#Synth Presets

[bmpmp3]

holy FUCK IA's voisona 2.0 is OUT

[xirae]

Didn't know I was literally Merzbow......... I need to start a harsh noise project sometime !

[nocturnal-ds]

Oh my god, why are the presets for some of the synthesizers in MuseScore 4 fucking different.

[synthtv]

Oberheim TEO-5 Demo

[ariyan24]

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[krazetv]

STACCATO by Artistry Audio - Preset Playthrough | Synths in Motion

[pukicho]

So puki you make music, whats your setup like? Audio interface, software, etc etc. Askin cuz I wanna get into the scene

Well I wanna preface this with a few things!! I have spent 90% of my money on music stuff! I love it and have spent like 13 years acquiring this shit, but here is my studio from like 6 months ago

A FEW THINGS HAVE CHANGED SINCE THIS! I no longer have the Pro 3 and swapped it for… nothing! I just sold it, also I cleaned up those cables.

To keep it simple, I have an Apollo x8 audio interface, its the best sounding interface I’ve ever owned, all my synths go into the Apollo, I don’t have a mixer but I 100% need one, I have so many little synths not in use as a result of my lack of inputs!! I have an 8 channel midi host hidden behind some shit, and that really fucking helps. For the love of god don’t use USB midi for big synth setups like mine, it sucks. It pays to learn MIDI shit.

My current synth tower includes the Moog Matriarch, Udo Super 6 and the prophet 6 - under the desk is my OB6! I also own a few doodads like the elektron octatrak mk2, the eowave quadrantid swarm and the 0-coast - I use Adam A77x speakers and some nice headphones!

This is all stupid overkill and not necessary to make good music, I am just a whore, and I have lofty plans and projects! All u need is a focusrite (or a UA volt preferably, sounds better) a good vst like serum or vital (free serum but less presets and worse effects) and some samples u can get from splice or some shit - and maybe a nice MIDI controller - as for daws I suggest FL since its great for learning, or ableton if you plan on going ham with beat making, logic is also a beast for apple users. Most importantly, have fun and don’t be a dick. Also if u think ur music is good 2 years in, it probably isn’t, always something to learn. Byebye

[painted-bees]

August 12, 2008.

 Magritte had only ever heard good things about Vancouver's Granville Island and so, naturally, it was the first place she set out to find upon arriving in the city. The Greyhound station her bus pulled into had been only a short walk from the Skytrain that would carry her two minutes to Granville Station. And it was here that Magritte had the good sense to find a nice, unintrusive space to sit cross-legged and lay her old, faithful piano keyboard across her lap.

  The instrument, pulled out of its cozy bed from within her large duffel bag, was a well loved Yamaha PSS-270. Its dull, black, plastic body was covered in ancient, disintegrating stickers, and a generous amount of electrical tape served to hold its batteries in place.

  With an affectionate press of a button, she woke the machine up from its slumber, selected her choice presets and, with no specific setlist in mind, began to improvise a little tune. Something cute and fun, perhaps a little bit like Donkey Kong’s Stickerbrush Symphony in tempo and progression. Or just…”Stickerbrush Symphony”, wholesale, why the hell not? Improvisation melted seamlessly into the classic video game tunes that were fondly familiar to her.

The beloved instrument cradled in Magritte’s lap had been pulled apart and reassembled more times than she kept track of. But still, it held together and played its charming FM sounds dutifully. A tidy row of silver metal switches, lined up along the side of its body, were left carefully undisturbed as her fingers danced across the yellowed plastic keys. Magritte had learned very early in her busking career that the general public did not appreciate the unpredictable discordinance of a bent circuit as much as she did. And so that row of silver little switches connecting the data lines stood stoically in their ‘on’ position, not allowing for any delightful surprises, but also not deteriorating the synth-chip’s sound into glitchy noise on a bad turn. Perfectly vanilla, perfectly agreeable, endearingly nostalgic.

