Oh, I know! I like the demos well enough, but I wouldn't know how to use those sounds!Thanks again Bee
FYI the Abyss presets I sent you are very different from the stuff currently on my website. I don't think you'd enjoy the Urban Warfare library
hahaha, sure ok it's a deal, and thank you. To be honest I'm very invested in Falcon as a creative environment and I've realised over the last few years - especially recently - that creation of samples, manipulation of audio and creating patches based on the resulting audio is really my happy place. Pure synthesis is great as a starting point but sending audio out into the "real" world to let it breathe, bend it around with a tape machine or hardware sampler, analogue filters etc. then importing that audio in some way into the instrument is really what I love even if it's a ridiculously slow and contrived way of working. I think (I hope) the results are audible. Some of my base samples might have spent a couple of hours or more going through various stages of processing in hardware and/or software.
Yeah 100% agree. Especially for me when I'm doing this as a day job it's much less of a hobby thing for me outside of work so I don't have time to explore all of the synths. It makes sense to find one or two that really let you express yourself and, most importantly, that you enjoy using!I totally get what you're saying. I recently realized as a hobbyist time is my most precious asset and it's better to focus than to spread it thin. I went and sold most of my synths on Knobcloud. Even synths I do think sound amazing but kept collecting dust.
Personally, Zebra is the best investment I've ever made in audio. I've been using it since 2010 (on and off) and it keeps surprising me. I don't consider myself a synthesis expert by any means, but the more I advance in this path, the more I appreciate how great it is.
For 2022 I will keep focusing on Zebra. I have two more library projects I want to keep working on.
I'm really enjoying PhasePlant too. I've been just making random presets to get a feel of what I can achieve with it. Maybe I'll start a library for it too
I've considered making cinematic Bitwig presets but...
LOL absolutely!
I'd love to get to know Iris 2 properly. I've played around with it; but not come close to matching the sounds I hear in the presets. It is a lovely synth, very distinctive, and ripe for updates it likely won't receive. Pier got me interested in Bitwig. There were some great sales on (maybe they still are); but I have already taken on far too much to study.hahaha, sure ok it's a deal, and thank you. To be honest I'm very invested in Falcon as a creative environment and I've realised over the last few years - especially recently - that creation of samples, manipulation of audio and creating patches based on the resulting audio is really my happy place. Pure synthesis is great as a starting point but sending audio out into the "real" world to let it breathe, bend it around with a tape machine or hardware sampler, analogue filters etc. then importing that audio in some way into the instrument is really what I love even if it's a ridiculously slow and contrived way of working. I think (I hope) the results are audible. Some of my base samples might have spent a couple of hours or more going through various stages of processing in hardware and/or software.
I do struggle a bit to engage with instruments that don't let me import audio, be it samples, granular, wavetables, re-synthesis, just...something.
I can see, other than commissions where all bets are off, that I will be spending most of my own project time with Falcon and Pigments for the coming year at least. Falcon particularly lets me really express my ideas and not feel constrained and I never find myself dissatisfied with the result and wanting to reach for external FX which is a big plus for me. The end product never feels compromised.
I used to have big trouble with the IRCAM engines but since I got an M1 Mac all that is history.
I toy, as I have for years, with Kontakt and its user-base but I really like just focusing on tools that I'm really engaged by even if they are seen as a bit more niche. Great business-sense, I'm sure
Mr Stockhausen is a hero, definitely someone I look up to, a very talented guy.
"I also find Falcon easier to program, oddly enough. Quicker too" - yeah I don't think that's odd, I fly around Falcon (no pun intended) pretty quickly and the regimented patch structure makes it easier to keep myself organised. I also spend less time having to put extra effort into getting it to sound how I want which is a big deal for me.
I'd love to release some packs for Iris 2 and Bitwig but I worry uptake would be too low to justify the time spent, not that that is always the point for me.
First Falcon pack will be in early 2022, I have 31 of 50 presets done and I'm still deciding whether to put the time into a totally custom UI for it, likely not for the first one, more likely for subsequent ones.
Do feel free to relentlessly hassle me by DM or email if I don't stick to this, I've got a bunch of work for Arturia starting soon but it's been way too long (well over a year!!) since I released any new packs!
exactly, all my fears and concerns also. A few customers have asked why I don't do it when I'm clearly a big fan of Bitwig and I do feel a little bad not supporting the guys by making some content but I also worry about all of the things you mention. It's a shame. I can afford a certain amount of low performing packs if it's something I just really want to make (my Razor pack for example) but it's still a business and I can only afford a certain number of misses among the "hits".
