Breaking the Synth Mold

srcer

@Jocphone said:
I love the visuals too. Shame you can't export those.

You could use this
http://www.airsquirrels.com/reflector/

Creates an AirPlay target on your computer that you can use to record a video of whatever you stream from your iDevice

srcer

@u0421793 said:
The thing about the wavestation is interesting. It is a truly wonderful synth. I very nearly bought one in the 90s. When I say very nearly, I actually had carried it in the box in the shop all the way up to the counter to pay for it, and as it was resting on my foot, I had a sudden change of mind (which was fortunate as I unaware that I was about to face a financial smack in the face, and to have spent that then would have made things worse). I really really wanted it though, but already had a Yamaha SY77 so remained content with that until I had to sell it.

It is only now that I can put into a more overviewing perspective the whole evolution of synthesisers over the past many decades. The wavestation is one of the important ones. So is the Korg AI line (the M1, O1/W up to current models, etc). Similarly the Yamaha AWM-base line.

The way I see the history is this: (I'm afraid I overwrote the following, it says 'body is 5684 characters too long, so I've wrapped it up as a google doc, and here's the link): https://docs.google.com/document/d/10h8JPI_C-HnmCrjI-5lvEhl36boASYL47IVIKqFb8s8
(Too long, nobody will read it, sorry).

This is just the sort of treatise on how did we even get here that I really enjoy

Click for the history, stay for the humor
"bits of wood being hit by squirrels"

Also, you've just made me want to take a closer look at iWavestation and Kamata. Previously I was leaning more towards the Odessei out of the new KORG bits

"sunny out"
indeed

JeffChasteen

Virtual ANS
Although it is an emulation of a process that has been around for a long time, there is nothing else like it on iOS. Hail Zolotov!

JeffChasteen

@Dubbylabby said:
Impaktor, Samvada...

Doubleplus

[Deleted User]

@skiphunt you can use Patterning to drive the sound created by BitWiz. Have Patterning send out CC messages and make sure they're assigned to the variables in BitWiz. You can have up to 8 different variables in your BitWiz equations that you can control via midi CC.

You can even use an app like Fugue Machine to send midi notes to Midiflow and have them remapped and output as CC rather than notes. In AUM you can indirectly achieve Link functionality by hosting BitWiz and getting MIDI sent from Link apps. Different Drummer is another excellent source especially in conjunction with its semi random IAP capabilities.

Lots of interesting results can be had by sending the output from BitWiz to a vocoder app like VoxSyn.

Using very low tempos for your midi sources allows the BitWiz sound patterns generated by an equation to develop before they're switched via midi control.

It would be very nice if the developer @j_liljedahl updated the app at some point but it's definitely been at the bottom of his priority list due to its sales relative to his other apps.

skiphunt

@InfoCheck said:
@skiphunt you can use Patterning to drive the sound created by BitWiz. Have Patterning send out CC messages and make sure they're assigned to the variables in BitWiz. You can have up to 8 different variables in your BitWiz equations that you can control via midi CC.

You can even use an app like Fugue Machine to send midi notes to Midiflow and have them remapped and output as CC rather than notes. In AUM you can indirectly achieve Link functionality by hosting BitWiz and getting MIDI sent from Link apps. Different Drummer is another excellent source especially in conjunction with its semi random IAP capabilities.

Lots of interesting results can be had by sending the output from BitWiz to a vocoder app like VoxSyn.

Using very low tempos for your midi sources allows the BitWiz sound patterns generated by an equation to develop before they're switched via midi control.

It would be very nice if the developer @j_liljedahl updated the app at some point but it's definitely been at the bottom of his priority list due to its sales relative to his other apps.

You wouldn't happen to have any sample code equation that uses all 8 midi cc control slots handy would you?

