making your own software synth

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lordpyro
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making your own software synth

Post by lordpyro » Fri Nov 07, 2008 3:43 pm

Hey

Does anybody know how to create a software synth good enough to sell commercially? I read that you can create something with Synthedit, but that it runs too slow for use to sell..

if anyone has any information regarding this that would be great!

Pyro

slothrop
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Post by slothrop » Fri Nov 07, 2008 4:22 pm

Synthedit can create stuff that's good enough to sell commercially, but only if you've got a really really good original idea and the time and creativity and skill to do it seriously well and make it usable and attractive and the knowledge to make it run as efficiently as possible.

OTOH, if you want to do a 3 osc VA with a basic mod matrix, a distortion effect and a delay, the odds are that someone's already done it better for free. Particularly because you're essentially stuck with the sound of a finite set of oscillators and filters, which aren't bad, but which mean that you can't exactly claim to have a unique and amazing sounding filter.

The other option is to write your own filter modules and stuff in C++ to use in SynthEdit, but that requires a working knowledge of C++ and a fucking solid knowledge of DSP programming and the time and effort to produce something better sounding than what quite a lot of clever people have already tried to do.

SynthMaker seems to have similar sorts of capability to SynthEdit although the modules are lower level and you can write in your own code in 'code modules', although there again you're going to need to know a lot about DSP to make stuff that really sounds better than existing freeware.

Beyond that it's writing things from the ground up in C++ which requires you to not only be able to do all the DSP stuff by hand but also to be able to design and code your own gui elements.

I occasionally use SynthEdit to bang together little utility synths that are only really unique in having a very small feature set and doing exactly the things that I want for a given purpose, or to make strange and normally useless effects. I sometimes get tempted to start learning DSP - if I was going to, I'd probably go down the code-your-own synthedit modules route.

But yeah, it's not easy, otherwise people wouldn't be able to charge 200 quid a throw for well designed synths.

KvR is quite a good place to look for this sort of stuff, a lot of independent developers hang around there although be careful - they'll probably get annoyed if you start asking the DSP equivalent of "how do I make a wobble."

black lotus
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Post by black lotus » Fri Nov 07, 2008 5:43 pm

SynthEdit is awful, imo. It's only redeeming quality is that it is free.


If you really want to get into making your own software, look into:

- Reaktor
- Max/MSP (with Pluggo)
- Supercollider
- CSound


All are pretyt complicateed languages for desigining software, but if you're serious, you cna do it. I'm a Reaktor junkie myself, but I have a lot of Max/MSP friends who use it religiously.


Otherwise, good old C++

lordpyro
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Post by lordpyro » Fri Nov 07, 2008 5:49 pm

thanks Slothrop..Black Lotus, what makes SynthEdit suck?

slothrop
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Post by slothrop » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:07 pm

SynthEdit is mostly quite high level - your building blocks are "FM Oscillator" or "Multimode Filter" or "Moog Filter" or "ADSR Envelope" plus a few more open ended things like maths functions, timer functions, slew limiters, feedback line, wave player, some newish and quite nice low level gui elements etc. AIUI it's designed to be more like an analogue modular synth which has had some more open ended functions worked in than as a way of exploring entirely new modes of synthesis and processing. So if you wanted to explore phase-vocoding or clever FFT stuff or design a hybrid synth-sequencer or build your own variant granular synth (it has a pretty good and fairly open ended granulator module, but then you're limited to what that module is designed to do) then it'd be at best a pain in the arse (I've tried to build my own delay line granulator and it was a bitch) and at worst impossible.

On the other hand, if I want something to do a basic sinewave sub that resets the oscillator at the beginning of the note so it doesn't click, it takes about five minutes. And you can then export stuff to VST to use it and distribute it, which not every option gives you afaik.

I think it's also a pretty good choice if you want to code your own modules and learn to make better moog emulating filters or tube EQs or whatever - you can focus on DSP programming and not have to worry too much about gui design.

