Dawesome MYTH

[gnu23]

I heard something I liked in the Astral Vision preset by Spectralisk. I used the Breed feature on it a couple of times. I took mods out of it - tweaked a lot a lot. I learned a lot more.

I finally landed at a deep variant of the Spectralisk original preset with the "I wouldn't be able to get this timbre on any other synth" quality. That's rare.

Still learning.

[Ah_Dziz]

There seems to be lots of discussion of the purity/purifier, it behaves just like a spectral threshold or spectral gate. Just like a broadband noise reducer or an over the top mp3 encoder.

[martiu]

There seems to be lots of discussion of the purity/purifier, it behaves just like a spectral threshold or spectral gate. Just like a broadband noise reducer or an over the top mp3 encoder.

it sounds like spectral clipper

[Gribs]

Glad there is a demo; tried it and decided to wait and see if further developments are made.

[kraster]

There seems to be lots of discussion of the purity/purifier, it behaves just like a spectral threshold or spectral gate. Just like a broadband noise reducer or an over the top mp3 encoder.

it sounds like spectral clipper

According to the manual each sounds is decomposed into 4 parts with each one having a 500 segment MSEG. The graphic used to depict the envelope is identical to the envelopes in Novum.

The half moon control fades between the 4 "states".

If you put something like a drum loop into it you can hear that the sound has been decomposed roughly to reflect the components of the loop. So there is some kind of ML going on to extract those elements.

I think the purify control might be just a smooth interpolation of the MSEG rather than being necessarily spectral. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of timbral content extracted from samples.

In the Plugin Boutique video Peter emphasises that it's the temporal component that's of interest here.

That's how I've been using it. Like a really complex exciter for the Resonator/Modal filter.

It's also great for adding texture to a sound. Noisy, dense and irregular sounds work great.

As someone said above I think giving the Irises top billing kind of misrepresents the synth's strengths. It's certainly nice to have but things like the resonator and the various other modifiers and the routing are equally important.

[plexuss]

Built with a bunch of Myths only, factory presets, and dark matter.

https://plexus.bandcamp.com/track/when- ... magination

[pekbro]

Pretty fun to mess around with this synth I must say, bought it since my "pay in 4" on the Live 12 upgrade was done.

[foosnark]

I think the purify control might be just a smooth interpolation of the MSEG rather than being necessarily spectral. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of timbral content extracted from samples.

I used it on a single cycle sawtooth, there was no temporal variation at all. It worked exactly as I described in my post above, attenuating groups of partials according to their amplitudes.

If it was "just" temporal it'd be an envelope follower. There is definitely a spectral dimension to it too.

(Actually I wish it did have an envelope follower on the iris output as a modulation source...)

[cb8rwh]

An envelope follower has been requested. It'll be on a feature request list of, I'd imagine, a considerable size!

[kraster]

I think the purify control might be just a smooth interpolation of the MSEG rather than being necessarily spectral. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of timbral content extracted from samples.

I used it on a single cycle sawtooth, there was no temporal variation at all. It worked exactly as I described in my post above, attenuating groups of partials according to their amplitudes.

If it was "just" temporal it'd be an envelope follower. There is definitely a spectral dimension to it too.

(Actually I wish it did have an envelope follower on the iris output as a modulation source...)

That's fair enough.

It seems to do timbral resynthesis much better with sustained sounds.

I put a sustained cello sample into it and it came out relatively close to what I put in.

It's some sort of additive approach with maybe some FM on each component.

As I said above, from the manual and the Plugin Boutique video it's essentially a four component with each component having a 500 segment MSEG.

So in terms of "resolution" there is a lot more available for temporal aspects.

That's why you can say put a drum loop into it and while it doesn't replicate the timbre of the loop you can definitely make out the temporal aspect in terms of rhythm.

I also think that having the Iris' temporal output available as a modulator would be amazing.

[Borbolactic]

How does Myth compare with Synplant 2?

[Borbolactic]

Sound similar to what Synplant does, which is the most fun I can have with a synth atm. Can’t wait for this one

How do the two compare? (not WRT the GUI)

[databroth]

How does Myth compare with Synplant 2?

I keep seeing similar questions pop up
I find it a bit strange to compare these two
I understand that they both have a sample import function that does something novel
but the similarities end there

it's like asking how ableton compares to serum, or how spaghetti compares to pizza

now, I do think there are things to compare here, but the way this question is worded, it implies comparing them as a whole. In which case, you'd have to look at the whole modular/ modulation side of Myth, the extra oscillators, effects, filters, resonators, and other goodies.

Synplant is a fairly simple 2 osc synth, with crossmod, a couple filters, and a few modulation sources, all pre-routed. If we're looking at the two as a whole, Myth is vastly deeper with far more options.

So I think another way to look at your question is "how does the sample import resynthesis of Myth compare to Synplant?"

This looks at the overlap between the two plugins and compares one similar feature. And even here, this feature is really incredibly different between the two. In synplant, importing a sample gives you branching results, these results utilize the WHOLE synth engine. Meaning you can't patch ontop of the result without altering it.

In Myth the resynthesis is done via a 4 layer multi-bin engine that has a deep volume curve for each layer. This is all contained within the Iris alone, nothing else in the synth has changed, so you can work from here to layer more effects, filters, and even utilize the transformers to manipulate the Iris its self.

