Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus?Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Scythe: Exploring untapped wavetable characteristics and algorithms

We're looking at concepts and ideas for exploring this relatively unknown synth.

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Comments

  • FYI: This is a new thread moved from the app sales thread.

  • @McD provided this link from @espiegel123 that is very helpful:

    https://wiki.audiob.us/scythe_synthesizer

  • great lets start cooking. any findings on this beast will be good

  • illmstart by reposting the screenie on make your first wave

  • We have Scythe and Scythe Synthetizer, it is very confusing.

  • @Montreal_Music said:
    We have Scythe and Scythe Synthetizer, it is very confusing.

    2 small shop developers without the resources or energy to sue each other. Both have been out there for years. The Wavetable version is pretty unique in it's features. It's a lot like the expensive PPG synths by Waldorf I think.

    There are probably 4-5 threads on this app and each iteration brings a new batch of potential users into the fold for what is usually at the time of the thread a "free" app with IAPs.

    You should consider this one to be worth the effort as representative of a style of synth that's unlike anything else in it's conception. It's great for simulating a tornado on the moons of Jupiter or the sound inside a 50 gal can rolling downhill. You might get a request to create those sounds someday.

  • I was wondering, @McD and @espiegel123, which types of audio samples tend to result in the best wavetable scenes?

    Are they typically simple or complex, a single waveform, a sound effect, or perhaps a vocal?

  • @Montreal_Music said:
    We have Scythe and Scythe Synthetizer, it is very confusing.

    I just realized I have that synth as welll!

    First-world problems....

  • @SNystrom said:
    I was wondering, @McD and @espiegel123, which types of audio samples tend to result in the best wavetable scenes?

    Are they typically simple or complex, a single waveform, a sound effect, or perhaps a vocal?

    The developer recommends samples with a lot of spectral content and his IAP wave files definitely were selected with the criteria but I also like a nice instrument sample like an oboe or a string section.
    You then have the controls to sync 2 wavetables to either create a granular-like instrument similar to the
    SpaceCraft Granular app or the detune and pitch shift and mangle the audio into a nasty bit of industrial
    audio.

    It's a workshop for sound design and not your typical oscilator type sound engine.

    Try recording noisy stuff around the house or neighborhood in AudioShare and it will import straight in from there. It's fun to record something and then drop the sample a couple octaves in the app. It can be used to create massive growling beasts or smoothed out to create nice astral string orchestras.

    I love to bury it in FAC Alteza but I've been doing that with everything lately. Once you've reached lift off you can't go back to the meadow again until space gets old.

  • Very cool!

    Is it better to use two samples of the same style, or to compliment, say, an oboe sample with some industrial grind?

  • @SNystrom said:
    Very cool!

    Is it better to use two samples of the same style, or to compliment, say, an oboe sample with some industrial grind?

    It really depends. I think you just need to spend some time exploring and trying things to develop a feel for what you like.

  • It looks like "pants of death" did a lil' exploring back when it was first realeased (at $13!!!)

    He did an awesome job going over the basics and even created a wavetable from AudioShare.

    Between the always spectacular help from our forum masters and this video, I feel really comfortable spending the holiday weekend exploring the sonic possibilities!

  • McDMcD
    edited May 2020

    I went looking around the house for semething with a lot of spectral content and settled on the cordless vacuum cleaner. Here's Synthe Synth loaded from AudioShare with 2 Vacuum cleaner samples.

    NOTE: SoundCloud was not kind to the raw segments of this audio.

    While recording a played with the octave settings to shift from something kind of "radio of an orchestra under water" to lower/rougher options. Then I added some FilterStep, @Brambos Perforator, Magic Death Eye Stereo and FAC Alteza then unwrapped the FX back to the "radio orchestra" sound.

    This thing is like an industrial garbage compactor that spits out molded toxic toys.
    The whole process tales a couple minutes.

  • edited May 2020

    is this one running stable for you? i gave up using Scythe a while ago because it was crashing constantly when messing around with the wavetable settings.

  • The Scythe Synth’s wavetable editor offers a lot of creative possibilities for custom wavetables not available in other iOS/iPadOS apps. It’d be really nice to see a dedicated wavetable editor that would allow you to both design and export your wavetables for use in other synth apps.

