I've finally found some homeostasis and started to learn again. I came across Harmor, cause I never used additive synthesis, though I thought ppl used wavetable synthesis because additive synthesis was too cpu intensive. Well, I can't use Harmor in PT, but I can alone, in Cubase and Reaper, so...

Why hasn't it caught on? I think it's kinda cool.

 

Last edited: Jun 30, 2016

Because it's very un-intuitive. I had to read the manual to figure out what half the stuff does, and then I had to watch tutorials to find out why some of it was useful lol

But yeah, it's more than just kinda cool. It's a monster of a synth. I put it up there with Serum in terms of being able to do involved sound design with ridiculous ease (granted you understand how it works)

 

i love harmor, one of my favs. hey heres something cool I used it for lead shredding in one project and got a very nice 'break up' out of the preset. I can't be sure why, probably unchecked frequencies overlapping at high speed but the result was very nice

yes harmor is very involved, and I doubt i'll fully understand it in my lifetime, I just know I can get it to stand on its head

 

a bit too involved for me... preset adjuster here.. but it is cool to see it in action.. I did see SeamlessR doing some
synthesis with it in some FL tutorials.. impressive indeed... but takes some dedication and time for sure

if you master the beast.. you've got quite a tool at your command

 

Probably because it's fucking PC only - which blows because a lot and I mean A LOT of musicians use Mac. If you develop synths, eventually you're gonna have to make it for mac or it will only get used so often. I would buy this if it were for mac. It is a nice synth.

 

I think it has more to do with the fact that it is an Image Line plugin. They make some really fantastic plugins that go toe to toe with some of the more popular plugins but even when I primarily relied on FL Studio I stuck to third party plugs . . . mostly because I find synthesis to be incredibly boring and nothing beats a good sound bank especially when you are trying to make stuff that's already sonically been made. It seems slightly redundant to do it all by hand. That being said I loved the simplicity/presets of the native FX plugins built into FL Studio .

Harmor was a totally different beast though and I definitely had to try my hand at programming some presets just cause it allowed you to make neuro style bass patches with such ease and flexibility. If you check out Black Octopus' Mutate it demonstrates how easy it is to sample using a few simple wave forms and resample and resample until your satisfied within FL Studio using only Harmor and Edison. Literally in a few minutes you can have some really gnarly sounding stuff! Then duplicate/triplicate an instance and throw some multiband eq/compression or whatever other complex routing in there and boom you've got yourself a monster that competes with some of the most esteemed sound designers out there.

Regardless, since I'm pretty sure all of Image Line's Third Party preset libraries are both limited in number and come bundled within the DAWs license itself it makes it especially difficult to find warezed libraries. Lets face it, since a lot people are like me and want instant gratification by means of presets rather then to learn the ins and outs of what each individual plugin is capable of you end up with loads of people becoming used to the interfacing of certain synths that have loads of warezed libraries out there (i.e Massive, Sylenth1 and now Serum) which are all fantastic synths but don't necessarily do anything another synth by some other company can't do. It's my personal opinion if that wasn't the case Image Line's plugins would definitely be more universally used by people that don't use FL Studio.

That being said I STILL use some Image Line's other plugins mainly FX in other DAWs especially Grossbeat because it's ease of flexibility and drawing automation <3

 

Last edited: Jun 30, 2016

another thing I like about harmor is its fx seem very well suited together. like most super synths I guess, but its fx just sound good

I think IL has been working on mac haven't they? I haven't seen anything announced besides the daw but I know they are working hard on mac

@thethirdperson , I got a ton of presets from the forum. all free. and this synth is actually bought separately, unless you want a bundle. presets though, I found out, you have to sub-folder. lol or the presets page fills your screen.. woahh I should sub-folder those

 

Last edited: Jun 30, 2016

Ok, thanks for the feedback guys. My original curiosity came from that it was an additive synth, and I saw it had a vsti version, so I hoped I could use it outside of FL, and I could.

So it's like the Air plugins that PT has? Or Cubase's synth I forgot already, I'd just use Kontakt, or u-he or some 3rd party stuff in there anyways.

I just thought wavetable synths were a compromise to addition synthesis...but given Serum is a wavetable synth it sure is popular. I'm gonna address my ignorance to wavetable synths, cause even though I played around with Massive (I thought was a wavetable synth), and Sylenth (Idt it's a wavetable synth) , I never did like most of their sounds (except for bases), I just don't like that saw sound. I literally feel each little ripple like an edge of a grain of sand scratching my skin.