 She had placed an old ball cap upside down infront of her, tossing in a few quarters of her own as a way of inviting more from friendly pockets. Ideally, she’d play an hour or two and leave with enough change to buy a coffee. Not just a Tim’s coffee–no. She wanted a decadent foamy latte from a cute, artsy little cafe she could sit in. She couldn’t bear to walk through the streets of Granville Island without having the spare change to treat herself on an impulse. And so–she’d not leave the train station until the passing public funded her frivolous spending habits.

After all, it was her birthday. She deserved a little gift.

 Busking in a transit station was always a bit of a trade-off. It was a bustling place full of foot traffic but the people here were focused on reaching their destination; busy and preoccupied. In a place like this, Magritte had no expectation to captivate loiterers. Not many transit-goers could spare a minute or two to sit and listen while she hammered out her cheap little tunes on cheap little piano keys. And so, when a well worn pair of tan colored, loose-laced Timberlands entered her field of vision, stopping definitively to stand before her, Magritte turned her gaze upward to welcome the listener with a wide, sloppy smile.

 Without giving her brain time to register the face she was speaking to, Magritte opened her mouth to chime a cheery greeting. She was cut off faster than she could process his expression.

  “You’re in my spot.”

  The man’s voice was curt, and the cold annoyance in his tone was mirrored in the expression on his short, square face. Pale blue eyes looked down a sharp, slightly bent nose at her. His narrow lips were pressed narrower still in a stern line, framed by a full, sandy colored beard and moustache. Atop his head, long hair of the same light color was pulled back into a small, tight bun; more slick and tidy, but far less full than the sloppy bun that Magritte’s unruly mane of curly rust colored hair had been wrangled up into.

 Her dorky smirk dissolved with a few confused blinks into a slack jaw of nervous apology. “O-oh! I uh-s-sorry!” 

Her startled gaze snagged itself on the acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder, and the instrument’s exciting potential made her straighten her back with intent.

 She found her smile again. “What if–maybe we could jam? For a few minutes! And then I can scoot on outta here and leave you to it if you want. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to–”

 “Do you have a permit?” His tone was unchanged by her eager proposition.

 “Huh?” It wasn’t that Magritte didn’t hear him, but she needed a moment to process what was being asked.

 “You can’t be here without a permit. Not the stations, not anywhere in Granville either.” The unaccommodating man took a few steps towards her duffel bag and used the top of his foot to lift and slide it away from where she had safely tucked it. “Get a move on.”

 Magritte protectively reached out to grab her bag as the man carelessly footed it out of ‘his’ space. And in doing so, she caused her keyboard to slide off her lap, forcing her to clumsily abort her duffel-grabbing effort in favor of clutching her instrument before it could somersault over the edge of her knees and land face-down onto hard ground.

 The man, it seemed, was done with words and had already begun moving into the small space that shoving her bag out of the way had created. She felt her face turn hot as she began to gather up her items. Any desire to engage the guy more than she already had was lost along with her nerve.

 As she relented to stowing her keyboard back into her duffel bag, an unfamiliar hand shoved a cold, unopened can of Coke in front of her face.

 “Here you go.” Another man’s voice. A softer one, this time. Magritte glanced up to meet eyes with the stranger who was offering her a free drink, only to gaze into a pair of red, plastic, star shaped dollar store sunglasses.

He gave the soda can a little shake, prompting her to take it into her hands. “Sorry I took long, I had to give someone directions to the aquarium.”

 “Is this…for me?” Holding the can in both hands, Magritte stared at the unopened beverage, unsure what to do with it.

 The new stranger leaned onto his back foot. “You said coke, right?”

 Before Magritte could stammer out a response, the new stranger turned his attention to the man with the guitar. “‘Ey, Kurtis. You mind, dude?”

 The unaccommodating man, ‘Kurtis’, had just started settling in, and looked towards the new stranger with an expression that appeared as perplexed as Magritte herself felt. He turned up both his palms in a slightly contentious gesture. “Didn’t know you were playin’ here again. I’ve had this spot for, like, a year. People don’t usually park here without asking me first.”

 “Okay, but you can’t just kick ‘em out like this, man.”

