One synth EP Challenge (No competition or prizes - just for fun)

Great fun, great prizes! Good luck!
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Ahornberg
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27 Jul 2017

TritoneAddiction wrote:
25 Jul 2017
Ahornberg wrote:
25 Jul 2017


Yes, Pulsar is playable by MIDI.
Alright I didn't know that. Well I'm looking forward to hearing it.
Here's a patch using only Pulsar as oscillator viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7502464

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Ahornberg
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21 Aug 2017

Here's my EP --= PULSAR =--


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TheGodOfRainbows
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22 Aug 2017

Ahornberg wrote:
21 Aug 2017
Here's my EP --= PULSAR =--

Another welcome entry. I'll need to spend some time cleaning my room and desk while I listen to this ambient exploration with Pulsar. Very interesting sounds coming out of this EP. Congrats! You won!

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TheGodOfRainbows
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Joined: 31 Mar 2015

22 Aug 2017

Ahornberg wrote:
16 Jul 2017
Now my second One-Synth-EP featuring SubTractor is finished:

Sorry I've not been around to listen on comment on the latest EPs from this thread.

This sounds great. I love how people are still making these old devices sound great! "The Magic Bus" is very nice. "Day 113" is very spooky, and reminds me of your "Crab Nebula" in that I feel like I'm riding an energy ghost train. I love the atmosphere. "Now I Walk Into The Wild" gives me goosebumps with those weird chords and tonalities. Great study or chore music.

Nice job on this EP! Another winner!

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FLVZ
Posts: 519
Joined: 17 Aug 2016
Location: ZW | GB

04 Sep 2017

Didn't realise I'd picked a deadline so soon, I thought I'd chosen october for some reason. My life's been way too busy to even finish one track for the Solaris ViP ep, I think I'm going to have to just call off the project as I'm too busy at the minute. I want to finish projects I've already started.

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TritoneAddiction
Competition Winner
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Joined: 29 Aug 2015
Location: Sweden

21 Sep 2017

Since I originally was gonna write a Legend EP but failed, here's at least one song with Legend as the only synth.
Just finished it about two days ago.


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aeox
Competition Winner
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Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

21 Sep 2017

I don't know about a EP, but I've got some free time and would love to do a full track with only Viking 2 (drums and FX too) Just need to synthesize some decent percussion and get things going.

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TritoneAddiction
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21 Sep 2017

aeox wrote:
21 Sep 2017
I don't know about a EP, but I've got some free time and would love to do a full track with only Viking 2 (drums and FX too) Just need to synthesize some decent percussion and get things going.
EP or not, go for it. We need some more music to get this thread going again.

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aeox
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Location: Oregon

21 Sep 2017

TritoneAddiction wrote:
21 Sep 2017
aeox wrote:
21 Sep 2017
I don't know about a EP, but I've got some free time and would love to do a full track with only Viking 2 (drums and FX too) Just need to synthesize some decent percussion and get things going.
EP or not, go for it. We need some more music to get this thread going again.
Indeed.

The main challenge for me will be making/layering a snare drum that is usable without the track being a hip hop beat :D

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FLVZ
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Location: ZW | GB

21 Sep 2017

aeox wrote:
21 Sep 2017
TritoneAddiction wrote:
21 Sep 2017

EP or not, go for it. We need some more music to get this thread going again.
Indeed.

The main challenge for me will be making/layering a snare drum that is usable without the track being a hip hop beat :D
I managed to make this using Vk2 for every sound about from the vocal:

Percussions are easier to make in the modular realm i think. I made an entire kit using one patch, using the modbus to generate sound and shaping it with the resonance of the filters and envelopes obviously.

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aeox
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Location: Oregon

21 Sep 2017

Flavolous wrote:
21 Sep 2017
aeox wrote:
21 Sep 2017


Indeed.

The main challenge for me will be making/layering a snare drum that is usable without the track being a hip hop beat :D
I managed to make this using Vk2 for every sound about from the vocal:

Percussions are easier to make in the modular realm i think. I made an entire kit using one patch, using the modbus to generate sound and shaping it with the resonance of the filters and envelopes obviously.
My problem is that I really like the sound of synthetic snares layered with real snares, and for this challenge I won't be able to use any real snare samples :/ I've never heard a synthesized snare that sounds remotely good to me, layered or by itself. I'll have to work with it though.I can probably get away with a clap sound or something.