I've tried pumping it through VoxSyn with good results as well. Haven't tried Patterning yet, not have I tried with a slower tempo from midi sources to give the sound time to develop. Good tip. thx!

skiphunt

Also, big +1 on Photophore. I'd been watching that one for awhile and grabbed it during the black friday sales. I just noticed the dev has the black friday/cyber monday sale going until the end of the year. $3.99 normally $7.99

[Deleted User]

@skiphunt are some example equations for use with BitWiz:

// chords n base 2 variables xyabmnuv
r=3,
z=(z^(((t^m)>>((x-y))+c)+(t^(n/2))%((a-b))+6*((t^(m/8))>>16&3^1)))/2+(u-v),
z^((t^(n/32))%64)

and here's another

// fun robo pulse with rattle r options
//activate line below for hard on/off glitch
r=(x+a)/(y+b),c=t^(y&r+x),
z=(t*r/(x-y+a-b+m-n+u-v)^(r+t))%c

You'll need to assign a MIDI to each of the xyabmnuv variables in BitWiz.

asnor

this thread is getting expensive

skiphunt

I dunno kids... Been playing with BitWiz again for over an hour, trying to control it via midi cc (didn't have any luck getting Patterning to control it even though I set up all 8 variables with controls on channel 1)

There were moments of interesting sound I suppose, but mostly it sounded like a chainsaw wailing at a Cenobite dance party

JohnnyGoodyear

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:
I'm almost loath to post this because it is so good and I should keep it to myself, but one of my favourite non-traditional synths is BitWiz by Jonatan Liljedahl.

You write C style code to generate raw audio.

Before you run away screaming, alternatively you can swipe your fingers over the interface to generate another algorithm. The sounds it produces vary from soothing to nerve wracking momentarily stopping at terrifying and mind blowing. Sometimes it generates no sound, other times it produces interactive sounds that you can vary with an XY pad at the bottom of the screen.

An inspiring and unique app. I'm already regretting letting you in on this secret

Looks interesting, the noises remind me of Hexaglyphics a bit which is another weird thing.

Worth a punt for 79p.

I have wasted many an hour with the following process in BitWiz

Swipe
Try XY pad (optional)
Laugh maniacally
Repeat

Literally made me shiver. Too late at night for this kind of madness, but not certain Mister Monzo will ever go to bed..

Jocphone

@JohnnyGoodyear said:

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:
I'm almost loath to post this because it is so good and I should keep it to myself, but one of my favourite non-traditional synths is BitWiz by Jonatan Liljedahl.

You write C style code to generate raw audio.

Before you run away screaming, alternatively you can swipe your fingers over the interface to generate another algorithm. The sounds it produces vary from soothing to nerve wracking momentarily stopping at terrifying and mind blowing. Sometimes it generates no sound, other times it produces interactive sounds that you can vary with an XY pad at the bottom of the screen.

An inspiring and unique app. I'm already regretting letting you in on this secret

Looks interesting, the noises remind me of Hexaglyphics a bit which is another weird thing.

Worth a punt for 79p.

I have wasted many an hour with the following process in BitWiz

Swipe
Try XY pad (optional)
Laugh maniacally
Repeat

Literally made me shiver. Too late at night for this kind of madness, but not certain Mister Monzo will ever go to bed..

@MaryShelley said:
I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.

I just hope he remembered the Faraday cage

[Deleted User]

@Jocphone said:

@JohnnyGoodyear said:

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:
I'm almost loath to post this because it is so good and I should keep it to myself, but one of my favourite non-traditional synths is BitWiz by Jonatan Liljedahl.

You write C style code to generate raw audio.

Before you run away screaming, alternatively you can swipe your fingers over the interface to generate another algorithm. The sounds it produces vary from soothing to nerve wracking momentarily stopping at terrifying and mind blowing. Sometimes it generates no sound, other times it produces interactive sounds that you can vary with an XY pad at the bottom of the screen.

An inspiring and unique app. I'm already regretting letting you in on this secret

Looks interesting, the noises remind me of Hexaglyphics a bit which is another weird thing.

Worth a punt for 79p.

I have wasted many an hour with the following process in BitWiz

Swipe
Try XY pad (optional)
Laugh maniacally
Repeat

Literally made me shiver. Too late at night for this kind of madness, but not certain Mister Monzo will ever go to bed..

@MaryShelley said:
I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.

I just hope he remembered the Faraday cage

That's uncanny, have you gentlemen installed a secret video camera on my property by vicarious means?