 “I didn’t know she was with you–”

“Doesn’t matter,” Magritte’s new best friend replied. “Sixty minutes. It’s not a long time to wait if you gotta wait.”

 Magritte, who had been watching Kurtis’ confidence slowly drain from his body with each passing second, turned to examine the cut of her spontaneous new accomplice. His hair was a shade or two darker than Kurtis’, and trimmed much, much shorter, with longer locks in front that fell in straight tufts over the tops of his ears and just past his thick, blocky eyebrows. His eyes remained obscured by the cheap plastic shades, and their childish novelty paired strangely with the well trimmed goatee that fanned out from under his lip to define the curve of his somewhat long but gentle chin. And he had with him a rectangular instrument case of…some variety. Not big enough for a guitar, not small enough for a flute. It didn’t give away the shape of the instrument inside, but the black oxford cloth and gold colored metallic detailings of its exterior gave it a classy, charming look she had not seen for an instrument case before. It was cute. Magritte wondered if such a style was available for portable keyboards.

 His hands, which wore white fingerless driving gloves, cracked open his can of sprite, and he took a casual sip while waiting for Kurtis to, “Get a move on.”

  Relenting, Kurtis shuffled away from the spot he had been deliberately crowding Magritte out of. With a snort and a nod of his head towards her, Kurtis said, “Can’t exactly play Paganini on a Portasound, Raf. What’s on your setlist?”

  Raf brandished a lopsided smirk and jutted his chin in the direction of Magritte’s upturned hat on the ground. “Put a toonie down and I’ll show you.”

  “Fuck off.” Kurtis’s scoff was accompanied by a laugh–one that sounded surprisingly genuine to Magritte's ear. “I came here to earn change, not spend it. But I’m curious to hear how the Ephrem Classical pairs with Toy Piano.”

 Raf let out a low groan that could have been mistaken for a growl. Moving into the corner that Kurtis had surrendered, he unslung his instrument off his shoulder with a shrug. “There’s plenty you can play on just forty-nine keys.”

 Being very confident about this fact, Magritte couldn’t help but provide her insight on the matter. With an enthusiastic lean-in, she interjected, “Yeah, like Kirby’s Dreamland!”

 Raf’s head flinched in her direction almost imperceptibly, and if she had caught the subtle downward twitch of his eyebrows that betrayed a pang of confusion, she might have felt a bite of embarrassment. But instead, she heard him agree. “Like…Kirby’s Dreamland, yeah.”

 He turned to look over his shoulder at her, his sunglasses mercifully hiding the bafflement in his eyes. Magritte beamed gleefully back up at him.

  “Well, have fun.” Kurtis levelled a stern yet somewhat pleading glance at Raf.” I’ll be back here in an hour. Don’t let anyone else move in if you leave early, please.”

 Raf simply shrugged and sipped loudly from his can of sprite in response.

  As Magritte watched Kurtis disappear into the foot traffic, she began to tentatively scoot back towards where she had previously sat. “I didn’t mind giving that guy his spot back, he was just kinda–”

 “A dick. Nah, I saw that. S’why I stepped in.” Raf had carefully set his instrument case down, and was in the process of zipping it open.

 Leaning slightly to get a peek at what he was playing, Magritte said, “Thanks for the pop, by the way! I can pay you back after. If uh–you’re actually gonna stick around and jam with me.”

 He pulled his instrument out of its protective cradle; a pale varnished wooden violin. “Don’t worry about it.”

Inside the carrying case, Magritte noticed two bows neatly stowed. The bowstrings on the bow Raf selected was a standard white color, but the strings on the one he left in the case were an eye-catching red.

“Truth be told,” tucking the chin rest of the violin beneath his chin, he played one string, and then two experimentally, “I don’t really play anymore.” His fingers closed around one of the tuning knobs at the head of the violin, but if he had tweaked it at all, it wasn't perceptible. “So it’s gonna be pretty rough. But uh…gotta commit to the bit, I guess.”

  Magritte took the moment to open her soda and enjoy a refreshing sip. “What kinda music do you normally play?” 

  “Classical,” he replied almost too quickly. “You?”

