toneburst Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 Hi, where can I find the perl script to generate random patches that's mentioned on the uCapps.de MIDIboxFM page. Just completed my SammichFM, and badly need to overwrite the underwhelming General-MIDI presets with something more interesting. a|x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imp Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 You don't need it. You can generate random patches on the FM. But don't start if you have other things to do :rofl: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toneburst Posted July 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 (edited) Lol, thanks for the info, Imp. I do have other things to do, in fact- need to try and work out why audio outs 1 and 2 are horribly distorted :sad: a|x Edited July 19, 2011 by toneburst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toneburst Posted July 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 Sorry Imp, I can't find the random patch function in the MIDIboxFM manual. How do you do it? a|x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imp Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 -Power on -push any button of the lower ones -sroll right with encoder -push button under "RND" -make some noise -realise where and who you are several hours later Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK. Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 The random function isn't documented in the manual, because it was initially planned as an easter egg ;) Best Regards, Thorsten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toneburst Posted July 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2011 Ah, thanks guys. I'll give that a go. I have a Waldorf Pulse, so I know how many happy hours can be spent randomising synth parameters ;) a|x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toneburst Posted July 21, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2011 Wow, several hours later... Press Random All, press a key, repeat... Reminds me a lot of the kind of sounds I used to get out of my EVS-1 synth, poking around with the parameters in the Atari ST editor. The EVS-1 was theoretically much more flexible than the OPL3 chip, but in practice, the kind of sounds I used to come up with were remarkably similar to the ones I've been getting out of the SammichFM in the last couple of days. I'm struck also by how rarely the randomisation produces anything with a playable note. I guess the trick is for these, to find something similar to what you're looking for, then tweak it, rather that attempting to build a usable sound from scratch. a|x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imp Posted July 22, 2011 Report Share Posted July 22, 2011 I start with a playable note and use "OP Gen" only. That way sounds stay playable, but get weird enough nonetheless. Is the EVS-1 worth trying? Everytime i see one on ebay, they get sold for almost nothing... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toneburst Posted July 22, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2011 (edited) Hi Imp, I'll try randomising the Operators only. I'm finding randomising everything more often than not ends up producing LFO madness. I sometimes regret getting rid of my EVS-1. I think now, I'd probably have a bit more of an idea about how to get usable sounds out of it that I did when I had it. The biggest downside is that you can't edit the sounds at all from the front-panel. This isn't surprising, given the complexity of the architecture, and the fact it only has a 2-character LED display, but it means to get the best out of it, you need an editor of some kind. As far as I know, the only modern patch editor/librarian that supports it is MIDIQuest, which has an atrocious GUI, and is laughably over-priced. Evolution themselves did produce Atari and Windows editors, but since they stopped production of the EVS-1 in 1990, I don't know if the PC one still works in more recent Windows versions. In terms of synthesis features, it's actually quite impressive, on paper. It offers all kinds of different synthesis algorithms, including FM, AM, subtractive (but don't expect virtual-analogue), and some more obscure ones like VOSIM and Formant synthesis. The envelopes are nearer to the Yamaha FM synth ones than standard ADSRs, too, which makes them quite flexible, and you can modulate lots of parameters with LFOs, velocity and assignable CCs, too. It's also got a selection of single-cycle waveforms, a bit like the Korg DW-6/8000, plus quite a comprehensive set of drum and percussion sounds, in a typical 80s drum-machine short lo-res PCM style. I'd say go for it, if you can pick one up cheap enough, and you're sure you will be able to run an editor for it, but don't expect hi-fi sound out of it. I think they were trying to make it a jack-of-all-trades, but on a budget, so inevitably it ended up being a master of none. I don't know what internal resolution it uses, but I suspect it 12-bit at most, and the DACs probably weren't of the best quality, even for the late 80s. I used to like it for latelybass-style basses, weird FM-like bell tones, synth choir, cold string-type sounds and random overmodulated LFO weirdness. Occasionally I'd even use some of the percussion sounds. It's also quite cool to make a fat brassy synth sound, then stack it up across all 8 parts, with detuning and panning, to make one monster sound. Here's an example I found of a track using the EVS-1 as the only sound-source: There's also this thread from this forum, in fact that contains a link to the Windows editor (might be dead, haven't checked). Also, this site http://www.deepsonic.ch/deep/htm/evs-1.php has some EVS-1-only example MP3s a|x Edited July 22, 2011 by toneburst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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