Not a problem! Hope it helps!

Glad you're enjoying it!

Yeah, I get that a lot. No, that's actually my real voice. Maybe I should start doing impressions.

Yeah, it's hard to find a sine wave that's super pure. If that's what you're going for, pay attention to your waveform selection (and filter selection), and of course, any effects you add on it. Even your speakers and especially room acoustics will have an effect. A lot of the time, people go for an impure sine on purpose because of the extra color or analog style sound it gives. Just depends on what you want to use it for. Know what you have and how your processing affects it, and get the sound you want for your music! If it sounds good...

You're welcome! Happy to help.

Glad you liked it!

That's the idea! I'm hoping to make it easier to get started and help people learn how to personalize it for their music.

Glad it was helpful!

No problem! Glad to help!

There's a few ways you could use them. First, they're nice for "static" adjustment of the sound. For example you could load a preset and tweak it. You could also draw in some automation to "mechanically" adjust it over time. You can also record in automation by using a controller and your daw, but not in a live setting. And yeah, you can use it in a live setting where you map your controller sliders, knobs, etc to the macros and then "play" them. They're a great way to add expressiveness and individually to your music!

Glad you enjoyed it! I hope they'll help you in your sound design journey!

I'm considering going from ableton 11 to 12. I really like some of the features they added in 11 - even minor stuff like the scales feature is pretty convenient. It wasn't hard to program in a reference scale in 10, but it's super convenient to not have to and much easier to see when you go out of key (on purpose). There are a lot of other cool features and I'm still discovering new tricks. But there are a few annoying bugs I wish they would fix - like when I move the play head and it starts and then wants to jump back after a moment. You can always do a trial and see if it's worth it for you. I'll be looking into 12 soon and see if it's worth upgrading for me or if I want to wait.

That's very true! I haven't had a chance to dig into Vital's source code yet (I have a little into surge xt), but that's a great way to learn about it if you know a bit of DSP. Fortunately JUCE isn't hard to understand, the DSP is the real work. I've considered doing this, but just haven't had the time yet. It would be fun to know.

That could be a number of reasons. Are you trying to turn the morph knob (and will the knob turn if you try to turn it yourself or is it disabled)? Have you set a path for the filter to move? Iif not the knob will be disabled. Is your automation lane attached to the parameter you're trying to automate? Is the automation active (in ableton, it will be greyed out if disabled, and that happens when you adjust it manually once you've set the automation). If it isn't working for a custom made filter, have you tried a preset to see if it's something in your filter settings?

Thanks for your response! Morph knob is not disabled. (I'm using Logic Pro). Tried the presets. Tried on different audio and midi tracks. I'm sure I'm missing something simple, but I'm stumped! @@idlethoughtsmusic

That's a tough one! I've not used logic pro so I haven't run into this problem yet. If the morph knob has an effect when you manually change it, maybe it's something with the automation interface to logic pro? I'm assuming the same automation technique you're using works with other plug-ins?

Not a problem! Hope it was helpful.

@idlethoughtsmusic I am sure it is. This synth isn't exactly intuitive. It's hard to figure out anything by myself. Without instructions I am lost.

Yeah, there's definitely a learning curve to most synths. Once you figure out the basics, it's not too bad. I learn better when there's a quick tutorial to get me started, so I tried to make a few...

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! 😁

Actually, you're not the first one to ask this question. It's a good question! I'm not sure if you can set the phase directly, but the oscillator's Retrigger button (located between the waveform display and the octave buttons) cause all voices of the oscillator to always start at the same phase position (or all oscillators using a right click option). This is like setting the random phase knob down to 0 in Serum or setting the phase randomness to 0 in Vital. This doesn't let you control the amount of randomness of the phase or set the exact value like you can in Serum or Vital, but allows you to disable randomness in your starting phase, which is nice for sounds that need to sound the exact same every time.

@@idlethoughtsmusicYour videos are great . Thanks for the explanation. But it would be a nice feature to have.

It would be useful. You can always go to the surge xt discord group and ask the developers about adding it. They're pretty responsive to questions.

@@idlethoughtsmusic Ok cool I will

I haven't had a chance to try that out yet. It looks pretty awesome!