  Magritte hesitated for a second. She should have had an easy answer for this by now, but all she could manage was, “a bit of everything. Anything, really!”

  Raf ran his bow over the strings again to hear their tune before turning to look at her. “Yeah?” His eyebrows were raised, and his smirk favored one side of his face; an expression Magritte interpreted as incredulous. He fidgeted with a tiny, lone knob on the violin's body where the strings ended.

  “Y-yeah! I, um…” Settling her keyboard back into her lap, she turned it on. “You can just play whatever, and I can fill it in. I can improvise, I think.”

  Raf paused and stared down at Magritte’s little Portasound with a sigh much heavier than he intended. The thing was lacking, not just in keys, but in sound. It was a struggle to think of something he could play that she’d be able to accompany. The titles which did come to mind where…overplayed and would have to be simplified considerably to suit the keyboard's limitations. Weighing it in his mind, however, he decided that ‘simple’ may benefit not just the limited range of her instrument, but of her musical skill as well.

 He ran the bow over his strings to measure their tune one last time before tentatively, very slowly playing the first few crystalline notes of Für Elise. He felt a tension he didn’t know he was holding melt off his shoulders as he watched Magritte’s face light up. She curled over her little piano in a hurry to play his accompaniment. She knew this one.

  She picked a soft, more ambient sound from the keyboard’s voicebank, electing to quietly cushion the violin’s notes rather than chafe against them. It was…difficult. Her little yamaha and its quaint library of FM chip sounds did not get along nicely with ‘real instruments’ that were being played ‘straight’. It wanted to be weird and annoying, just like her. But the notes Raf played, while simple, were extremely clear in tone; neat and tidy. The bow did not once stutter on the rough strings, it glided with practised ease. And with a great deal of restraint.

  This guy…he was playing beneath his skill level. For her sake, presumably. Like a gentleman.

 As Raf brought Für Elise to a close with the last, steady draw of his bow, Magritte swapped her soft, ambient voicing out with an annoying music box sound, and began hammering out a choice section from the 3rd movement of Appassionata. Her fingers slammed the keys harder than was necessary, solely because she enjoyed the percussive sound it added to each obnoxious, feverish note. 

  Lowering his violin, Raf watched Magritte’s fingers flutter furiously across the mini keys with respectable precision. Holding both the bow and the neck of his violin in one hand, his free hand reached up to remove his sunglasses and he rubbed his eye with the heel of his palm. A humbled snort escaped through his nose. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Play any song.” Magritte slowed her fingers to a stop without completing the movement. “Even if I don’t know it, even if it goes beyond the range of my little piano, I can improvise something nice for it, I promise!”

  Fitting his sunglasses back on, Raf let out a tentative hum. “I’m not much of an improviser–”

  “You don’t have to improvise anything! Play whatever you want, however you wanna play it. I will improvise around whatever you give me!” Magritte’s voice had risen to an excited shout, and instinctively, she withdrew into herself just a little bit, as if making herself smaller would also make her voice smaller, too. “It’s my favorite thing to do. It’s a lot of fun.”

  His incredulous smirk returned, but this time his brow furrowed slightly, encouragingly, under his growing sense of intrigue.

  “It’s–” Magritte held up both hands haltingly, “it’s probably not gonna be like how you know it should be. Just…so you know. It might even be…bad? In some parts? But-! Mostly it’ll be neat! I promise!”

  “Neat…” Raf brought the violin up once again to rest under his chin. “Neat’s cool. Alright, let’s see, then.”

  As though he had been inspired by Magritte’s aggressive interpretation of Appassionata, he began with a series of fast, chirpy, clean notes of his own. A wholly different song, but Magritte recognized this one too. She had most often heard it as a phone ringtone, but she couldn’t recall who composed it nor what the song was titled. She provided a jaunty, equally bouncy accompaniment that she’d have described as ‘percussive’. The violin’s unwavering confidence was a delight for Magritte’s deft little fingers to dance around. He never fell out of tempo, and she was able to punctuate his notes with hers in perfect time. Maintaining synchrony for the entire length of the fast paced composition filled her with such satisfying joy, she had failed to properly appreciate an obvious fact about her musical accomplice until he brought the song to a close; he was a skilled musician.