Actually I did do a thing with Bitwiz last night- using AUM I had a painfully slow beat from ElasticDrums going through Moebius, a Shoom drone into Turnado, and a twitchy BitWiz glitch going through AUFX:Space and VoxSyn. All played and recorded live for four minutes, track done.

So BitWiz has earned its 79p entry fee already, though no sane person would want to hear the result.

[Deleted User]

@skiphunt here's a loop made with BitWiz and VoxSynth being driven by midiLFOs in AUM.

animal

In my setup Bitwiz's xy and ab is being controlled via softstep xy-pressure-commands. You have to practice this for a while, though. Also nice: running the Bitwiz sounds through Borderlands Granular (liverrec), and into BlocksWave for looperisations. Bitwiz is a fountain of gorgeousness...

Jocphone

@InfoCheck said:
@skiphunt here's a loop made with BitWiz and VoxSynth being driven by midiLFOs in AUM.

What could be more soothing? Love it!

Jocphone

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:

@JohnnyGoodyear said:

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:
I'm almost loath to post this because it is so good and I should keep it to myself, but one of my favourite non-traditional synths is BitWiz by Jonatan Liljedahl.

You write C style code to generate raw audio.

Before you run away screaming, alternatively you can swipe your fingers over the interface to generate another algorithm. The sounds it produces vary from soothing to nerve wracking momentarily stopping at terrifying and mind blowing. Sometimes it generates no sound, other times it produces interactive sounds that you can vary with an XY pad at the bottom of the screen.

An inspiring and unique app. I'm already regretting letting you in on this secret

Looks interesting, the noises remind me of Hexaglyphics a bit which is another weird thing.

Worth a punt for 79p.

I have wasted many an hour with the following process in BitWiz

Swipe
Try XY pad (optional)
Laugh maniacally
Repeat

Literally made me shiver. Too late at night for this kind of madness, but not certain Mister Monzo will ever go to bed..

@MaryShelley said:
I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.

I just hope he remembered the Faraday cage

That's uncanny, have you gentlemen installed a secret video camera on my property by vicarious means?

Actually I did do a thing with Bitwiz last night- using AUM I had a painfully slow beat from ElasticDrums going through Moebius, a Shoom drone into Turnado, and a twitchy BitWiz glitch going through AUFX:Space and VoxSyn. All played and recorded live for four minutes, track done.

So BitWiz has earned its 79p entry fee already, though no sane person would want to hear the result.

Despite the risk of saying this in public I would love to hear that Monzo.

[Deleted User]

@InfoCheck said:

@skiphunt here's a loop made with BitWiz and VoxSynth being driven by midiLFOs in AUM.

I've got that playing on a loop, I'll probably listen to it all day.

@Jocphone said:

Despite the risk of saying this in public I would love to hear that Monzo.

I thought you might say that! I was going to use it for another project I do as it's not particularly user friendly, but listening back to it now it's not as bad as I thought. Not quite up to SOTM standard, but I might stick it up and post a link later here, just for the ships and giggles.

AndyPlankton

Well I fired up bitwiz for the first time last night, swiped the x/y and pressed play, laughed madly, so the description given here was spot on LOL

How can you control the pitch ? or is it a case of make a sample, load it into a sampler/wave editor and pitch it there ?

Jocphone

@MonzoPro said:

@InfoCheck said:

@skiphunt here's a loop made with BitWiz and VoxSynth being driven by midiLFOs in AUM.

I've got that playing on a loop, I'll probably listen to it all day.

@Jocphone said:

Despite the risk of saying this in public I would love to hear that Monzo.

I thought you might say that! I was going to use it for another project I do as it's not particularly user friendly, but listening back to it now it's not as bad as I thought. Not quite up to SOTM standard, but I might stick it up and post a link later here, just for the ships and giggles.

I shouldn't worry, have subjected the good people of this forum to enough torture of my own devising. They must have learned not to press play on our treasures if they are easily offended aurally.

