Mmmmh, I just found some code for a silly offline synth experiment I did about 6 (!) years ago,
at the age of 17. Quickly tried to port to realtime VST, but sounds very very wrong but maybe someone
likes this: SickSynth VST!

So, did you ever want a VST synth that:
- uses incredibly much CPU power (~90%)
- has many parameters, but no GUI, just this incredible stupid standard format
- is definitely not stable
- sound really really silly, sick and bad (and NOT in the positive sense!)
- has no documentation
- behaves really weird, to put it mildly

If you are still not convinced that this thing is a pile of rubbish,
listen to this: http://www.tobybear.de/sicksynth.mp3
I fed the "Sweet Dreams" riff into this synth and played with the knobs in Orion,
this is what came out.

STILL there? Then you must be one of the adventurous freaks!
Okay, check it out: http://www.tobybear.de/sicksynth.zip

NOTE (important): Download and use at your own risk! I won't offer support,
I won't take responsibility, I won't care if it won't work.
THIS IS NOT ONE OF MY REGULAR PLUGIN STUFF YOU'LL FIND ON MY SITE!
THIS IS NOT A SERIOUS SYNTH!
THIS IS NOT A SERIOUS SYNTH!
THIS IS NOT A SERIOUS SYNTH!
THIS IS NOT A SERIOUS SYNTH!

Okay?

Have fun!

Toby
www.tobybear.de

I just heard the MP3 Demo! Whooooo! I loved those crazy sounds!!! I think you should considerer upgrading it and releasing!

With synths like this, who needs Trasher?

oh my god!
a friend of mine uses similiar sounds to arrange tracks on his amiga - he´ll love it!
r.u.sirius

you should finish this tobybear....its pretty mad
only had it 5 mins and already getting very sinister sounds out of it
it does a sort of mad static electricity sound that i really like.
you say its fucked....but in a good way i think.....give us a gui to go with it....we need a gui....something mad like that alligator one you did.

You should definately clean up that code, make an interesting GUI, and release this mofo. People are getting tired of the VSTi that emulates real pieces of hardware. The computer has so many possibilities for sonic creation, why on earth would someone want it to sound like a 25 year old synth?

this synth has some serious potential. I like it. on my system, athlon 900 256 megs of ram, using orion it peaks out at %11 CPU. I can't wait for some of your more polished synths.
dw

Gosh! Already got 10 mails of people complaining about sound quality and CPU usage!

HEY, can I state this more clearly: this plugin is not optimized, this does not even follow any VST "rules" or whatever, this is just a little experiment. Yes, I know how to program plugins properly, just look at my other stuff.

As several of you suggested, I am thinking about turning this into something usable (but still with an "edgy" sound). And the cpu usage would then of course be much lower! And a GUI of course :-)

But let's get Shocker & Alligater going first, okay?

Hickup!

Toby
www.tobybear.de

Mr. Bear, I think it's disgusting that you are asking 399 dollars (U.S. of course) for this synthesizer that sounds like my bladder.
I want my banks money bank.

blue

[ 07 October 2001: Message edited by: bluelife ]

I luv you guys :-)

But now it's time for my bed...

Goodnite everybody!
(and dream of nasty little synth beasts!)

Toby
www.tobybear.de

Good news: fixed the code, threw all unnecessary stuff out, CPU load from 90% down to 5% on my Pentium 90! Fixed many bugs, works pretty well know, will upload new version next week.

Yes, you convinced me: I will turn this into a cool synth, with GUI and options & co :-)

CU

Toby
www.tobybear.de

Great news I can't wait

looking foward to the new version with gui.....yay!!!!!!
by the way your deconstructor is evil

sounds great! Why not make a Mac-port?

Okay guys, SickSynth turned into SickSynth2, much more stable and with much much less CPU usage. Go to my site to download it if you want to. It has no GUI yet, but is otherwise already a decent sounding little synth. I removed the warning as it should not crash anywhere anymore, but I still won't take responsibility.

> Why not make a Mac-port?
Because I am using many routines that I have written in Assembler or Delphi or GFX specific that can't be ported to the Mac, unless with very much effort. But maybe in the (far far) future. Sorry about that :-(

Cheers

Toby

seems like more of the parameters are active on this but on my system it still uses the exact same cpu amount(specifically when using the second (only active?)fat/detune knob it doubles the cpu usage.. and it appears a bit more unstable than the first one<in use anyway>.