  Staring up at him from her spot on the floor, Magritte’s wide eyes almost sparkled with delight. “You’re like…Concert hall good, aren’t you? Are you part of the local orchestra? Or at least like–aspiring to be?”

  Raf’s gaze hung on her as both his jaw and posture slackened. “Uh…” 

  She didn’t give him enough time to respond, hitting him with another question. “What was the title of that song? I just know it as one of the Nokia ringtones.”

 “P–” Raf’s stunned silence cracked with a laugh that sprang forth from his chest and took him by surprise almost as much as Magritte’s line of questioning had. “Paganini. It’s–it’s Paganini, Caprice number…number 24.” The response was punctuated with warm chuckling. “Or, you know, that one phone ringtone, yeah.” He smirked at her for a moment longer, studying her for any sign that she was putting him on. “How do you…accompany me that well, on that little machine, and not even know the song?”

 Magritte waved her hands in front of her. “No, no, I knew the song! I’ve heard it before, I just didn’t know what it was called.”

 “Yeah, alright.” He snorted one last incredulous laugh and brought his violin back up for another song.

 Magritte stopped him before he could settle on his next pick. “Do you play professionally? I mean, it sounds like it but, like–”

  “No.” Before Magritte could inquire further, the first notes of their next song filled the space between them, drawn out of his violin with long, purposeful strokes of his bow.

  The next several songs, Raf played seamlessly one into the other–without pausing for conversation. That was just as well for Magritte. It had been ages since she was given the chance to play music with someone, and never had she played with someone who was so…solid? Consistent? The real deal. Usually, she had to avoid getting carried away when playing with another person. It was very easy for her to close her eyes and get taken to places that her musical partners could not follow along with. But with Raf, she was finding herself challenged to keep up with him. Most of the songs he had chosen, she had not heard before. And so she needed to keep an attentive ear out if she wanted to pick out repeated phrases, and predict melodic trajectories.

  Finally, they arrived at the end of an especially eclectic piece, and Raf did not immediately follow through into another composition. Instead he lowered his bow, and Magritte took her opening to converse again.

  “I really liked that one. It was super janky, in a fun way.”

  “Yeah,” Raf said. “I was always fond of it, too.”

  “I liked the plucky bits. Did you write it?”

 “Did I–” Raf palmed both his bow and violin in one hand, and massaged his eyes and browline with the other. “No, some guy named Ravel did. Tzigane, that one’s called.”

  Magritte chewed the inside of her cheek. “R-right.”

  He furrowed his eyebrows at her. “You knew that one, though.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “...You just let me solo the first four minutes based on vibes?”

  “I thought I missed the bus on it.”

  “The actual composition has no accompaniment until about half way through, so…bravo.”

  “Wait, really?” Magritte leaned forward eagerly. “Did I play the accompaniment correctly, too?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Drat.” She slumped.

  “Was good, though.” Raf picked up his sprite from where he had placed it, on the ground next to his case, and drained the last bit of its contents.

  Magritte perked up again. “Yeah!?”

  He held the lip of the empty can between his teeth as he began tucking his violin back into its carrying case. “Mmhm.”   

  Magritte watched him pack up for a moment longer than it should have taken her to realise, “Wait, you’re leaving already?”

  Raf zipped his instrument safely away before removing the empty soda can from his mouth. “Yeah, I gotta get going. But look,” He bent over to collect Magritte’s upturned ball cap off the ground. The few quarters she had started with now had a generous handful of friends with them; more quarters, some loonies, a few toonies and–

 Magritte accepted the hat when Raf handed it to her, and pulled a crisp twenty dollar bill out of it. “W-who left this!? I wasn’t even paying attention, I should have said thanks!”

  “A mystery.” He slung his violin case over his shoulder.

  Magritte urged him to wait, fluttering a hand at him. “Half of this is yours!”