Am a little intrigued because I still haven't fully got to grips with VoxSyn yet and am keen to hear what you get out of it.

skiphunt

I messed around with BitWiz another couple of hours last night (can't believe I spent that much time, and lost that much sleep twiddling electric noise) but, I ended up going a different direction with it. Instead of sending midi cc pulses from either random generators or automated generative stuff, I made a simple 6 knob controller in Lemur so that I could better control and sort of "play" BitWiz instead.

Can't say I ever achieved anything "soothing" but it was fun trying.

[Deleted User]

@Jocphone @MonzoPro glad you enjoyed the loop.

skiphunt

@InfoCheck said:
@Jocphone @MonzoPro glad you enjoyed the loop.

+1 dug it too, and thanks for the info and inspiration!

+1 for wanting to hear what @MonzoPro did with BitWiz as well

[Deleted User]

@Jocphone said:

Despite the risk of saying this in public I would love to hear that Monzo.

@skiphunt said:

+1 for wanting to hear what @MonzoPro did with BitWiz as well

Here you go - AUM with ElasticDrums/Moebius on bus 1, a Shoom drone into Turnado on bus 2, and a twitchy BitWiz glitch going through AUFX:Space and VoxSyn via bus 3. All played and recorded live, no editing. Get your dancing shoes on:

skiphunt

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:

Despite the risk of saying this in public I would love to hear that Monzo.

@skiphunt said:

+1 for wanting to hear what @MonzoPro did with BitWiz as well

Here you go - AUM with ElasticDrums/Moebius on bus 1, a Shoom drone into Turnado on bus 2, and a twitchy BitWiz glitch going through AUFX:Space and VoxSyn via bus 3. All played and recorded live, no editing. Get your dancing shoes on:

Oh snap! Bravo!

[Deleted User]

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:

Despite the risk of saying this in public I would love to hear that Monzo.

@skiphunt said:

+1 for wanting to hear what @MonzoPro did with BitWiz as well

Here you go - AUM with ElasticDrums/Moebius on bus 1, a Shoom drone into Turnado on bus 2, and a twitchy BitWiz glitch going through AUFX:Space and VoxSyn via bus 3. All played and recorded live, no editing. Get your dancing shoes on:

Nice track.

JeffChasteen

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:

Despite the risk of saying this in public I would love to hear that Monzo.

@skiphunt said:

+1 for wanting to hear what @MonzoPro did with BitWiz as well

Here you go - AUM with ElasticDrums/Moebius on bus 1, a Shoom drone into Turnado on bus 2, and a twitchy BitWiz glitch going through AUFX:Space and VoxSyn via bus 3. All played and recorded live, no editing. Get your dancing shoes on:

I like it!

JohnnyGoodyear

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:

Despite the risk of saying this in public I would love to hear that Monzo.

@skiphunt said:

+1 for wanting to hear what @MonzoPro did with BitWiz as well

Here you go - AUM with ElasticDrums/Moebius on bus 1, a Shoom drone into Turnado on bus 2, and a twitchy BitWiz glitch going through AUFX:Space and VoxSyn via bus 3. All played and recorded live, no editing. Get your dancing shoes on:

I am going out. I may be some time....

Moderndaycompiler

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:

Despite the risk of saying this in public I would love to hear that Monzo.

@skiphunt said:

+1 for wanting to hear what @MonzoPro did with BitWiz as well

Here you go - AUM with ElasticDrums/Moebius on bus 1, a Shoom drone into Turnado on bus 2, and a twitchy BitWiz glitch going through AUFX:Space and VoxSyn via bus 3. All played and recorded live, no editing. Get your dancing shoes on:

Good stuff Monzo:). What was used to create that sound of an overdriven electric guitar being tortured by an electric toothbrush in the first 20 seconds or so?

[Deleted User]

@InfoCheck said:

Nice track.

@JeffChasteen said:

I like it!

Thanks!

@JohnnyGoodyear said:

I am going out. I may be some time....

Get more pies

@Moderndaycompiler said:

Good stuff Monzo:). What was used to create that sound of an overdriven electric guitar being tortured by an electric toothbrush in the first 20 seconds or so?

Thanks. That's BitWiz. It's a strange thing, but capable of massive, meaty sounds. I don't think any of my other synths could make a sound like that, just wish I could get a MIDI sequencer working with it...