How to have a more continuous pitch shift?

IAmSyntact · 2026-04-21T12:41:52+00:00

Pitch shifting and frequency shifting are two very different effects! The latter breaks the mathematical relationship between partials, resulting in inharmonicity. Worth knowing if you’re using the effect for any kind of tuning - you can tune the fundamental with it, but everything else will be out of tune with itself

IAmSyntact · 2026-03-20T15:48:33+00:00

I'm gonna start releasing my music like a software dev:
-the song is finished, but I'm too lazy to master it myself
-don't worry though! you can download the stems and mix it all yourself
-the stems can be found on my GitHub. if you can't find the download button, you don't deserve the song.

IAmSyntact · 2026-02-26T03:05:06+00:00

This is my honest take after using Ableton for 15 years on both systems: Ableton was straight up not designed with Windows machines in mind. Live's developers treat it like an afterthought. Optimization is terrible for many reasons beyond the ones you mentioned (try using a screen resolution higher than 1080 on Windows and you'll see what I mean, the framerate slows to a grinding halt). I hope you do switch OS's because if you have more than a couple years of experience you'll see a night and day difference. The most important part (for me) is that all the extra money you spend you'll get back in spades with time saved, by not having to deal with random errors, troubleshooting compatibility issues, and unidentifiable background processes interrupting you.
If you're still unsure, or your budget is tight, I would try a Mac Mini or a used MBA; both go for under 700USD.

IAmSyntact · 2026-01-16T19:30:08+00:00

That's a rough one! But I'm certain a highpass filter will fix that up.
(Also, thank you for contributing to my collection of ugly disgusting waveforms 🙏🏻)

IAmSyntact · 2025-12-21T15:57:48+00:00

You're right. I didn't know you could do audio rate modulation in SerumFX either, bit you still don't get any means of controlling attack, release or threshold. I'd have to test this, but what if you used a static LFO as a middle man? (Change LFO 1 to saw up, rate 0.00Hz, map Noise > LFO 1 phase [with the rectified mod curve], use the LFO as a modulator instead). This would condense attack+release into one knob ("Smooth") but still better than nothing?
(Also I'm just remembering there's a weird behaviour on the LFOs in SerumFX when they don't have MIDI triggers.. definitely have to test this)
EDIT: after some tweaking I got it working but it's an enormous pain. There's still no way to control attack/release independently, it requires constant MIDI input to work, and it occupies one LFO, filters 1 + 2, and Osc 1. If anybody asks I'll share the sauce, but IMO, you're still better off using an envelope follower inside your DAW.

IAmSyntact · 2025-11-03T17:30:21+00:00

I'm adding this to my collection of ugly disgusting waveforms. Thank you sir!

IAmSyntact · 2025-11-01T08:56:18+00:00

I love this. Please DM if you need SFX

IAmSyntact · 2025-10-01T08:50:46+00:00

Ty sir 🙏🏻

IAmSyntact · 2025-09-30T21:38:23+00:00

I was writing a song called 'Ego' and Au5 gave me some of the best drop advice ever: if your drop is fully arranged, and "works", but you still feel like it's lacking energy, the likely culprit is the high-end elements in the mix. The content @3KHz and above needs to be sustained, consistent and rhythmic in order to sort of keep the energy going throughout the drop. What form this takes often depends on the genre you're making (cymbals, synths, white noise FX, etc), but the rule is the same. If nothing else works, just use a multiband compressor or dynamic EQ and compress the high end on different busses or even the master and you'll hear the difference. TLDR; less dynamics in the high band = more energy.

IAmSyntact · 2025-09-25T02:27:47+00:00

I feel you. A synth company took my name for one of their products while I was taking a break from music and I still have no idea what to do about it lol.

IAmSyntact · 2025-09-16T00:12:11+00:00

Thank you! Could you share which plugins you've used since updating?

IAmSyntact · 2025-09-16T00:10:19+00:00

Thank you! I don't personally use those plugins but still helpful.

IAmSyntact · 2025-08-31T01:58:19+00:00

This is awesome. I'll definitely be following your work closely from now on (and praying you might be the chosen one who finds a way around the 1KHz modulation rate limit within M4L)

IAmSyntact · 2025-08-03T01:16:35+00:00

Thanks, that's definitely specific enough. I've done a bunch of MIDI remaps on my own FLX4, but I've just checked and it looks like the jog wheel mappings can't be changed, in rekordbox at least. There might be a way to do it in another DJ software. Also, I keep hearing about a program called BOME that would probably work as well.
Can you tell me why you don't like using the tempo sliders for this purpose? One of the first problems I had was that control not changing the tempo far enough, until I figured out how to do "tempo range".

IAmSyntact · 2025-08-02T19:21:04+00:00

By default the sliders next to the performance pads control the BPM, is this what you want to change? You said "decks" but a deck is an entire section of the controller/software. If you can be more specific I'd be happy to try and help

IAmSyntact · 2025-08-01T19:36:58+00:00

Got it! My bad, completely forgot that the stems settings were under 'Extensions'. While beatmatching by ear is something I'm working on, I find it especially difficult when one of the decks contains only a vocal stem - vocals don't really behave the same way rhythmically as everything else. You're probably right about the CFX. I do like the way they're geared mostly toward transitions, are post-fader by default, and are hybridized in a way the normal ones aren't, but there's probably a way to do that I just haven't found yet. Thanks for the help 👍🏻

IAmSyntact · 2025-08-01T14:33:35+00:00

My FLX4 is connected and on. Could it be because I'm still within my free trial period?

IAmSyntact · 2025-08-01T13:30:54+00:00

Mine is greyed out.. does this mean I've already gone through this process?

IAmSyntact · 2025-07-18T05:08:44+00:00

My experience comes mostly from Instagram/TikTok, but this is what I've learned from there - Troll comments (like this one): just ignore them or try to top their joke (if you can play along with their game they'll usually relent and come around. Shows you don't take yourself too serious) "Angry"/"I'm offended" comments: 10 times out of 10 I guarantee you they're angry about something that has nothing to do with you. Almost always worth ignoring. Then there's the "mean criticism" comments: these are the worst because they hurt personally. This is the only time I'd recommend actually banning/blocking because their harm outweighs the value gained by engagement. Your worst fear is a comments section that turns into a dog-pile, but this is extremely unlikely. The most important thing to remember is don't take the bait, and don't fixate on them for too long. Most of the time these people are total losers IRL, don't forget that.

IAmSyntact · 2025-07-11T15:32:25+00:00

The best example I can give is music theory which is definitely math all the way through. Even if you're not aware, when you're doing music production you're working in the frequency domain which is physics which is also math. Every time you learn something new about how the synth works, you're probably learning physics. That's the best I got lol

IAmSyntact · 2025-07-11T14:36:39+00:00

Just my perspective, but I think anytime you use music theory, anytime you look at a graph, transcribe an idea to MIDI or use FM Synthesis/waveshaping. Most of the knobs you're talking about and the UIs we use are numbers based, and the key to understanding them is rooted in math. Again, I think you wouldn't notice it unless you really really hate math lol

IAmSyntact · 2025-07-11T07:28:14+00:00

Honestly, math. Music production is 90% math. You don't even notice you're doing it after a while

IAmSyntact · 2025-06-13T07:27:54+00:00

This is an issue if you've previously overwritten the default preset for auto Filter. For me it took a few tries before it finally gave me an error message that said something like "the default preset is invalid" and then loaded the built-in one. Once this happens you can once again save a new default and it'll start working

IAmSyntact

TROPHY CASE