The Syntakt Feature Request Thread

yeah, track swapping would be a godsend for prepping stuff for gigs / performance

An attempt to ā€œmaximizeā€ the phasing effect in the Syntakt. Running through some patterns.

It can sound fairly swooshy, but I can’t make it do thick ā€œresonancyā€ phasing like for example Small Stone.

20 Likes

Sounds amazing tbh, well done! What are your settings? I’m guessing you need a lot of harmony though? Would it work on an acid lead that has shorter decay filter envelope already?

Thanks! The settings vary a bit between the patterns, but in general I’m using the double-notch setting at zero resonance and an LFO to sweep the filter frequency. The chords starting around 0:50 - here the frequency is p-locked.

It might work on an acid lead, I guess it depends on the high frequency content of the signal. The zero resonance setting is the most effective due to the wider frequncy notches, but at the same time you need to make sure that the notches move within roughly the same frequency band as the signal you want to process. That all sounded very scientific n shit lol, better just go ahead and experiment :slight_smile: Play around with the double notch setting, and the filter frequency of your acid lead. Good luck!

3 Likes

well, that certainly sounds quite phasey to me

A small engine with 909 and 808 sample please. Digitone FM engine , and voice reallocation between this engines, and ideally also the new drum engines from the DN2.

A master LFO, which i can send to all engines. A transpose track, and random note values, which i can plock.

A phaser fx, a comb filter, and usable performance macros - similar to A4, controlling multiple tracks at once, and are controllable via remote CC.

Also something like the Bode fx from serum 2, would be cool.

3 Likes

Not sure if this is the right place for this question but searched and couldn’t find another relevant thread. How are ST users adjusting master volumes between patterns? Track by track? It’s one of the main reasons I want a master compressor but maybe I’m overlooking something?

1 Like

I don’t think there’s any ā€œtrickā€ to it, it has to be done manually (if someone knows a trick, please do share). This is one of the reasons kits are so often requested. Hopefully we can get kits, a compressor, or both some day soon, because adjusting volume or making changes to a sound across patterns is one of the bigger time sinks when I’m working on the Syntakt :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

Admire your persistence when it comes to tinkering. I get the feeling I’m going in circles pretty quick when I’m messing about, as in ā€˜why do I always end up with the same sound?’, and then I quit and just use a preset instead of really digging in. But hearing your creations tells me there’s more to discover. I should just go on instead of stopping. It’s in the really fine tuning I guess? I tend to move to the maximums/minimums to quickly feeling like ā€˜inbetween is just what I’m getting to, only softer’…I might need to drop that attitude. For the Digitone it’s just the inexperience with FM synths. Both the DNII and ST CAN make beautiful varied sounds, now it’s up to me to dig up those treasures.

2 Likes

Thanks. I guess the sound design part is an integral part of my music making. I’m not particularly good with chords or melodies, for me the good stuff happens in the intersection between rhythm, harmonies and sound design.

There’s definitely a lot to extract from the ST, and I feel there’s tons to discover yet. But I get the frustration with bouncing back to its basic sound. It can be quite prominent for some reason, and needs some effort to get away from. Don’t give up, you’ll get there.

A tip: The very first thing I did when I got the ST was to make one or more patterns with only a single machine. I filled up a project this way, going through most of its machines. Just to explore them fully, and find the potential.

It’s not my first time :slight_smile: When the Machinedrum came out, I used it almost exclusively for 4-5 years. The Syntakt is the Machinedrum 2.0 for me. Similar but refined process, different machines, lots of new stuff to explore. I love that process.

4 Likes

Same here, I go track by track. Tedious, but sometimes necessary. The most annoying part is when the sound character changes due to lower input volume to the FX track…

2 Likes

Do you happen to know if the volumes on the mixer page are post fx?

Sy Chip has square wave with pwm

That’s Sy Bits, also with square and pwm :wink:

1 Like

If I remember right there’s a setting for the behavior of the master track and mixer I think, switching between per pattern or global.

Hmm, not sure I’m aware of this. Also not sure if it would solve my issues, especially if I have different engines on each track between patterns (which is definitely the case). Will look into it though so thx

I think the main point of the mixer pages is just to gather all track volumes in one place. If you adjust the volume of track 1 on the mixer page, this change is reflected on the track page.

The same goes for the routing. Whatever routing is selected on a specific track is reflected on the mixer page. So the mixer page is only a convenience, not added functionality.

It would be great to be able to run tracks simultaneously through the FX track and directly to the master outs though!

1 Like

Essentially the volumes you see on the mixer page for tracks 1-12 are ā€œpre FXā€. As @Nils said, these track volumes are the same ones that display on the left side of the screen when an individual track is selected. You can also set these levels in the mixer page to be ā€œglobalā€ meaning they will be the same for all patterns within a project. But the mixer doesn’t add functionality (other than page 3 dealing with the external input volume and routing).

If the routing is confusing, you can think of this track volume from the mixer page as the last volume adjustment before a track is sent to delay or reverb send, likewise it’s the last volume control before a track is routed to the analog FX block.

The gain staging goes as follows (someone please correct me if I got this wrong): you have an oscillator or sound generator, which goes into the overdrive on the Syn page (all machines have this overdrive except for UT NOISE and UT IMPULSE, which still have an extra ā€œlevelā€ control in place of overdrive). This is your earliest volume control in the signal path. The next volume control is the Vol on the AMP page. This is functionally very similar to overall track level, but the difference is that this parameter is ā€œper noteā€, meaning it can be P-locked. Final volume control in the signal path is the overall track level as displayed on the left (and in the mixer page). It will adjust the volume regardless of parameter locks or sends. All three of these controls attenuate the level of the track before it goes to reverb, delay, and/or FX block.

Anything going into FX block will additionally be affected by the drive, amp volume, and FX block overall track level. Anything going into reverb or delay will be also be affected by send level (amp page) and return level (mixer page 2 or reverb/delay settings page).

Hope that wasn’t incorrect or confusing :sweat_smile:

6 Likes

That’s exactly how I understood it, and explained clearly :+1:

1 Like

I failed to imagine whole scheme of audio routing, fx routing, sends, returns and etc. :joy:
Ended up with drawing scheme in Escalidraw. :man_facepalming:

1 Like

Great explanation and unfortunately how I understand the signal flow too. I was actually hoping that I had missed something haha that would make it possible to change all levels (via a ctrl all command or something) post fx in order to level the master volume between patterns without changing the sound character of patterns due to driving the fx track and sends differently.

***Not saying there’s anything wrong or unusual about amplitude changes affecting the character of an overdrive/filter/reverb, just that I want a quick way to level master volumes across patterns (like an output knob on a master compressor;)

2 Likes