And there are some impressive things written in it - look at Drumatic, for instance, or Xoxos' stuff, or JackDark / Novuzeit's synths and FX, or Bones / Novakill's synths, to cover a fair range of what it's capable of.

kwality
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Post by kwality » Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:22 pm

Glad this thread has been given the seriousness it deserves - producing vsti's can either be an exercise in redundancy or something totally unique.

I messed with SynthEdit for quite a while and it seemed that if you want to do something worthwhile C++ was gonna be involved. But like Slothrop said if you need something to fulfil a specific purpose it's great. Everything that I've ever used from synthmaker seemed VERY cpu intensive, whether the sound lived up to it or not.

I can't help with the hardcore programming side of things, but I do know that a lot of synth builders collaborate with other experts to round out their skills. If you have something in mind, maybe look for coders/gui guru's etc.

Good luck and keep us posted!
Image

lordpyro
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Post by lordpyro » Sat Nov 08, 2008 4:51 pm

thanks for the responses!

I was always curious in general as to why if I have two programs on the computer why does Pro Tools sound better than Reason. Or really a better example, why does Atmosphere sound better (to my ears) than the synths in Reason? I was always curious about the sound engines and what makes one "better" sounding than the other (keep in mind that I do love Reason!)

after messing around with the wobbly basslines and creating certain Combinator patches, I realized that out of the basic building blocks of sound waves (sine, triangle, square, etc) that any sound can be created..

so I started thinking about creating my own synth sounds and why havent people did more with the Combinator patches (or maybe they do and this is my first time looking into it)...my only concern is that I would be spending a ridiculous amount of time creating something that may sound average when i can just go to Papen's Blue or Atmosphere and press play...

so that is where the creativity comes in and how do you create truly original sounds? or how do you create a great sounding sound engine? for that matter what makes a sound great in the first place?

8bit
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Post by 8bit » Sat Nov 08, 2008 7:38 pm

black lotus wrote:SynthEdit is awful, imo. It's only redeeming quality is that it is free.


If you really want to get into making your own software, look into:

- Reaktor
- Max/MSP (with Pluggo)
- Supercollider
- CSound


All are pretyt complicateed languages for desigining software, but if you're serious, you cna do it. I'm a Reaktor junkie myself, but I have a lot of Max/MSP friends who use it religiously.


Otherwise, good old C++
]

Synthedit is not shit

RGCAUDIO Z3TA+ was made on synthedit

and all ur big dubstep stars use dat vst

bevizz
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Post by bevizz » Sun Nov 09, 2008 6:49 pm

Z3TA was made on Synthedit? Who told you that,son? If I remember right,it was released long time before Synthedit.

black lotus
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Post by black lotus » Sun Nov 09, 2008 10:22 pm

8Bit wrote: Synthedit is not shit

RGCAUDIO Z3TA+ was made on synthedit

and all ur big dubstep stars use dat vst
you need to provide data for me to believe that. it was made by cakewalk/roland and i sincerely doubt that roland needs a crappy program like synthedit to produce their plugins.

bevizz
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Post by bevizz » Sun Nov 09, 2008 11:07 pm

Actually,it was made by a guy called Rene Ceballos if I remember right,Cakewalk got the rights to it when they aquired RGC or Ceballos started working for them.Or something like that :) Anyway, Synthedit wasn't involved in its creation at all,it's pure bollocks.

slothrop
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Post by slothrop » Mon Nov 10, 2008 1:00 am

Xoxos has some fairly impressive Synthedit plugs. It's got its limitations but it can do some fairly incredible stuff in the right hands.
lordpyro wrote:thanks for the responses!

I was always curious in general as to why if I have two programs on the computer why does Pro Tools sound better than Reason. Or really a better example, why does Atmosphere sound better (to my ears) than the synths in Reason? I was always curious about the sound engines and what makes one "better" sounding than the other (keep in mind that I do love Reason!)
Er, difficult question.

The first point is that "better" is a fairly subjective thing. Go to a plugin website like KvR and ask which synth has "the best sounding filters" or whatever and you'll probably get an epic flamewar.

