-=[THE SYNTH ZONE]=-

I've only spent a handful of hours on the scripting so far. It's a fun learning and (within family) teaching tool. I'm using pedalboard, an open source spotify project, to get multiple VST instrument objects with different patches from Dexed.vst3. There's probably better python DAW stuff for this. I wrote some defs for generating 88 piano key scales from an input song key and chords from a root note. I wrote a def with numpy.random that takes a starting index to the array of notes in a scale and a number of requested notes. It builds 8-note phrases, randomly walking away from the start, and then resets to the start note for each phrase. I put the randomness in 'EchoEcho 3' over a progression in 'Chroma 5 Y'. It sounds like preset windchimes, which I'm guessing is a common landing zone for fast versions of this sort of thing. here's example output.

you get arrays out of passing midi to the vst objects, so you can mix, fade, and sum tracks by multiplying with envelope functions and then adding the arrays together before saving or playing.

for transcription, I'm hoping there are python models that can take a recorded clip and spit out reasonable midi that I can display on the dexed gui to quickly give the kids melodies from songs they know to play. a shazam music teacher, which is simpler if the student only has a monophonic synthesizer and wants to play a melody from stardew valley or the lead from calvin harris' "bounce".

are there other awesome and free vst instruments that, like dexed, don't require making an account or jumping through other hoops? it was so refreshing to just grab it from GitHub.

U-he's Zebralette 3 is in public beta (and will be free when actually released) - spectral, additive, wavetable, kind of a steep learning curve

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=607153

TAL Noisemaker is a good basic subtractive synth, sort of like a Roland Juno

https://tal-software.com/products/tal-noisemaker

thanks, these are great examples of what I'm looking for. grabbed both installers to hopefully check out this weekend.

Full bucket music has TONS, primarily virtual Korgs, including a lot of the weird ones:

https://www.fullbucket.de/music/vst.html

oh wow. that is a great resource - thanks!

attracted to the PS-3300 simulator and as luck would have it -- the real thing's on sale!

the introductions in the manuals of these FBM synths are themselves wonderful

Korg announced a reissue of the 3300 or 3100 for only a cool $12k IIRC

pedalboard doesn't seem to wrap the FB-3300 plugin properly. looking around, it seems python VST loader instrument compatibility may be an issue

is anyone else checking out the Digitakt II? I've had my eye on the Syntakt for a while because I'm more drawn to synths vs samples, but this new Digitakt is a massive upgrade. I assume there will eventually be a Syntakt II, but that probably won't be for a few years.

Thanks for the rundown SG, that seems well over my head, but also sounds like you could get some very cool results that way... (or at least have fun messing around with it...)

I'm definitely not selling my Digitakt I at the reduced prices they're going for now (though mine is old enough I'm pretty sure I bought it for $550 during a sale) but if I'm ever not broke I wouldn't be mad at getting the II for 16 channels of samples and the option of stereo samples (though I don't really miss stereo, I like subtle panning better most of the time) and the other improvements seem nice. The new filter modes with single cycle waveforms should make it even more useful than the I for a lot of synthesis tasks.

For another good free synth, forgot the DSP56300 project - Virus A/B/C and now Ti, Waldorf MicroQ emulations
https://dsp56300.wordpress.com/

You have to get firmware (widely available for the pre-TI Viruses but I had to go to a shady warez site for the Ti firmware, Waldorf has the MicroQ firmware on their site) but no account creation/etc. required

I really miss my Machine Drum, original one with the sample loading. I can't remember what I paid for it 10-12 years ago but remember it was like an impulse buy price. Staggering what they're going for now! I wouldn't want to pay that much for something that old (well not old, but aging) that might be tough to repair.

i have the SPS-1 without the sample loading. Got it the week they announced they were cancelling it and they cut the prices in half. It was like 600$ new. They blew them out. Then the prices started rising.

yeah! I think I paid like 500. Honestly I could maybe almost imagine paying 2k if I was positive it wouldn't crap out and be unfixable someday.

does anyone have any advice on _EXTREMELY CHEAP_ MIDI foot controllers? under $100 but actually works? doesn't need to have a million features, just needs to be able to trigger/send MIDI to my 404A. my use case is that one group i play in uses the 404A for drum machine and occasional samples, and it would be really handy to be able to trigger those with my foot instead of reaching over for a tiny pad. also, i'm often doing weird stuff on multiple instruments, drums, etc, and being able to start and stop a sampler pad would be very useful and open up some possibilities, i think.

has anyone here done something like that, and do you have any recommendations or other ways to go about it?

damn, u/65TwinReverbRI has me covered in their answer here
https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/uif6f0/foot_midi_controller_for_triggering_sampler_pads/

Guitar Center took in a used Melbourne Nina - the magnetic/motorized knobs are a gimmick but it's a great gimmick. Watching them turn when you move the morph knob is cool, always know where knob settings are with presets. Fine detail (trying to dial in 100 cents of fine tuning or something) was tough but I assume there's a shift modifier I didn't know about to make that easier.