Synplant

Flying Through The Forest. Seven tracks in Ableton Live, all made using Synplant. I saw it on Matrixsynth maybe a couple of weeks ago and was intrigued. I downloaded the demo, and then purchased it more or less right away. Basically, there’s no knobs or buttons. To design your sounds you instead “grow” them. It’s a little bit hard to describe, but once you try it it just makes sense. There’s a seed in the center, and 12 branches, one for each note. What you do is grab hold of a branch and drag the tip in towards the seed in the center or out towards the edge of the circular window, thereby changing the sound. Remember, though, that there are the 12 branches, so you’re only really changing the sound of the note you’re working on. You can make all 12 notes completely different, just a little bit different, or, by cloning the branch, all the same. You can even automate a note/sound rotation, which ends up making each note play a different sound each time you play it. You can go crazy if you want to, or you can use it as a subtle effect to make your sounds move and change over time.



It’s very easy to get completely chaotic “sound effects” but you’re also able to get all sorts of “normal” synth patches, too. Also, it’s fast and very easy. I usually start with a random seed, drag the branches around until I have a bunch of sounds that interest me and then save the “plant” as a template of sorts. I can then go back and clone a branch and refine it until I have something I like. If you sit down and play with it for an hour or so, you can get a whole family of new patches. It feels completely organic somehow, more like making scrambled eggs than working with a synthesizer control panel. It’s also totally intuitive once you get used to the idea, not in the way that you would “know” what turning a knob on a synth would do, but more like the way you, well, scramble eggs. You don’t have to think about it, you can just do it.

And that’s what I did this morning. Actually, I started last night, with a completely different synthesizer. I just got the Waldorf Edition, mostly so I could finally have my PPG Wave. It’s amazing, great fun, and sounds, well, incredible. So I made a burbling texture, threw in some (G-Force) Mellotron and some (Arturia) Minimoog, and sprinkled over the top I put in some extra burbles from Synplant and recorded a tune. However, this morning I went back to my Synplant sound and worked on it for a little while. I ended up with a whole folder full of good sounds, taking special care to make “useful” types of patches. I then fired up Live and went to work. It all just sort of easily flowed together. I then decided I needed a new sound, not quite a lead synth sound, but more like something to add one more bit of texture. I went back to Synplant and was able to quickly make a new patch which fit in quite well.



It’s all so, well, organic. The sounds are simply grown, and they’re lively and in motion and never static. It’s like the thing’s alive. However, don’t be under the impression that you have no control over the sounds you make. If you need to, there’s a “DNA” button you can click to get to all the parameters. In fact, you don’t have to grow your sounds at all if you don’t want to, you can tweak sliders to your heart’s content. I generally use both techniques, however. I grow my sound, then often go in and manually mess with the synth engine, usually just refining but occasionally radically altering the sound. I’ve only had it a week or so but already I’m getting familiar with the controls, but even if you’re brand new to the synth there’s a totally helpful Help button. When you click it you get a good explanation of what the control does. There’s also a good manual that comes with the program as well, so it’s relatively easy to learn the ins and outs. I ended up buying it long before the three week evaluation period was up.

Synplant. It’s totally worth a try.

Synplant tune (seven tracks of nothing but Synplant)


Waldorf PPG Wave 2.V tune (with Synplant track)

DSI Mopho

There’s a new synth called the Mopho, just announced by Dave Smith Instruments. It’s small, bright yellow, inexpensive and for me totally fascinating. It’s only 5" by 7.5" and contains one complete voice from the Prophet ’08. Sweetwater claims it will be available the week of October 5th and cost US$400.

It has four dedicated buttons for cutoff, resonance, attack and decay/release. It also have four assignable buttons under a two line display. That may not seem like much to program something as interesting as a Prophet ’08 voice, but DSI has two answers for that. One is that they’re including a free Mac and/or Windows editor, and the other is that if you happen to have one laying around you can use the front panel of a Prophet ’08 to access almost everything in the Mopho.

I say “almost” everything because there are a few nice additions built into the Mopho that the Prophet ’08 doesn’t have.

The first addition is a set of suboscillators. Each oscillator now has a sub. I’ve done some good basses on my ’08, but now with suboscillators I fully expect to be able to blow the roof off the joint. Next comes an audio input. You can process external audio with the Mopho. But it’s not only that as you can also gate the synth from the audio input. This means that the Mopho can be silent until it detects audio at its input, then once it does, all sorts of things can happen.

