MusicRadar Verdict
Myth actually encourages you to make sounds up as you go – and you most certainly will. And they will be excellent sounds. Myth is amazing, simple as that.
Pros
- +
Huge variety of great sounds.
- +
Amazing tonal control over them.
- +
And when you modulate them, they come alive!
- +
A sound design dream.
- +
Excellent modules.
Cons
- -
It’s hit and miss (but almost always a hit!).
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Tracktion Dawesome Myth: What is it?
Dawesome (aka programmer Peter V,) has produced some incredible plugins over the last few years. We made last year’s Kult one of our synths of 2023, for example, and largely before 2023 had even got underway. But Dawesome’s latest synth, Myth, could well be even better. And since we heaped a 10/10 score on Kult, that leaves us with a potential marking issue of Spinal Tap proportions to deal with…
The thinking behind Myth, according to Peter, is to make sound design a lot more fun and instant, so you can get on with the business of music production. “The idea is to get rid of the need to do tons of stuff to get movement in your sound,” he recently told Plugin Boutique. With Myth, then, the idea is to start with a sound and transform it to different places, very quickly.
Tracktion Dawesome Myth: Performance and verdict
The main structure of Myth is a pair of Irises which essentially act like oscillators. Each gives you a representation of your source sample sound, with a clockwise indicator showing the sample position.
• Sonic Charge Synplant 2
Very different but a similar ground-breaking synthesis philosophy.
• Tracktion Dawesome Kult
Sister synth Kult is capable of just as out-there sounds for a tad less $.
But this is no standard sample player. The concept is that Myth takes the organic character of the sound – not the timbre – and lets you do ‘stuff’ with it. The sample is shown in each iris with a clock hand at 12 ‘o’ clock indicating the sample start, and playback carries on going around clockwise (with playback position being controlled by an LFO, should you wish).
Transformers change the sound beneath each Iris and these can quickly add bite, metal and aggression. The top row focuses on dramatic FM-style parameters, while the bottom is for more familiar analogue-style synthesis. There’s more on these below. As you get more into designing sounds, the colour of the iris might change to a red or white for harsher sounds. But while these Transformers add dramatic changes to your sound – especially by using the included modulation matrix – there’s even more fun to be had with the quite genius modular system.
For each iris/oscillator, you can add modulation (six types), filter combinations (six again) plus effects and utilities (around 10). However, you can add these per oscillator or as part of an overall signal flow where the effect count jumps to 20+. And if that’s not enough, you can drag and drop the order of all modules, and there’s a lot of modulation options to add movement. It all might sound complex, but really isn’t when you get into it.
Indeed you will soon be turning anything you throw at Myth into something new, either a dreamy pad, or a tearing lead, a pulsing slab of atmosphere or a writhing bassline. And all from one sample. It’s rare that we’ve heard such flexible results made so quickly and easily.
Myth’s Transformers busted
Dawesome has designed Myth to be easy, but on first boot up it can be daunting as it looks so different. But really it’s all about tweaking the Transformers, so here’s what you need to know.
Select any preset and it will have either or both Irises lit. Play a note (or modulate) and start by tweaking the top row of Transformers. From the second one in, you get four FM-style knobs for frequency modulation, FM harmonic ratio, inharmonics and Animate. The first three are broad FM brush strokes so give big results, while Animate adds chirpy detuning depending on the other three. Beneath these are more obvious controls that do anything from adding more saw or sine character, to extra dirt, emulating a string, or even modifying the timbre like a classic analogue oscillator sync.
Dawesome has effectively taken the best (aka most dramatic) parameters from a variety of synth styles and put them under easy rotary controls, and they are great to tweak and modulate.
A mythical beast
With such an easy way to change your source sounds, or those supplied, Myth clearly has its eye(s) on both pro sound designers and producers after something a little different. Peter says you have to be prepared to embrace serendipity; that is, go with the flow and enjoy the results (whatever they may be).
But perhaps that definition is doing Myth a disservice, as it makes it sound somewhat hit and miss. The fact is, you can enjoy Myth on several levels. Tap into the many presets and enjoy very different sounds produced by many top sound designers. And Myth even makes producing new sounds from these a breeze, so you needn’t dip too far in to get great results.
To get the best from Myth you need to get in there and go for it, and its beauty is that it’s easy to do that
But to get the best from Myth you need to get in there and go for it, and its beauty is that it’s easy to do that. Myth is definitely doing something different, but making it easy for you to turn your back on that VA or wavetable synth you’ve become too attached to, and go off road for a bit. We highly recommend you give in to that temptation, because Myth is incredible.
MusicRadar verdict: Myth actually encourages you to make sounds up as you go – and you most certainly will. And they will be excellent sounds. Myth is amazing, simple as that.
Tracktion Dawesome Myth: The web says
"For those who enjoy sonic explorations, new sound sculpting strategies and deep-diving into sound design, MYTH may be very much worth a look."
Audio Plugin Guy
Tracktion Dawesome Myth: Hands-on demos
TracktionSoftware
Waveform
Amner Hunter 2
Alex Reid
Tracktion Dawesome Myth: Specifications
- macOS 10.11 or later. 64-bit Intel or Apple Silicon. AU / VST3.
- Windows 10, 11. 64-bit. VST3.
- CONTACT: Tracktion
- Buy from: Plugin Boutique
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