EDIT: Turns out I did some more research and figured out how to synthesize "realistic" sounding snares, with not bad results. Only took four instances of VK-2 :D

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FLVZ
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Location: ZW | GB

22 Sep 2017

aeox wrote:
21 Sep 2017
Flavolous wrote:
21 Sep 2017


I managed to make this using Vk2 for every sound about from the vocal:

Percussions are easier to make in the modular realm i think. I made an entire kit using one patch, using the modbus to generate sound and shaping it with the resonance of the filters and envelopes obviously.
My problem is that I really like the sound of synthetic snares layered with real snares, and for this challenge I won't be able to use any real snare samples :/ I've never heard a synthesized snare that sounds remotely good to me, layered or by itself. I'll have to work with it though.I can probably get away with a clap sound or something.

EDIT: Turns out I did some more research and figured out how to synthesize "realistic" sounding snares, with not bad results. Only took four instances of VK-2 :D

I'd be interested in knowing your research references :)

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aeox
Competition Winner
Posts: 3222
Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

22 Sep 2017

Flavolous wrote:
22 Sep 2017
aeox wrote:
21 Sep 2017


My problem is that I really like the sound of synthetic snares layered with real snares, and for this challenge I won't be able to use any real snare samples :/ I've never heard a synthesized snare that sounds remotely good to me, layered or by itself. I'll have to work with it though.I can probably get away with a clap sound or something.

EDIT: Turns out I did some more research and figured out how to synthesize "realistic" sounding snares, with not bad results. Only took four instances of VK-2 :D

I'd be interested in knowing your research references :)

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TheGodOfRainbows
Posts: 640
Joined: 31 Mar 2015

23 Sep 2017


After much delay, here is my EP, "nanoBots", which turned into an LP. of 14 tracks at 42 minutes.

Better late than never. Very late, but I'm glad I took the time to get things (mostly) the way I wanted. There are some mixing things that I would have like to have fixed, but months were going by, so I decided to call it a finished project.

The first and last song on the album were the two entries I submitted for the RYM2612 Song Challenge, but I (hopefully) improved them somewhat mixwise, from what they were originally. I liked the idea of bookending the album with those two songs, as if making the beginning and ending of the story first, then filling in the middle with all the new songs.

Thanks TritoneAddiction for making the thread, and Mathieu Demange and Reasonistas for the prize and giving me an impetus to start this challenge. I'm glad I did it. The RYM2612 is vastly more than I originally thought it was. I'm impressed with how real some of the bells and horns sound. And the CSM Mode which allows for basic voice synthesis is awesome and unexpected. I totally underestimated how cool this old Sega Genesis synth is and enjoyed digging into it.

Thanks to everyone that has contributed to this thread. The more the merrier, and it's interesting to see what people come up with.

Constructive criticism is always welcome.

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TheGodOfRainbows
Posts: 640
Joined: 31 Mar 2015

23 Sep 2017

Here is my personal favorites playlist, listed in no particular order. If I've left anyone out let me know. For some artists, I picked two favorites because I couldn't choose and like them too much. Some artists EPs are missing. I don't know what happened to them.

Great work everyone, keep the EP's coming.

https://soundcloud.com/god-of-rainbows/ ... -challenge



(for some reason the embed of my playlist doesn't work, so there's just a link.)

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Ahornberg
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23 Sep 2017

TheGodOfRainbows wrote:
23 Sep 2017

After much delay, here is my EP, "nanoBots", which turned into an LP. of 14 tracks at 42 minutes.
Congrats! This is a great Album with lots of chiptune sounds! Love it!

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TheGodOfRainbows
Posts: 640
Joined: 31 Mar 2015

24 Sep 2017

Ahornberg wrote:
23 Sep 2017
Congrats! This is a great Album with lots of chiptune sounds! Love it!
Thank you. I like what you've done with your EPs. The Magic Bus and Dreams are nice!

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joeyluck
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24 Sep 2017

TheGodOfRainbows wrote:
23 Sep 2017

After much delay, here is my EP, "nanoBots", which turned into an LP. of 14 tracks at 42 minutes.

Better late than never. Very late, but I'm glad I took the time to get things (mostly) the way I wanted. There are some mixing things that I would have like to have fixed, but months were going by, so I decided to call it a finished project.

The first and last song on the album were the two entries I submitted for the RYM2612 Song Challenge, but I (hopefully) improved them somewhat mixwise, from what they were originally. I liked the idea of bookending the album with those two songs, as if making the beginning and ending of the story first, then filling in the middle with all the new songs.

Thanks TritoneAddiction for making the thread, and Mathieu Demange and Reasonistas for the prize and giving me an impetus to start this challenge. I'm glad I did it. The RYM2612 is vastly more than I originally thought it was. I'm impressed with how real some of the bells and horns sound. And the CSM Mode which allows for basic voice synthesis is awesome and unexpected. I totally underestimated how cool this old Sega Genesis synth is and enjoyed digging into it.

