I can understand that. They’re (the SSL entries) generally more sound design focussed and bit more experimental, while the other stuff is a bit more ‘stream of consciousness’ full instrumentation with less focus on the sounds.
Finally managed to get some time to have a go at an SSL… It’s been fun to have a go and I hoped to get some good learning from heavy exploration which I most certainly did. I was definitely in the camp of having never really used the SY TOY at all really but a bit of perseverence and I’ve got something…
Just jamming with one pattern, muting and unmuting. Occasionally confusing myself and unmuting the wrong things and tweaking the delay times at the wrong time so this is a warts and all situation!
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Hello! I’ve been slacking, er, busy! Really busy. Yeah! That’s it!
Nah, I’m just beat after work and have a few projects going on so I’m playing catch up some too on these labs.
Bellyaching aside; here’s a little submission for the Sy Toy lab.
SSLSyToy.syx (35.4 KB)
All Sy Toy tracks are going through the FX with .75 drive with a LPF with a LFO on the whole thing. Mostly just a bunch of pentatonic noodling.
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@jeye_musik Must be nice to have your Syntakt back home again. Thanks for the soothing sounds 
@PentalagusMusic I know how you feel, work can be draining sometimes! Lovely mood there, you’re a master of these sweet and playful little tunes.
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Still TOYing around
Variation of the same sounds, single pattern and 6-7 tracks of TOY. It may sound as fewer, as I’m doubling and panning tracks for more dense sound. With a slight detune against each other, it makes doubled tracks sound more substantial.
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Aaand one more noodle, just pressing keys and moving knobs for animation
Just one toy track
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Nice atmo 
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Ahhh… the texture in the background at the start of the first one is really, really, really nice… I need to go back and spend more time with the SY TOY it seems! I didn’t really investigate sustained sounds as much.
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This one has audio rate mod on the form parameter and verb and the verb goes through notch filter on the fx track. Overdrive at max but base filter up. Doubled, panned left and right and detuned a bit
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Thanks for the tips, i’ll experiment with those when i get some time at the weekend.
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@mishpult nice vibey tracks! Looking forward to listening to these on headphones at work today.
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Really like the second one - great patch!
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1 x Pattern, 8 x SY Toy, unmuted one track after another, then drove everything into reverb and delay using control all - it’s a bit of a muddy mess but I decided to toss it out anyway ;p
The above snippet had been recorded in mono accidentally, so here’s a stereo recording:
SSL7.stprj (5.6 KB)
@Oxenholme’s recent videos on youtube were a great inspiration although I hadn’t made use of velocity mods. Instead, my pseudo drums mostly relied on randomness (LFO+hold) that modulated various parameters. I was very positively surprised during the making by what kind of sounds you can get out of SY Toy, especially by cranking overdrive and filtering. I am starting to fall in love with the Syntakt and am happy our ways never parted.
Thank you so much @Nils and everyone else for having come up with the idea of Syntakt Science Labs.
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Yeah that works as well! I tend to use that more for making digital machines a bit more unstable or ‘analog’ sounding with slight pitch and brightness variations per note
Glad I could give you some ideas though SY TOY ftw!
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I ended up not making use of velocity mods because I wanted to try something else for myself instead of trying and copying (and most probably failing) your excellent work. Your video clearly demonstrated it is an essential thing to make use of in sound design on the Syntakt and I had totally forgotten about its existence up to this point. Let’s see the creative use it may have in upcoming SSLs
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and another one. created this one on headphones and now that I’ve rendered it and listened to it on my laptop, it sounds so much more off than it did on headphones. I’ll have another listen tomorrow with a fresh pair of ears ;p
so that’s 8xSY Toy and one pattern. I’ll provide more detail about the sounds tomorrow and edit in place ;p
edit: adding project file. active pattern that was used to record the above sound is on pattern 5.
track 1: detuned midbass-bassline with both filters set accordingly, main sound characteristics comes from FORM set to 81, which sounds to me as if there were two operators behind it that are then detuned in a particular way, depending on the setting (manual: “FORM (Form) approximates different physical materials and objects by altering the ratios/spacing
between the operators.”)
track 2: Kick drum, nothing special going on here, tuned down to -24 in order to get a bass-y sound, with PNCH enabled, FORM set to 64 so probably no detuning going on. LFO 1 set to “ONE” mode, which together with Waveform set to EXPO forms an envelope that modulates TUNE for punch. I oftentimes feel compelled to having to use the multi-mode filter in order to tame sounds on the Syntakt, so in that case I am using a notch filter in order to make some space so it doesn’t sound too boomy, which unfortunately is often the case even with dedicated kick machines on the Syntakt. I wish there was one additional filter per track or the possibility to switch from the base-width filter to another MM-filter dynamically.
track 3: some cowbell-like sound with AMP volume set to 0 but modulated with an LFO using ONE/Expo
track 4: another mid-bassy sound whose filter freq and res are modulated by an LFO each.
track 5: one attempt to get a hihat out of SY Toy, IMP and BRIG almost maxed, then very high-pass filtered, AMP vol set to zero and modulated using another ONE/Exp LFO. I am using this technique in order to smooth out Decay sometimes.
track 6: a metallic sounding percussive hihat kind of sound, which is a C9 note that’s responsible for the frequencies we get out of it together with OVER maxed out. playing very high or very low notes is something I oftentimes try in the hopes for squeezing unusual sounds out of a synthesis machine on the Syntakt.
track 7: that’s a cowbell like sound playing at a very low volume because it doesn’t really fit the tune, in my ears. I still wanted to have it inside because I was positively surprised when I found out it sounds close to the characteristics of an 808 cowbell when I was messing with the params. I think we can get there with FORM set to 62 and both IMP and BRIG set to something > 100, along with OVER cranked up. there’s definitely room for improvement ;p
track 8: a lazer beam of some sorts and it feels disco to me 
a sound whose characteristics come from LFO 1 that modules SYN TUNE with the LFO set to TRIG/SAW and FADE set to 33. LFO 2 modulates panning.
all that coming together in a boring arrangement whose project file can be downloaded here:
SSL7(2).stprj (8.6 KB)
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I like it Tight and solid, nicely tweaked.
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Apologies I haven’t had time to dig into these recent SSL’s but will get around to them eventually. Just wanted to post my recent finding from the SY TOY machine - seems this machine responds unexpectedly well to audio rate LFO tuning manipulation! For some reason i feel like I can get much more FM-like sounds from the SY TOY machine this way than from many other machines…
I recommend looking into this if ya already havent
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The sound of tibetan singing bowls resonate with me a lot. Do you guys think it’d be possible to synthesize some using SY Toy only? I’d be interested in the “singing” part in particular and am trying to think of what’s responsible for its characteristic sound and how it could possibly be synthesized.
Toy has always been my favorite machine. I’m pretty comfortable doing sound design on this one so I decided to focus more on practicing some performance tricks. This one has some retriggering of the sequencer (I didn’t know until recently you could hold down the stop button and mash play) and some messing with the master length to get weird rhythms
.
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