Free Soft Synth

[mucsusn]

I went to the local Border's over lunch break (BTW I found a new job). Picked up the September issue of FutureMusic, where they reviewed the best 12 soft synths as voted by the readers. One of them is Crystal, available free at www.greenoak.com


www.greenoak.com

[mucsusn]

I don't know why the link didn't take, just type the address into your browser

[Phil B]

Congrats on the new job!!

I've downloaded Crystal, but since I never bought the VST-DXi wrapper for Sonar (and, now I'll just wait until Sonar 3 since it comes with it) I've never actually tried it. I've heard nothing but great things, though.

And, someone posted this link on the EQ/Keyboard Mag forums of free patches that everyone says are terrific.

Here's the link to the ftp site: http://tamw.atari-users.net/TimsCrystalBank.zip

Here's the link to the thread discussing it: http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/ultimate ... 1;t=015087

[mucsusn]

Phil, thanks.............I was only home for two weeks, so I feel very fortunate. I had almost two weeks of vacation time to sell back, so things are cool.

The greenoak web page also has some patch banks plus some Rompler banks also.

[Red Winger]

Thanks for the heads up, mucsusn. I just downloaded it and the patches Phil provided a link for. Congrats on finding a new job so quickly!

Cheers,
RW

[FatBoyJim]

Glad to hear that you got a new job. That is great news!
Lets have a party at Tony Clifton’s to celebrate seeing as he is home alone.


You the man, Artemio!

[Phait]

You have to type http:// before www. else it will also use the site's URL.

Just a matter of how the author wrote the board.

[Red Winger]

I played with Crystal a bit last night. Particularly for a free VSTi, it is extremely well done. It has a tremendous amount of power to make shifting, moving pads, and rhythmic patches, etc., and I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface. Given that you can also add in over 1000 soundfonts to bring in more waveforms, it's well worth the download and time investment to learn. Frankly, I can't believe this guy isn't selling it. In addition to a wave sequencer, it lets you do program morphing, which, under the control of some modulator such as an LFO or envelope, lets you morph between two "patches." Very cool. Another one of my favorite features so far is something called "patch breeding." Like it sounds, you pick a "mother" patch and a "father" patch and then press "Breed" to come up with a new patch based on the settings of the parents. You can also adjust a "mutation" lever that inserts some amount of randomness to the settings. This creates some very interesting patches (although it can also create some particularly bad ones, depending on the parent and mutation settings). Still, quite an interesting idea.

In fact, the only negative thing I've seen so far, other than it's status as a CPU hog (which is very explicitly stated in the supporting docs), is that it doesn't have much of an "undo" facility if you start messing with the patch settings and accidentally overdrive a filter or something to the point where the sound drops out. As far as I can tell, you have to be a bit careful, or you may be forced to reinitialize the patch if you're too knob and lever happy.

Highly recommended. Thanks for the pointer, mucsusn.

Cheers,
RW

[Artemiy]

The url parser was a bit buggy here. I couldn't fix it till I got back from the hospital.

Now it works like it should - I fixed it.


Artemio.

[rf_]

BTW...Crystal is an emulation of the Korg Wavestation. Several of the patches included in the default download are direct copies of the original Wavestations presets. It has both wavesequencing and vector synthesis with a superior editing interface to the original Korg classic. However, it does not have the Wavestation's sound rom...so it is lacking in this respect. It also only allows for fewer steps within a wave sequence, so it is not directly compatible, or equivilent. But for a free item, it is a blast to play with the Korg wave sequencing (also similar to Ensoniq Transwaves). I am still eagerly waiting the release of Korgs Wavestation Soft synth later this year supposedly. That will be the best. Also don't forget that the XPhraze is essentiall a wavestation model....that really blows away the original.

Also mentioned in that Future Music Article is Big Tic Rhino. This one is TRULY outstanding...and while not free, is very cheap. This is a genuine synthesizer with a huge and ambient sound that you will not believe. There is a fully functional demo that comes with many outstanding presets for a free download. It just will not allow you to open any other sound banks without them getting your dollars (about $125 US). But when you hear it, you are likely to fall in love with it. Check it out.

Ron