We should be friends.
2 Likes
Has anyone posted this in one of these syntakt threads? It’s incredible
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdYTwM6Ifmm/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
10 Likes
Wow 
The other one on his page is dope as well. Sounds like I made a good choice placing my order.
1 Like
Anybody run external gear through fx block? How is it? Haven’t got my syntakt yet.
Like everything else with the Syntakt - instant gratification 
Needs dual mono update tho.
1 Like
Here are my “trademark sound” volca drum hihats:
(Please don’t mind the sloppy and non-creative finger playing ) Ring modulated Saw waves, modulated noise and then into the ‘waveguide’ string resonator. Even though there is noise included in the source sound, the resonater effectively turns everything into a ringy, bell-like quality.
And those hihats sound creamy and not grating, somewhat realistic but clearly synthetic. Alive, contrary to one-shot samples. And they sound great in a dense industrial mix.
I spend a lot of time yesterday getting something similar out of the Syntakt. I’ve come nearer, but nothing is as satisfying (for my taste) as those.
I have the Volca Drum - with six hihat flavours and nothing else programmed - connected to my Circuit Tracks Midi 2 Track, and control them just from there. I’d love to switch to the Syntakt for the hihats, but so far I’m afraid I have to keep this workflow (which is a nice workflow - but gosh I always want to get as much as possible out of as few as possible machines 
)
Edit: I really enjoyed your creative and creatively perfomed hihat findings! @Encephalitislerthargi
8 Likes
I adore the Volca Drum, won’t get too off-topic here but seriously overlooked wee machine.
I like this idea of 6x hihats! Have made similar ‘kits’ but melodic.
4 Likes
There are hihat-only modules for eurorack that cost twice or more than a volca drum … and still don’t sound like that!
2 Likes
I think the analog cymbal can go pretty close, e.g. with D setting and some good “WASH” + tiny decay…
2 Likes
There are always grating high frequencies, though I can tame them a bit with modulation (fast LFO->Pitch) … I have to look into the FX Filters (I know nothing about them so far), perhaps they can help to take out some of the unpleasantness if that’s a reasonable workflow …
Edit: They can’t since they are applied to the whole bus of instruments routed to the FX slot …
2 Likes
Good to hear. Plan to run my Force through it, as the Force will be my master clock and “song mode”.
1 Like
I find double notch and double LP to be pretty interesting for taming the high frequencies a bit, or giving them a different shape, especially with LFOs. Not as punishing as a LP ^^.
1 Like
Oh, but the analog FX is always on for every instrument, right? It’s the selected tracks routed as sum into the FX at once. Like how I can’t control analog fx drive strength per sound.
Well, I think the digital hihats are better suited then [for me]: There I have two filters. What I started to do was to use high pass with resonance to an extreme, and then the second page filter -> LFO 2 to make the ring out getting darker.
Because that’s another thing I really dislike: That all those cymbal and hihat ‘machines’ fade out into a penetrant white hiss, which is the opposite of what I expect …
At least one can say that Syntakt offers more cymbals and hihats than most other machines and lots of classics. Just no sweetspot there for me so far
3 Likes
Oh, you’re right, those are on AFX track only.
But yes, I find the analog cymbal engine good enough for hats, close to what you showed earlier. I’ll get back to this hats matter later. ^^
Syntakt Chill Jam
I’ve had the Syntakt for 1-2 weeks now.
On this track I’ve used Bd Modern, CY Alloy hats, SY tone kalimba/percussion type of sound, Sy chord (background “organ” drone), Sy toy also a kind of kalimba/percussion type of sound, Sy dual vco Fat Bass, Sy dual vco Trumpet/Horns, External input Korg SV1 El-Piano (comes in after approx 2 min) with some delay and reverb FX on syntakt
Fat bass + Cy alloy hats run through FX - the rest are clean.
4 patterns in a chain loop
No external processing - recorded straight into a sony PCM recorder (which has a limiter, but I don’t think the signal was hot enough to kick in…)
Could need some EQ post processing etc, a little bass heavy.
Inspiring box !
21 Likes
Yeah, but a lot like the Model:Cycles, it’s often better to look somewhere other than the hats/cymbal machines for good hats.
1 Like
Yeah, the “oh it’s the model:cycles” effect is one I don’t want to apply to my music
1 Like
Yeah, I know what you mean, and normally I’d defend it by being all “it’s actually really hard to synthesize hats” blah blah blah, but the 606 managed it, the Volca drum nails it and there’s plenty of other examples of great sounding synthesized hats.
I’m not struggling as badly as I did on the M:C to find the good hats, but I’m still fighting the desire to just plug my Sampler into the inputs for some decent hat samples.
1 Like
Syntakt (different kinds of) hihat(s) tries …
I’ve done closed/opened with the modifiers, that’s why the “closed” hits have a slightly too weak attack.
(My hihats on the volca drum = my goals for comparison: That Syntakt Sound - #161 by Jeanne )
5 Likes
Can you only put hihats on a specific track [if I recall the Rytm restricted sounds to tracks] or can you put any digi machine on any digi track and same for analog?