ones in particular.

Thanks as always for the mention Temme!
I think people didn't quite get Lion, I reach for it when I want to explore unusual ground definitely but it can also make a broad range of totally "conventional" and usable sounds. I think Mike and Josh took a great route with the oscillator types and the mixer module rather than just re-hash old ideas. Having the BYOME strip in there is great too. Personally I think if you like to make sounds and have a bit of depth to explore then it's a no brainer for picking up in one of the MAAAANY PA sales.
Sounds Divine (not sure if he's here) has released some really interesting Lion presets with a cool concept -

 

[emptyvessel]

I'd love to see someone take Phase Plant somewhere that other preset sellers haven't gone with it.

what area do you think is lacking out of interest? I made a pack for Kilohearts themselves which is in their store and I released a small pack myself but it's hard to pick what people might be looking for with Phase Plant. I'm left with a feeling that it's a synth people pick up to make their own sounds for, not buy presets. I love the synth and would love to make more packs for it but the performance/sales of what I did release doesn't fill me with the energy to spend time on more.

On the subject of Falcon, the comparison with Kontakt that is thrown back at me every time I mention it is confounding. Kontakt certainly has the following but there really is minimal reason to compare given the synthesis capability in Falcon, plus to me the effects are as good or better than most standalone plugins. It's one synth where I have no problem being totally satisfied with the sounds I can get straight from the plugin and not feeling the need to add fx afterwards, not something I can often say.

btw I'm just finishing off a job for Arturia then I will definitely be releasing some packs of my own for Pigments, likely in a similar vein to my content that's in the factory v3 presets and expansions that they bundled with it. I have a Falcon pack almost done, too. Just fine-tuning the macros and "info" page setup.

 

[Dirtgrain]

I do get the sense that Phase Plant, partly due to its marketing when it came out, has been taken up by a lot of people to create dubstep metallic bases, wubs and chops. What I've heard in a number of the packs makes me think of Serum from ten years ago, but maybe with some more possibilities. But my favorite preset is Fluteophone--partly why I got Phase Plant, as I had created a song for a competition with a demo version, and I wanted to work on it more.

Still, maybe it would not be a great business decision to stray from the Phase Plant base. I just wonder what else might be done with it. Mind you, I don't have Suspension, which I am looking forward to getting (waiting for a Kilohearts voucher).

 

[emptyvessel]

I do get the sense that Phase Plant, partly due to its marketing when it came out, has been taken up by a lot of people to create dubstep metallic bases, wubs and chops. What I've heard in a number of the packs makes me think of Serum from ten years ago, but maybe with some more possibilities. But my favorite preset is Fluteophone--partly why I got Phase Plant, as I had created a song for a competition with a demo version, and I wanted to work on it more.

Still, maybe it would not be a great business decision to stray from the Phase Plant base. I just wonder what else might be done with it. Mind you, I don't have Suspension, which I am looking forward to getting (waiting for a Kilohearts voucher).

yeah it frustrates me when companies take such a directed approach with their marketing, Phase Plant is a very flexible synth and the wavetable editor is one of the best I've used, sample playback opens things up nicely for taking it really in any direction genre-wise.
Suspension was done to a brief from KHS and although it definitely in some ways reflected what I wanted to do it was within some constraints. I still feel there is a heap of ground to explore with it, I can't help feeling there must be plenty of composers who have it but have no interest in the wubbychopmodulatedbass area. It has plenty of scope to be a great sounding, expressive, cinematic (I know, such an over-used term now...) instrument while admittedly the FX to me are in general nowhere near the quality of those in a few other plugins - Falcon mainly but Arturia did a good job with Pigments, too.
I will check out the Fluteophone preset, I haven't tried any of the bundled presets at all.
Thanks for the thoughts, much appreciated.
Not intended as an advert at all but these are some of the presets from my own pack, just as an example, all single presets with no other fx or processing (in some cases other fx would help). The 2nd half in particular is more the soundtracky pad stuff. Mostly using my own samples and original wavetables myself and a friend created:

 

[Patryk Scelina]

It's interesting there's no Arturia Pigments in the discussion. It's quite powerful workhorse.
I recently use it more often in my own work.

I'm curious how much do We rely on presets anyway. For a sample developer to say that I rather try to avoid presets is like shooting in a foot, but It is honestly what gives us the chance to create something unique. Presets are time savers when We have tight deadlines though

 

[jcrosby]

It's interesting there's no Arturia Pigments in the discussion. It's quite powerful workhorse.
I recently use it more often in my own work.