Secondly, what you call the "sound engine" is actually a rather complex set of processes. You have oscillators that make sound, and different oscillators will be programmed in different ways - some will have different functions like an FM osc, a wavetable osc, a straight pulse / sine / sawtooth osc from a VA. Then there are subtleties in the way that the oscillator is implemented - so a lot of 'sawtooth' oscillators won't actually give a pure saw but will give something that's meant to sound better than that, or a badly coded oscillator might suffer from aliasing. You then get similar ranges of options and tricks and pitfalls for most of the other elements of a synth or effect. Sometimes whether or not to use a given method can be an aesthetic choice, like do you want your synth to sound clean and shiny or dark and dirty, sometimes something is closer to being an absolutely better option that almost everyone who knows about it will use.

So talking about a "better sound engine" is kind of a dodgy way to look at it. Also, it tends to end up with people talking about things like "Cubase's sound engine" which is like talking about "a Goodyear tyre's gearbox", it doesn't exist in any meaningful sense.
after messing around with the wobbly basslines and creating certain Combinator patches, I realized that out of the basic building blocks of sound waves (sine, triangle, square, etc) that any sound can be created..

so I started thinking about creating my own synth sounds and why havent people did more with the Combinator patches (or maybe they do and this is my first time looking into it)...my only concern is that I would be spending a ridiculous amount of time creating something that may sound average when i can just go to Papen's Blue or Atmosphere and press play...

so that is where the creativity comes in and how do you create truly original sounds? or how do you create a great sounding sound engine? for that matter what makes a sound great in the first place?
It sounds like you should look at Reaktor tbh, it's high on my list of things to get when I have some money. :D It seems like the ability to download other people's Reaktor patches is a good compromise between having access to a lot of new and interesting technical possibilities and turning into a DSP geek who never actually writes any music longer than a synth demo. Synthedit is a lot cheaper, but it sounds like a lot of the stuff that you're interested in isn't what it does well.

That said, off the shelf VST synths can do a great deal of stuff, particularly if you get properly into using stuff like wavetable synthesis, FM synthesis, PD synthesis, exploring all the options on your synths and so on. I mean, a lot of people are producing a lot of different sounds using even fairly basic synths, it's not like you need some uber modular experimental filter graintable thing to get beyond totally generic noises. You might just need to learn to use them better. Maybe before you drop a few hundred on Reaktor. :D Christ, I keep learning about new stuff Synth1 can do, and that's a really simple free VA, I've barely scratched the surface with more unusual forms of synthesis...

slothrop
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Post by slothrop » Mon Nov 10, 2008 2:14 am

kwality wrote:I messed with SynthEdit for quite a while and it seemed that if you want to do something worthwhile C++ was gonna be involved.
I dunno, it depends what you call 'worthwhile' really. I mean, there are quite a lot of Synthedit VSTs that I use regularly, that I'd happily pay a few quid for, and that are at least as good as a lot of hand-coded options in the same sort of price range or even some more expensive stuff. OTOH in principle there's nothing you can do in SE that someone couldn't do as well or better in C++ and in practice if I'm paying a lot of money for a synth then unless it's really original then it'll probably take a certain amount of hand-crafted stuff to elevate it above the cheaper options.

spencertron
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Post by spencertron » Mon Nov 10, 2008 2:20 am

i wouldn't bank on using Reaktor for programming synths to sell commercially...unless NI decide to implement VST export function in future versions (which has not been hinted at, apart from the old EI2 pack from NI which had VST versions, and they did not work at all well in comparison)...some do sell their reaktor builds but i honestly don't think they do very well out of it.

Currently anything made in reaktor can only be used with reaktor, so commercially you're very limited from the get go, and then you've got the reaktor community and library as your competitor aswell, and the builds which all the users put in the library is often as good as if not better than any commercial synth. There are few things that can't be done in Reaktor but you can't lock the programming structures so somebody could steal your work or atleast use it in their own work. you could always try the reaktor demo?

