I just downloaded this and have tried it out in Logic Audio but I can't get it to produce any sounds! I'm sure this is me - I've never programmed an additive synth so I'm not really sure what I'm doing.

Anyway, if anyone has any experience with additive synths or has made any patches with the Additive Synth VSTi, I'd be very grateful if you could help me out here.

Thanks,
Ian

Crashes Orion Platinum here upon opening.

I'm in the same boat ian
no sound

I can make a sound but unfortunatly it just doesn't work to well.

It's monophonic for a start and each key press cuts off the other sound and then doesn't sound itself(if you get my drift).
Plus the effects only work when you hold a key down which is weird(sounds like the effect chain is before the envelope filter).
But it is a good idea,separate envelopes for each oscillator.

More beta testing required methinks.

+also locked up my system completely,using xp.

Ah...now I understand why there's so many virtual analogs .

Which synth are we talking about?

Sorry - I must've missed this or something.

Monophonic or not
It is absolutely a very smart interface
And the drawing sections for envelopes and harmonics are way kewl
I just played two seconds with it
And I managed to set up a terrific sound
I have to test if I can save presets
But the first impression I get is very positive
More positive as with any other free plug in the last weeks!

I still have to find out over what timeline the graphics work
If it doesn`t use a timeline I find it very important there will be some
Feature to trigger this parameter
Layering oscillators in a subtle way up to 32 gives you the ability to make some very nice sounds especially with the controls you have over each oscillator.

Only thing I missed was a distortion, would be cool to have that
Over each oscillator. To gives some layers in a sound you build
Some un-cleanness.. Can`t explain it in another way

But ok ... thank you causal agency
It found its place and it works great

But could you actually play it.Did you get the strange keying thing.

Don't get me wrong i could never make anything like this but i do know what works.

And this doesn't at the minute.

If it did,i agree i would be really useful and different.

Wow! A real additive.

Although it doesn't necessarily look like this is going any further than where it is now.

It seems like a "Here it is and if anyone wants to work further on it - be our guest!".

Don't know what that means at this stage, but I'll keep my eyes open.

Oh and one more thing

this thing is great to make moving sounds !

you just play a bit around with it and you will get it soon !

the envelopes section is the secret key together with combining

different oscilaters in one sound

i think i am becoming more and more addicted

to be honest ... this thing rocks big time

only minus is the 19% cpu usage on my PIII 1000 Mhz

Quote:

But could you actually play it.Did you get the strange keying thing. Don't get me wrong i could never make anything like this but i do know what works.

o.c i can play it
i linked the midi
and i switched on the volume
you have to set the volume for each oscilater you use

Yes additives are monsters on the CPU. No doubt that's why it's monophonic - but unless you're monophobic that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Everyone seems to be taking for granted that we all know what additive synthesis means - can someone please explain what's so different (and good) about it to us non experts? Why does it use lots of CPU? Are there other VSTi synths that work that way too?

Thanks

I don't know much. I just make songs.

but perhaps the tech heads can enlighten us about what the term says

i just know i have a lot of oscilaters and some very cool controlls
just like in Satyr

thank you Ben | KvR

Hi dudes,

Additive synthesis is fairly str8fwd. Basically, all sounds can be reduced to their component sinusoids (sine waves) and noise bands. With subtractive synthesis you start with a waveform (oscillator, sample) and then subtract harmonics from it using filters etc in order to scuplt a soound. With additive, u build up a sound from scratch using (mainly) sine waves + noise. However, u can add together any type of waveforms in theory. Getting the sound u want depends a lot on the amplitude and phase settings of the individual harmonics. Its very tedious and time consuming, but it allows for complete control over the sound from the ground up. Have fun!