I'm curious how much do We rely on presets anyway. For a sample developer to say that I rather try to avoid presets is like shooting in a foot, but It is honestly what gives us the chance to create something unique. Presets are time savers when We have tight deadlines though

Funny enough that's why I just headed here... I'm not crazy about most of the ones Arturia has to offer, and there aren't a lot of 3rd party preset libraries for Pigments. At least not by the developers I tend to favor, in the styles I typically lean toward. (Dystopian/atmospheric-techy-tension type stuff...) @TheUnfinished & Sonic Underworld & @Empty Vessel mainly ((glad to see EV here )... I'm aware there are others... This is just the short list that serves my needs.

I don't rely on presets per se, I don't mind rolling up my sleeves as needed... But I have no problem using them either... If something works it works... And yes, they can save you a lot of time if you need to quickly find a few more layers to build existing layers up...

Curious which sample developer said that. Most kontakt libraries are glorified presets as far as I'm concerned. More often than not you're given few sound sculpting options in Kontakt so I also find that an odd comment... And of course there are exceptions with Kontkat, but more often than not Kontakt libraries are treated more like romplers than sound sculpting tools. Some FX here and there sure; but it's pretty rare the developer gives you multiple-destination envelopes (especially pitch), multiple-destination LFOs, adjustable pitch bend range, etc; all from the UI.

 

[Bman70]

yeah it frustrates me when companies take such a directed approach with their marketing, Phase Plant is a very flexible synth and the wavetable editor is one of the best I've used, sample playback opens things up nicely for taking it really in any direction genre-wise.
Suspension was done to a brief from KHS and although it definitely in some ways reflected what I wanted to do it was within some constraints. I still feel there is a heap of ground to explore with it, I can't help feeling there must be plenty of composers who have it but have no interest in the wubbychopmodulatedbass area. It has plenty of scope to be a great sounding, expressive, cinematic (I know, such an over-used term now...) instrument while admittedly the FX to me are in general nowhere near the quality of those in a few other plugins - Falcon mainly but Arturia did a good job with Pigments, too.
I will check out the Fluteophone preset, I haven't tried any of the bundled presets at all.
Thanks for the thoughts, much appreciated.
Not intended as an advert at all but these are some of the presets from my own pack, just as an example, all single presets with no other fx or processing (in some cases other fx would help). The 2nd half in particular is more the soundtracky pad stuff. Mostly using my own samples and original wavetables myself and a friend created:

I like the first part especially, that's more in the direction of what I like to design. I'm always after huge, gritty, evolving, organic soundscapes, sometimes barely musical.

I seem to be able to get closest in Omnisphere, but would be interested in any synth that's equally suited to this kind of thing. Here's one example I recently made.. just a single-key-press evolving sound, except for the hits which the mod wheel enables.


Dang it, the video doesn't seem to post here. I'll link it to Google Drive here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qxWbJoOnBHXRn8KgCOlhWanThm5YQYUe/view?usp=sharing (Omni Preset)

 

[emptyvessel]

Funny enough that's why I just headed here... I'm not crazy about most of the ones Arturia has to offer, and there aren't a lot of 3rd party preset libraries for Pigments. At least not by the developers I tend to favor, in the styles I typically lean toward. (Dystopian/atmospheric-techy-tension type stuff...) @TheUnfinished & Sonic Underworld & @Empty Vessel mainly ((glad to see EV here )... I'm aware there are others... This is just the short list that serves my needs.

I don't rely on presets per se, I don't mind rolling up my sleeves as needed... But I have no problem using them either... If something works it works... And yes, they can save you a lot of time if you need to quickly find a few more layers to build existing layers up...

Curious which sample developer said that. Most kontakt libraries are glorified presets as far as I'm concerned. More often than not you're given few sound sculpting options in Kontakt so I also find that an odd comment... And of course there are exceptions with Kontkat, but more often than not Kontakt libraries are treated more like romplers than sound sculpting tools. Some FX here and there sure; but it's pretty rare the developer gives you multiple-destination envelopes (especially pitch), multiple-destination LFOs, adjustable pitch bend range, etc; all from the UI

thanks so much for the mention Justin, I remember when you bought some of my stuff the first time and I was boring anyone who would listen, talking about the shows you work(ed) on It always means a lot when people buy my noises but you, Mr Clouser and a few others' names showing up in my purchase emails brought a particularly warm glow to the start of my day.
interesting your comments on Kontakt libraries, I've been discussing things with a couple of coders and contemplating taking the plunge into Kontakt, which I've avoided up until now. Is that level of sculpting something you actually miss and would like to have? More like building a semi-full instrument around the base samples behind the scenes? I hadn't considered people might want that level of control and flexibility. I'm working on a Falcon pack just now, for me making something expressive and flexible feels way easier there and the sound is unbeatable IMO.

