the *very* "hands on" z3ta+ softsynth

I'm *really* enjoying constructing sounds with the z3ta+
softsynth at the moment.

This is very much a "hands on" tool. In fact, it's what I've really
been missing in my electronic efforts of late.

I found that with the Tx81z boxes, I just used presets and,
although I did have a patch editor, it was such a pain saving the
altered patches to the appropriate banks and getting them to work
properly with the sequencer that I rarely did much with them.

The z3ta+ softsynth seems the exact opposite. All the waveforms are
*right there...* It rather reminds me of my very first work with
electronic music when I was in my 20's, working with pure, basic
waveforms. (Just a few years ago, of course... :)

It rather looks as though I may be composing again with relatively
simple materials. I dislike the "hokey" elaborate patches that are
the native presets for the z3ta+ synth and I may go back to
my "roots"...
maybe just combining a few sine, square, pulse, triangle waves with a
bit of envelope for effect and maybe a little bit of reverb just for
starters, so I enjoy the composing process more. (Generally, of
course, such post-processing is better left for later to save CPU
usage...)

But, in any case, I can use any tunings I want... presently
Blackjack, of course... :) but virtually any Scala file. It's pretty
amazing, actually.

And, although I have to have more than one instance of the softsynth
running in Sonar in order to really make music, I don't really need
as many as I thought, since I was forgetting that they are
polyphonic... many different voices possible for each synth and synth
sound.

Well, the pie is in the puddin' which isn't cooked quite as yet...

J. Pehrson

Joe,

Tools like the z3ta+ do go so very far in taking all the elaborate tuning theory and research into the realm of composing and performing. It is getting to be a great time for being able to sit down and Make Microtonal Music.

Along with your thoughts on getting back to your electronic roots, I offer the following, which I sent to someone recently who was just getting started with the z and electronic music:

Someone pointed out the following downloadable book a while ago for people just trying to get a handle on basic synthesis:

http://www.noisesculpture.com/index.php

Description from the page:

How to Make a Noise -
sound design and synthesizer programming

by Simon Cann

"How to make a noise" is a comprehensive, practical guide to sound design and synthesizer programming techniques using:

* subtractive synthesis
* FM
* additive synthesis
* wave sequencing
* sample based synthesis.

The book looks at programming using examples from five of the latest software synthesizers: Cameleon 5000 from Camel Audio, Rhino 2 from BigTick, Vanguard from reFX, WusikStation from Wusik dot com and z3ta+ from rgc:audio and works from the basics through to complex programming techniques.

To illustrate the points raised, over 200 patches are available to accompany the book. These patches are for all of the five featured synthesizers and are arranged in seven banks. The patches (together with a higher resolution version of the book, see below ) are available from www.noisesculpture.com for $10. You don't need the patches to read the book, but it will help and will save you a lot of programming drudge.

Cheers,
Jon

/makemicromusic/topicId_9675.html#9676

***Thanks for this tip, Jon! I downloaded the "low res" version for
now and looks interesting. In fact, it came at a very good time,
since I was trying to figure out how to make my own *bell* sounds
with the zt3a+ and was coming close... Now I can "cheat" and see how
it is generally done... :) Hmmm... more "filter action" than I was
trying...

Thanks again, Jon, as always!

Joe

> Someone pointed out the following downloadable book a while ago for
people
> just trying to get a handle on basic synthesis:
>
> http://www.noisesculpture.com/index.php
>
>