-=[THE SYNTH ZONE]=-

I need another hobby like I need a hole in my head, but my wife got me a Moog Mother-32 for my birthday after I got transfixed in a store a few months ago.

I play no musical instruments and at age 51 I will never take this gear out to play live. I do have some money to throw at the situation. Looking for some advice on what else to get and resources for beginners with the following considersations:

1. I just want to make cool sounds to amuse myself and record it. Is there cheap software for beginners to allow multi-track recordings? I'm on an older (2016) Mac at home.

2. I don't even own a pair of headphones and nothing else to connect to the Moog to listen to it. Should I just buy a pair of headphones? Can I get a 1/4 plug to RCA connector to connect to the preamp in my home stereo?

3. What else would you add (if anything) to give me some basic options?

Please take it easy on this noob.

Cheap to free options for recording - Reaper, FL Studio, Audacity, Garage Band. I think Logic is relatively cheap too? There are also "intro" versions of Ableton and other DAWs with fewer features that are cheap.

If you want to record, you'll probably need an external audio interface (and you can plug headphones into that), something like this https://us.focusrite.com/products/scarlett-solo

If you are vibing well with the the Moog Mother, the obvious thing to pair it with would be the Moog DFAM, which people seem to love a lot. It seems like it would be a good idea to get any Moog gear sooner rather than later because it's unclear if they are going to continue as a business much longer.

For more of a contrast and a more affordable option a drum machine like the Arturia DrumBrute Impact could be fun.

There are definitely 1/4" to RCA adaptors out there. As far as I can tell, the Mother doesn't have any kind of USB options, so to record it on a DAW you'd need some kind of audio interface to plug it into. There are some basic interfaces that you can buy for around $100.

I’d get a little midi controller so you can play w keyboard and they usually have sequencers and stuff.

I’d also get some basic monitors. You can plug into your stereo but synths kick out all kinds of frequencies. I blew plenty of cheap home speakers before just buying powered monitors. You can get something from Presonus for not too much.

Midi controller, for sure. Audio interface if you want to record.

I think the M32 is a great synth to learn on and you will figure out what you want to add when you run into the limitations it has.

The one thing I’d say is that the M32 sounds great but better with some reverb. If you already have guitar pedals, they will work great. If not, some cheap ones can open up a lot of territory (or you can add in the DAW).

I can’t remember how many patch cables it comes with, but getting another six or eight will make sense.

This website seems to have an expired security certificate but it’s a good resource for patch ideas.

https://patch-library.net/patches?device=moog-mother-32

Thanks for all these recommendations.

My company has given out some nice gift cards the last several years that I haven't used, so I may blow them all on an audio interface and whatever else I need to get me started.

as far as midi controllers go, the Arturia key step seems to be a popular option

Yep, it’s good. Can also be used as a sequencer.

Another cheap thing worth getting ($20 or so) is a USB to MIDI cable, which enables you to sequence notes in a DAW and send them to the synth.

There are cheap audio interfaces that also have MIDI. Something like the Arturia MiniFuse 2

a lot of options under 200 dollars.

Universal Audio Volt 1 and 2. Focusrite Scarlett 4i4. Behringer U-Phoria UMC404HD.

the last two have 4 audio inputs and can feed your monitors. You can totally bypass getting a mixer. Just plug the Moog and 3 other devices/drum machines/mic set in at a time and use whatever software they come with to control the mix to the monitors.

I've ordered some cheap monitors, the key step, and a cheap audio interface. That should keep me busy for a few months (or years) while I learn some basics. I already see this hobby hitting my gearhead gene hard.

Thanks for all the recommendations. One more question: are there any basic websites, forums, or books you recommend for beginners?

There's a ton of tutorials on YouTube, depends a bit on the specific topic you are trying to tackle. For example, there are several lengthy tutorials on the Moog Mother.

The videos from Loopop and, particularly, Chris Meyer are good places to start.

I just watched a Loopop video where they were connecting the Key Step with the M32 and got very excited.

Start your Youtube synthfluencer career by covering Danzig with the Mother-32

I wish the Mother 32 was more exciting. It’s a single oscillator synth, can only sound so interesting.

The DFAM totally rules though. Two oscillators and it can kick your head in.

I don’t know I have a lot of fun with single osc synths. Juno 106 and alpha Juno are both single osc.

Why do synth manufacturers have to make such cool looking gear? Looking at you Make Noise and Endorphin.es.

That Lyra-8 video upthread makes it sound like a nightmare machine. Drool.

xp

Yeah, that was a broad declaration. But the Mother was clearly designed to be used with their other units, it’s kinda bland on its own. I was going to sell mine, but with this Moog news I’ll be holding onto it.

Just ordered one of the Behringer VS Minis from the UK - $105 shipped to the US, cheaper than it will be with sales tax from Sweetwater whenever they get them.

I’ve been having the time of my life with the demo of Synplant 2 over the last few days.

You get any sample, drop it onto the VST and its AI does multiple attempts at resynthesizing it. All local processing so doesn’t even need to be online. You can save it as a synth at any point of the resynthesizing process, and the results range from uncannily accurate to complete Autechre insanity.

I ripped the vocals from Aha ‘Take On Me’ via Moises.ai, fed them into Synplant and now have a pretty usable Morten Haarket choir from resynthesizing ‘take’, ‘me’ and ‘on’ lol

Also going through all my dusty old stab samples and resynthing them has been amazing. Literally bringing them to life with ADSR, filters, accurate oscillator settings etc.

