My Five Favorite Soft Synths
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

5. Camel Audio Cameleon 5000

Additive synthesis is one of the most idealized, but least practical, ways of generating electronic sound. The concept seems simple: since any sound can be described mathematically as the sum of one or more sine waves (each with its own frequency, amplitude, and phase characteristics), in theory we can construct absolutely any sound by adding together a bunch of sine waves.

In the real world, additive synthesis is not quite so straightforward, for two reasons. First, until recently even the fastest computers simply weren’t fast enough to do it in real time. Second, how many of us have the patience to program musically expressive sounds by defining the parameters of dozens upon dozens of sine waves?

Thanks to today’s Macs and PCs, additive synthesis is now a viable proposition for those with modest budgets. And thanks to the brilliant user interface in Cameleon 5000, programming complex, evocative sounds using additive synthesis is no longer quite so burdensome a proposition. Up to four sound-source profiles can be defined for each patch, and Cameleon will morph among them under the control of a two-dimensional, graphically programmable morphing envelope. Each source also has its own loopable multisegment envelope, which allows you to blend overtones in arbitrarily complex ways.

The synth also includes a utility for analyzing sound files and converting them into Cameleon data so that they can be used in patches. Thus it’s a simple matter to morph between, for instance, a dog bark and a grand piano. Surprisingly for a synth that uses such space-age programming techniques, Cameleon’s factory soundset includes numerous meat-and-potatoes basses, leads, and pads alongside the exotic additive effects patches.

Cameleon is the only one of the five synths in this article that’s available in a downloadable demo version.

Cameleon Morph After choosing four sound-source definitions with the pop-up menus at the corners of the square, you can create a morphing envelope in Cameleon. Envelope times are programmed using the horizontal timeline in the upper window.


Cameleon Data The displays and tools on Cameleon’s source A, B, C, and D pages are for setting the harmonic content of each source. You can adjust the amplitudes of individual sine waves and noise components, and the harmonic content can be different for each point in the multisegment envelopes. Cameleon also supports sine wave detuning, which can be different for each envelope point.

Five, No Jive

Any one of the synthesizers featured above (except Stylus RMX, which only does drums) could be used for complete instrumental productions. Each would sound great—and in some ways they’d sound quite different from one another. So choosing the one (or several) that will best meet your needs can be tough. I hope the brief profiles here, and the audio examples, will make the process easier. Visit the manufacturers’ websites for more music demos and information.

Music Examples

Camel Audio Cameleon. I created this sonic event by opening four instances of Cameleon5000 and playing overlapping notes. Two Cameleons were playing stock factory patches; the other two patches were lightly edited:

Native Instruments Reaktor. This groove layers three Reaktor synths and two Reaktor beatboxes—probably Aerobic and Sinebeats, but I was having too much fun to take notes. One beat appears in the first eight bars; the second is layered with it in the second eight. The bass comes from a relatively simple Reaktor instrument called Junatik, the plucked arpeggio from Carbon 2, and the little twang in bar 3 from Kaleidon:

Steinberg Xphraze. I made this musical statement with five Xphraze instances. The first provides the opening snare build-up (a one-finger factory patch, not something I played) and the ride cymbal. The second does the main drone, the third the main drumbeat—again, one-finger patches. I played the lead and bass parts by hand:

Spectrasonics Stylus RMX. I used six of Stylus RMX’s eight mix slots in this example, unmuting individual channels in the host program with its automation. I also panned, filtered, and retuned some of the loops dynamically. Because Spectrasonics prefers that its loops not be made publicly available in a form that could be resampled, I blended in a bass line (played on Spectrasonics Trilogy) and a background pad (played on Spectrasonics Atmosphere):

Image-Line Sytrus. Since Sytrus is available only within FL Studio, I took the liberty of using a few non-Sytrus sounds (the Speech Synthesizer and sampled kick, hi-hat, and noise snare) for this example. The bass, both of the one-finger groove patterns, the lead (with FL distortion added as an insert effect), and the plucked sound at the end are all played by Sytrus:

Digital Audio Essentials

Related Reading

Digital Audio Essentials
A comprehensive guide to creating, recording, editing, and sharing music and other audio
By Bruce Fries, Marty Fries

Jim Aikin writes about music technology for a variety of publications and websites. His most recent books are Power Tools for Synthesizer Programming and Chords & Harmony.

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