Questions from an Original Synclavier Owner

[George Pepper]

I just cut and pasted this from my post on the GS forum, with some edits:

*****

Greetings, I just joined to reply to this thread. A little history first:

I'm one of the original Synclavier II Digital Guitar guys who bought my first system in 1983, which was the year I graduated from Berklee. I kept up with hardware and software until 1988, by which time I had two systems linked together for a total of 48 stereo additive/FM voices. I was never interested in sampling, so NED and I parted ways after 1989, but I kept my system all the way until 2004, when I parted it out, figuring the Synclavier would end up an app in my Mac. That never happened, so I bought more Synclaviers starting in 2012. I currently have two complete systems for a total of 64 voices, and I'm headed for three systems and 96 voices... and now this.

Nothing ever replaced the Synclavier for me, and there was a huge hole in my life without one. None of the additive or FM software synths ever did anything for me. At all. They all sound dead as a doornail to me, and nothing - but nothing - can replace the four partials of additive combined with FM ratios that can be tweaked in tiny increments for very awesome phasing effects. So naturally, I'm super-duper interested in this!

Here's the rub: The original 8-bit Synclavier sound was, in large part, due to the DAC's. Without them, there's your dead sound.

I have some examples for you, which are of sequences I programmed in the 80's, and recorded just days ago. I was known back in the day for my wild sound effects, so we'll start there. All of these are just the stereo outputs of the Synclavier, recorded through a Lexicon FW810s into Logic Pro X. No effects at all: No reverb, no EQ, and no compression; nothing. This is exactly what a real, actual Synclavier sounds like.

Space Ship Landing: All of these timbres are mine except for the wolf howl and the famous Church Bell timbre program.

http://www.hucbald.com/Anachron/01_B-Rock_Landing.aif

The the Lightning Strike at the beginning uses Timbre Frames for the initial crackle (And it's supposed to be the sound barrier being broken), and the background sound uses Timbre Frames crossfading for that awesome sound only a Synclavier can produce, so question one:

DOES SYNCLAVIER V HAVE TIMBRE FRAMES?! Without them, no sale. (EDIT:  Did you rename Timbre Frames as Time Slices?)

Here's a Synclavier arrangement of a song my band B-Rock played back in the 80's. The synth guitar party is exactly what I played live, and I had to use the Morley pedals to get the secondary sounds. Sometimes I'd have to stand on them to go to toe down/heel down to make this happen! lol The synth bass is exactly what the bass player played, and we played to the ostinato part. The FX were added when I did this arrangement, purely for my own amusement.

Present Time:

http://www.hucbald.com/Anachron/02_B...esent_Time.aif

Same recording setup with no effects. So, question two:

HOW DID YOU ADDRESS THE DAC'S?! (EDIT: The demo sounds are sparkling clean, but your programmers are timid compared to me, so I'm not hearing the grit I like, but it could just be their conservative programs).

I can't imagine this will sound EXACTLY like a Synclavier without some kind of dedicated hardware DAC designed to reproduce the sound.

To be perfectly clear: This is a single 32 voice Synclavier, not the 64 voices I have available.

Cheers,

Geo

*****

Finally, what about the Digital Memory Recorder?  I want 16 to 32 tracks of different Synclavier Timbre Programs.  How would I do that with this program?

TIA,

Geo

[jmcecil]

I've never had the pleasure of using let alone owning a real one.   But, I can answer part of the question.

First, you can set the bit depth from 4 to 24 bits (defaults to 8  bit ) in increments of 2.  You can even do that on a per partial basis.
I have no way to know if the 8 bit default will sound like the original DACs.  In fact I highly doubt it.  But it does sound "8 bit".
I'm almost positive the Time Slices are more advanced Timbre frames.

As to the Digital Memory Recorder, I think that will be considered the domain of DAWs these days.  There is no internal sequencer. 

[Koshdukai]

[...]
DOES SYNCLAVIER V HAVE TIMBRE FRAMES?! Without them, no sale. (EDIT:  Did you rename Timbre Frames as Time Slices?)

Yes, Arturia did rename them to Time Slices.

[...]
Finally, what about the Digital Memory Recorder?  I want 16 to 32 tracks of different Synclavier Timbre Programs.  How would I do that with this program?

You don't. Synclavier V only emulates (and expands) the Additive+FM synthesis capabilities of it, not DMR, direct-to-disk recording or Sampling.

It seems that DMR would be a bit excessive to emulate on a virtual instrument meant to be used inside a DAW, I'm guessing.


But, instead of asking all these questions, you can check everything yourself, by downloading and installing it and run it in DEMO mode (that's what it defaults to when run without licenses activation).

[l_etoile_noire]

Hi all,

If you're interested, the are two groups of discussion about the original Synclavier on Facebook :

- for general discussions : https://www.facebook.com/groups/6352228261/

- a group dedicated to selling/buying Synclaviers : https://www.facebook.com/groups/264229003777968/

Please feel free to join us !

BTW, the Synclavier original founders are members of the group and could answer any question you have about the Synclavier.

Best regards.

    Laurent Lemaire.