@@idlethoughtsmusic they are some of the slickest, best thought out, most useful modules in the library. SurgeXT ftw

I'm not sure if you can set the phase directly, but the oscillator's Retrigger button (located between the waveform display and the octave buttons) cause all voices of the oscillator to always start at the same phase position (or all oscillators using a right click option). This is like setting the random phase knob down to 0 in Serum or setting the phase randomness to 0 in Vital. This doesn't let you control the amount of randomness of the phase or set the exact value like you can in Serum or Vital, but allows you to disable randomness in your starting phase, which is nice for sounds that need to sound the exact same every time.

Glad it was helpful for you!

Thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to check it out. It's a really useful feature!

@@idlethoughtsmusic check out TDR Prism too, it's also free with a multitrack (up to 4 tracks), it's much easier to set up

That looks cool, I'll have to check that out!

I don't suppose you can post a link for the VST2 version? On the Voxengo site they only have the most recent version available for free.

@@sgg6927 on the official website, the installer includes vst (vst = vst2), select vst 64 bit in the checkbox

Glad it helped! Span is pretty awesome and there's lots of useful features in it!

@@idlethoughtsmusic Exactly 💯, my workflow and music quality has improved a lot since I started using span vst

Glad you found it helpful! Thanks for checking it out.

Thanks, glad you found it useful!

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.

Good idea. I have a couple of videos that I'm working on right now first... I'll add it to the list!

It's pretty good at FM, and you can't beat the price!

It really is a good sound, and it's not hard to make! Thanks for watching!

Glad you liked it! You know, you're not the first to say this...maybe I should randomly throw in some quotes and see who catches them...

Yes it is! They're really good synths and a great way to get started into sound design!

Glad you found it useful! That one shouldn't be too bad - I'll see if I can throw something together when I get a chance. Thanks for the feedback!

I haven't tried Shade yet, but it looks pretty cool! It looks like Morph EQ is simpler and cheaper. I wouldn't mind trying both at some point and comparing them.

No problem! It's a cool trick - put it to use!

You're very welcome!

Appreciate it! Sometimes the details are important to get the sound you want. The more you know, the easier it is to discover cool sounds.

Thanks for the suggestion! That would be a good one to do.

Yes Pliz ​@@idlethoughtsmusic

That's a great question! Although this is Ableton specific, it may be possible to do something similar in Reaper. I don't have Reaper so I can't confirm. You need to have access to the plugin parameters (the DAW needs that for automation and saving states, so I would imagine most DAWs would expose that to the user) and then some way to randomize specific parameters. In Ableton the instrument rack is great for that - it lets you assign macros and then you can randomize the macros. Perhaps Reaper has something similar? At one point, I looked for a similar thing using plugins but didn't have much luck. I think this is more of a DAW thing, or the randomization is built directly into plugins (and only for that plugin), which is becoming more and more common.

Thanks! No, not official. But the developers have written a really good manual that does a great job at explaining the synth. It's really well integrated into the synth too (when you use the help options). You should check it out if you get a chance! I learned a lot from it.

Well, so far I only have one start to finish sound design tutorial in Surge XT, but I do have two "how to use it" tutorials, and more on the way!

Thanks! And thanks for watching!

It's primarily focused on distortion, but it does have a few built-in tools such as multi band, a filter, feedback, and modulation. The ability to do different distortion for both the positive and negative halves is super powerful. It's impressive what this can do. But yeah, it's primarily focused on distortion and isn't intended to be a super effects plugin. Different tools for different purposes. That's one reason I like to show people what these can do, so they can decide what works best for them.

Although you can attempt to create a realistic piano sound using a synth, my opinion is that you're better off just using a dedicated piano library. A truly realistic sound is difficult to synthesize (it's not just the tone, but the strike of the string and other mechanical sounds that add character to it). If you're going for realism, a trained ear will always spot the difference. A synth's strength is to generate sounds that a piano cannot attain. For me, when I want a realistic piano, I reach for a dedicated plugin for that, and when I want a cool synth sound, I'll use a synth like Surge XT and experiment. If you're using a synth, I think a better option is to shoot for a "keys" sound instead. Sorry, I don't have a preset bank yet. Maybe one day I'll take the time to make one! I'd recommend starting with the presets built-into Surge XT - there's a lot of them and a lot of really awesome 3rd party ones.

