I had the thought as I was watching serum tutorials and translating that to Vital, that this synth by design is going to make a better generation of sound designers. As I considered on it, a couple points stuck out that I thought the community might be interested in.
Vital is just close enough to serum that you can follow along the huge amount of tutorials on youtube, but just different enough that you have to get the concept of the tweak without going into robot mode and just doing what you’re told by the video. This builds a framework of understanding a lot quicker than repeating an action without thought. I wonder if Matt had this in mind when he was designing the UI. I know he mentioned in a podcast that it was at one point in beta very similar to serum in layout and design.
Along that same line, the visual representation of the effects give you a clearer sense and understanding of what’s going on with the sound. I know I understand chorus, phasers, and flangers so much better in the week of playing with vital compared to the 20 years previous of guitar.
I grew up programming, so this may be why I picked Vital up so quickly despite never playing with any wavetable synths… but I feel like the interface is so intuitive and easy to understand and navigate once you jump over a couple initial hurdles. But the overcoming of these hurdles requires the kind of mindset needed to excel. Wanting to understand and then going and looking for the information. I feel blessed starting my journey into sound design on this foot.
This comes to my last thought: for now at least, the amount of presets is miniscule compared to serum. This isn’t to knock the community. You guys are doing great! Its just the nature of the situation currently. And that may shift rapidly… but for now, its up to you to make the sounds you want. You cant just buy or download your way to them. The glut of presets for serum makes it easy to not actually use the tool.
I think that these factors combined make Vital geared for learning by design.
for me vital is designed to create sounds tailored to the user…the ability to modify the waveform is superior to serum just see that you have the possibility to apply more lfo to read the waveform at the speed you want, the same thing for the reading speed of a continuously changing formant and deli lfo with assignable notes chorus, reverb, programmable feedback … if the audio quality of the samples in bit will improve, it will be the only virtual synth of the next 5 years to come to have advanced functions I respect all the other synths
What do you mean by the audio quality of the samples? Are you talking about the wavetable samples or the sample oscillator? Just wondering. I think the audio quality of Vital is amazing (even if my poor PC can’t keep up)
Kinda want to elaborate what you mean by Audio Quality?
I didn’t understand you there since the aliasing in this synth is pretty much on par with Serum. or maybe you mean Analogy sound of Audio Quality?
in both situations, both in wavetables In the event that a sample becomes a wavetable and in the fourth section dedicated to samples, noises etc. it is a question of bits, of resolution … the same sample if I load it on Avenger (venegance) o on Icarus (tone 2) the sound performance without effects is better. it depends on the algorithm of the synth … not for nothing Massive by native instruments sounds better in terms of dynamics than all the other synths by native instruments … and in fact Massive was the luck of Skrillex who exploited it thoroughly to obtain monstrous sounds that other synths could not reproduce.
In electronics aliasing, or distortion from slow sampling, from subsampling or misunderstanding, in digital signal processing is the phenomenon whereby two different analog signals can become indistinguishable once sampled. original sound fidelity
that it is on par with Serum is possible, but in fact Serum is a good synth for synthetic sounds and does not have a sample section like Vital does. so if vital improves the audio quality it will soon become unattainable by other paid synths
30 years ago, I happened to create a quite distinctive and unique lead synth sound on a Roland D-10 (an actual physical entry-level synth), which I then sampled and used in some Amiga tracker tunes.
All I have now is the sample (in the tunes), from a 28KHz or so sound system that was the Amiga.
I have been trying to reproduce it in various software synths without quite getting near the core of the sound. (I have not heard anything close to it, out there, either )
Until now - with Vital I managed to get it almost exactly right in a few tries, I just can’t seem to get the same power in the sound. I feel confident that I’m on the right track and will completely nail it shortly!
A fun challenge, to try to reverse-engineer your own sound from decades ago.
I’ve tried a lot of different synths to see which one could act as the one where I could want a sound and know exactly how to make it. I started learning on Serum, but Vital was the key to connecting the abstract ideas from Serum into something I can explain or talk about. As a 16 year old, I have a whole set of goals for each day, month, and year. Vital has helped me reach so many of those goals. I’ve only been in the sound design world for roughly 2 years, but I can say that I’ve learned a majority of new techniques since November 20th.
I’ve been programming synths since the 90s, and Vital has been the most inspiring thing I could lay my hands since Zebra2, which is saying a lot.
I think it took the precious lesson from Serum’s success, and avoided being well… a bit silly as Steve Duda’s brainchild.
I can’t remember a time I pressed “save” more often and yes, I agree it will lead to a generation of better sound designers, I myself learned a lot, it pushed me to think in ways I hadn’t, not like serum did, because of its limitations compared to say, Zebra, but because of the amazing possibilities
Come on guys a whole generation, yes Vital is a very nice synth and a free option is simply amazing but software synths have been advancing at a crazy pace. Just think what will be available in a year as a matter of fact Phase Plant with its limitless architecture, much better sampler, effects and effects routing is a shining example of Vitals short comings. I get the buzz considering its free but please ‘‘A Whole Generation’’ please stop it a generation is 20 to 30 years.
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and yes, I agree it will lead to a generation of better sound designers, I myself learned a lot, it pushed me to think in ways I hadn’t, not like serum did, because of its limitations compared to say, Zebra, but because of the amazing possibilities