*very easy to kill it's output to a constant<silent> 0db stream and unable to get functionality back without restarting host*
the frequency modulation sounds a lot better on this one and the filter actually works..

just letting you know how it's working over here for me. i DO like it by the way! it's good at giving you a headache tho.. ow! hence it's name!

Sh%t! Silly me!
I just picked the wrong file :-(

Uploaded wrong version, was still some of the old stuff.
New version is now up on server, terribly sorry about that!
Please use same link to download new version!

BTW: "FAt" means "Filter Attack" (Envelope), "Fat" activates voice doubling which essentially eats at least twice the CPU power, so that's understandable! "Fat" is currently not supported
in the new version.

Ciao


Toby
www.tobybear.de

cool. it works a lot smoother now and the parameters make more sense. hey, but that unison feature was one of the best sounding parameters on the synth, gave it a real "unison stab" sound.
a nice parameter to automate..

is removing that thing how you accomplished a lot of the cpu diminishing? because it'd be nice to have it avalible since the synth is pretty much useable now, obviously if you want to save the cpu you could leave it set at zero? just an idea. did you notice how slow the envelopes are on this thing? it seems like even at the quickest settings the envelopes attacks are still at +50milliseconds(by my ear), but you probobly dont care maybe that's intentional i dont know, some old synths were like this

hey i knew what FAt was suppousedly the filter attack but i thought it was a inactive parameter or something because the attacks are so slow! i didnt know what all of the parameters on that bottom row starting with L(i think) were referring to tho(envelope levels i guessed? i also guessed they werent functional) but i wont worry about that now since they're happily gone from this cleaned up version

BTW i really like the slew, symmetry, square?, ringmod, Pwm& tube parameters, differant combinations of settings on those give this synth it's grungy ass lo-fi type charactor (i assume the reserve knobs are "reserved" for possible other parameters? haha
cheers toby, nice work

[ 08 October 2001: Message edited by: exponent ]

i want to add: also, why'd you remove the FM parameter!? Doh i was just going to do one of those booowwsshhwweee fm sweeps and i realized that it's gone. *sigh* haha

Hehe, go on complaining, I won't give support :-)

I will answer your questions anyway:
NO parameter has been disabled, I just did not route them
to the display, but actually this thing consists of ~100 parameters, including wavetable oscillators, 4 LFOs (the "L"
parameters you referred to), an arpeggiator, chord generator and
much more...

So "Fat" & "FM" are there (with 0), but since you can't see them, you can't change 'em
They will be visible again in the next release of this thing
though, as they did not cause the large CPU consuming!
BTW: Most of the parameters are switched off (no cpu usage) if
set to 0.

Envelopes are slow, I know, because I still have to adjust
parameter range of it, this is just an issue of scaling
the values in a right way, not a limitation caused by missing
programming skills :-)

So be glad that there is still something to look forward to!

Bye

Toby
www.tobybear.de

haha First of all, i wasnt complaining, just giving my experiences with and opinion about those things in the synth. Second, i wasnt asking for "suppourt".. you changed the plug for us to download, so um, you should expect what's called "FEEDBACK" hmm? lol

BTW:I gathered that most features are turned off when the parameter is at 0, this is exemplified by the fact that any of the modulation-type parameters radically changes and sometimes almost mutes the sound when "activated".
Also i wasnt implying or thinking that you didnt know how to program your envelopes right, i realize it is a side-effect of porting it to vsti, etc and i didnt know if you cared to take the time to change the scaling of them.. We know you're talented dude.

Im glad you left the other parameters integrated in the engine, that's good to hear. Looking forward to see what this synth will become. And thanks for the anwser.

Hey exponent, this almost sounded like an apology from you
Don't worry, feedback is very welcome and without you guys out
there testing my stuff, I would be pretty much lost!

The good thing is that I really extended this synth into a
working monster that I can use as a basic template for several
synths, so you can expect some weird sounding VSTi beasts WITH
GUI and WITH wicked tweaking options (and FM/PWM!) in future.

As soon as Shocker/Alligater are finished and out, I'll tell you more...

Bye

Toby
www.tobybear.de

woohoo! sounds good man! keep up the good work

Waahh!
Toby - that´s amazing in my ears!

But: ... I am a happy mac-user.

Go On Toby!
(andfindoneportingittothemac)

yeah, ask micheal kleps of ReFX
he's hosting yer web page...why not do a collaboration with him....or at least he would port yer plugz for the mac...

pretty please?