Any good digital synths?

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Strizbiz
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Any good digital synths?

Post by Strizbiz » Sun Apr 06, 2014 4:25 pm

Ok, I LOVE analog synths, I have pretty much all the iOS analog emulations out ( at least all the top heavy hitters ) as well as some great wave table synths like Nave. It just seems like there's a ton of Analog emulations but I wouldn't mind a good digital , korg M1. Like synth. One with IAA would be great but Audiobus would be cool as well.
I haven't picked up Gadget yet ( not crazy about apps with portrait layouts lol) so I don't know if it's anything in there close to an M1.

Anyone have any suggestions or ran across one?
IPad Air 2 128 gb Apogee Duet Ipad/Mac

instinctive
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Re: Any good digital synths?

Post by instinctive » Mon Apr 07, 2014 7:00 am

You could try Alchemy and Sampletank. But yes, I'm also still looking for a good... uhm... "real" synth (sample-based) like a Roland JV-1080 etc... hard to find I guess.

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sodium
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Re: Any good digital synths?

Post by sodium » Mon Apr 07, 2014 7:45 am

Alchemy is amazing.
"get down off that cross we could use the wood..."

Strizbiz
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Re: Any good digital synths?

Post by Strizbiz » Mon Apr 07, 2014 12:31 pm

Yea, I have Sampletank, great synth, haven't gotten the full version of Alchemy but I think it's time, thanks for the input guys,
@instinctive, a Roland jv 1080 iOS app would be a dream come true for me, I owned a 1080 for years and did so much work on it, I'd love to see Roland jump into the iOS game, they have some editors for their hardware but no iOS synths yet,
I'd buy it without a second thought.
IPad Air 2 128 gb Apogee Duet Ipad/Mac

instinctive
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Re: Any good digital synths?

Post by instinctive » Mon Apr 07, 2014 1:57 pm

Yep, the total lack of a useful, high quality PCM synth like the JV series on iOS, including sophisticated presets with corresponding FX setups, is a total mystery to me. This is another huge opportunity missed by the "big players". If I had the resources to program such a beast and hundreds of presets, I'm sure I'd be rich and famous ;)

AFAIK, there's not even an app that can play, say, AKAI sampler presets.

OldSynthGuy
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Re: Any good digital synths?

Post by OldSynthGuy » Wed Apr 09, 2014 8:51 am

Here's a good one...I took my mint JV1080 to Guitar Center yesterday, thinking I'd trade it for something, save me the whole Craigs List thing of unloading it, even at half what it's worth these days (which isn't much). The kid freaked out. I got all kinds of non-excuses, but the bottom line was he had no idea what it was or how he could ever sell it or even understand it. My favorite was "It has to sound dated, we can't get parts or PCM cards or...or...or...". Well, yeah, I guess the factory presets probably do sound like the LA Jacuzzi Jazz thing, but a synth engine is a synth engine and it's pretty much only as lame as the person running it. Anyway it went back in my car. I know one thing. My iPad is a LOT lighter than that thing.

Considering how little ram was actually used in those devices I'm really surprised someone hasn't ported a decent ROMpler over to iOS or even Win/MAC. Sonic Synth was OK but you couldn't edit the "drum" section. Maybe they're all afraid a software version would kill their hardware business, but judging from what I saw on the floor of a major music store yesterday, that business is pretty much done anyway. Oh well. I'm not nostalgic for a return to the ROMpler, but sometimes just the ease of throwing a multipart scratch track together with one was a real timesaver.

Back to the OP original question...Nanologue is fun and free, iSEM, Addictive Synth, and if you have a some free time and headphones Giant Isopod is a lot of fun if not really all that productive in a mainstream sort of way.

SSquared
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Re: Any good digital synths?

Post by SSquared » Wed Apr 09, 2014 11:38 pm

I'll throw in my vote for Alchemy. If you want that ethereal sound it is really good. Alchemy is both sample-based and VA. You tend not to find your standard sounds on it. If it's a guitar, piano, or other acoustic sample, it's usually twisted and tweaked in some interesting way.

SampleTank covers the acoustic sample-based sounds, but overall, I found it disappointing.

Although maybe considered analog, I have always felt both Sunrizer and Magellan have more of that 80's digital sound. Brighter, crisp, a bite.

I still have my JV-1080 (and an 880). I pretty much use the 1080 for "Dawn 2 Dusk". I've considered getting the JV-1010 so I don't have the 2U 1080 to carry around. I just created a layer this week using "Dawn 2 Dusk" and a new keyboard/synth.

instinctive
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Re: Any good digital synths?

Post by instinctive » Thu Apr 10, 2014 10:18 am

Ahhhhh, good old "Dawn 2 Dusk". And don't forget "Film Octaves" :-)

One should probably also mention Garageband (I always forget!), which has very high quality instruments in all categories.

DFiasco
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Re: Any good digital synths?

Post by DFiasco » Thu Apr 10, 2014 12:28 pm

I played in a band for years with a guy that used a real Vox Jaguar organ. The one with the orange top and reversed-color black and white keys. I'd love to find an app to use with Auria that would get something close to that sound.

OldSynthGuy
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Re: Any good digital synths?

Post by OldSynthGuy » Fri Apr 11, 2014 7:30 am

Any good synth with 2 to 4 oscillators (the more the merrier) will get you close to an old divide down organ sound. Open the filter up all the way, use a narrow duty cycle pulse (square) wave and tune the oscillators to the 16, 8 and 4 ft settings (if you have 4, go down to 16 , detune everything a little, add some distortion and LFO to taste. If you have the oscillators you can add a 2-2/3 or a 2. The Jaguar only had a few stops, like a Farfisa, the Continental had several drawbars with a unique combo IV stop that was actually a bunch of sine waves added up. More here:

http://www.combo-organ.com/Vox/Single/

There are a bunch of Vox and other samples out there ranging from free to overpriced if you want to load up an iOS sampler. There is also a pair of great, free Farfisa and Jaguar VST's out there. But this is iOS so I wont waste Auria's bandwidth with that.

iSEM has a "cheesy 60's organ" which is usable, complete with a note in the polyphony cycle that drops a waveform. Maybe we know what a real one sounds like but for seasoning in a mix, most people just know the generic era evoking sound and most synths from powerhouses to not so p[owerhouse can pull off a couple of slightly out of tune 10% PW oscs. Just a thought, not a mandate for the definitive Vox.

dkhbrit
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Re: Any good digital synths?

Post by dkhbrit » Fri Apr 11, 2014 2:00 pm

Nice ideas all. I've tried with the ipad synths but I find myself coming back to hardware most of the time. I had an M1 rack that I sold but missed the sounds so I got the Legacy M1. I'm a keyboardist I guess. The gadget is kind of fun for playing around with though.

DFiasco
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Re: Any good digital synths?

Post by DFiasco » Fri Apr 11, 2014 2:01 pm

Thanks!

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