I'm more into Kontakt or whoa (I can't believe I can't remember the synth I use for evolving sounds, (I'm still not touching Absynth or Omnisphere 2 yet) it must be weird patches in Kontakt...), I've been using mostly Kontakt for a while...whoa I haven't slept good since last Friday...

I'm curious if I can use the pictures of wavetables that some ppl have up, and just plug it into the loop/image box and see it work, that would be freaky. Scarier is when a tutorial on Harmor, the guy says, oh wow, I have to try that out...cause he never noticed that function before...idk, After I verify Adele's Hello song reversed is not some back masking kill yourself words...and I don't want to know for sure... I want to play with women's voices in combination with messing with the harmonics to make more than just women go Oo, Ah, MMM...or phrases.

 

yes vsti works good in sonar and live, win7 32 here. I don't thing you can use wavetables but it does image resynthesis. which also sounds great. totally different end result than wavetable. I found several free packs of image resythesis too

I tried my hand at making image resynthesis but the pic of my wife didn't sound so hot. go figure

 

Why isn't Harmor used more?

'coz we all learned to use Alchemy.

 

Tried it once to recreate a synth (they say you can do this) from a CD with a sample, was disappointed. Didn't use it again.

 

"I go to church every Sunday morning. Lots of people do. It beats me why other people stay at home and sleep on a Sunday morning. How can they?"

Your perspective is a bit skewed, mate. Have a reality check. I for instance don't know one musician with a Mac, let alone using OS-X. Not one! All the people I know use Windows up to W8. Me saying this doesn't mean I like it, though, but for audio it currently works best and most developers release their software for it. I'm also a Linux user, and Linux is used here for everything else.

What bugs me is when people install a different OS, or buy a different computer and then whine about how there's no software for it. So why did you buy it then?! If you want to buy a computer for audio, buy a PC, and install Windows on it. Simple. Or even better - install Windows on another partition and have both! OS-X for Internet and everything else, and Windows for making music!

Regarding Harmor, I really like it. It's one of the best and most innovative synths on the software market. Time invested into learning it is worth it IMO. Image-Line in general has produced some real innovative gems, and originally sounding synths, but most of them have a bit steep learning curve indeed.

Cheers!

 

Last edited: Jun 30, 2016

I agree that Harmor is a very interesting rich synth.
Why is it not used more? I can only guess, but may be it is because it's part of FL studio, and many users think that synth bundled with Daws worth less than the one that are sold alone...So they don't even try it?
Then you have the Media side, magazine will do an complete review of the daw where few lines will be dedicated to the synths and effects included.

 

Harmor is a monster synth. It's very difficult to learn it completely. We have Serum which is simpler and at the same time can do most of the things.
I tried learning Harmor and it was too difficult for me.

 

@jeffglobal
Sure some wavetable synths have additive style tables, but wavetable is certainly not a comprised version of additive.
It is a whole different synth world.

 

Ok, I've still not played enough with Harmor or Serum yet to really say anything. Other than serum better see my freakin preset folder now...

A "wavetable" just reminds me of when I forensically fix some audio, e.g., to take out when she says, "no." Ok, not true, but definitely when I was too lazy to find where exactly the click was, and just looked for it in the spectra. I think I'm currently confused, but that's ok for now.

But I do question wtf a "neuro" patch ("It's Reese'y") is...that I've never seen before. Sounds more like my laptop got stuck in a TSA scanner and is slowly dying having it's balls squeezed (not in a good way, imo). I don't get it.

 

I would love to try it out but its PC only :'(

 

Harmor is very good. Like Sytrus FM.
But a lot of ppl wrongly stick FL Studio and their plugs as "toys".
And there is the workflow, too. Sytrus is intuitive, Harmor not much.

 

Them negative ratings on my comment, tho. Lmao

 

Harmor is mostly for true sound designers and less for track makers. There is a swag of synths in the market, requiring just routing, filtration and FXs that grace in them is discovered just by the ears but the story in Additive and FM synths is totally different which can not be harnessed by untutored persons and booboisies who use Omnisphere or Kontakt most of the times.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 30, 2016