Thor Discussion

[sleep1979]

hi ive been watching zombie fights shark Thor tutorials if you haven't seen them give it a try

this is such an easy synth for a novice to make some decent patches with

[sleep1979]

.

[Skimrok]

I actually been watching these myself my word it’s deep , I finished them today and still don’t know half of it 26 parts and a fried brain

[Threpus]

I'm pretty new to Reason, and I haven't spent 2 minutes with Thor. I figured that their newest synths (Europa and Grain) were their most advanced. I'll have to watch some of these vids and see what you guys are talking about.

[TritoneAddiction]

I'm pretty new to Reason, and I haven't spent 2 minutes with Thor. I figured that their newest synths (Europa and Grain) were their most advanced. I'll have to watch some of these vids and see what you guys are talking about.

Honestly I would start with Europa over Thor. It might have more advanced features than Thor, but it's easier to work with. Everything is so well layed out visually and that makes it easier to understand. You'll get better results faster.
Thor has always looked like a complete mess imo. Like a clutterfest with arrows pointing everywhere. Even though it's a capable synth sound wise, it's the Reason synth I dislike working with the most.

With Europa you'll get the basic knowledge of how a synthesizer work plus some extra goodies thrown in there.

[antic604]

So where's the discussion?

[FLVZ]

I'm pretty new to Reason, and I haven't spent 2 minutes with Thor. I figured that their newest synths (Europa and Grain) were their most advanced. I'll have to watch some of these vids and see what you guys are talking about.

Honestly I would start with Europa over Thor. It might have more advanced features than Thor, but it's easier to work with. Everything is so well layed out visually and that makes it easier to understand. You'll get better results faster.
Thor has always looked like a complete mess imo. Like a clutterfest with arrows pointing everywhere. Even though it's a capable synth sound wise, it's the Reason synth I dislike working with the most.

With Europa you'll get the basic knowledge of how a synthesizer work plus some extra goodies thrown in there.

Yeah I also definitely wouldn't recommend Thor for beginners. Its very very deep and most patches I've made in Thor were through a tutorial. Europa is definitely a good place to start but its a different beast to Thor. Like Tritone said Thor is a bit a of a mess and the layout is a creativity killer for me. I've spent more time looking for things and exploring options than I have get results out of it. HeRobust creates some of the craziest sounds using Thor though, he's basically an advanced user...

[miscend]

To learn synthesis start with Subtractor then move onto Thor. If you master these two synths you will have a solid foundation to program most synths.

I do not understand any of the criticism levelled at Thor. The layout is really well done.

[FLVZ]

To learn synthesis start with Subtractor then move onto Thor. If you master these two synths you will have a solid foundation to program most synths.

I do not understand any of the criticism levelled at Thor. The layout is really well done.

Here are some feature packed super flexible synths which think have a better usability about their GUI:

thor vs zero.jpg (404.64 KiB) Viewed 3104 times

thor vs vk2.jpg (425.81 KiB) Viewed 3104 times

thor vs timewarp2600.jpg (506.34 KiB) Viewed 3104 times

Thor will probably never ever get updated but as you can see even the GUI of the dated TimeWarp2600 VST is less brain mangling

[guitfnky]

I don’t think the Thor GUI is all that hard to follow, and I’m not much of a synth guy at all. the matrix and sequencer portions were the biggest points of confusion for me, but even those aren’t terrible. I do think it’s ugly AF, though.

[kinkujin]

I have Thor on ios, in fact had it there before purchasing Reason. I don't find it intimidating but then again, i'm more of a patch tweaker thank sound designer. I think its a great synth.

[miscend]

I find Thor GUI much easier to work with than Zero.

[thedjjudah]

I find Thor GUI much easier to work with than Zero.

Definitely, and TimeWarp2600 is an absolute mess.

[Oberlai]

Thor doesn't have to be more than one osc and one filter, so yes of course it can work for beginners. I'd recommend Thor over Subtractor in that regard, but if I could pick ANY synth for teaching I'd go with Serum, the visual feedback would be very useful.

As for the arrows and routing in Thor, well, they are very obvious and in-your-face-showing-you-exactly-what-they-do, not messy nor complicated imo

[Oquasec]

I think ima use Thor as long as it exist because Thor can teach me so much about 6 types of synthesis packed into one module that can be CV routed to other modules then fed through the mixer with custom effects and junk.

