Hi !

I recently made a midi controller for Sylenth1 named the Sylence. I made it for myself as I wanted to control this vst for personnal sound engineering purpose (tweaking around like a real synth).
I just made an interview on a little french audio Youtube channel, and I got some good feedback.
I really enjoyed making this project, and it gave me the idea to do an other controller, for an other VST.

So I am asking you, who will be interested in a controller like the one that I made if it was commercialized ? At what price you will start to be interested ? Which vst midi controlled will attract the most the music community (poll) ? And, what kind of features you find very important or great to implement in a midi controller for vst ?

I think Serum is on the top of my personnal list.

The Sylence demo (french) (most recent) :

The Sylence demo (english) :

The interview (french) :

Here's some photos of the Sylenth1 controller.

 

Last edited: May 29, 2020

Great project. Respec'.

I am reminded of Claude Woodward's (aka The Sonic Manipulator) MIDI control monster, the Claude Controller.

Now in colour...

 

Congratulations, very cool project. I always like seeing dedicated hardware controllers for software.

SoundForce do commercially available controllers for a few other synths if you want to get an idea on price ranges:
http://sound-force.nl/?page_id=2318

Someone also made dedicated Pro-Q and Pro-C controllers at one point, although their website now appears to be down. Here's a news story with pricing information:
https://sonicstate.com/news/2018/05/09/dedicated-midi-controllers-for-fabfilter-plug-ins/

A non-commercial diva controller was also created once before:
http://www.synth-project.de/diva.html

 

Thanks. I didn't knew about his controller. Looks powerful but it seems hard to learn it fast, and use it on a VST

 

That's a lot of work man. Congrats.

 

Thanks cheese. Yup I knew about the SoundForce controller, I find that it have lack of feedback and interactivity with the user. Also, my personnal goal is to embed a DAC, and if I can, directly the VST, so the product is way more close to a synthesizer than a midi controller.
Synth project have nice stuff also.

 

True: I can just about cope with turning up a knob to 11, if I squint my eyes and clench my arse.... erm... teeth. I wouldn't know where to begin with turning a wheel up to lilac.

 

Last edited: May 29, 2020

@Zzup:
Will your controllers be available commercially?

 

It depend on demand. If many ask me for it, I will redo the project with more precision. Because all the stuff in this Sylenth1 controller is handmade and because I am a poor student, I can't start, let's say 6 controller at once. I'll start producing them only if there is 6 pre purchases, which I doubt, because it was my really 1st big realisation and has some (minor) bugs (.
That's why I am doing the poll. If I see a strong interest in, let's say Serum, I will try to do one with a professionnal level of realisation, with desired features.

 

Adam Szabo JP6K controller will be cool. With rounded 3d sphere lcd screen inside a knob and glowing strip around extra cool.
Little like Korg Volca Nubass.

 

Ouch, looks hard to engineer.

Anyway I think I have no chance to commercialize a midi controller in this range (less than 30 controls),if the controller is specialized (+100 controls, soundcard embedded, all handcrafted, vst software embedded), I will have more chance to find buyers.

 

lol a refx nexus or a midi controler to control all vst s

 

Maybe You were thinking about creating something like Muse Receptor or V-Machine? VST host but with midi keyboard, sequencer, arp and universal controllers, knobs, sliders, buttons with mini lcds under which You can assign any name under any knob and save presets for different vsts etc.? It will be something different from the rest.
Looks little like Roland SE-02 and Arturia Matrixbrute mixed together.

 

just got my xbox 360 guitar hero live controller today and still experimenting to use it as midi input using miditar and axis app.. i hope its not out of topic to ask/suggest if you could create/program the same look alike gear but specific for every guitar vsti out there in the market, like you can with every synth... i've searched and surveyed for developer and seller and so far it's still new and not available as a product (like drum pad, midi keyboard) to the world of computer music production, officially (like korg, akai, etc controller for drumpad, mixer, daw midi... non like guitar hero controller for guitar vsti..)

voted for other (tell me the answer)

anyway your work is amazing. turning vsti to physical real world gadget is awesome +1

p/s: if you interested with my suggest i also suggest orange tree samples as a start for guitar hero controller look alike for their libraries

 

You mean there's no driver for Windows? That'd be more a software topic if I got you right.

 

Yep exactly. On those two machine (Muse Receptor or V-Machine), only few VST works, and the designs are oldschool.
I wanna create a VST host for modern day VST (Serum/Diva..) with a total control, maybe touch screen for lfo waveforms, real time audio, many feedback. Something that can be usable live and standalone. Do you think there will be interest in it ? I think I can sell that under 1300€.
A mix between the two synth you mentioned + ASM Hydra

 

Guitar VSTs are not my domain but you're searching for a standard gateway between guitar hero controller and VST ? I don't know one. If you use miditar just map each midi output parameters to the input parameters you want inside the guitar VST.

 

Yeah. I think some people need something like this for stage etc. so it be interets in it. For example V-machine sucks now. There no support. Only x86 vsts and much problems with compatibility, only specified list of plugins working. And people still buy it.

 

for most commercial success probably diva, omnisphere, serum, pigments, maybe kontakt? (orchestral)
or something like:
half of the controller for VSTi's like diva/omni/etc and the other half for channel strips, optimized for bx_, ssl native etc.
and all controls are motorized faders, LED buttons and LED knobs

 

So Sylence has the vst host built-in? Or it's only a midi controller and need a PC for working?