This isn't to say you can't alter the Synplant patch after you have imported, you can, but your options stray from the result quickly and are quite limited.

So, in this case, you have two completely different systems, which brings up another important question: "how do imported sources and results compare?".
Synplant and Myth create wildly different results from the same source, Synplant can really struggle with anything rhythmic, it tends to be best with simple 1 shot sounds, I found ceramic and metallic sounds worked best. Myth is more so targeting the "temporal change" over time, it can get some simple instruments and plucks quite well, but it can do some cool rhythmic stuff in ways Synplant won't even come close to. Ultimately, they have very different sounds as a result of resynthesis, and they work better or worse on varying target sources.

In a way, other than the idea of "importing a sample to create a form of resynthesis" and being synthesizers, they have almost nothing in common. It's sorta like comparing an iphone to an amazon echo because they both have an AI assistant, the iphone can do a hell of a lot more than the echo. This ultimately comes down to what you are looking for though, perhaps you don't care to do sound design at all, and the "rest of the synth" beyond the import/resynthesis isn't important to you. But in any case of "resynthesis" it's not magic, it's not going to magically sound better than the sample already does, and to get further creativity out of your samples, you need to engage with the rest of the synth anyways.

It's worth downloading both and demoing/ testing them

[Borbolactic]

How does Myth compare with Synplant 2?

I keep seeing similar questions pop up
I find it a bit strange to compare these two
I understand that they both have a sample import function that does something novel
but the similarities end there...

Thanks for your elaborative response, Databroth, appreciated. I know Vital also has an external free resynthesis-- or maybe more accurately called inference?-- plugin too.

If my interest/aesthetic is along the lines of accurate replication or better (think hyperrealistic painting perhaps, and upping the colours and contrast) and a deep, maybe per-partial, control of the sound from there, what might you recommend?

Lastly, do you or anyone reading this have any ideas about what is going on under the hood WRT how the synth(s) is(are) inputting the initial sounds? I mean, WRT resynthesis, is it FFT and WRT AI would it be different, such as 'inference' or something, based on 'training'?

"I found ceramic and metallic sounds worked best."

Perhaps this is because Synplant uses FM oscillators? (I wonder what kind of oscillators Myth uses.)

[databroth]

@Borbolactic no problem, I almost considered creating it as an article, but I feel like that'd only add to the confusion.


"I know Vital also has an external free resynthesis-- or maybe more accurately called inference?-- plugin too."
I've seen this, it is more akin to what synplant is doing, in that it uses the engine its self, rather than an array of oscillators. However, from everything I've seen, it is incredibly mediocre, I am sorry to the creator of this tool, but it seems to do poorly at replicating even the most basic sounds. Stuff that you shouldn't even need resynthesis for to begin with.

"If my interest/aesthetic is along the lines of accurate replication or better (think hyperrealistic painting perhaps, and upping the colours and contrast) and a deep, maybe per-partial, control of the sound from there, what might you recommend?"
Neither Myth, nor Synplant give you "per-partial control over the sound".
It's hard for me to make suggestions because the sound material you are using is just as important as your goals. None of the resynthesis tools out there are perfect, they will all stray from various types of sounds, and vary in the complexity of control you can achieve from there.

before you read this next paragraph, please know that I am no expert on AI:
As for the resynthesis and AI, they are all different, often "AI" in this context means machine learning. There is often a model that is trained off of many sound sources, this training is developed over many cycles using a data-set and some sort of sound engine. In synplant, this sound engine is the synth of synplant, so when training, it is using synplant, adjusting controls, and trying to match the sound source. After enough training this is included with the synth as the "AI model". The model has some idea of what being "close to the sound source" is supposed to sound like, but no idea what your particular soundsource will be.
So you import a sample and it goes through a process of trying to get close to that sound source. By the end of this process it gives you a result, the accuracy of this result depends on a few factors, how closely it matches any of the training data, if the engine could even replicate the sound in the first place, how complex the sound is. It is not FFT at all, though "fft" may play a role in the analysis of the generation to determine if the results are similar or not.

With Myth, it is very similar in terms of the "AI" training side of things, but the difference is the engine, and the layer splitting. Myths engine (as far as the resynthesis Iris) is based on a complex bin array of many parallel oscillators, this is similar, but not quite "fft". The training and generation are similar, but you have a very different engine involved, so different sources have better potential to be replicated. With Myth, the idea isn't perfect replication anyways, "it's not meant to be a sampler" as Peter has said. It is meant to give you a creative starting point that is unique from traditional oscillators.

I think it's too easy to get caught up in resynthesis and AI, it's a LOT of work to go through to not do any sound design, one of the most fun parts of using synths. It's already incredibly easy to not do any sound design, just use presets, or just use samples.

"Perhaps this is because Synplant uses FM oscillators? (I wonder what kind of oscillators Myth uses.)"
well there's not really such a thing as "FM oscillators" there are oscillators, and FM is a thing you can do between two oscillators, both Myth and Synplant have FM, Myth doesn't use the FM in the training or resynthesis, it uses the bin array and msegs. Synplant does involve the FM in the resynthesis.
But I think it's far more complicated than this, it has a lot to do with the envelopes as well, and reverb