  “Nah.” He favored her with a smile. “Genuinely, this was a treat in itself. It’s been a long time since I’ve played for fun like this. It…was fun.” That last part sounded as though it came as a surprise to him.

  Frowning, Magritte pleaded with him. “Okay, okay but–okay. Lemme treat you to a coffee then, at least? If you’re in no real hurry.”

  Raf paused to regard her with a measuring stare. He then sighed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his black denim hoodie jacket, waiting for Magritte to stow her keyboard away into her bag.

  Zipping the duffel closed, she hoisted it with effort over her shoulder and beamed up at her new friendly acquaintance. “If you know any cute, cozy coffee places with a real decadent latte, I’m open to suggestions!”

  “There are…a few.” 

  “I’m Magritte, by the way!” She extended her hand out to him.

  With slight hesitation, Raf shook it. “Rafael.”

  As the two of them began to make their way out of the station together, he dared to ask, “Are you here visiting, or..?”

  “Oh!” She bounced on the balls of her feet, “I just came in from Calgary like…two hours ago. Ideally, I’d like to stay until the spring, but that’s gonna depend on things.”

  “Calgary?”

  “Yeah! I was in Edmonton before that, and in Winnipeg before that–but that was mostly a fever dream. I wasn’t there long. Montreal before that, though, was nice..!” She talked the entire walk, and he was content to quietly listen. part ii

[thumpypuppy]

oo! your last ask was really interesting! do you have anything to say on the relation between the various Loop related tracks?

it’s very cool that you’re talking about your music in such a way, thank you for engaging with this community!

So Loop's theme is just kinda silly weird mysterious. There's a chromatic walkup at the beginning of the melody because weird and silly.

Loop's hangout is one of the few tracks written by Alice Liston, who is no longer with the studio, but she's an incredibly talented composer who took a lot of the fundamental aspects of the original song and turned it into something dreamy, which I emphasized with some unique instrumentation.

Spoilers ahead:

The Loop fight is yet another one of my MEGA BATTLE compositions where I go ham because it's a fight song and I have to do way too much.

We start with that chromatic walk up in our classic title theme synth and immediately launch into Sandra's intense drums backed with Spitfire Audio's Albion ONE strings to fill out some space.

There are a couple of wild synth solos here written again by Alice Liston, and the drums move into a standard time with a staggered syncopation before jumping back into double time on the riff. Toward the end we build into a kind of combination prog rock EDM drop, and then…

Lo-fi! We take everything down here to a more sonically simplified version using some synth guitar designed in MASSIVE, a couple of simple wave forms, and some bit-crushed drums. We also introduce a new simple counter-melody here with a fairly straightforward motif we repeat while the exact notes change depending on the chord. We're still riffing on Loop's theme at this point, but we're adding some more context.

(Side-note: If you're interested in emulating vintage consoles of a particular era, one of the most important things to look up is the system's sample rate and bit depth! I'm 37 so "vintage" in this case is like… Commodore 64, NES, SNES, PS1, Sega Genesis, Neo-Geo, etc. It's also important to look up for something like the N64 where a lot of the sound design came from, like a lot of DX7 presets.)

Now with a powerful fill from the live kit we come back to our normal instrumentation, restating our previous section. Toward the end of this section we slowly build in our strings ramping up to a half-time breakdown that will lead into a totally new part.

The strings build intensity while also taking the responsibility of playing our main Loop melody, and we throw in a Dormont-style counter-melody to add to a sense of nostalgia as we ramp up our heart-string tugging.

Next, we bring in lead guitar-style synth to double our Loop melody that's playing in the strings to add an extra helping of epicness because come on, an electric guitar playing over the soprano part of a string section is like pique epic/dramatic.

Meanwhile the drums are still going in half-time to give it a breakdown feel (especially leaning on that china cymbal to give it a classic death metal breakdown feel), but at this point we're starting to get more embellishments and double kicks to make use of the space left to build further intensity until we hit that 80s metal crash mute and pause for emphasis, and then tom roll into our next section.

