The Toxicity of Synth Culture

[Guy Rowland]

Nicely made and argued video.



This YouTuber, Bloom Music, isolates three pillars of complaints against last year's Moog Messenger:

"It's just another monosynth"

"It's InMusic junk"

"Moog-vation / Moog-station"

I mean, I have enough (soft) monosynths, but I hope I'm not so much of a jerk as to whine about every company that makes a new one.

As the maker of the video says at the end, this applies to more than just the Messenger, more than just synths, the online discourse in our entire industry is loathsome.

We live in a time of abundant - and cheap - wonders. My 15 year old self would explode at the limitless sonic world I have at my fingertips. Yet it seems the majority of online discourse is permanently offended and does nothing but whine about how AWFUL everything is. Permanently frustrated at these evil companies who exist only to pour scorn on their own boundless creativity.

How my heart bleeds for them.

[Lawrence]

I didn’t watch the video, but in your opinion has there been a breakthrough soft synth released in, say, the past few years?

I find myself with a surfeit of (very good) options. More acquisitions seem like collecting to me.

[Guy Rowland]

I don’t watch the video, but in your opinion has there been a breakthrough soft synth released in, say, the past few years?

I find myself with a surfeit of (very good) options. More acquisitions seem like collecting to me.

There's a new synth out there, Ultra, which has a completely different type of oscillator - an Ultrawave. It's well liked too. I listened to the demos and didn't hear anything distinctively new though in truth.

https://ultra.audio/

I'm not expecting a breakthrough soft synth ever again - for that matter I don't hear any synthesis breakthroughs of any kind ever again. It had pretty much all been done by the 90s - it's just better, cheaper, faster, more versatile.