I can highly recommend this sound pack from @colectivo_triangular
Twisted Electrons MEGAfm Patches: "Magnitude Sound Pack"
Sounds absolutely amazing
I can highly recommend this sound pack from @colectivo_triangular
Twisted Electrons MEGAfm Patches: "Magnitude Sound Pack"
Sounds absolutely amazing
It’s hard to know where to begin, but if you suggest a type of sound or effect that you’re looking for then maybe we can recommend some different approaches.
Anyone find the bass dissappears due to phase cancellation when in unison mode whilst using the stereo outputs ?
Yeah but that happens with some other synths I have as well, like the Korg Opsix and Dreadbox Nymphes.
Ok, good to know. As long as my unit isn’t buggered then i can work around it.
I’ve written email to them about this issue. Curious to see, if it will be addressed somehow. In the meanwhile, I will have to do a bit of maintenance from time to time, to re-save patches from some temporary “safely empty” slots to other banks / slots, where I will place them one after another without empty slots in between.
hi amosh
that’s my YT channel/patch. glad you like it! it turned into a song, track 4, ombre, on umbral | tsrono
i went ahead and grabbed the patch bank from my MegaFM and uploaded to my site at MegaFM video - [ t s r o n o ] where you can download the sysex of the patch bank. it’s the 57/07 patch, but i’m quite sure i made a few small changes to the patch between this save of it you’re getting and that initial version used in the video. probably not much, but nonetheless you may want to tweak a bit if you’re trying to exactly replicate the video patch.
edited to say these were my first MegaFM patches so if you or anyone are digging through the patches don’t expect them to be level matched or even very good lol…i’ve used at least a few others in tracks as well but these weren’t designed for release or sharing so keep that in mind.
After some discussion in the Liven Megadrive synth thread I decided to see how the MEGAfm sounded compared to the Plogue Chipsynth MD which aims to be an accurate emulation in plugin form. It was hard to test this as the Plogue VST has a 5 minute window to do settings. Honestly it is such an annoying form of demo, just give me a week long access, 5 minutes isn’t enough time to really check this out.
It is a cool vst though and on the surface looks like its the same exact engine. Theres even the Genesis sampler in there as well which also sounds pretty nice. And you can set which chip set to use. I have the MEGAfm MK2 so I used the appropriate emulation for this test.
I recorded a somewhat bassy section and then a higher pitched section. I tried to get the settings to match exactly. There was no clipping in the recording at any point, levels should be close.
See if you can spot which ones which:
hmmmmm
Yeah that’s it. I think in the higher pitched loop it’s more obvious because you can hear the noise better.
The bass note I really couldn’t figure out why the plugin sounded like it was overdriven / clipping. As far as I could tell I was on the same algorithm with the same feedback and multiplier settings. But again, I had 5 minutes to quickly copy the settings and then record before I had to start from scratch again. I would rather have an audio drop out or a longer timed window that didn’t allow me to use the plugin anymore than a 5 minute window.
oh wow! actually I thought the higher pitched loop was harder to pick heheh
I did briefly try the Plogue Chipsynth a couple of years back. I remember not really liking the interface, but as you say the main issue was the demo time out just doesn’t give you enough time to get to know it. So I just deleted it, got a MegaFM mk1 and moved on
I do think this has confirmed for me that the MEGAfm has enough of its own character that it isn’t wasted. Plus it’s two of those chips and the stereo-ness if the synth is really cool. But the Plogue plugin is a very good sounding plug in and gets close enough that it’s a good alternative especially for the price. I bet it’s going to be far more accurate than the Liven groove box option.
It just sucks that I can’t demo it long enough to really make more complex patches on both and compare. I do think the Plogue SNES sampler sounds pretty damn accurate though. I would probably insta-buy a hardware sampler if it was modeled after and featured all the same controls as the SNES sampler with its delay.
“It just sucks that I can’t demo it long enough to really make more complex patches on both and compare”
Then buy it. 49.95$ only and it is amazing, like all of their plugins. It worth every penny.
I own both MegaFM and and Plogue Chipsynth MD and both are brilliant.
Yeah but if I can’t demo it long enough to make a decision I’m not dropping $50 on it lol.
5 minutes is really not good enough to be able to demo it. I could flip through some presets but I can’t do anything advanced. Compare to other programs and plugins, like Phaseplant, where I can demo it for an entire week before I lose access.
Mine just arrived yesterday.
Haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, but looking forward to it.
There’s a YM2612 FPGA clone that was being worked on a while back. No news on it since it seems, but I’m hoping something like that surfaces. It would be cool to put a pair of them in this for a “clean” option. I’m someone that likes 8580 SIDs, ARMSIDs, and other clean options for certain old noisy chips, and the interface on this thing would be fantastic to operate a couple of clean chips if they eventually surface. In the meantime, I’m going to see what kind of dirt I can squeeze out of this.
I took delivery of one yesterday and it was absolutely filthy. I need to RTFM as it didn’t do what I expected when I was tweaking a few times, but I think I get the basics at least. I had mine hooked up mono for about 5 minutes before I ran it into my Matrixbrute to use the FX on that (also wonderfully dirty) and it worked well adding some much needed width with the right flavor.
Absolutely LOVING this thing. I was a bit worried that it would be noisier than I’d like from some of the demos out there. (and not noise like original chip tunes made on the Megadrive/OPLs/etc. but excessive noise) Turns out, that just dropping the main volume down to around 30-30 makes everything as clean as one could expect from these chips. Then if you want some dirt, turn that back up.
The next thing that’s making it really amazing for me, is sequencing it from a MIDI track on the Syntakt, and running the audio back in through the Syntakt’s FX chain. Being able to filter the MegaFM (and per step even) duck it, cut the release phase a bit to remove some noise when it’s not wanted, etc. just makes the MegaFM sound amazing! It also adds a bit of punch to it.
I’m REALLY happy that I picked one of these up.
Also got some very Cortini-esque sequences out of it last night, just triggering one note, and then changing the multipliers on each operator to bring harmonics in and out.
Getting used to how the envelopes are set up finally too. I knew they were a little different already, but it didn’t prepare me for some of the nuances between stages. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on this thing now.
You got a Mk2 right?
You should definitely try out looping some envelopes if you haven’t already. You may need to update the firmware for that if it’s on an older version. It can add even more complexity and texture to the sound, though note that saving/reloading a patch with looping envelopes is buggy atm and you probably won’t be able to get the same timing back again.
Yes, Mk2. I haven’t checked my firmware yet. I’ve just been using LFOs for the moment, but will definitely try looping envelopes. I’m a huge fan of them.
Just being able to apply an envelope from the Syntakt though on top of what’s going on on the MegaFM is super-handy.