  • @nuno_agogo said:
    is this one running stable for you? i gave up using Scythe a while ago because i was crashing constantly when messing around with the wavetable settings.

    There was a crash if you were editing wavetables while previewing that was fixed some time ago.

  • You’re not alone - shame cos I really enjoyed it but for the crashes!

    @nuno_agogo said:
    is this one running stable for you? i gave up using Scythe a while ago because i was crashing constantly when messing around with the wavetable settings.

  • Fun stuff @McD!

    You can certainly tell when Alteza is engaged!

    It's one of the few reverbs I don't own. How does it compare to Eventide Blackhole or AUFX:space? What sets it apart?

  • McDMcD
    edited May 2020

    @SNystrom said:
    Fun stuff @McD!

    You can certainly tell when Alteza is engaged!

    It's one of the few reverbs I don't own. How does it compare to Eventide Blackhole or AUFX:space? What sets it apart?

    It just sounds good in most cases and there are 2 dry/wet knobs to tweak and a "size" knob. It's fools proof. I fell out of Blackhole use as a habit and it's probably trying to do a lot more and sometimes I just want to drop the music into a massive "place". Lately... it's every time.

    Never bought AUFX:space but I do have:

    EOS2 - love it
    AdVerb 3 - great for guitar plate
    AudioReverb - really nice like all the @Virsyn DSP-based efforts.
    AltiSpace - my favorite IAA Massive Reverb (uses IR models)

    Lately, FAC Alteza gets all the work.

  • Haha!

    I have all these as well:
    EOS2 - love it
    AdVerb 3 - great for guitar plate
    AudioReverb - really nice like all the @Virsyn DSP-based efforts.
    AltiSpace - my favorite IAA Massive Reverb (uses IR models)

    PLUS AD480 (two versions) and some others which escape me at the moment. Shimmer????

    Watched an excellent Doug pre-sale video on Alteza, so now I'm totally stuck buying that as well! Think that was released in February. How I missed it, I have no idea...

  • Brilliant. Thanks for this thread.

    Always loved the otherworldly sinister sound of this synth, bought all the IAPs, then bought about 30 new AU synths afterwards so it's been neglected.

    Looking forward to some free time later to delve deeper....

  • edited May 2020

    Scythe: I love this synth, it can create dense, complex evolving wavetable drones and noises in ways that nothing else on the App Store (except perhaps the now defunct Palm apps, which I never got, and maybe Poseidon) can manage, but the fact that you can import your own samples from AudioShare easily as a starting point for wavetables with the Wavetable Creator IAP is the clincher for me. Took me a while to realise how to modulate All The Things, which is where the fun stuff happens (turn off the keyboard icon on the top bar to reveal the envelopes section, bottom third of the screen, then drag the coloured link icons onto the knobs you want to twiddle -simples!) I bought the lot first time, but you’d be mad not to snap up the synth and all the IAP if you haven’t already, it really is an unheralded champ of a synth - and nowhere near as daunting as that cool cyberpunk screen makes it look (there’s even a pretty good manual built in). Just remember to save often, it’s a bit crashy.

  • edited May 2020

    This one definitely a hidden gem, lots to explore well worth getting the wave creator IAP. It was a bit crash fest on release but it’s a lot more stable now.

    Here is my original post when it was released for some background info.

    https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/22062/scythe-wave-table-synth-by-bitmask-studios#latest

    Had a quick play the day it was released posted this video and got a lot of views as didn’t realize WaveTable synthesis was so popular probably due to Serum comparisons.

  • Scythe Create Excellent BAD sounds. I tried SERUM and totally get the parallel. Some people
    love that form of BAD.

    Bad = something someone might not like... maybe even most people.

    There are synths where you have to work really hard to make it sound bad...
    Scythe Synth is the opposite. It's very hard to make it sound good. Possible but loads of presets indicate this will be a challenge.

    Now there are many that will want this particular version of "bad" sounds. You hear them in some great art and think "How did they add that extra bit of beautiful ugliness?".

    I hope that helps... It also just fun to see audio be a sincere attempt to animate it in the GUI and be convincing. This is a visual representation of fascinating noises.

