Challenges for your plugins

[tulamide]

The video linked below is just for reference. It is in German, so many of you won't understand it. There's only a portion of the video that's important, and I get to it now.

The guy is a producer. Times have changed a lot in the last 20 years. Producers don't spend much time on specific things, they create some track as fast as possible. This also influences how your plugins are considered for a project. In the video he is presenting three free plugins, and the criteria were (in this order)

1) Good looking GUI
2) Ease of use
3) Presets

He explained #3 in detail, saying that producers don't really do the whole sound design process anymore (apart from minor tweaks). Instead they go through presets and take what's usable for their genre. I heard similar comments quite a lot, that's why I highly recommend to consider these three points, and make sure you have a rich set of presets that are production-ready!

Reference: https://youtu.be/BpljtTxB270

[k brown]

It doesn't surprise me at all that 'today's producers' don't do sound design anymore, and today's music sounds like it does because of it. The last people in the world I care that use my synths are 'today's producers'; I'm fine with my things only appealing to sound designers (if anyone) - even if they are a dying breed.

Of course if if I were trying to make a living off these things, it'd probably be a different story As it is, I can afford for them to only appeal to people interested primarily in sonic exploration and sound design, not commercial music production.

My own priority description would be:
1) Clarity / lack of clutter in the GUI (which isn't always the same as good-looking; there are many commercial plugins with gorgeously rendered GUIs, but are confusing as hell to follow the actual signal/control flow - again, u-he usually excels in this).
2) Easy of use.
3) Presets.

[Spogg]

Thanks tulamide.
I watched some of the video and was surprised to hear quite a few English phrases and terms

The point about presets is interesting. I’ve seen people who like to do sound design referred to as “scientists” as opposed to “producers”. Of course there is room for both in our world. I definitely fall into the former category!

I’m currently at the preset-making phase for my forthcoming Phase Distortion synth. One barrier I frequently have is knowing what sounds producers might actually be interested in. This doesn’t cause a problem with a pipe organ simulator, but Phase Distortion lends itself to quite aggressive and bright sounds and this is an area I’m not familiar with.

I’m also aware that when a commercial synth is promoted these days, the number of presets provided seems to be heavily emphasised. Yet when I page through the presets there seems to be a lot of near duplication of sounds, often with only subtle variations. Is this an example of quantity versus quality? Or is it just catering for producers who want quick results without affording the time to properly learn a synth?

This could be an interesting topic and I hope others will chip in.

Cheers

Spogg

[trogluddite]

An interesting topic for sure, thanks tulamide!

'today's producers' don't do sound design anymore, and today's music sounds like it does because of it

I'm not so sure that this is all that new, really. One of the few redeeming features of some of the awful 80's pop of my teens is that I can play the game of "spot the DX7 factory patch"! Producers make music to appeal to audiences, and many listeners (not me) seem to value the comfort-zone of stereotypical "genre" forms and/or whatever the singer is wittering about. I see the Nashville "production-line" for formulaic country music in much the same light, and plenty of current "progressive rock" bands don't seem to have "progressed" very far beyond emulating the sounds of classic Pink Floyd, Genesis, Marillion, etc. I think it's always been the case that any new, experimental form eventually gets saturated by "me too" clones of whatever proves commercially successful.

...is [a large number of presets] just catering for producers who want quick results without affording the time to properly learn a synth?

I can see why that might be the case. Even in the early days of synths with presets, it was common to hear the comment that "bank 1" presets were often little use in practice because, while sounding impressive on a "test-drive", they often "stamped all over the mix" in context. If producers do prefer auditioning presets over rolling their own, it makes sense to include variations which might sit more easily in a track without too much "fixing it in the mix". Spending too long tweaking a preset with the synth track solo'd is a mistake that I've made far too often!

...lack of clutter in the GUI

Yes, I agree; the GUI is as much part of a synth's ergonomics as its aesthetic appeal, and tulamide's first two categories interact with each other a lot. I posted earlier today about adamszabo's Viper in that respect; I found that having both top-level "macro" controls and detailed editing pane visible at the same time really easy to work with, and this ergonomic feature in turn helps to make the GUI visually appealing (or vice-versa, depending on your point of view).

[deraudrl]

Used to be "synth programming" showed up in the credits on CD liner notes...haven't noticed that in awhile.

The again, "synth programming" meant something a bit different in the DX7 days...

[trogluddite]

Used to be "synth programming" showed up in the credits on CD liner notes...haven't noticed that in awhile.

The again, "synth programming" meant something a bit different in the DX7 days...

Yes, I can remember the interviews in music-production magazines with "synthologists" who were sought out for their patch programming skills. If only every DX7 had been delivered with a free Brian Eno clone!

[tulamide]

Thanks tulamide.
I watched some of the video and was surprised to hear quite a few English phrases and terms

That's a real nuisance. So called "Anglizismen" have grown to a point, where it's not funny anymore. Especially the younger generations use them, but in the most stupid way. They think it's cooler to use an english word instead of a german. And so we hear things like "Das ist ja nice!" or "ist voll appreciated!" Some times the english word doesn't even make sense. And since kids and young adults have all the money, the ad industry jumps on the train, and gives products names like "Universal Megaperls". Total nonsense in both languages. Or would you have guessed that it's washing powder? "Mamas Babydream" is not a woman's wish to become a mother, but a body oil. Oh, I could go on forever...

