Hey folks, something I am really into is easy to use, sound good right out of the bag instruments. But as we get better some of us still gravitate to those plugins that were such a pain to understand at first… and probably are to some extent. The most obvious one that most have struggled with is Massive, which is notorious for being over complicated.
I was wondering what plugins you have that you are a bit like this with… that you use fairly often, even if your not exactly sure what will come out because of guess work.
I’ll start. For me it’s the flow motion plugin from Waves. Wow is it powerful, but it’s based on a true FM synthesis platform so it has tonnes of layers you can unfold… this usually means that I’m guessing what’s going to heppen everytime I touch something yet when I use it I still get amazing results.
Well, I have a few that sound great and have great presets, but I only really use them for just that; using presets with some basic tweaking. The “learning curve” in these cases is basically just lack of motivation to learn them properly, so whenever I want to tweak something, I have to look around for a bit, or read the manual.
My absolute favorite so far is kiloHearts Phase Plant - which doesn’t actually have much of a learning curve at all, in itself! However, what you can actually do with it depends on your understanding of sound synthesis, and/or how much time you’re willing to spend experimenting, so I suppose it might come across as alien and scary to some. For me, it’s like coming from assembly to a scripting language, but even so, modular synthesis means practically unlimited possibilities, and there are always new approaches and techniques to learn.
Highly recommended! It instantly became my goto synth for from-scratch sound design, both simple and complex stuff.
Previously starring: Serum, followed by VPS Avenger. Both very competent and capable synths with lots of great presets. Serum is quick and efficient, whereas Avenger might be slightly more cumbersome to work with, but allows for bigger and more complex patches. Phase Plant kind of beats them both on both accounts.
(That said, all synths have their personalities, strengths and weaknesses, and I don’t think there will ever be One Synth To Rule Them All. )
Will definitely try it out. Totally agree btw. I use various synths for different jobs. I will say that my personal favourite is Massive still (not massive x), as I learnt it inside out so I can basically make most sounds.
Highly recommend flow motion though it’s very good once you get into it! There’s just so many layers as everything feeds into eachother, extremely fun synth!
I picked up Flow Motion when it was introduced, played around with it a bit, liked it - and then I was sidetracked. I should probably keep a list of tools and ideas for further research!
lol this happens with so much that I get I think we gravitate around certain things even after we buy new things. That’s ok though as they always come around again!
I think Flow Motion - with its “live sequencer motion recording” was designed to specifically focus on happy accidents. While I don’t claim to master it at any extent, I use Flow Motion specifically for that and actually find “specific sound designing” with it quite boring. I use Arturia Pigments also for that same reason. I think it has some nice filters and nice randomizers and the oscilators are “basic good” and all that. What I find really fun is to just do a little pluck sound and go to town with the arpeggiator or sequencer and randomize stuff and just change parameters on the fly. Like jamming, but for software I could probably come up with a lot more VSTs I use for “random jamming”
But as to learning curve and returning to some synth, I’d have to say Serum. Five years ago, it made absolutely no sense to me at all. I would just go through presets and be kinda happy with those. I’d twist a knob and go “oh, nothing happened… How about this one? … Woah! Ow, my ears… Wonder if I could dial back to it… No… Load another preset”
Fastworward to today, I still have no idea how to do FM with Serum, but I’m confident enough to start making my own sounds if I know what I need. I now-a-days only browse through presets if I’m outt of ideas.
I’ve recently really started to go in depth with flow motion because as you say, it’s quite random. Though to a point I’d have to disagree with its application but I’ll explain why because you pointed out something about serum which I can help with
So the reason why Flow motion is so random sometimes is because it’s based on a propper FM synthesiser. Fm synthesis is essentially a different way to modulate your wavetsble. The way you do that in FM synthesis is to take a second Oscillator and feed it into your first oscillator. Depending on the direction, wave type or other variable within the plugin this creates a new sound, as the wave shape has been altered. This is FM synthesis at its most basic. Then you ca. Ad LFOs and envelopes to alter the sound further, which will give you different sounds as you do so. That’s the most complex it gets… from this you can then affect you effects too. So flow motion imitates this almost perfectly within its sleek interface. It’s probably the best digital FM synth out there for that reason.
Now for Serum. Firstly, Serum is awesome, but it’s not a true Fm synth. It’s actually a PM synth that has a bit of FM capacity. The only part of FM synthesis you can do is the first part , affecting your first Oscillator with a second wavetable. To do this all you do is on your first oscillator in the FM part just click on the option for the other oscillator and turn it up. Essentially you’ll hear a bit of distortion and gain change but that’s pretty much it. This is basically just an imitation as Serum is trying to give you a flavour of FM synthesis. I’m real FM you’d also get phasingissues, clanging and possibly a bit of filtering because there’s so much going on… but Serum basically just thickens the part for you. You can then detune in Serum and it will still perform thr patch in PM as you’ll get that super thick synth sound, just with the extra thickness.
So Serum won’t do the same things that Flow Motion will do, but it does give a flavour. I hope that helps in terms of doing that in Serum, but I’d stick to learning Flow Motion to a level where you’d able to utilise that FM style to its most potential… and the great thing is you still won’t get exactly what you expect, but you’ll end up with more happy accidents… which is why I chose to talk about flow motion as my own too haha
yet when I use it I still get amazing results.
)
I could probably come up with a lot more VSTs I use for “random jamming”