Surge XT's user's manual does a pretty good job at explaining how to import wavetables. You can find it here: surge-synthesizer.github.io/manual-xt/#wavetable So, to answer your question, you can get wavetables anywhere you can find them for other synths such as Serum and Vital. There are a lot of places that have both free and paid wavetables. So for example, this blog post has a bunch of links to free wavetables: cymatics.fm/blogs/production/ultimate-list-free-serum-wavetables Then, you can import them as described in the manual above.

Thanks! Glad it helped!

It seems a little intimidating at first (like most synths), but when you get to know it a bit, it's actually not too bad to use!

I got out a pretty interesting soundwave using filters, envelopes, and a combination of two waves after 4 hours of messing with it. I'm not minimally educated in music, and it was my first time using anything music related. I didn't even know what a DAW was or why I needed one, much less how to include a VST plugin (also didn't know what that was). All in all, 4 hours seems like very little time for the sheer amount of stuff that I needed to do, and I'm not particularly bright I started off with this channel's Oscillator and Modulator tutorials, maybe you can start with that, feels a lot less intimidating after watching those (pro tip: follow along, don't just watch)

@@carlosmspk Thanks for sharing! A synth is pretty intimidating at first and they're so much to learn with using a DAW and sound design. It's not as hard as people think to get started, if you're willing to put in some time. Sounds like you have a great start! I agree that the Oscillator and Modulator tutorials are great to start with. One of these days I'll put together a "getting started with synths" video, but that's a big topic and challenging to make into short videos. And I definitely agree that you'll get much more out of it if you follow along. Thanks for watching!

It has a step sequencer LFO type. You can use that for all sorts of interesting modulation effects, including pitch modulation. Good question!

It has a step sequencer LFO type. You can use that for all sorts of interesting modulation effects, including pitch modulation. Good question!

@@idlethoughtsmusic how does modulation work it the most confusing part about this vst like it work sometime other time it doesn't change anything

@@idlethoughtsmusic also another question is the step-sequencer is comparable to serum Lfo sequencer

I have a video on surge xt's modulation that should help. It's similar to serum's LFO. Serum has a single customizable LFO that's easy to use and mix lfo styles, and surge is more broken out into different types if you're looking for something quick of a specific type with extra tools to help. You can make completely customizable LFOs in surge like in serum, but it isn't quite as intuitive. It's very powerful though and both have features the other one doesn't.

It is pretty powerful! There's some really amazing presets in there too. I just found a new favorite yesterday (The Fabulous Chippy FM West Coast Lead by Kinsey Dulcet).

So there is no play button - instead, Surge XT, like other virtual synths, runs as a plugin within a DAW (Ableton Live in my case). The DAW sends the MIDI information to Surge XT when play is pressed in the DAW, and Surge XT returns audio back to the DAW which is then further processed and then sent to your speakers. Now, Surge XT does have a standalone version, which is probably what you're using. In this case, I assume it gets the MIDI from any controllers you may have plugged into your PC, and would then return the sound to your speakers. So in other words, you would play notes on your MIDI controller (probably a music keyboard) and hear the sound on your speaker. If you don't have a MIDI controller, I'm sure there are standalone programs out there that can generate MIDI from your computer keyboard. If you're just getting started, I'd recommend looking for a DAW if you don't have one yet. Although Surge XT is free, most DAWs are not and some are very expensive. There are some less expensive ones out there so do your research and find the one that fits you. Just make sure it can load in plugins, like Surge XT.

@@idlethoughtsmusic Thanks so much for the answer! I actually reached out to the Surge XT guys and got a resolution. Let me explain what I did: 1) The first step was getting Surge XT to do "anything". This is most easily done using the 'Menu' -> 'Workflow' -> 'Virtual Keyboard' option, and pressing some notes that way. 2) The second step is to hook up a DAW, a physical keyboard, or a midi editor. I chose to use something called 'Loop' to create virtual midi ports between 'Midi Editor' software and 'Surge XT' Hope this helps anyone on their own journey :)