 

[emptyvessel]

I like the first part especially, that's more in the direction of what I like to design. I'm always after huge, gritty, evolving, organic soundscapes, sometimes barely musical.

I seem to be able to get closest in Omnisphere, but would be interested in any synth that's equally suited to this kind of thing. Here's one example I recently made.. just a single-key-press evolving sound, except for the hits which the mod wheel enables.


Dang it, the video doesn't seem to post here. I'll link it to Google Drive here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qxWbJoOnBHXRn8KgCOlhWanThm5YQYUe/view?usp=sharing (Omni Preset)

thank you! Yeah huge, gritty, subtly dusty, slowly evolving, organic. All buzzwords for me and generally where I'm aiming with my sound design. I'm trying hard to use performance controls, modulation and macros to give control over the evolution, little details etc. so the composer can play or automate those accordingly rather than just have them play out. Not always possible but I'm always looking for ways to make sounds alive and believable even if holding no actual connection to a real instrument. Wandering the uncanny valley
That Omnisphere patch is great, definitely my kind of thing. I like Falcon, Pigments, Phase Plant and Lion for those types of sounds, Lion I'd like even more if it let me involve samples somewhere because field recordings are such a rich source of organic modulation or texture. Absynth & Alchemy too (still the pre-Apple one for me) Dmitry Sches' Thorn is also much better for that than many people know I think, a very deep synth with some unusual features that can get very gritty with inter-oscillator modulation of many types and you can load samples into the "noise" oscillator and use it as a modulation source for osc 3.
Anyway, I could ramble endlessly about such things so I will sign off for the day and go and drink a beer or two. Thanks again!

 

[Bman70]

thank you! Yeah huge, gritty, subtly dusty, slowly evolving, organic. All buzzwords for me and generally where I'm aiming with my sound design. I'm trying hard to use performance controls, modulation and macros to give control over the evolution, little details etc. so the composer can play or automate those accordingly rather than just have them play out. Not always possible but I'm always looking for ways to make sounds alive and believable even if holding no actual connection to a real instrument. Wandering the uncanny valley
That Omnisphere patch is great, definitely my kind of thing. I like Falcon, Pigments, Phase Plant and Lion for those types of sounds, Lion I'd like even more if it let me involve samples somewhere because field recordings are such a rich source of organic modulation or texture. Absynth & Alchemy too (still the pre-Apple one for me) Dmitry Sches' Thorn is also much better for that than many people know I think, a very deep synth with some unusual features that can get very gritty with inter-oscillator modulation of many types and you can load samples into the "noise" oscillator and use it as a modulation source for osc 3.
Anyway, I could ramble endlessly about such things so I will sign off for the day and go and drink a beer or two. Thanks again!

Thanks, I'll have to check some of those synths out! I suspect either Falcon or Pigments first.

You're right it's hard to leave some control to the user when I've programmed it to just play out like a loop . But, usually with Omni it's easy to just add another layer with something they can bring in with the wheel or velocity. I know I'm on the right track when I just want to sit there and see where it goes! lol. There should be a thread where developers can go on endlessly about this stuff, that would be my favorite as I'm still learning.

 

[jcrosby]

thanks so much for the mention Justin, I remember when you bought some of my stuff the first time and I was boring anyone who would listen, talking about the shows you work(ed) on It always means a lot when people buy my noises but you, Mr Clouser and a few others' names showing up in my purchase emails brought a particularly warm glow to the start of my day.
interesting your comments on Kontakt libraries, I've been discussing things with a couple of coders and contemplating taking the plunge into Kontakt, which I've avoided up until now. Is that level of sculpting something you actually miss and would like to have? More like building a semi-full instrument around the base samples behind the scenes? I hadn't considered people might want that level of control and flexibility. I'm working on a Falcon pack just now, for me making something expressive and flexible feels way easier there and the sound is unbeatable IMO.