    Burying the app in massive reverbs helps you get closer to the "ugly texture" that's somehow more interesting that brushed chrome. Who needs more sterile audio? Is that bad?

  • @McD said:
    I went looking around the house for semething with a lot of spectral content and settled on the cordless vacuum cleaner. Here's Synthe Synth loaded from AudioShare with 2 Vacuum cleaner samples.

    NOTE: SoundCloud was not kind to the raw segments of this audio.

    While recording a played with the octave settings to shift from something kind of "radio of an orchestra under water" to lower/rougher options. Then I added some FilterStep, @Brambos Perforator, Magic Death Eye Stereo and FAC Alteza then unwrapped the FX back to the "radio orchestra" sound.

    This thing is like an industrial garbage compactor that spits out molded toxic toys.
    The whole process tales a couple minutes.

    great stuff tbh

  • edited May 2020

    @Jumpercollins @McD so when we create a wt in this puppy it can not be exported? but lets say we share a preset is that preset selfcontained with the wt .. doesnt mattr rly just wanna dissect it
    I call that ” Config Pig Syndrome” that I got :# :D

  • @noob said:
    @Jumpercollins @McD so when we create a wt in this puppy it can not be exported? but lets say we share a preset is that preset selfcontained with the wt .. doesnt mattr rly just wanna dissect it
    I call that ” Config Pig Syndrome” that I got :# :D

    I seems to export wavetables out to audioshare: they are 4KB in size and the type extension is *.aifc

    Is there another common iPad app that imports that file type?

  • McDMcD
    edited May 2020

    OK. I imported 2 of @rs2000's Rhodes Keyboard sample notes and ran the Scythe Synth output through a "Shimmer" preset in ToneBoosters excellent Reverb (that I forgot about but remembered when someone said "Shimmer"). Really a gorgeous synth for lushness. Go figure... garbage in...

  • @McD said:
    Scythe Create Excellent BAD sounds. I tried SERUM and totally get the parallel. Some people
    love that form of BAD.

    Bad = something someone might not like... maybe even most people.

    There are synths where you have to work really hard to make it sound bad...
    Scythe Synth is the opposite. It's very hard to make it sound good. Possible but loads of presets indicate this will be a challenge.

    Now there are many that will want this particular version of "bad" sounds. You hear them in some great art and think "How did they add that extra bit of beautiful ugliness?".

    I hope that helps... It also just fun to see audio be a sincere attempt to animate it in the GUI and be convincing. This is a visual representation of fascinating noises.

    Burying the app in massive reverbs helps you get closer to the "ugly texture" that's somehow more interesting that brushed chrome. Who needs more sterile audio? Is that bad?

    These thoughts about easily creating bad sounds means that the person trying to use the app doesn’t fully utilize the benefits of wavetable design or the controls in the app itself sufficiently to be able to target their efforts in a more focused way to achieve the specific goals they’re after using the app’s built-in functionality. They choose to use other sound design tools to smooth out the harsher sounds for example. Such an approach is defacto subtractive synthesis where you modify existing sounds to get a sound you’re after. There is of course nothing wrong with such an approach though I do believe you won’t be able to realize the full potential of Scythe Synth if you limit yourself to such an approach.

    I recommend exploring the following:

    1. You can use the envelopes in the app to shape you sound.
    2. detune, octave, semitone, and unison controls provide lots of variation for the pitch characteristics of your sounds.
    3. Blend to smooth out differences between each of the waves in your wavetable.
    4. Built-In guide, the little finger pressing a button icon to the right of the MIDI icon, allows you to see an explanation of what all of the controls in the app do.
    5. Learn to modify and use the LFOs to control various control parameters.
    6. Filter delay IAP can add a lot of depth and movement control to the presets you design.
    7. Wavetable Creator IAP allows you to edit your wavetables and not simply rely upon importing your own sounds. There are a lot of tools here for shaping your table of waves to direct them towards the direction you want to go.
    8. Try different shapes of waves and their various combinations in your wavetables to get a sense of how they shape the timbre of the sound.
    9. If you don’t enjoy pursuits like reinventing the wheel, study the wavetables which come with the app and perhaps buy some of the IAP wavetable packs if you want to learn more about how to construct various timbres of wavetables rather than engage in DIY lab experimentation.
    10. RTFM there’s a 25 page built-in manual that goes into great detail about how to use the app.