Yeah I totally agree, I was a bit slow to get there because I grew up with synths that were not very expressive and I was originally an organist so velocity sensitivity and aftertouch took a while for me to adjust to (I do have a piano now and practice on it quite a bit). Expressivity and malleability in patches is something I'm trying harder and harder with, hence things like Falcon where those possibilities are so much greater. I haven't yet dipped a toe or any other body extremity into MPE, though.
Since leaving the hated day job (over 10 years ago now!!) I live in a bit of a different way and see things differently. There isn't really "work" and "hobby" now, there's just life and life involves a variety of things to spend my time on, some thankfully make a bit of money so I can cover costs incurred by existing. I guess all of the things mean something to me and the older I get the more I realise which things are precious and deserve my (dwindling) time and which don't. I guess I shouldn't have used the words in the original post since I don't really think that way, just trying to find a way to point out I use synths all day so it's not something I tinker with much outside of that. I do work on music though, often with hardware, music and exploration of sound are definitely something of some core importance/resonance inside me. Time spent doing that is hard to define as anything really, meditation maybe, I've just always done it since a very young age and always felt a need to do it and a great satisfaction from it.
If anyone called me a hobbyist, I'd either take no offense whatsoever but be a little baffled; or else think that they thought my work was rubbish - in which case, fair enough!Yeah alot of these tools are so deep and need such investment of time, I've given up trying to master them all. DAWs in particularly are not something to take on lightly.
Good to know, I don't love the default knob design but it's just knobs. I don't really want to spend time on details like custom knobs when making new samples and presets really is time better spent.
Yeah I totally agree, I was a bit slow to get there because I grew up with synths that were not very expressive and I was originally an organist so velocity sensitivity and aftertouch took a while for me to adjust to (I do have a piano now and practice on it quite a bit). Expressivity and malleability in patches is something I'm trying harder and harder with, hence things like Falcon where those possibilities are so much greater. I haven't yet dipped a toe or any other body extremity into MPE, though.
Since leaving the hated day job (over 10 years ago now!!) I live in a bit of a different way and see things differently. There isn't really "work" and "hobby" now, there's just life and life involves a variety of things to spend my time on, some thankfully make a bit of money so I can cover costs incurred by existing. I guess all of the things mean something to me and the older I get the more I realise which things are precious and deserve my (dwindling) time and which don't. I guess I shouldn't have used the words in the original post since I don't really think that way, just trying to find a way to point out I use synths all day so it's not something I tinker with much outside of that. I do work on music though, often with hardware, music and exploration of sound are definitely something of some core importance/resonance inside me. Time spent doing that is hard to define as anything really, meditation maybe, I've just always done it since a very young age and always felt a need to do it and a great satisfaction from it.
So much wisdom here and those words resonate a lot.
Thank you
). I prefer to make what I want for platforms I believe in and am inspired by. If that affects my potential audience size and income I'm fine with that. I've (luckily) no desire for great riches, just to spend my time doing what I enjoy and to have freedom and a healthy balance in what I spend my time doing. If it means sound design as a business becomes un-viable at some point then I guess I'll find something else to do but I prefer not to compromise how I work.Please do! I continue to use Soundcloud purely as a host for pack demos by now and because it tends to be supported for embedding in most of the important social places but any sense of community and discovery has dwindled for me on that platform.I'm also a master of my time. I left my previous job to pursue an audio hosting startup adventure I hope I'll be finally releasing in early 2022. I can hook you up once we're in beta for your website
Now I'm fine doing things my way so no bitterness about that, and as Empty Vessel said I'd probably be happier without that much control and feedback.
Awesome to hear you liked Animus! Where @Empty Vessel mentions they had issues with feedback and certain constraints, I think I got pretty lucky as Animus was one of the very first content banks they commissioned. It was well over a year between when I finished it and when it was released. As such, I was pretty much left to my own devices. I think the only real "feedback" to come my way was to replace a couple of patches for being "too EDM"
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Reminds that I've actually forgotten to make sampler of Fawkes and PhaseFreak.... On to that after I get this Xmas thingy finished...
Actually I always do send them the patch-list and each patch also has the description embedded in Falcon's info tab, just look for the little "i" in the interface.
Indeed Simon, it'a a great resource!
Open the tree on the left, scroll down till you see each layer, then click on the layer you want to add FX, go to the edit tab in the centre pane, and add FX to the layer or keygroup sections.
