Some virtual synthesisers these days you look at the interface and think you are seeing something alien and mysterious. After a while you realise you’re back with oscillator/filter/amplifier just in a new sauce. Good – you now know how this thing works. Bad – you already know how this thing works.
Let’s bring KULT down to the basics and then praise it back up again. It’s a two oscillator, two filter subtractive synthesiser with effects. These oscillators are strange attractors. That means (a) they look really cool on the screen but more importantly (b) their overall oscillations are complex as multiple modes of chaotic oscillation are combined.
The raw sound could be compared to FM with a huge number of operators detuned and stacked in a complex algorithm. Some of the supplied oscillators are familiar in their sound but others difficult to define – or use. The designer has made simplifications and assumptions to ensure a more musical result – but DX7 levels of sizzle wait nearby.
Once you have chosen your chaotic waveform you will tweak the parameters that form it, and then pass the sound through a set of distortions – pitch, fm, am, vowel etc. You’re not going to have much of an idea what these do – just follow your ears. Then to the filters and FX where there is the inevitable shimmer effect that Dawsome loves, and used to dampen all the tumult created so far.
It takes time to define a result out of this one. Take it slowly, pick a simple oscillator. Move things gently to see what happens. Appreciate the way you can drag and drop LFOs and envelopes to wherever you need them. Use the traditional controls to tame it. Unlike some of the other Dawsome tools this one becomes clear with a bit of time spent, so long as you just view it as a two oscillator, two filter subtractive synthesiser with wobbly bits from hell.
How does this compare with Eventide’s Generate? There are two oscillators and more oscillator types, and it is not limited to the Buchla Low Pass Gate (combined filter and amplitude). There are more treatments that soften the sound. There are more voices. Generate is more angry. They are not any more kindred than two traditional synthesisers.