    Once again there’s nothing wrong with trying to DIY or to use other tools to supplement or replace existent functionality in Scythe Synth; however, please don’t sell yourself or the app short by failing to put some more effort into understanding its capabilities if they’re not already clear to you.

  • @Paulinko said:

    @McD said:
    Scythe Create Excellent BAD sounds. I tried SERUM and totally get the parallel. Some people
    love that form of BAD.

    Bad = something someone might not like... maybe even most people.

    There are synths where you have to work really hard to make it sound bad...
    Scythe Synth is the opposite. It's very hard to make it sound good. Possible but loads of presets indicate this will be a challenge.

    Now there are many that will want this particular version of "bad" sounds. You hear them in some great art and think "How did they add that extra bit of beautiful ugliness?".

    I hope that helps... It also just fun to see audio be a sincere attempt to animate it in the GUI and be convincing. This is a visual representation of fascinating noises.

    Burying the app in massive reverbs helps you get closer to the "ugly texture" that's somehow more interesting that brushed chrome. Who needs more sterile audio? Is that bad?

    These thoughts about easily creating bad sounds means that the person trying to use the app doesn’t fully utilize the benefits of wavetable design or the controls in the app itself sufficiently to be able to target their efforts in a more focused way to achieve the specific goals they’re after using the app’s built-in functionality. They choose to use other sound design tools to smooth out the harsher sounds for example. Such an approach is defacto subtractive synthesis where you modify existing sounds to get a sound you’re after. There is of course nothing wrong with such an approach though I do believe you won’t be able to realize the full potential of Scythe Synth if you limit yourself to such an approach.

    I recommend exploring the following:

    1. You can use the envelopes in the app to shape you sound.
    2. detune, octave, semitone, and unison controls provide lots of variation for the pitch characteristics of your sounds.
    3. Blend to smooth out differences between each of the waves in your wavetable.
    4. Built-In guide, the little finger pressing a button icon to the right of the MIDI icon, allows you to see an explanation of what all of the controls in the app do.
    5. Learn to modify and use the LFOs to control various control parameters.
    6. Filter delay IAP can add a lot of depth and movement control to the presets you design.
    7. Wavetable Creator IAP allows you to edit your wavetables and not simply rely upon importing your own sounds. There are a lot of tools here for shaping your table of waves to direct them towards the direction you want to go.
    8. Try different shapes of waves and their various combinations in your wavetables to get a sense of how they shape the timbre of the sound.
    9. If you don’t enjoy pursuits like reinventing the wheel, study the wavetables which come with the app and perhaps buy some of the IAP wavetable packs if you want to learn more about how to construct various timbres of wavetables rather than engage in DIY lab experimentation.
    10. RTFM there’s a 25 page built-in manual that goes into great detail about how to use the app.

    Once again there’s nothing wrong with trying to DIY or to use other tools to supplement or replace existent functionality in Scythe Synth; however, please don’t sell yourself or the app short by failing to put some more effort into understanding its capabilities if they’re not already clear to you.

    Very thoughtfully presented.

    I will say that the IAP's in this app (and I have them all) do not demonstrate the miracle of this synth well, IMHO. I support the genius behind the app and would like to see this app achieve an income so there might be a sibling someday. I don't think that's going to happen... too much invested for too small a return.
    It happens... Come back ThumbJam.

    I suspect the developer is an extremely talented engineer but their are barriers to the success of this app that probably could be addressed with better "presets". The lack of FX make it sound cheap... Klevgrand's Tines is similar but when you add some power FX you cn really work wonders with these "cheap" sounding apps.

    Now my reference to "bad" is really intended to be tongue in cheek. I downloaded SERUM which is all the rage and the initial sounds were abhorrent. I have since seen videos of users and I can see the attraction of the new in it's design and uses. There's always a leading edge of the culture and I tend to stumble on it
    by accident and usually need to be educated to "get it". It comes with age... you seek comfort in general.

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