Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy?

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Mycranium
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2006/11/08 18:28:13 (permalink)

Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy?

I'd swear I've read a couple posts indicating that it's somehow possible to route audio through the filters/effects of soft synths. I did a forum search, but I'm having trouble narrowing down my query to something meaningful.

Did I just dream this, or is there some way to essentially use a soft synth as an effects box for audio?

If so, which synths do this, and how is it set up?

Thanks
-Mike

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    b rock
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/08 19:08:46 (permalink)
    If so, which synths do this, and how is it set up?
    Considering your recent experience with the 'deal', I hesitate to mention this, Mike, but ... z3ta+. In Options, you select Audio Input Thru. It also originally shipped with some separate FX .dlls, which saves you some CPU overhead. I'm not sure if this is still the case or not.

    This was the first synth with that capability that came to mind; I'm sure that there's others that escape me at the moment. If you happen to have a hardware synth or two, you can often insert through the external inputs and take advantage of the post-oscillator processing. If you're just looking for a filter section, check out the free FiltSeq 1.3 from Sonic Assault [here].
    #2
    Mycranium
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/08 19:44:54 (permalink)
    Well there's still hope yet for a deal... and if I don't get it this time they'll probably have some other deal eventually.

    Thanks for the info, I appreciate your willingness to share your obviuosly vast expertise.

    -Mike

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    Ognis
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/08 20:51:28 (permalink)
    Most of the Native Instsument's line has an option for doing this, and also has around 1 or 2 efecct dll's per synth. Reaktor is a good example, but a very complex ap/synth/effect/everything else Reaktor is. I know Absynth does too. I know I am always talking about Native Instruments, but I love them, and I can't help but to boast about how good they are.
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    Mycranium
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/08 21:22:17 (permalink)
    Interesting... I have a couple Garritan sample libraries that use the Kompakt player, although that's probably far enough down the food chain that it won't have that functionality. Still, I'll check it out. Thanks Ognis (if that really is your name).
    post edited by Mycranium - 2006/11/08 21:39:32

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    MrMenace
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/08 23:50:28 (permalink)
    You can use the B4 and the B4II as an effect.
    There is one setting in the B4II (One Shot or something like that) that you can use with a little tweaking to get that sound that opens Echoes (It was a piano run through a leslie with lots of spring reverb).

    So, yes you can use some synths as an effect .


    Remember, save the kittens!

    Dennis

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    #6
    scook
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/09 10:29:26 (permalink)
    Here a few free ones
    http://frettedsynth.com/
    post edited by scook - 2006/11/09 10:47:18
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    Mycranium
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/10 19:00:50 (permalink)
    Thanks everyone for the info.

    I just had a "duh" moment... I realized I could make an audio recording, then loaded it as a sample in Dim Pro and apply whatever effects I wanted in there. The manual says "Dimension streams samples from RAM, so only samples under a minute in length are suitable for loading, depending on the amount of RAM in your computer."

    I don't really know why I'm doing this, other than I get some strange ideas sometime and want to see if they work.

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    #8
    b rock
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/12 07:29:21 (permalink)
    The manual says "Dimension streams samples from RAM, so only samples under a minute in length are suitable for loading, depending on the amount of RAM in your computer."
    They just put in the disclaimers so that no one 'gets hurt', Mike. Go ahead; load up a whole song in .wav format, and play some note clusters.
    #9
    mintakaX
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/14 15:21:08 (permalink)
    I posted this thread on the Sonar forum relating to this topic ...

    link
    any ideas ?
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    b rock
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/14 16:13:21 (permalink)
    any ideas ?
    I'm not sure what happened there. The crash scrambling your MIDI inputs is one thing, but audio driver corruption as well? Using the entire z3ta+ synth as an effect isn't the most efficient; using the companion FX.dlls is easier on resources. But I've never had anything close to that happen from using the Audio Input, and I've been known to test the limits with rapid-fire program changes. Sorry to hear about the trouble.
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    mintakaX
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/14 18:18:19 (permalink)
    Thanks b rock---its all fixed now, but its made me a bit gun shy about blindly doing things...just a bit though . How do I use the companion FX.dlls ? At this point I am using the dxi version of the z3ta+ since that was what automatically installed. I'm going to uninstall this and try the VST version since I've been told it may map to the Sonar 6 ACT better, but other than seeing the FX.dll in the folder, I'm not sure what to do with it regarding adding it as an effect.
    Dan
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    b rock
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    RE: Feeding audio thru synth effects - am I crazy? 2006/11/14 19:45:59 (permalink)
    I'm not sure what to do with it regarding adding it as an effect.
    This is from the 1.3 Release Notes:
    Effects2 Version
    In addition to the effects, this new VST version allows the use of the dual filters on incoming audio material in hosts capable of sending Audio and MIDI to a VST plugin.

    z3ta+_fx2 will become a vital component in your effects rack.

    IMPORTANT: As the _fx version, the _fx2 version zip file needs to be extracted in the same folder where z3ta+.dll is. In this way, effect and synth versions can share all programs, skin files, tuning files, etc. Otherwise, you’ll get a ‘Bitmap not found’ error (skin files hot found).
    Now to be perfectly honest with you, I must've uninstalled those FX on the last 'purge'. So, I just re-installed them with the newest version of the VST Adapter (I guess that's 'under the hood' in SONAR6). I had some trouble with the Adapter wrapping both the z3ta_fx.dll and z3ta_fx2.dll. I pulled one or the other out of the loop, and finally got the z3ta_fx.dll working. But it wasn't without more than a little hassle.

    Considering your recent experience, I thought that I should report this to you. It may be on my end. Once the bumps smoothed out, I just loaded it as a VST effect after another synth, with no other special setups. Same GUI, but just the effects are accessible.
    post edited by b rock - 2006/11/14 20:05:24
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