With the break into a new section we're saying NO MORE! We're getting serious now! We have a lovely riff written by Sadie Greyduck, which has a really uncomfortable and tense progression built into it that's emphasized by the strings that have moved to the very high soprano range to keep tension.

Then on our next repeat we jump into yet another solo! This one was partially written by Alice Liston, but ultimately I ended up fitting it into context and completing it. One thing you'll notice here is that there are a lot of passing tones and chromatic walk-ups to emphasize the Loop-ness of the situation.

Now we're jumping into yet another me(n)tal breakdown! This is more riffing on the Loop melody, but then we hear that brass section jump in! We're moving forward and doing a little more light riffing while the rest of the band takes us home in a slightly stronger and more triumphant fashion.

Finally we pick up the pace and we're back to our old classic, the title theme, but it's add odds with the context it exists in and starts to move in a spacier direction, eventually morphing back into Loop's theme.

For the album version we put a cap on it with a piano restatement of the beginning of the song!

(Also I finally looked it up and the other piano I used besides Spitfire Labs "Soft Piano" is Native Instruments "The Gentleman".)

Honestly I love fight/boss themes so much and they're always so fun to work on because I can go ham and the people I work with can do some of their more extreme work, plus it's always an excuse for Sandra to go nuts on the drums.

Thank you so much for sending in your ask! We're always so happy to get these and to hear how much our work has affected so many people! 🐶💙

[amazinglyegg]

Nick tries to explain what trees are to DiMA

+ DiMA's drawing he made after that conversation (Nick's not too good at explaining things...)

Okay now for my silly little headcanons I need to write down before I explode

DiMA has blue eyes so the scientists can differentiate him from the rest of the synths!

I picked blue specifically because his entire Acadia room is blue with all the computers and such, which is a nice contrast to Nick's warm color scheme.

They were both tests to see how personalities would work on gen 2's - Nick being a preset personality and DiMA being left to his own devices to "naturally create" a personality of his own.

A small detail in Detroit: Become Human is that at the beginning of the game ("Waiting for Hank...") Connor sits very stiffly on his chair, but by the end of the game ("Last Chance Connor") he sits casually and a lot more naturally on the table instead

That's how I imagine DiMA to be - very stiff and awkward at first, but starts to mimic those around him (especially Nick) as time goes on

After enough time he starts to pick up on basically everything Nick does. Sighing, drumming his fingers on the table, even his accent!

He was practically a child without the whole "underdeveloped brain" part

So basically an information sponge who asks "why?" every three seconds

Nick found it annoying sometimes, but DiMA was the only person he could talk to so he always caved eventually.

Plus, trying to explain everyday things to him helped keep his mind off their situation.

Like, imagine having to explain to someone what the color purple looks like. Or what a dog looks like when they've never seen any animal except for humans before!

Nick was actually very cold to him at first, and continued to be every time he got his memories wiped and reset, but he would inevitably warm back up to DiMA every time

(except for the few times where he got his memories wiped several times a day, or even several times an hour... which was extremely stressful for both of them)

That being said, Nick's memory wipes were always a traumatic situation for him, and he'd have to re-learn who and where he was every single time

Through trial and error DiMA started to figure out the right way to comfort him and bring him down from any violent outbursts or panic attacks he had

Trying to escape the Institute was almost like a timeloop puzzle in the sense that DiMA had to re-explain everything to Nick and just hope they had enough time to figure something out before Nick got taken away and reset again

On a lighter note, DiMA loves drawing and would try and draw whatever Nick tells him about in the dust on the floor or on the wall - nothing could stop this man from creating art!

He also writes in nearly perfect font because he has perfect hand-eye coordination (and copied the font from the papers the scientists print off)

ALSO tiny detail, he drew his eyes yellow like Nick's because he had never seen his own eyes at that point, and assumed he looked the same as Nick <3

Okay that's enough for now I think!! Hope you enjoyed it!!

[fuzzkaizer]

AKAI - SB1 - Deep Impact

"... for a lengthy spell, bassists that used pedals were given a side-eye.

