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Written by lhp on 2024-10-14 at 15:21

Does anyone have recommendations for a reasonably priced synth with 64 step sequencer and clock sync?

Or alternatively a decent midi synth to use with an external sequencer (I am thinking of getting the arturia keystep since I like the UX/UI of the drumbrute and suspect the keystep will be similar)?

I am new to synths and the range of possible choices I could find is somehow both over- and underwhelming.

(I am not (yet) willing to get into modular/eurorack stuff)

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Written by Isaac Freund on 2024-10-14 at 16:19

@lhp I mean, you could try out a wide variety of free software synths using the arturia keystep as a controller to perhaps get a better idea of how to get to the place you want sonically.

That's more or less the synth setup I have currently though I just have a random cheap MIDI keyboard I bought second-hand.

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Written by Isaac Freund on 2024-10-14 at 16:27

@lhp

As far as musical stuff goes, I do not think it is possible to buy the perfect equipment on the first try.

I don't have a ton of experience with synth stuff yet, I'm primarily a bassist. Looking back to when I started, I had no idea what I wanted and it would have made no difference if I started out with a different bass/amplifier/whatever.

Over time, I've gained a much better ear and the ability to meaningfully differentiate between the options to achieve the sound I want.

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Written by lhp on 2024-10-14 at 16:53

@ifreund oh, I know. I have ~5 years of experience getting reasonably far with the cheapest trumpet money could buy when I was a teenager.

That's why I am trying to get all my synth gear in steps rather than all at once. Also why I am tending towards synth and sequencer as two separate dedicated devices.

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Written by lhp on 2024-10-14 at 16:49

@ifreund actually a good idea. In the long-run I want dedicated hardware, because I am a bit annoyed by how much of my free time is spend in front of a screen.

Do you have any recommendations for FOSS synths?

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Written by Isaac Freund on 2024-10-14 at 17:06

@lhp The FOSS synth I've played around with the most is https://tytel.org/helm/. I don't claim to be an expert there though, that's just the first one I tried that I enjoyed using :)

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Written by lhp on 2024-10-14 at 18:28

@ifreund Nice, I'll check it out

In the past I tried fluidsynth, which is based on sound fonts, but it wasn't all that fun. This seems to be a true synthesizer in that I can modify the wave form, which is probably a lot more fun :)

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Written by lhp on 2024-10-14 at 21:54

@ifreund thanks again. it took forever to compile but is quite fun, even without having a midi controller yet

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Written by lhp on 2024-10-15 at 12:28

@ifreund found a virtual midi keyboard that works with touchscreens (vmpk) and wrote a quick'n'dirty layout and now have a neat synth playground on my laptop

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Written by lhp on 2024-10-16 at 20:00

@ifreund and I just discovered the drum machine can actually also be used a rudimentary MIDI sequencer vis USB, so that's nice. Still no replacement for a "proper" one, but fun

somehow I just assumed it would work the other way around, the drum machine being controlled by the computer, since most examples of the thing do exactly that

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Written by lhp on 2024-10-16 at 20:09

@ifreund ooh and it still outputs it's internal synth! I can use it for both at the same time if I just mute the channels I use in one in the other.

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Written by Isaac Freund on 2024-10-16 at 22:15

@lhp neat, MIDI is pretty sweet. Its awesome that all the hardware manufacturers use the same open protocol.

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Written by lhp on 2024-10-17 at 22:51

@ifreund the main complaint I have about helm is that it uses the ALSA MIDI system instead of the jack one. That makes advanced routing basically impossible. It can only receive input either from specific device(s) or the shared MIDI sync. And it responds to all channels.

If it was using the JACK system, I could f.e. split a physical device between two helm instances via a MIDI filter/router (qmidiroute works really well with pipewire routing via helvum).

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Written by Isaac Freund on 2024-10-17 at 22:52

@lhp are you running helm standalone? I've only ever used it as an lv2 plugin in a DAW where I'm pretty sure that's not an issue.

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Written by lhp on 2024-10-17 at 22:57

@ifreund yeah I am using it standalone. I kinda wanted to avoid having to run a DAW, hence me getting a sequencer over just a keyboard.

So does the DAW replace the JACK/pipewire routing or does create sinks for the synth?

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Written by Isaac Freund on 2024-10-17 at 22:59

@lhp If you don't want a DAW, you probably want something like Carla to handle routing: https://kx.studio/Applications:Carla

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Written by lhp on 2024-10-18 at 12:16

@ifreund yeah that seems to be exactly what I need, it's apparently "just" a proxy between various audio things and jack with an included patch-bay.

Thanks again!

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Written by Isaac Freund on 2024-10-18 at 13:34

@lhp No problem, enjoy!

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