ForumsSoftware ← Check This Out!

Just when I thought things would plateau into Boring, I saw this, which I assume will get posted on the News page soon:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/06/madronas-randy-jones-on-aalto-soft-synth-design-small-makers-and-soundplane-multitouch-controller/#more-19488

Randy, you are a bad, bad man. I of course mean that in the best way. Personalized Aaltos?!? And I had been wondering why my Aalto is so noisy when, for example, Savaran's is nice and mellow.

Beyond that, thanks for those words in the essay - inspiring, and never heard it put better. They've got me fired up to express as a verb right now. And to do a little cleaning.

Had a read of that last night and I was pleasantly surprised to find that we all have slightly different Aalto's - what a great idea :) I can get the nasty sounds on mine if I tweak it right, but it does indeed seem to have a nice mellow sound which kind of suits my character :) Had three instances going last night producing some great drones with edgy feedback added by the modwheel - wonderful! This is a very inspiring synth...

I am very glad to hear you are having fun making sounds!

@technomonkey, I think you are probably kidding about noisy vs. mellow... But just for the record, the difference is not enough so that one could be described any different from another... It's about the same as the difference between two copies of the same analog hardware synth... VERY subtle.

@Savaran and Randy:
Yes, kidding. Sorry, that paragraph called for a couple Smileys! :) :).
I'm bad with that sometimes.

One more time: great idea Randy and it fits with everything you've said about being you own Poet. Even if the differences are too subtle to notice or measure, just knowing that your instrument is really Yours makes the playing more satisfying. Very cool.

I found my way here from that article. The interface on this thing is just great - I'm still working out how everything works though. I'd love to see a longer manual explaining everything for the novice. It's my first time really trying to understand a modular type synth.

The set of patches showing fundamentals are helping, but a text explanation would also be helpful to accompany them.

I love how you can preview the patches cables by hovering over the destination.

Yes a manual with a bit more depth would certainly be useful when starting out with this synth. Having just the quickstart manual to hand through has definitely forced me to explore and experiment more which i'm sure is part of Randy's philosophy with this creation.

The patch cable preview is just such a great idea - made me smile when I first realised you could preview sounds in that way.

The "real manual" is well underway. I've had some good help with writing it, and it's shaping up to be pretty awesome. Unfortunately I had to wrap up the software release without it, but keep an eye out-- it should be coming very soon.

Text in patches is another thing that I really want to add when I can find time. v.2 if not sooner.