But as synth pedals continue to be made, it’s hard to believe that some of its earliest heavy-hitters were released in the ‘80s and ‘90s, such as the Korg X-911 and the DigiTech XP300 Space Station. But while those faffed about with a more general kitchen-sink approach to the subject, it was Akai in 200X that came out with the most potent offering to date. This is the Akai SB1 Deep Impact.

Although some places claim the Deep Impact came out in the late ‘90s, nobody that I know is entirely sure when the Deep Impact was released. As far as I can tell, it was 2002. Prior to that, Akai’s “professional” website came out with guns blazing about its silver boxed series that included the VariWah and Intelliphase. However, a short time later, Akai Pro’s website appeared to go dark, resurfacing with pictures of gleaming mixers and MPCs. It’s too bad; the Head Rush, Unibass and Deep Impact were arguably the best pedals Akai ever produced. 

When a pedal’s endorsee list contains players like Bootsy Collins, Chris Wolstenholme and Paul Turner of Jamiroquai, you pretty much know what to expect: throbbing, guttural filter sweeps with a funk chaser. And yeah, you get that. But you get a pretty bang-on stab at a host of synth patches, including fifths, warbling pads and much more. It’s not without its limitations, though.

The Unibass and Deep Impact were centered on the frequency range of the bass guitar; the Unibass generated a fat unison mode with an octave up and subtle thickening, which is easily adaptable to six strings. However,  the Deep Impact in particular made no bones about its applications. When played with a guitar, notes outside of the bass frequency range cut through at a very distinct threshold, and not in a “hardware limitation” kind of way; there is a literal cut-off point. One note in a scale gets enveloped in the circuit, and the very next rings through as if there was no effect at all.

The way it’s used is deceptively complex. Like the old analog synths it seeks to replicate, dialing in a patch takes a little effort, and in the same way as many of them. Two of the unit’s three knobs are for input and output levels—the Input control is accented with a metering system and lets you set the clipping threshold of the unit before setting the output volume. While two-thirds of the knobs are standard fare, the money is in the program system. 

On offer are nine programs with a blank parametric slate. The left footswitch cycles through these programs in ascending order, while an optional footswitch cycles in descending order, and the center control cycles through 10 different parameters (and one preset loading option), all of which are fully adjustable with the rotary encoder in the center of the unit. Most of them correspond to controls on real analog synths, such as (filter) Cutoff, Resonance, Attack and Decay. When you factor in this multi knob, the Deep Impact actually has 12 controls for your tweaking pleasure, far more than the competition. And the ends to which you can adjust the tone are relatively absurd.

While vintage synths of yore can oscillate and destroy your ears when the resonance is cranked, Akai thoughtfully keeps the extent of the parameters usable. With that being said, the Deep Impact will mercilessly punish any subwoofer placed before it. Akai promises a four-oscillator affair within the Deep Impact and while there’s no way to dial it in solely based on those merits, it certainly sounds gargantuan. It’s probably why they are worth so much.

The original designer of the Deep Impact, one Andras Szalay, revived the project well after Akai washed its hand of the line under the company name PandaMIDI and the product name Future Impact I. For a spell, it was tough even to get one of those, and prices encroached upon the original. Now on its third revision, readily available and with a new brand name, the Future Impact continues to carry the torch. There’s just something about that Akai unit, though..."

cred: catalinbread.com/blogs/kulas-cabinet/akai-db1-deep-impact

[thescaryjokes]

ableton used to have such a good piano vst, it was just a built in preset and it was super thunky and slightly detuned, it was like the most realistic fake piano synth i have ever used and now it's gone and i cant find it. wtf. wtf. every day a new indignity

[glutko]

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Hey! Are you good at identifying stock sound effects and/or synth presets from the 80′s to early 1993? 

If so, you might be able to identify one of the 24 unknown sound effects used in Animation Magic’s Zelda games! Check the video for more info.

[anosci]

some of the VSTs i have...

did anyone ever make anything with this thing? ever? beyond the presets?

is there a champion of this synth somewhere? someone that's saying "yeah motion2.8 by ugo audio is deeply underrated and a gem of a synth. i used it all the time"