Thanks!! And it's incredibly flattering that you remember my purchase! You have a truly unique sound that I haven't hear from any other sound designer, your atmospheres especially standout as one of a kind

As far as Kontakt it depends on the library. Obviously if something is primarily acoustic it makes more sense if the developer takes a more traditional approach. (Although I love how Sonic Couture completely breaks tradition.) When developers make sound design-ish products it's a really nice bonus if they give the UI some sound shaping options. As an example I actually often either render samples out of player libraries, or re-save quickload libraries (in order to access the wav files) and make my own patch versions in the Photosynthesis Engine...

Although Jeremiah no longer runs Exotic States, it does look like it still can be used as UI, or the basis of one for commercial products... The script is also unlocked which should give you lots of options to repurpose code and do your own thing... And it seems like from the link above your can still reach out to him and see what, if any limitations there might in terms of using it for a small commercial product.

 

[doctoremmet]

Thanks as always for the mention Temme!

My pleasure Greg. I was honoured to be on Samuel’s (@secondtiersound), Reid’s (@Reid Rosefelt) and Simeon’s (@Simeon) podcast yesterday (thanks guys - I had a ton of fun) and even managed to sneak in an unplanned Empty Vessel shoutout

 

[emptyvessel]

Thanks, I'll have to check some of those synths out! I suspect either Falcon or Pigments first.

You're right it's hard to leave some control to the user when I've programmed it to just play out like a loop . But, usually with Omni it's easy to just add another layer with something they can bring in with the wheel or velocity. I know I'm on the right track when I just want to sit there and see where it goes! lol. There should be a thread where developers can go on endlessly about this stuff, that would be my favorite as I'm still learning.

I feel the same, often actually things are happening randomly or at least unpredictably and I'm personally really happy with that Totally with you on "when I just want to sit there and see where it goes"! If I've been sitting with my finger on a key for 20 minutes immersed and forgetting it's me "playing" what I'm hearing I know the patch can go in the pack
Maybe an "immersive/organic soundscape programming tips" thread might be fun, hearing other peoples' techniques could be quite inspiring. I'm not sharing mine though, trade secrets!!!

 

[emptyvessel]

Thanks!! And it's incredibly flattering that you remember my purchase! You have a truly unique sound that I haven't hear from any other sound designer, your atmospheres especially standout as one of a kind

As far as Kontakt it depends on the library. Obviously if something is primarily acoustic it makes more sense if the developer takes a more traditional approach. (Although I love how Sonic Couture completely breaks tradition.) When developers make sound design-ish products it's a really nice bonus if they give the UI some sound shaping options. As an example I actually often either render samples out of player libraries, or re-save quickload libraries (in order to access the wav files) and make my own patch versions in the Photosynthesis Engine...

Although Jeremiah no longer runs Exotic States, it does look like it still can be used as UI, or the basis of one for commercial products... The script is also unlocked which should give you lots of options to repurpose code and do your own thing... And it seems like from the link above your can still reach out to him and see what, if any limitations there might in terms of using it for a small commercial product.

Of course! You're mentioned in my About page even! Thank you for the lovely words, much appreciated.

I get you with SonicCouture, Dan who is half of the company is a good friend of mine and I really respect what they do. I'm much more in the re-imagining area, literal renditions of existing instruments have never been my interest even back in the 80s when I got my first synth or two I was trying to see what new sounds could be created. I have some ideas around this for Falcon and Kontakt but I need to give them some thought. Maybe I could email you about the concept? It's all very well coming at this from the theoretical sound designer end but it's invaluable to have working composers give thoughts on application since that's really the whole point!
Massive thanks for the link to Jeremiah's engine! I think that could serve as a really great jumping off point! I hoped for a second that it was my friend Jeremiah Savage who has created some amazing Kontakt instruments but it seems not. Either way I'll download it and reach out to Jeremiah for a chat, thank you very much for that and your thoughts.

 

[emptyvessel]

My pleasure Greg. I was honoured to be on Samuel’s (@secondtiersound), Reid’s (@Reid Rosefelt) and Simeon’s (@Simeon) podcast yesterday (thanks guys - I had a ton of fun) and even managed to sneak in an unplanned Empty Vessel shoutout

thank you Temme! I really should be paying you a marketing exec salary by now for the time you put into telling people about me :D
I'll watch/listen to that podcast today.