Thanks to everyone that has contributed to this thread. The more the merrier, and it's interesting to see what people come up with.

Constructive criticism is always welcome.
This is incredible! I'm very impressed! :thumbs_up:
I love the RYM2612 :puf_smile:

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TritoneAddiction
Competition Winner
Posts: 4219
Joined: 29 Aug 2015
Location: Sweden

24 Sep 2017

TheGodOfRainbows wrote:
23 Sep 2017
After much delay, here is my EP, "nanoBots", which turned into an LP. of 14 tracks at 42 minutes.
Very cool. I'm very impressed with your ability to work with this synth, especially since I found this synth very tricky to work with myself. The way you shape your sounds is awesome. So much variation in terms of sounds and timbres.
Great variety between the songs themselves yet it feels like a cohesive work.
I'm not surprised this album took some time to finish. That's a lot of music to write. I think you did a great job with this project.
There's a lot of cool stuff here but my personal favorites are probably "nanoCat Dungeon and "nanoRacers". They both really paint a picture for me.

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TheGodOfRainbows
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24 Sep 2017

joeyluck wrote:
24 Sep 2017
This is incredible! I'm very impressed! :thumbs_up:
I love the RYM2612 :puf_smile:
Thank you! I do appreciate it. I love the synth too!

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TheGodOfRainbows
Posts: 640
Joined: 31 Mar 2015

24 Sep 2017

TritoneAddiction wrote:
24 Sep 2017
TheGodOfRainbows wrote:
23 Sep 2017
After much delay, here is my EP, "nanoBots", which turned into an LP. of 14 tracks at 42 minutes.
Very cool. I'm very impressed with your ability to work with this synth, especially since I found this synth very tricky to work with myself. The way you shape your sounds is awesome. So much variation in terms of sounds and timbres.
Great variety between the songs themselves yet it feels like a cohesive work.
I'm not surprised this album took some time to finish. That's a lot of music to write. I think you did a great job with this project.
There's a lot of cool stuff here but my personal favorites are probably "nanoCat Dungeon and "nanoRacers". They both really paint a picture for me.
Thanks for the fine compliments!

For different timbers, I tried to have as many sounds constantly evolving over time using automation of parameters in the synth, mostly the TL (total operator level) knobs, but also eq settings in Reason's mixer.

I'm happy to hear you say the record sounds cohesive. That's something I was aiming for.

When I came across the gurgling percolating growling motor type sounds you hear in nanoCat Dungeon and nanoRacers, I decided to write the songs around them.

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joeyluck
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24 Sep 2017

TheGodOfRainbows wrote:
24 Sep 2017
joeyluck wrote:
24 Sep 2017
This is incredible! I'm very impressed! :thumbs_up:
I love the RYM2612 :puf_smile:
Thank you! I do appreciate it. I love the synth too!
Sent you a PM ;)

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joeyluck
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01 Oct 2017

Hey everybody! Here is an article/review of sorts I did about God of Rainbows' album, nanobots.

https://www.reasontalk.com/2017/10/albu ... -rainbows/

Special thanks to God of Rainbows for taking the time to talk with me and to TritoneAddiction for this great challenge/thread and everyone else who has been participating. Hopefully this article will help bring more attention to this thread.

If there is anybody else here that would like to write an album review or write about your experience writing an album, please feel free and if you send it to us, we can feature it on the front page!

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aeox
Competition Winner
Posts: 3222
Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

01 Oct 2017

I think I'm going to switch from VK-2 to Subtractor or Malstrom.

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TheGodOfRainbows
Posts: 640
Joined: 31 Mar 2015

01 Oct 2017

joeyluck wrote:
01 Oct 2017
Hey everybody! Here is an article/review of sorts I did about God of Rainbows' album, nanobots.

https://www.reasontalk.com/2017/10/albu ... -rainbows/

Special thanks to God of Rainbows for taking the time to talk with me and to TritoneAddiction for this great challenge/thread and everyone else who has been participating. Hopefully this article will help bring more attention to this thread.

If there is anybody else here that would like to write an album review or write about your experience writing an album, please feel free and if you send it to us, we can feature it on the front page!
I'm honored. Thanks for the attention and spotlight! I hope this thread stays alive. I like the idea of it. I need to begin work on my next EP using Jiggery Pokery's Harmonic Synth, as I said I would have finished months ago, but got delayed. I made a favorites playlist of my personal best picks from this thread. I would like to see other people's list if they feel like it.

Also, what happened to some people's EPs here? Anyone want to reupload your works?

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