As for building sound engines...this is really on the level of building a programme from the ground up via C++...then trying to make it CPU efficient. Core in reaktor touches on this but i'm yet to get to that stage with reaktor as i still work with primary level structures
so that is where the creativity comes in and how do you create truly original sounds? or how do you create a great sounding sound engine? for that matter what makes a sound great in the first place?
Why not try *for free* something like PURE DATA http://puredata.info/ similar to Max/Msp, i have a couple of instruments that i have got from elsewhere which have been built in this, and you can explore the structures and try to understand whats going on with regards to the sound from the ground up...(personally i prefer the 'language' reaktor uses, reverse engineering and understanding synth structure is easier but it isnt a free programme)...

if pure data puzzles you why note try The Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing
By Steven W. Smith, Ph.D.
it's a free book (in PDF format) wich explains in detail DSP

http://www.dspguide.com/

I also read these which where pointed out on the reaktor forum as good for those who wish to begin building synths

Basic DSP info
http://www.dspguru.com

...more general DSP info (includes nice source-code archive):
http://www.musicdsp.org/index.php

...more general DSP info (includes nice page of links):
http://www.dspdimension.com/start.html

comp.dsp news-group FAQ:
http://www.bdti.com/faq/dsp_faq.htm

like i say, i still work at a primary level in reaktor so i'm probably not the best to venture into this thread too much if you're discussing making your own sound engine involving C++ but the above are good to read if you're interested in this sort of thing
http://www.myspace.com/purephase1
Full Melt | Cymbalism | Dirty Circuit | Filthy Digital | 8755

8bit
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Post by 8bit » Sat Nov 22, 2008 11:11 pm

black lotus wrote:
8Bit wrote: Synthedit is not shit

RGCAUDIO Z3TA+ was made on synthedit

and all ur big dubstep stars use dat vst
you need to provide data for me to believe that. it was made by cakewalk/roland and i sincerely doubt that roland needs a crappy program like synthedit to produce their plugins.
i decompiled the software and found it was made with the synthedit engine

vadarfone
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Post by vadarfone » Mon Nov 24, 2008 7:37 am

Oh really?

Care to post excerpts of the code which prove this?

grime8
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Post by grime8 » Mon Nov 24, 2008 7:45 am

absynth

i use soundforge to make synths from scratch too

fun stuff

nova.k
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Post by nova.k » Mon Nov 24, 2008 10:29 am

8Bit wrote:
black lotus wrote:
8Bit wrote: Synthedit is not shit

RGCAUDIO Z3TA+ was made on synthedit

and all ur big dubstep stars use dat vst
you need to provide data for me to believe that. it was made by cakewalk/roland and i sincerely doubt that roland needs a crappy program like synthedit to produce their plugins.
i decompiled the software and found it was made with the synthedit engine
Paint me curiously cynical.

a) I don't know many thirteen year olds who would know how to program let alone decompile an app.

b) assuming it was written in C++, a decompile would give you assembler code - nothing that would indicate what the source application was. crackers know how to stop apps from checking for cds in drives and whatnot because they can intercept the machine code calls to do stuff with the cdrom... it's a black art and to do things that advanced you really need to know your stuff. so yeah... i'd love to see what source code indicated that to you.

i supose you could decompile both apps and run some kind of comparison on both sets of assembler and see how much matches up... pretty unlikely though ;)

bevizz
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Post by bevizz » Mon Nov 24, 2008 12:42 pm

It looks like at some point in time we might read,that you can decompile professional VSTi's with Synthedit or Synthmaker,and that it is possible to create vst's with Reaktor while not working for Native Instruments :P

black lotus
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Post by black lotus » Tue Nov 25, 2008 5:33 pm

8Bit wrote:
black lotus wrote:
8Bit wrote: Synthedit is not shit

RGCAUDIO Z3TA+ was made on synthedit

and all ur big dubstep stars use dat vst
you need to provide data for me to believe that. it was made by cakewalk/roland and i sincerely doubt that roland needs a crappy program like synthedit to produce their plugins.
i decompiled the software and found it was made with the synthedit engine
oh gosh now i believe you because you said so! actually, you have to show some real proof, and not just your word.

what decompiler did you use? post undeniable codes, plzthx.


seriously, you can't make this claims without providing links.

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