Edmund Eagan - Specialty Synths - ContinuuCon 2024

Day 1 Presentations - Edmund Eagan is talking about the new Specialty Synths, a new method for simplifying programming of custom sounds in the Eaganmatrix.
Video credit Nathan W Fullerton.

[@valiumdupeuple]

Woohoo!

[@adamjabonski4305]

Thank you for the video! I'm really interested in creating a speciality synth based on EaganMatrix (Osmose flavour). Anyone knows where can I get any reference materials, maybe synths presented by Ed in the video?

[@synthplayer1563]

Nice, but as is often the case with the Haken world, it sounds too experimental for me. First of all, I would like a simple bread-and-butter synth for my Osmose. And above all, where can I get these special synths?

[@veryoriginaluserid]

Be still my Ratio heart

[@AntonKuznetsovMusic]

Well any kind of further software development is for the better. A part of me, however, oddly feels a bit uneasy about going against the puritanical idea of the Eagan matrix. Exploring the special sounds in the Osmose and treating them like a monolith definitely has its charm. I just hope the whole sound design philosophy carried to the Osmose doesn’t get watered down. 🫢

[@clemrslt]

I feel the same. Though I completely understand the wish to tweak the sound engine in a more familiar way, the deeper level of sound design the EM allows to reach still appears to me as an exciting sound laboratory. More opened to any idea, less oriented towards a specific technique. With the risk that Lippold mentions to get lost in the possibilities. But that's also the beauty of it : no one's telling you what to do. You have to figure it out by yourself

[@pachde]

I don't think there's much risk of the EM getting watered down. Nothing has been taken away from the traditional experience of designing an EM instrument. The new capabilities added to the engine (and a few adjustments in the overall design of the MIDI protocols) opens up some fantastic opportunities for Haken Audio, Expressive E, and other 3rd party developers to innovate. The new firmware will be much easier to write external software for. The design of a layer to underpin a "specialty synth" is even more demanding than designing a normal EM instrument. It's a meta-level of design that needs to be done. But once it's there, it enables a more normal "sound design" experience, which Ed mentioned surprised him how effective it is (even though he himself is the principle designer of the idea).

[@clemrslt]

@@pachde I agree, this feeling was the one just after seeing the video and hearing about these specialty synths for the first time. I needed some time to understand where it could lead and I admit it's clearly a huge step forward. It's exciting, I'm already thinking about specialty synths I could make. You are creating one yourself to connect to VCV rack, right?

[@pachde]

@@clemrslt I have already published the HC One plugin to the VCV Rack library. I'll have a lot of work to catch up when the new firmware ships. HC-1 does provide value for EM device owners, but it isn't a specialty synth per se - it's general access, with cv automation available for Macros, Recirculator and a few other parameters. I think my work did spur and inspire some of the ideas, and Lippold has been generous in recognizing my work.

[@clemrslt]

@@pachde Indeed he is generous! I've just tested HC-1, works well, congratulations, it must have been a lot of work! And I can definitely see how the principle of specialty synths is already in your module. Do you think a lot of third party developers will produce specialty synths for Osmose?