I’m wondering if, with modern effects and sequencing capabilities, the actual sound source (synthesizer) is becoming less significant for electronic to ambient style music? I’m finding the Roland S-1 is as useful a starting point as my Virus etc. by the time I’ve applied sequencing and effects…
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Well there’s that old saying.
‘If you polish a turd you just end up smearing shit everywhere.’
So I’d say the sound source is important.
Good sounds are good. Average sounds are average and so on. Synth brands and software vs hardware is irrelavent.
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100%. Particularly from the ambience perspective. More and more fx have consuming, sonic signatures that transform any sound. I’ve found myself scaling back on these kind of fx at times as they can have a tendency to strip sound sources of their character IMO.
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Emptyset has some of the craziest sound design and their source is just sine waves and noise.
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Hmm I’m not sure that delightful analogy works! I’m thinking more about modern, high quality processing that tranforms the base sound rather than say old school crappy reverb slapped on a cheap synth.
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Yeah but a good sound source doesn’t hurt.
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In that case the resulting music is just the effects isnt it?
Probably why I dont like a lof stuff called ‘ambient’ and lots of other things. All I hear are reverb algorithms.
If you can shove fx on any sound source and get something ‘nice’ out the other end, is that making music any more?
Same as the clever sound design topic. Id rather hear a banging tune, than ‘clever’ sound design.
Id rather hear a good bassline, than oooh listen to those effects!
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The source is absolutely important IMO otherwise you enter the territory of deju vu, unless that is desired. It’s kind of a similar discussion to humanization. A good hardware example would be something like the Microcosm. I own one, and when you are familiar enough with it you start to hear that it has a specific tone to it and that the effects themselves are “samey”. Another example would be shimmer reverbs on the extreme ends of the spectrum. Valhalla Shimmer is a popular software one, and when you hear enough of it, you hear enough of it. Not dismissing these as tools BTW, just giving my thoughts.
So
1.) source is your building block
2.) if the effect is going to be your instrument then you should attempt to play it like one or modulate it rather than have it sit in a static config
Ambient in general is a topic
This 
You start to understand when dealing with these type of algorithm effects that you can hear the algorithm. To be honest, I think a lot of people also generally misuse effects but there are no rules in music. For me effects are like my spices & herbs in cooking - used in moderation / small doses.
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Something having good sounds isn’t really related to how much in cost nowadays. I don’t own one, but the S1 sounds fantastic in the demos I’ve heard. If I wanted that sort of thing I would not hesitate to grab it and I would happily place it alongside any other voice.
I think more in terms of the character of a sound rather than the sound quality of a sound.
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Yeah nah, saying the sound source is important is like saying there’s good sound sources and bad sound sources but it doesn’t work like that.
If you start to think this way, then you’ll need the right computer with the right specs, then the right DAW, then the right vsts, then the right mouse, then the right chair, then the right hardware things, then the right room, then the right wife, then the right life… You’ll end up at 50 with no finished tracks because you procrastinated again and again.
So fuck this, the only important thing in art is to make things.
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Totally. If you’re just as inspired with a $200 S-1 as you would be with a $2k Virus, and it enables you to create, then mission accomplished.
I like using effects as instruments, so I’m not too snobby about sound sources. Granted, some source sounds are so perfect that I don’t want to alter them too much.
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I like this idea. I often sample something—anything—into Koala with the iPad mic, crop it to a single cycle or so, and use that as an oscillator. A few FX and I have something interesting, and it’s usually faster than fiddling with a synth.
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Actually the S-1 is an excellent sound source ^^
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I think it all depends on the context of the song. The thickest analog oscillator without any FX applied might sound completely out of place in a song, whereas a single tinny sounding piano note captured with a cell phone microphone can elevate a song to new heights with just a touch of reverb. Or the other way around. Within the big picture of a well composed piece of music, no matter the genre, the source is completely irrelevant, I’d say. But yes, it certainly helps to have a “good” sounding, inspiring starting point though.
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To expand on this, the quality of a sound taken in exclusion is pretty much irrelevant if you don’t consider that quality in relation to the quality of the other sounds that are placed around it, and the way that they play off one another or stick together, with or without effects depending on what you want to do with them.
In my most recent release I used a small clip of a voice recorded on a crappy microphone with background noise, and in my opinion, the small slices I took from it which have a slightly mp3 warbling quality sound rubbish on their own, but really great in the actual composition.
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Good is hard to quantify I think and it’s totally dependent on the song, so it’s more about choosing the ‘right’ sound for the specific use case. In some instances that sound may only be possible form a £2k super synth like the virus, in other instances something like the S1 is perfect for the job, another time it might be a wooden spoon on a saucepan…
The S1 may be significantly cheaper and less ‘versatile’ than the virus (by design) but I’d argue it is still a ‘good’ sound source. But anything is if it gives you the end result you need.
I recently recognised a similar thing in my guitar collection. I’ve played guitar for years and have had a number of expensive guitars and was quite ‘snobby’ when it came to brands, wood types etc. I recently decided to get a bass. In many respects they are similar but I didn’t have any of the same prejudices so I picked up a squire mustang. I love it. Looks great, feels good, sounds good. Opened my eyes to stuff I was missing in the guitar world as well.
If it makes a sounds someone, somewhere will make music with it, the rest is just a matter of taste.
Yes, I believe that the sound source is secondary. I don’t mean that it doesn’t matter, but rather that I don’t think that the type of devices with which it was created is relevant for, for example, a viewer or listener. It is like if people go to see a paint exhibition and start talking about the type of pigments or what kind of brushes were used. It’s important, but not so much
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I don’t know if the synth itself matters, but choosing/creating the right sound with it (or using the right samples in the case of drums) is I think where I have improved with my music the most in the past 18 months or so. The difference is huge when you can get your sounds in, do a rough mix of panning and volume, and it sounds almost like a finished track versus when you get your sounds in, do a rough mix, then have to EQ and do transient design before the track starts to sound good. That’s not to say that I don’t do any EQ or compression anymore, I just find I need a lot less of it to get where I want to be and I think that’s a good thing. So by taking my time with sound selection (say an extra half hour) I can save myself 1-2 hours in the mix because my sounds need less work to fit together.
As far as where those right sounds come from, I don’t really care. I have expensive and cheap hardware and software, and I use it all. I was just showing someone a track I made using mostly the free BBC SO plugin from Spitfire and some free drum samples I picked up last year (via Atlas 2, which is not free). But then the one synth sound in the song comes from DUNE 3, which is not an inexpensive VST. In every case in that song, though, I feel I was using the right tool for the job.
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Wasnt this how the Fairlight was so esteemed. Great sound sources that stood out. Now its just a pile of junk. It doesnt matter as long as you have fun with whatever tools you’ve got. Nobody cares.
I personally think the source matters in the respect, how much flexibility you have with it. In the Iridium there is 3 OSC with 5 different type, user Wavetable, Waveforms, FM, Particle, Sample. It has a build in sequencer to animate the oscillators - that is 100% flexible, it can also blend in the sequences when a CC value is send to the sequence - that means you can blend in the animation, where it can have 8 automation lanes, with multiple targets.
I dont have seen this flexibility in any other synth, besides maybe soft synth, with macro controls. This is far better than any reverb ping i could imagine.
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