Now let me talk a moment about the awesomeness of the Push It button. I’ve been wondering how I could do some of my tunes live as I used multiple Prophet ’08 tracks on some of them. With a Mopho or two, I can simply push the button and have it latch the sequencers on. Instant performance backgrounds. Plus, you can use it in conjunction with the audio input to gate the Mopho so the sequencers play only when audio is sensed at the input. Can you think of any other synthesizer that can do that? And even if you can, can they do it for $400?

There’s been a bit of growsing on the Analog Heaven mailing list about the Mopho. Much of it is because it’s a super bright yellow, which for some reason has upset a few people. Personally, I have nothing against yellow as I’ve owned both a Waldorf microQ rack and a full Q rack in the past. (I sold the Micro Q so I could get the Q, then I sold the Q so I could get a black Q keyboard.) All consideration of color aside, the Mopho is arguably more powerful than a Minimoog, it’s the size of a large format paperback, it comes with free editing software, and, as if all that wasn’t enough, it’s friggin’ cheap.

I’ve already ordered mine from Sweetwater.

Photo credit:
Photo is from the manufacturer’s website
Dave Smith Instruments

Synthesizers of the (Not-Too-Distant) Future

It seems to me that this is an incredible time in the history of synthesizers. When I first started playing, the choice was basically between a Moog and an Arp. Nowadays, there are piles of interesting instruments to be had, many for (more or less) reasonable prices. That’s what’s available right now. This post, however, is about a few new synthesizers which are coming over the horizon, some nearer then others.

The first that comes to mind, maybe because it’s the closest to being released, is the Mattson Mini Modular (hereafter referred to as the MMM as it’s way easier to type). George Mattson, notable as the maker of the Syntar back around 30 years ago, has started up again to make what is possibly the worlds smallest “true” modular. I say “true” in quotes because it’s actually made up of individual modules which can be purchased and arranged in a cabinet in any order you like. There are other semi-modulars out there which are small, but many of them while possibly fully patchable have controls permanently mounted in a metal panel, meaning you can’t move them around.

And when I say small, I mean small.



No, that’s not one giant modular synthesizer. What you’re looking at is a wall of eight complete MMM synths. If I remember correctly, mine is the one in the middle row on the left.



I haven’t held one in person yet, but no matter how amazingly small it looks in the photographs, the size of two New York City phone books, I have a feeling it will feel shockingly small in real life. If you ignore the size, however, the MMM is a full featured and powerful modular synthesizer, regardless of the size of it. I’m hoping it will be ready this fall.

Another synth coming in the near future is the Solaris, by John Bowen Synth Design. John Bowen started at Moog in 1973 and a few years later was at Sequential Circuits and has done many things after that as well. While working with Creamware he designed the Solaris soft synth plug-in, which in a departure from the usual is now being converted to a hardware version. The Solaris, now in the prototype stage, looks to be a best-of-both-worlds merging of hardware and software.



There are a number of synths which have knobs linked to displays so they can use the same set of knobs to control many different functions. The Solaris is no different, except that it doesn’t have just one display/knob set, it has six of them! Add to that four oscillators, four filters, six envelope generators, five LFOs and a pile of effects and it starts to sound truly dangerous.

Last for today is the Waldorf Stromberg, mostly because to me this one seems the farthest away. Waldorf has made some incredible instruments in the past such as the XT and Q, and this latest incarnation of the company has designed the Blofeld, a tiny desktop synthesizer that sounds huge. I hope they sell tons of them so they can thrive and keep going until the Stromberg makes it out of the mock-up phase and into production. The Stromberg promises to encompass all of Waldorf’s previous synth engines in one sleek and silver package. While not holding my breath yet, I am definitely looking forward to it.



In writing this I’ve tried to not sound like a commercial for any of these companies. I’m not sure I’ve succeeded in doing that, but I hope I’ve conveyed my enthusiasm for these very different and very interesting new instruments. In the interests of full disclosure, I have already ordered both the MMM and the Solaris and am eagerly (and somewhat impatiently!) awaiting the actual delivery. They may not be scheduled to arrive immediately, but I’m pretty sure they’ll most definitely be worth the wait. The Stromberg may be further off, but I feel that one also will be an amazing instrument.

Photo credits:
All photos are from the manufacturers’ websites
Mattson Mini Modular
John Bowen Solaris
Waldorf Stromberg