Tube Synth : is it possible to get good sounds ?

I'm new on MPC worlkflow and a beginner on synths. So, it's probably due to my lack of skills but I wonder if it's only possible to obtain nice sounds with Tube Synth.
I understand 90% of parameters, i'm able to get some nice patchs from the scratch using Voltage Modular and i'm ok about fine tuning and hours of knob-playing. And I've got some pretty good results with Electric, the other plugin. So, i'm ok with simple VCO, simple filter and ADSR... just enough to start something.

I'm not trying to make a ARP2600 with it but i'm looking for a couple of good and simple presets (a lead, a bass... ) and after few hours, i only win gritty, flat sounds with horrific effects. It could be on my side but... the factory presets are not better than my poor results.

It's strange because with same setting on Voltage (2 OSC, a basic filter...), I can run something enough good.
On Tube Synth, nothing happens.

Today I'm not sure if this plugin deserve more time because i need to understand how it works or if it's just bulls*. Does someone manage to get good pads and bass with it ?
Just a last point : i'm working in stand-alone mode only on the 2.8 firmware.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: "Good" is subjective. I get "good" patches but I like vintage analog sounds, not the latest greatest EDM banger wub wubs.

You can get good sounds out of it, but not great. A wavetable and more polyphony would be very welcome addition (and is apparently incoming at some point). The filter sound has nice saturator on it, but the filter overall does not produce as punchy sounds as the MPC's own. I did single cycle saw, pulse, sine and square waves and it gave me much more analog-ish/modular sound that had that aggressive punch in it and enabled for much more complex chords than with Tubesynth. But of course, you're missing all LFO/portamento stuff then ...

Which is why I opted to use an external dedicated synthesizer.

Bonsaipanda wrote:Long answer: "Good" is subjective. I get "good" patches but I like vintage analog sounds, not the latest greatest EDM banger wub wubs.

Thanks for your reply !
It's exactly what I'm looking for : vintage analog sound, not perfects (i've got Serum for that ) but goods for retrowave or '70 space music.
I should take some time on the chap 23 of the MPC Bible now

It's the real issue with the MPC : infinite possibilities and not enough time to play with it.

Yaourth wrote:It could be on my side but... the factory presets are not better than my poor results..

Well, this is the subjective reality behind TubeSynth: if you don't like any of the presets, which were professionally designed by Air/Akai who knows the synth in and out, then I am willing to wager that nothing you do will make it sound as good as you want it to. TubeSynth, at its core, is a stripped down super-basic 3 oscillator subtractive synth (based on Air's own Vacuum Pro, if I'm not mistaken). Also, Serum is a wavetable synth and a poor example of "vintage analog", IMHO.

Yaourth wrote:I'm new on MPC worlkflow and a beginner on synths. So, it's probably due to my lack of skills but I wonder if it's only possible to obtain nice sounds with Tube Synth.
I understand 90% of parameters, i'm able to get some nice patchs from the scratch using Voltage Modular and i'm ok about fine tuning and hours of knob-playing. And I've got some pretty good results with Electric, the other plugin. So, i'm ok with simple VCO, simple filter and ADSR... just enough to start something.

I'm not trying to make a ARP2600 with it but i'm looking for a couple of good and simple presets (a lead, a bass... ) and after few hours, i only win gritty, flat sounds with horrific effects. It could be on my side but... the factory presets are not better than my poor results.

It's strange because with same setting on Voltage (2 OSC, a basic filter...), I can run something enough good.
On Tube Synth, nothing happens.

Today I'm not sure if this plugin deserve more time because i need to understand how it works or if it's just bulls*. Does someone manage to get good pads and bass with it ?
Just a last point : i'm working in stand-alone mode only on the 2.8 firmware.

Yes you can, but you have to keep tweaking and keep composing. Everything is there to make pleasing sound, but it's 100% up to you to make it happen. Use it like it's the only synth on the planet and you'll figure out ways to make it work.

TubeSynth is a good virtual synthesizer, but like with all synthesizers you have to learn it's sweet spots while creating a patch and apply the right effects to get the sounds you want, you just can't rely on presets.

Yaourth wrote:but goods for retrowave or '70 space music

Very much doable.

Saw wave with a sub oscillator, 12dB on the filter, just a little saturation on the filter, decay to full, sustain to full, do the envelope on the filter side only + apply the envelope to the filter and you have yourself a basic analog bleepbloop. From there it's just applying fx send to get some delay or reverb to it. If need be, I can try to make a video on some basic synthwave sounds. ^.^

This is also a good resource ("Programming Analog Synths" by Howard Scarr) >> https://bit.ly/3g8HIZv

Big thanks to everybody for all the answers and tips !
I have to work again on it !

I think its possible to get good sounds, albeit after a lot of time spent tweaking, re-tweaking and tweaking again lol.
I actually just created a preset pack with Tube Synth and I'm happy with the way the patches turned out. I think it's all in what you want and how you approach the situation. One thing I do when creating sounds is listen to sounds on other hardware synths and try to emulate them, which gives me a reference to compare to. Tube Synth in most cases can easily duplicate sounds from a wide variety of other synths.

As mentioned before, TubeSynth is capable and if you want to get into it IMHO the best way it to go with the init preset and tweak parameters one by one. Create custom presets, have fun with it, make some weird sounds and you'll get to the point of getting how to create what you need/want.
It's also good to check basics of subtractive synthesis or sound design with synths in general. It might be me, but most presets in AKAI seem cheesy so i'd not judge plugins/effects based on them alone.