Its really important to get a good sound card too, Ive been using on-board sound since getting cubase over 10 months ago, and I'm getting the sounds I want but to play a track together kills my machine...

Cant wait to get a sound card in the next month or so, they do say to use what you have and learn it before you upgrade, so I'm sure I'll notice the difference when I get a new card!

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Originally posted by daeus Its really important to get a good sound card too, Ive been using on-board sound since getting cubase over 10 months ago, and I'm getting the sounds I want but to play a track together kills my machine... Cant wait to get a sound card in the next month or so, they do say to use what you have and learn it before you upgrade, so I'm sure I'll notice the difference when I get a new card!

yes a good soundcard is important, but how does that help with synth programming knowledge?

try some FM synthesis...it's my favorite. especially if you like the idea of building stuff from scratch...you can pretty much build any sound you want if you learn how to play with it. other than that...i'd suggest reading up on harmonics...harmonics basically shape the way a sound sound's...if that makes sense.

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Originally posted by daeus Its really important to get a good sound card too, Ive been using on-board sound since getting cubase over 10 months ago, and I'm getting the sounds I want but to play a track together kills my machine... Cant wait to get a sound card in the next month or so, they do say to use what you have and learn it before you upgrade, so I'm sure I'll notice the difference when I get a new card!

thats probly more due to your processor speed, you soundcard affects more the midi latency

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Originally posted by TRNG yeah theres no easy way to tell you this open ur synth and fuck around until you don't want to do it anymore and your brain hurts, then do it for another few hours after that. go to sleep, wake up next morning, and keep fucking around. this is the only way to learn.

amen to that, i experienced a similar thing the guy mentioned in the first post but then just constantly fucked around with everything for days on end until i knew the synths inside out through practise.

Never use a on board sound card. Mine sounded like plastic '.`

First I suggest you buy a hardware synth with an arpeggiator with a "hold" feature, like a Virus or a SuperNova. To me, arpeggiators held my interest in the first few months of synthesis because they're always moving and interesting, especially when tweaking their "clocks". You can set one arp to one oscillator with one clock setting and give another oscillator another clock setting, so you got 2 clocks running at the same time, try polarizing their cutoff frequencies and panning their reverbs and delays with different amp release and filter attack/release settings.

Most of the time with my synth is experimentation of my creative "Theories". It's been 7 months since me and my synth got together and I'm just about there with it, just stick with it endlessly. Get lost in it but not too lost, have some discipline. Hardware synths are worth it, they feel more like instruments than computer software anyday. Once you understand a good hardware synth like a Virus, other synths are even more fun to mess with and you'll have a more solid approach to the system.

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Originally posted by PsyCode Hardware synths are worth it, they feel more like instruments than computer software anyday. Once you understand a good hardware synth like a Virus, other synths are even more fun to mess with and you'll have a more solid approach to the system.

I disagree. If you have a midi control surface/keyboard and you know your CC values, software is every bit as hands on as hardware. After a stint with hardware using a Virus B I'm back to software nearly 100% and I think some softsynths just sound better than my Virus.

I guess the point is to pick a good synth, hardware or software - it makes little difference really if its a synth that uses the same synthesis principles. Then stick with it and learn it inside out. The more gear you have, the more ins and outs you need to learn. And the longer it takes to get good sounds out of them because you have so many things to learn. If you were anything like me you probably had a million freeware synths off KVR and to be honest, most of them I rarely used because I keep coming back to the ones I know how to program and the ones I can get good sounds out of. These days I only really use 3 synths and all of them are software (impOSCar, audiorealism bassline and Albino). I rarely use my Virus B anymore though thats more out of necessity than anything else. I am beginning to dislike the sound of it anyway.

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Originally posted by ASFSE yes a good soundcard is important, but how does that help with synth programming knowledge?

I'm going from the thread title "getting the most out of your synth"

The more Computing/CPU power the bigger/depthyier your sounds will be.

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Originally posted by mysticalninja thats probly more due to your processor speed, you soundcard affects more the midi latency

Is this true? I'm really depending on the fact a soundcard will get me out of the limit I've got at the moment of only being able to use a few synths/effects on wavs/eq's, I just cant produce like this, I get 22ms latency at the moment.

I've got 2GB Ram and a p4 Hyperthreading 3.02Ghz...is it time I went Dual-Core? I know cubase supports multi CPU's.

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Originally posted by daeus I'm going from the thread title "getting the most out of your synth" The more Computing/CPU power the bigger/depthyier your sounds will be.

Nah. The more computing power you have, the more softsynths you can have playing simultaneously which doesn't necessarily mean 'bigger' or 'depthier' sounds. If you can't program any of them well then you will just have loads of really crap sounds playing and who wants that?

'Bigger' and 'Depthier' are largely meaningless words anyway as everyone has different ideas of what these mean in terms of sound design. Literally 'big' sounds are just ones with loads of amplitude behind them. Some people equate bigger sounds as having loads of bass. Some feel more harmonics = bigger sounds. Depth of Field is just something producers try to recreate. You could do it with reverb, variation in amplitude, compression, EQ etc etc etc.

Thats an issue of production. Not sound design.

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Is this true? I'm really depending on the fact a soundcard will get me out of the limit I've got at the moment of only being able to use a few synths/effects on wavs/eq's, I just cant produce like this, I get 22ms latency at the moment. I've got 2GB Ram and a p4 Hyperthreading 3.02Ghz...is it time I went Dual-Core? I know cubase supports multi CPU's.

Its both. The greater the CPU load, the more software instruments and processors you have running and the more memory you need to keep them open. Which means, when you press play, the more sounds you need to preload in your DMA/ASIO buffer. The more stuff you need to to preload in your DMA buffer, the greater the latency.

However, there is no substitute for having good working habits. If you are nudging 100% CPU load and your PC feels like its crashing then you can always just bounce everything to wav and reassemble it. Voila. 0% CPU load again and 0 ms latency.

I tend to find having loads of CPU cycles is a bit like having loads of money in the bank - if you've got it, you'll just waste it on stuff you don't need. Just like money, you never spend it wisely until you find yourself in a situation where you are skint. Then suddenly you become super efficient because you have to be.

Some nice points, I do bounce to Wav allot but find its a pain when you want to change something and hear everything at once, belive me I'm fighting hard against the CPU to not have too many things enabled while im producing but I do like to hear how things are going to sound with all effects/eq's on while im changing things, without bouncing to wav .

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