jimmyklane wrote: ↑13 Jun 2018
I’m having a lot of trouble getting to know this synth.
The funny part for me is, that I enjoy Thorn more than Europa, and find Thorn much more user-friendly. I purchased the v10 upgrade of Reason a few weeks ago specifically to get Grain and Europa, but very quickly saw Thorn CM. I immediately bought it, but my wallet wasn't happy with the v10 upgrade and Thorn purchase so quickly (~325 in a two week period). I also like to take a cool-down period when I buy a new synth and get to know it before buying anything new, but with Thorn, I wanted to see how much more I could do with the full version, than the CM version. I was immediately capable of making big sounds. As a matter of fact, I immediately started putting together my first ever sound pack, which I have never really done with any synth before. Sure I have made some of my own sounds with other synths, but with Thorn I find I am experimenting with the settings and really making interesting sounds.
With Thorn I find each setting makes sense, and can follow the audio path, and therefore have an idea when I reach for a knob, what I am going to do to the sound. I do not get that as much with Europa or Waldorf's Nave, and I enjoy both of those synths so much. Plus with the Glitch, Apr, Harmonic Filter, and various effects, individual settings can all have their own saved patches. That is not possible with the Rack Extension format.
On the opposite side of the scale for me, Grain is the synth that I just can't seem to wrap my head around. I like what I hear other people do with it, and wow, do those pad sounds just jump out, but I cannot get that thing to make anything that sounds pleasing at all on my own from a reset device. With Thorn, I find I can make a great sound, save it, and go back to the init patch so often and create something new. And when I go back and listen to my previous Thorn sounds, I really enjoy them.
I have gone back to almost all of my recent tracks to see if I can add Thorn in somewhere, or replace something I already had made, and that is not something I can say I have done with any other synth.