[ShelLuser]

I strongly disagree that Thor would be a bad choice for a newbie to get started with, I'd argue the opposite. Take that synth comparison above; I can't help but think that the main reason you'd say that something like the Vk2 is easier is because you already know how things work. You know the way the data travels: from oscillator to filter to envelope, etc. Someone new might still be getting used to that and guess what? Thor makes it absolutely clear how the flow goes, as long as you remember that it starts with the oscillator....

The other reason I love Thor, other than it not being the same as Operator & Analog (= 2 Live synths), is the fact that it really matches what I'd call the 'reason workflow'. Instead of setting up an oscillator you actually have to set up (= pick) an oscillator and work with that. Instead of tuning the filter(s) you need to stop and think what filter(s) you actually want to use before you get to the tuning part.

To me this is just like working with Reason itself... sure, you can add a track, add an instrument, select a preset and start recording but it can seriously pay off to do this in the rack, set up a patch with some other effects and/or instruments, optionally do a bit of patching with the cables and the magic is about to happen..

It's not overly complex, it's simply different and something you have to get used to. And once you do....

[way2cool]

I am oppose to Thor, I chose red and black one instead its I think call Europe that ones very nice on all those possibility thor can not do and Thor sound old in my ears I would love to play with grain better, later I will read this manual or find some video of it, I don’t know that I will be good at it yet cv is a ultimate version to play these instrument , my protool is can not link up still with all my VST and have still not hear back from those reason team almost two weeks
And again sorry for my English I am trying very much each time I write you but not many speak English in my village here to help me say and my parents always say me to ask here on each thing, they do not know this kinds of softwares

[Oquasec]

Europa is a serum replacement but doesn't exactly function like thor or subtractor.

[aeox]

Europa is a serum replacement but doesn't exactly function like thor or subtractor.

No it's not!

You can't even FM between 2 custom waveforms. Expanse is the closest thing to Serum.

[Loque]

...Thor sound old in my ears...

It is "vintage" and "analog". Others would pay 300 and more for this

[Oquasec]

Well, I feel europa does enough for music.
To each their own.

[FLVZ]

I think the main thing is that the layout is all over the place. I have the same issue with eXpanse, dont get me wrong Thor is a remarkable instrument and so is expanse but I always end up gravitating towards synths less heavy on the subconscious eye. Like the guy above said Europa is great to work in, I've made more patches with Europa than I've made with Thor or eXpanse combined. But presets wise Thor & eXpanse probably blow Europa out of the water because of how flexible they are. Not everyone wants to dive deep into sound design, but if I was tweaking presets I'd probably choose eXpanse over Thor again. I don't know how to use TimeWarp2600 but I'd choose that over Thor when shuffling presets because the layout makes tweaking easier.

If Reason Studios ever decide to upgrade Thor (which is still kind of the flagship synth in Reason IMO) so it looks as good as Europa that would something I think most of us would pay for.

thor vs europa.jpg (414.91 KiB) Viewed 2515 times

[Heigen5]

I think that Thor isn't that messy at all. It's very simple for me to understand. Most synths are hard to understand by first, but if you just force yourself to make patches with them, you'll start to get the picture. I have probably made 800 patches with Thor. While it can sound a bit plastic sometimes, it is still having it's strengths for certain sounds. I like to process Thor with Scream4 a bit and then it starts to sound uber-cool. There's shapers, filters, delay and chorus, but no reverb. A reverb can sometimes add that special flavor that makes most people wowed.

As Thor was a first stock synth with a modular matrix, it opened some new possibilities, but once you learn the major things that a modular matrix can do, you just apply that knowledge to all the other mod. martixes as well then.

I don't know, but I think that the Thor's filters could be better. They miss that certain kind of quality IMO.
But otherwise this synth is quiet an awesome little fella i think.

[Oquasec]

Reason studios has a knack for making synths easy to understand because the designs make sense.
Everything is laid out in a way that makes as much sense as an analog hardware module.

[STIM]

I can't believe people think Zero looks better than Thor. I'm glad I bought Zero, but I was put off it for a long time by how amateur it looks.