Synths in Estuary

Hi :slight_smile:

It's my first message here. I'm quite new to tidal and super excited about it!
I tried today using Estuary to play with mini tidal on the browser. It worked amazingly well! I played with a friend (that was new to tidal and got hooked because of the experience). Big thanks to the developers of this platform!
The only thing that was missing for me was synths. I couldn't find any of the default tidal synths (e.g "superpiano") so the ability to play melodies is pretty limited. Is there a way to use synths in Estuary?

Welcome @ShaiR - nice to see some more estuary love here!

Fyi if you check the events calendar you can see that there is a weekly public jam that I host, you are most welcome to join sometime :slight_smile:

Some housekeeping (don't worry, I am going to attempt to answer your question) - this is a support resource where you will likely get a more detailed answer:
Estuary has a dedicated, active discord server, where a lot of the people involved in it's development will respond:

Now, onto your question:

Short answer, no
Long answer, maybe - through the settings it is possible to bridge estuary as a controller to a local superdirt installation. The upside to this is, you get synths, the downside is of course, you're the only person who can hear the music you're making.

Heh, as you get into it, you will discover more - however
The limitations presented by estuary are sometimes necessary (in this case), and sometimes due to the feature not having been developed yet.
In my opinion, it's actually really important to have these limitations because you can

a) constrain and focus your creativity,
b) get that incredibly important collaborative experience
c) learn that there is often more than one way to do things, and get creative with the controls (this helps your tidal skills in general)

So, while you miss it now - let it go, you don't need it (trust me)

*somewhat limited.

  1. Pitched samples tuned to C can be used with note - all harmonic/melodic applications apply then. The downside is that as you pitch a sample higher it's playback/release period shortens, and vice versa if you pitch lower (then you'll discover that legato is also missing! Use cut liberally :wink: ) - here's an example using flbass:14

  2. Some sample sets contain a complete (or partially complete) set of scales - one of these is sprvibe which @crashingbooth compiled for estuary specifically from the supervibe synth - here's an example of these in use (the rhodes you can hear in the background is one of my samples - yes you can provide custom samples too )

You can get a full list of samples available in estuary by:

  1. open a new browser tab at https://estuary.mcmaster.ca
  2. go to solo mode
  3. enter into the terminal:
!localview audiomap (list all samples)

(I keep a dotlist of other estuary tips I use as a reference)

I've got an incomplete reference list of samples described and filtered into sets that make sense to me - including pitched samples/sets, which you may find useful

Lastly, here's a playlist of estuary WeekEndJams for almost the last 12 months(!) which you may be able to find some ideas/inspiration in:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt8O3WdGnQjfCNVBK2O0W0_nwiSgWIoFR

Thank @cleary for the detailed and welcoming answer.

The weekly jams sound very cool. I'll try to join (assuming I'll get over my stage fright :sweat_smile: )

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Great! No pressure in jam, we embrace error and help each other out - you're welcome to grab a cell and just watch, or add small elements, or take on something bigger. As with any jam scenario, it's most important to be considerate of others :slight_smile:

We have discussed jam etiquette in a small amount of detail here if you'd like to have a read (these are thoughts and opinions, not cold hard rules):
https://club.tidalcycles.org/t/estuary-jams-guidelines-for-beginners/2581

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