Not sure if you can tell but I’m pretty giddy with excitement about this one. The possibilities are pretty endless and it actually doesn’t sound shit.

Been waiting for this, can't wait to try it

It’s nuts. I just tried putting a few breakbeats through it and ended up with bizarre spectral sweeps that belong on a mid 90’s Ken Ishii album.

this looks really cool, I like the whole organic approach

I predict a glut of Synplant ambient albums to come

Got an ad for this thing and normally I'm annoyed by the tiny digital machines that could just as well be a plugin but this seems pretty cool actually

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKPq1Chm9Tg

I finally got to spend several hours today with the Mother 32 and had a blast.

I did the 3 week trial for Synplant 2 and had a lot of fun with it. I tried feeding it sounds from one of my tracks and then seeing how I could reshape them. I really like how intuitive it is when you are trying craft a sound, a lot can be done by manipulating the little strands and then you can tweak it even more in the synth settings. The synth is pretty basic and the envelope in particular could be improved, but it can generally get you where you want to go.

One common problem I have with synths is that I might land on a cool sound, but then lose it as I'm playing around with it and find that I can't get back to something I like. Synplant worked very well for getting me back on track when this happened.

My biggest positive surprise was CPU load. I never once had a problem with this and had about 12 different instances of Synplant 2 running simultaneously in one song file. By contrast, even a single instance of Pigments can completely crash Ableton for me.

I ended up getting a track together with core sounds almost entirely from Synplant 2. Let me know what you think. It's a private link, so you need to be logged into Soundcloud to access.

https://on.soundcloud.com/KtCpS

A guy in my town makes these naturey synth tshirt designs if anyone is into that kind of thing
www.teepublic.com/user/timbient

Having played around with Synplant now I can definitely hear the plants in that track Moodles, ie the kinds of sounds it seems to come up with (it's cool though!).

Although I know it's going to be fun with automation and sound design when I get to that, so far I've been using it to re-synthesize acoustic drum samples. It's pretty incredible with one-shots, good for giving something a little more bite, and I got some especially cool results with cymbals. But I was a bit disappointed when I fed it a longer phrase. It was a snare pattern with some different tones and dynamics, and it spit back a pretty stiff version that tried to emulate the ghost notes with a delay. Still very excited about the possibilites though, one of those things that I'll have to try with every part just to see if something cool happens.

Agreed about cymbals, I tend to gravitate toward weird synthetic or hard metallic hats, so this works great for me. Also got a lot of mileage out of throwing automation on the bass track. Longer loops are definitely not going to be as effective, for sure.

this (free) emulation of the Kawai K1 is fun

https://www.nilsschneider.de/wp/nils-k1v/

Looks fun, thanks for the link

finally traded in my Korg Opsix and some other guitars and gear for a nice Stratocaster. Ended up getting the same in trade as I paid initially so harm done but I gotta be honest I ended up hating that fucking thing.

Ha, I sold mine too. I realized that the Volca FM is all I need for those sounds, and for whatever I reason I got better results out of it and had more fun.

So this sounds potentially amazing, like Synplant except for synth patches:
https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2023/12/05/micromusic-vital

It's free and works with Vital, which is also free. You can drop in an audio sample and it will do its best to create synth patches that replicate the sound. Sounds ripe for abuse.

not sure how that is different from Synplant

Similar I guess, but in Vital you'll get more standard synth controls over the resulting patch.

I guess I'm more compelled to start with non-synth-sounding patches with Synplant. And with this, while I definitely want to try random audio clips, it sounds like it's geared more toward stuff that starts out sounding like a synth patch?

I realized that the Volca FM is all I need for those sounds

I might check one of those out, so cheap used it's like buying a soft synth

The Opsix reminded me of a wacky boutique guitar pedal called the Infinity Discombobulator that is designed to demo well at a guitar store cuz it makes all these "wow" sounds then you try to make actual music with it and you can't find anything that works

I know it's only 4op and not 6, but for FM/digital synthesis on the cheap, do not forget the Reface DX. It sounds great and is fun to use.

fun to use

ultimately this is what did the opsix in for me...just always found it somewhat irritating to interact with.

Stylophone Theremin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eupwp-EPMmo

Yall crazy. The Opsix rules. I get wild ass tones out of it everytime I go in for programming. The firmware update added some nice features like more sequencer program controls. I will never sell it.

They really nailed it with the Reface DX. Super fun and immediate, small and cute. That whole series is awesome. I sold mine when the Waldorf Quantum got 6-op FM. Not like FM plugs are anything new, buttttt...the Opsix plugin is only $99.

Has anyone tried the Opal synth plug-in from Fors FM? Seems to be a max-for-live device that does Elektron style sequencing. Would love to know if it's any good.

I bought it and never used it and forgot I had it until now. Thanks. Sorry I'm not more helpful.

Give it a try and report back!

have an ms-20 mini on the way for our 9 year old's birthday (shared present with my birth/fathers day). Same son has a cheap laptop, so I grabbed dexed and pedalboard/mido to work on some scripted midi/generative/transcription projects I'm hoping will be fun. FM synthesis is indeed crazy, but dexed has some decent patches built in. I'm hoping use python to set those eno patches upthread bc mouse+gui ain't the way. We will probably need a midi keyboard in case somebody wants to play chords.

this seems like it will be awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPNNkyiakns

Love the Fred's Lab Tooro lofi wavetable synth but it's a bit of a chore to program, the screen on this looks like it will be a big help