SYNTHs one by BRiES [Decent Sampler]

“Earlier this year I had to purchase a new computer and some of the features it unlocked for me was being able to easily run sampled instruments from both Pianobook and Decent Samples. As I ventured into the world of creating sampled instruments I quickly ran out of acoustic instruments to sample but my sample-thurst wasn’t satisfied yet.

I thought about this limitation and being a eurorack modular afficionado I figured that I could surely create some sample packs with the modular synth that people would enjoy. Surely someone would benefit from it since not everyone has this amount of modules in their synth arsenal. Inspired by a Spitfire library I started working on my own Nontemporary Toolkit but instead of just sampling otherworldy sounds I found it much more enjoyable to try to create virtual instruments inside Decent Sampler that not only use unique samples from the modular but are reminiscent of working with the real hardware itself as well.

I think there’s enough sources where you can find ‘weird’ samples for use in cinematic trailers or scoring in general but there’s not a lot of tools out there that give the musician a kind of hybrid modular synth feature set, that are both educational and fun to use. This proved to be a Pandora’s Box which – after a lot of nights with little sleep – led to the creation of ‘SYNTHS one’, a collection of instruments with custom UIs (which I really enjoy making).

Some concepts might be new to you (like ‘ping’, PLL or ‘slew’) so using the instruments of ‘SYNTHS one’ might be a bit confusing at first (which is completely intentional). The key to understanding how any of these instruments work is really just experimentation. They are not necessarily designed to be restricted to creating beautiful melodies but should be explored as conceptual instruments that you can use to create tense athmospheres, eerie melodies or background noises.” – BRiES Modular

The sample library works with the free Decent Sampler player plugin. Download it here.

SYNTHS one includes:

NT DD3: a virtual instrument consisting of all analog sampled soundsources, aimed at (but not limited to) creating percussive sounds.

NT KR-22: an instrument based on a droning analog filter (Threetom Modular’s MS-22) and noises/static recorded from an old heirloom tube radio. Great for machine noises and crackly textures.

NT LYRATE GREEN: this virtual instrument draws inspiration from SOMA’s Lyra 8 organismic synth. It uses analog samples and a left-field control surface that is my interpretation of the real analog piece of gear. I made a whole range of these in several colors with different sounds and features. The key to enjoying LYRATE is playing around with the tuning of each voice, thus creating clusters of sounds that might or might not be harmonic. The full range of LYRATE instruments will be available as a seperate pack shortly. LYRATE GREEN is included in the free version of ‘SYNTHS one’.

NT NS-404: this pack is created by sampling a hybrid noise oriented piece of gear. This instrument has a noise layer and a sub layer. Depending on how you set it up you can create organ sounds or melodic textures.

NT ODYSSEA: inspired by Xaoc’s Devices ODESSA, a digital oscillator that uses additive synthesis (not fm) to create harmonic, dissonant and even bell type tones.

NT P1NG: for the creation of this instruments I sampled several pinged filter modules and a few other percussive but melodic sounds. Pinging is when a filter is set on the edge of self-oscillation and then triggered by sending in a short sound, resulting in these short ‘pings’. P1NG can be used for a range of sounds from dark organic basses to playful melodies.

NT PLL-102: this instrument is the closest I could get to a virtual analog synth inside Decent Sampler. It consists of samples of analog oscillators for both VCOs (oscillators). The second VCO uses chaos (sampled from the analog strange attractor) and PLL (which is a technique used in a lot of electronic devices to synchronise 2 sources to each other).

NT SUBHARMONIC MEMORY UNIT: for this virtual instrument I wanted to explore what I could achieve by playing around with subharmonics. Subharmonics follow a so called ‘subharmonic series’ just like regular harmonics do. By adding a kind of looper to this instrument (a delay really) you can achieve unexpected results. It really is a very experimental device. This instrument was previously uploaded to pianobook but it’s included in the free version of ‘SYNTHS one’.

NT YOUR ANALOG PLUCK: for this instrument I sampled a prototype unit of a BBD delay module by Joranalogue Audio Design. There’s a few ways to shape the tone that are inspired by modular synthesis. It can be used as a substitute for plucked strings or harp-like sounds but you can get into complete mayhem territory as well. YOUR ANALOG PLUCK is included in the free version of ‘SYNTHS one’.