One Synth Challenge #122: Surge (schiing wins!)

[TheNeverScene]

LOLOL That is crazy. Gettin' down in town square! I hope all of those unruly hooligans don't get out of hand... Oh wait, maybe I do want that!

[Guenon]

But yeah no, I think I need to warp somewhere else from there if I wish to salvage a whole tune this month...

[baconpaul]

Hi! We’ve just released 1.6.0-beta-8. KVR made me change the text to post it here as well as in the other Surge thread, so you also get this sentence. It is available (as always) at

https://surge-synthesizer.github.io

and the changelog detailing the differences are

https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/man ... eslog.html

1.6.0-beta-8 fixes two bugs which had been reported frequently. The “Click and Pop” bug where sometimes Surge would just go unstable and make a massive one channel blast is fixed, and a memory leak, which we suspect was causing problems when you played “lots of notes” or “for a long time” are fixed.

Recommend everyone updates to 1.6.0-beta-8.

Enjoy!

[schiing]

Your WiP's are so amazing and interesting to me, Michael. I think it's because we have a 100% different approach to where we start. I usually start with some block chords and melodic improvisation, but I'm never anywhere close to the rhythmic drive you can muster in what seems like a matter of minutes!

Guenon, I was in Berlin twenty years later, and I didn't hear anything like that! Then again, I was going through my Hildegard von Bingen phase at the time.

In regards to wavetables, I think it's safe to assume that we can use anything that comes bundled with the synth itself. I'm pretty sure the guys in charge would've stated it explicitly if certain parts of the synth were off limits. The problems seem to arise with import functionality, at least as I understand it.

That being said, one of my favorite challenges in OSC is to make percs with pure synthesis, so I take this opportunity to say that all my kicks and snares will be made with generator oscillators - God forbid, I don't want anyone thinking I'm using custom-made attacks! Hey, cool - I'm a purist!

[Guenon]

In regards to wavetables, I think it's safe to assume that we can use anything that comes bundled with the synth itself. I'm pretty sure the guys in charge would've stated it explicitly if certain parts of the synth were off limits.

I think that's the best possible way to go about it.

Guenon, I was in Berlin twenty years later, and I didn't hear anything like that! Then again, I was going through my Hildegard von Bingen phase at the time.

Haha! ... (*Cough* elitist *cough*) .. Nooo, just kidding! But yeah, in all seriousness, I honestly tried to get an authentic sounding 90s street rave type of thing going there, but it turned out too much of a parody of itself. Also in a serious vein, I have nothing against the stuff from "the rave years", used to party to it myself

[TheNeverScene]

Hey, Terje, right back at ya my man.

I'm really liking Surge's FM2 module for drums and it also worked well for me on my ride, so curious how crashes might turn out. Once you dial in a sort of atonal hand drum bonk, it's "quick" work using that as a template for the rest of the kit, and it's always nice to be able to assign the noise it's own envelope.

[TheNeverScene]

Guenon, those guys getting rowdy were a trip.

[functionform]

Thanks in advance for all my annoying questions. I feel like I ask this of every synth I start using - is there someway to increase the depth of the pitch modulation? I set LFO1 to Pitch at 14, with max Magnitude and its pretty small (14 semitone max?) I feel like.

[mclstr]

I'm experiencing some random bugs using Surge in Bitwig Linux. I've tried the latest nightly, the recent beta and the official release.
The official release seems the most stable for me at this time, but I'll keep trying the nightlies.
Working around bugs and still learning a new synth makes for slow going, but I think I am really liking Surge.

[baconpaul]

I'm experiencing some random bugs using Surge in Bitwig Linux. I've tried the latest nightly, the recent beta and the official release.
The official release seems the most stable for me at this time, but I'll keep trying the nightlies.
Working around bugs and still learning a new synth makes for slow going, but I think I am really liking Surge.

Linux works fairly well but is definitely the least mature platform. Any bugs you find would be appreciated. If you can raise them as issues in https://github.com/surge-synthesizer/surge that would be great. If you put them here @z.prime or I will see em too most likely.

What sort of bugs are you seeing? Curious what their nature is!

Thanks

[baconpaul]

Thanks in advance for all my annoying questions. I feel like I ask this of every synth I start using - is there someway to increase the depth of the pitch modulation? I set LFO1 to Pitch at 14, with max Magnitude and its pretty small (14 semitone max?) I feel like.

So you found the 14 semitones (set pitch to min and modulate to max with single LFO). With one LFO and one OSC that's the best you can do.

The LFO's stack though. So if you have another LFO you can also use it to also modulate the pitch by 14 and then your total range is 28. If the LFOs have different rates you can even get beating and so on. You get the idea.

I know this isn't a great solution. But best I can figure out to do with surge now.

[baconpaul]

Thanks in advance for all my annoying questions. I feel like I ask this of every synth I start using - is there someway to increase the depth of the pitch modulation? I set LFO1 to Pitch at 14, with max Magnitude and its pretty small (14 semitone max?) I feel like.

So you found the 14 semitones (set pitch to min and modulate to max with single LFO). With one LFO and one OSC that's the best you can do.

The LFO's stack though. So if you have another LFO you can also use it to also modulate the pitch by 14 and then your total range is 28. If the LFOs have different rates you can even get beating and so on. You get the idea.

I know this isn't a great solution. But best I can figure out to do with surge now.

Ha I just learned something new about surge.

On the pitch slider do "Right Mouse / Extend Range". This makes the pitch slider have range -84 to +84 rather than -7 to +7

Then you can modulate as far as you want. So do that instead of my original answer.

[schiing]

Hey, that snappy popup menu for waveforms wasn't there before, right?? I've been clicking through them one by one for a couple of months now - how sad it would be if that was only a random bug when I installed it back in January!

Anyway, thanks for adding it if you did - a million times easier to work with waveforms now.

[baconpaul]

Hey, that snappy popup menu for waveforms wasn't there before, right?? I've been clicking through them one by one for a couple of months now - how sad it would be if that was only a random bug when I installed it back in January!

Anyway, thanks for adding it if you did - a million times easier to work with waveforms now.

Yeah we fixed that in mid january. We've fixed - literally - a few hundred other things since. Full change log is at

https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/man ... eslog.html

[TheNeverScene]

Thanks in advance for all my annoying questions. I feel like I ask this of every synth I start using - is there someway to increase the depth of the pitch modulation? I set LFO1 to Pitch at 14, with max Magnitude and its pretty small (14 semitone max?) I feel like.

If you right click on most of the sliders, there's an "extend range" option that really opens things up.