I’m currently at the preset-making phase for my forthcoming Phase Distortion synth. One barrier I frequently have is knowing what sounds producers might actually be interested in. This doesn’t cause a problem with a pipe organ simulator, but Phase Distortion lends itself to quite aggressive and bright sounds and this is an area I’m not familiar with.

As the developer of the synth, nobody knows better what the key feature, or key signature of your synth is. Make presets that work it out. From bass to flute, emphasize what this synth makes special and differentiates it from others!

I’m also aware that when a commercial synth is promoted these days, the number of presets provided seems to be heavily emphasised. Yet when I page through the presets there seems to be a lot of near duplication of sounds, often with only subtle variations. Is this an example of quantity versus quality? Or is it just catering for producers who want quick results without affording the time to properly learn a synth?

As trog already said, there is a market for this. But of course you don't need to do dozens of variations. Instead, create what I meant by "production-ready": presets that don't fight in the mix. For example, for an electric piano type sound make sure the lower frequencies are suppressed or non-existent. Nobody will play it in the bass line. And for bass sounds make sure they have that sweet spot tickling our belly. And so on.

[trogluddite]

They think it's cooler to use an english word...

It seems so all over the world. I was reading just the other day on one of the linguistics blogs about how many English loan words Japanese has now. The sounds of the Japanese language disguise them a bit, but they're used for surprisingly common things, for example; "furonto garasu" = "front glass" = car windscreen (here's a link to more). English words and western writing get used a lot in China online, too; partly so that people can get around the internet censorship there. The internet must play at least some part in it more generally, I'm sure (and for us coders, our coding languages - Ruby was a Japanese creation!) There are a few countries, such as France, which do have official policies again Anglicisation; though it doesn't seem to be helping very much!

Anyhow, the talk of other languages got me thinking about another aspect of plugin GUIs. It's something I had to consider in my last job, doing design work for science education equipment sold in international markets. We'd usually try to design the labelling on our products to use icons and colours rather than words, so that the same front panel could be used no matter which market the product was sold in. It's something I've tried to do in some of my FS projects, too; but of course, designing icons is a lot harder than choosing words!

You use this kind of software a lot and, while your English is excellent and technical terms are usually a bit more universal, I just wondered whether always having labelling/messageBoxes/etc. in a second language was ever a problem, or even just a bit annoying sometimes. As a native English speaker, it is very easy for me to forget this aspect of user-friendliness; working on products for markets where the writing system doesn't even use letters really opened my eyes!

[kortezzzz]

Agree with everything that had been discussed (about "youngsters" that prefer good looking GUIs and muchas presets). Just want to add that if your new synth seems to be too complicated in the first look (about 100-200 knobs and buttons), there is a very low chance that it will be ever explored deeply by this market. They will try to test each button or knob only once and if it doesn't seem to change the sound dramatically, they will say "Oh boy, here is another synth with lot's of useless controls that do nothing..."
So one of the modern ways to deal with it is to use "sound engines" (I use it in my synths). Sound engine is actually a fixed oscillator with fixed internal tweaks that can be chosen with a single button press and emulates a very specific sound to start with. The user than doesn't need to "work hard" to make it usable. For example, in my free clarinet vsti I added 4 "sound engines" that emulates 4 famous clarinets that can be switched on the fly with a single button press. The young generation and the amateur crowd loved it very much. That way you can easily understand why Nexus 3 is so wanted since it's based on a similar approach.

[Spogg]

@tulamide
Thank you for your advice re presets. It’s pretty much been my approach; to demonstrate features of the particular technique I’m experimenting with. It’s just that I’m not used to making aggressive “electronic” sounds and I feel a bit out of my depth since I tend to lean heavily towards imitative synthesis. PD can do imitative, but the results don’t seem to be very different to some other techniques. The more “raw” sounds PD is capable of seem far more distinctive. We shall see.

The other point about “sitting in the mix” leaves me rather worried. You see I don’t ever sit down and try to make music these days so I don’t have any feel for it. Plus, isn’t it down to the producer to get the mix right, using eq or whatever, rather than a synth developer? Also, if I made a piano preset that didn’t sound good at the bottom end, I feel it may be dismissed because of it. Does this mean we should always provide eq in our synths? This seems a bit excessive to me since a producer will surely have their favourite eq anyway.

@Kortezzzz (I always have to count the Z’s )
I do like simulating specific instruments, like a pipe organ, because you can then create internal configurations with a specific goal in mind. Often such a configuration would be difficult to impossible to recreate on do-it-all synths, even with mega modulation routings. So you have great control of the results and probably ease of use. In fact an actual church organist wrote to me because he was delighted with ONE of my presets which fitted perfectly with what he needed for an organ & cello recital (I’m boasting now). The point you are making I guess is that if you want a specific instrument sound or type it must be appealing to load up a synth made specifically for that purpose.
But is it strictly a “synthesiser”?

Cheers

Spogg