The Synth Thread...

[redchapterjubilee]

For this project I was using the Grandmother really straight as a bass/left hand accompaniment to the 106 playing pads. Once I get a basic structure for this intro then I'll use the Grandmother to make all kinds of crazy sounds. I've owned numerous analogs over the last 20 years and can program a subtractive synthesizer fairly well but I confess I've barely scratched the surface with the patch points on the Grandmother. I've never owned or used a modular before so it's somewhat byzantine to me.

[Zork]

I dunno if they can fix the meh, though, the MS-20 is all kinds of meh if you ask me. Cloning it can't help much.

I love the MS-20 ever since Mr. Oizos Analog Worms Attack.

[Shadoweclipse13]

How To Hook Up Guitar Pedals To Synths

I was looking for something else this morning, and found this Sound On Sound article. They also suggest that running a re-amp box between the synth and the guitar pedals might work too.

[guitarsammy]

No love in here for the DeepMind?

I got a DM12 recently and am over the moon with it. Despite what some purists say, it can get really close to a Juno (and I say this as a former Juno 60 owner), but with the advantage of more voices, a more flexible second oscillator, a much more powerful arpeggiator and almost infinitely more modulation capabilities. There’s no way I’d buy a Juno again now.

In Unison-2 mode, with some oscillator drift, it can sound very, very close to a 6-voice Jupiter 8.

Stacking even more voices and again using some oscillator drift can get some very convincing MS-like bass sounds.

And with the huge range of really high quality onboard digital FX, it can act a lot like a 90s digital Roland, but with far more power to modulate the FX and get into crazy evolving pad territory.

I adore old Rolands, and the DM is right up my street.

[mackerelmint]

It's a cool synth, the deepmind. Some of the sounds I've heard from it are nothing short of incredible at any price point.

For me, though, the prospect of menu diving on an analog synth is a turnoff. Not that I care for it on digital synths, either, but considering how much of that synth needs the menu to get to, I wonder if knob per function sensibility isn't dead at this point and only a feature for clones.

[Telliot]

For me, though, the prospect of menu diving on an analog synth is a turnoff.

A thousand times, this. It's exactly why I narrowed my search down to the Prophet-6 and OB-6: one knob per function. I couldn't believe how slim the owner's manual for the P6 is! It's literally, "Here are a bunch of buttons and knobs and here's what they do. START PUSHING AND TURNING!!!" I haven't the time or stomach for becoming a sound designer, or getting into the nuts and bolts of what a synthesizer does through number values, I just want to turn a few knobs and hit RECORD.

Related: This may also be why I'm a bit turned off to modular synths.

[guitarsammy]

I hate menu diving too. I had an Alpha Juno and a JX-3P in the past, without programmers, and have had a few later digital synths with complicated menu driven interfaces. All of these were sold because of the lack of programmability.

For these reasons, I was deeply sceptical on the DeepMind, but kept reading online that the interface is so good, it isn’t a problem. So I took a gamble.

And it’s absolutely fine. It’s possible to run it as a Juno clone and basically once it’s set up, never use the menus except to change patches.

However, if you run it as a more powerful, “beyond Juno” synth (and you really should), the menus are so well thought-out and easily accessible from the right place on the panel, it becomes second nature. Genuinely so, and within a couple of hours’ use I wasn’t thinking about it at all.

It’s so “deep”, with so many controls (and all the FX algorithms), I don’t think they could realistically ever have had one knob per function.

[Telliot]

That's fair enough, and I don't begrudge anyone who has the patience to learn the ins and out of their synth and really get into it. I was only speaking for myself and my own shortcomings.

[guitarsammy]

That's fair enough, and I don't begrudge anyone who has the patience to learn the ins and out of their synth and really get into it. I was only speaking for myself and my own shortcomings.

And I don’t begrudge you your one-knob per function preference either.

While I’d never call myself a sound designer (just a tinkerer), I guess the DeepMind does lend itself to that really (unless you just run it as a more-or-less Juno clone) so it’s perhaps not the best synth for someone who wants something more definitely and obviously immediate.

[mackerelmint]

I hate menu diving too. I had an Alpha Juno and a JX-3P in the past, without programmers, and have had a few later digital synths with complicated menu driven interfaces. All of these were sold because of the lack of programmability.

For these reasons, I was deeply sceptical on the DeepMind, but kept reading online that the interface is so good, it isn’t a problem. So I took a gamble.

And it’s absolutely fine. It’s possible to run it as a Juno clone and basically once it’s set up, never use the menus except to change patches.

However, if you run it as a more powerful, “beyond Juno” synth (and you really should), the menus are so well thought-out and easily accessible from the right place on the panel, it becomes second nature. Genuinely so, and within a couple of hours’ use I wasn’t thinking about it at all.

It’s so “deep”, with so many controls (and all the FX algorithms), I don’t think they could realistically ever have had one knob per function.

I believe that. I've never heard anyone say otherwise, in fact. Everything I've heard or read about the menu is that it's very easy to wrap your head around.

I honestly just don't trust myself to be up to the minor challenge. I'm like that with everything: if the interface/menu/whatever isn't totally intuitive for me specifically, it just doesn't ever seem to click for me now matter how much work I put into it. My brain just says "fuck this thing and fuck you too for making me have to deal with it." It's like trying to give a cat a bath, but way harder.

So like Todd, I am strictly one knob per function. If you can attach an external programmer to something that doesn't have that and get that kind of functionality, that's cool too.

[redchapterjubilee]

Nine times out of ten when I'm playing my Juno I leave it on manual and don't even mess with the presets. Does Deep Mind have a manual mode?

[guitarsammy]

Nine times out of ten when I'm playing my Juno I leave it on manual and don't even mess with the presets. Does Deep Mind have a manual mode?

I’m away from home at the moment and can’t remember the name of it (and I’m also not sure exactly how to word this), but there’s a setting that enables the current position of all sliders to generate the active tone, and no patch memory is active (although of course this can then be saved as a patch if required).

[redchapterjubilee]

Got it. So it does have a manual setting like the Junos.

[Shadoweclipse13]

I need to try a Deepmind one of these days. I was originally interested, and then lost interest, but they seem to keep popping up in my head and on my YouTube feeds. Is it totally a poly synth, i.e. are you able to play chords, etc.?

[mackerelmint]

Yeah, they have either 6 or 12 voices.