http://www.clubs.nl/community/docfolder_display.asp?clubid=45894&doc=6 C259AF7-9ED3-47C2-A1B0-DDF7D1C4068E

that is how it sounds when you morph / vocode it with bluedad

rightmousebutton dl as

ooooh, my favorite subject! I am a big fan of additive synthesis, and in fact, the only "digital" hardware I still own is a Kawai K5000 additive synth. Theoretically, you can build ANY sound with a complex enough additive synth. From acoustic kick drums to the sound of your girl (or boy) friend whispering sweet nothings in your ear. Theoretically. The fact is, that to do any decent additive synthesis requires scads of oscillators (conventionally producing sine waves), and an infinite break-point pitch and amplitude envelope for each one. In the K5000 there are 64 harmonics FOR EACH OSCILLATOR, and those oscillators are layed into groups of six. Yep, each has it's own envelopes. Unfortunately, they are only standard ADSR style envelopes. I eagerly await the day when someone will make a comprehensive additive oscillator with the sorts of envelopes we see in Absynth or FM7. This would be a really powerful synth. As Data1 already noted, additive is tedious, at best, to program. I look at it like I look at making a painting. It takes time, and love, and patience to mix all those colors just right.

If you want a good example of additive in use, check out Wendy Carlos' "Beauty In The Beast" or "Digital Moonscapes", both of which are made with the GDS Synergy additive synth. This also had limited envelopes, and only 32 harmonics per oscillator, but the results of her careful programming are astonishing.

in this case a bit frustrating when you build a great sound
and you can`t save it
but ok .... i can sample what i build o.c.

hopefully this thing will save soon

Hm...

To be honest, my impression is that the thing is not 'mature' enough at the moment to be useful for anything.

The drawable envelopes that you find so kewl, Poweruser, have no hold and sustain points, so the note is cut off immediately if you release the key - there's no volume shaping when cutting off, which sounds really rude (click!).

Also, the effect section is interrupted in the same rude fashion as soon as you release the key. (However, I've fixed that already in MY version )

The Interface looks nice but having to set up (actually draw) an envelope for every osc you want to use is IMHO a rather unlucky design approach - much too tedious, at least as long as there is no 'edit all' button or at least copy/paste.

Also, the ability to assign each of the 32 oscs to one of the 4 FX looks nice at the first glance, but I wonder how useful that is in the real world? Since we are not talking about INDIVIDUAL oscs here, but these are frequency components added to the base frequency of the first osc, their only use is to 'sculpt' the outcoming waveform - can be interesting to have some of these frequencies routed through reverb and some of them through delay, but hm...

However, it's very nice from Causal Agency to give the source code of the synth away for free to the public. My impression on the state of the source code was that it was well organized and much cleaner and easier to understand than they warned on their website.

This could be something like a tutorial for 'beginners' that have good knowledge of C++ and want to learn programming VSTi's. Much more advanced and better than the 'vstxsynth' example that comes with the SDK from Steinberg.

To conclude, it's in a good state as a starting point for new, interesting VSTi's. Let's see, when the first wave of new, cool AdditiveSynths comes out. Let's hope they'll be for free - Causal Agency have not mentioned any license, so I guess it's not GPL'd.

What a shame. If they had GPL'd it, it would be assured that all 'derivates' are free synths also. Now other people may make a biz from their work...

Best,
-LaD-

Quote:

However, it's very nice from Causal Agency to give the source code of the synth away for free to the public. My impression on the state of the source code was that it was well organized and much cleaner and easier to understand than they warned on their website. This could be something like a tutorial for 'beginners' that have good knowledge of C++ and want to learn programming VSTi's. Much more advanced and better than the 'vstxsynth' example that comes with the SDK from Steinberg. -LaD-

maybe someone will take some of the code and compile it using the synth edit sdk to make an additive synth module in synth edit?

hey,

I wrote the additive synth and just found out that there is a message board for it. To answere some of the questions:

It was my first synth, so it has some bugs and some stuff I dont like. It crashes when you open it more then 3 times in a row. If you draw the envelopes choppy a crackling appears in the output (I tried to fix it but I could not find the problem). Also some of the effects i dont like, especially the flanger. I could not get it the way I wanted (like the flanger in the DJ500 mixers).

I made the synth for college and therefore I had a deadline, so I had to hurry up at the end. After college I did not have time to fix all the stuff I wanted to fix and I probably wont have time in the future. So I put it on the internet so people can use some of the GUI(interface) stuff I did and maybe some of the code. I was also hoping that some would work on it a little more, I commented everything pretty well.

One big problem is that the dll i posted was compiled in debug mode. I am going to compile it again after I get back from brazil. the new version runs twice as fast!! At least thats what I heared.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me at scalar@causal-agency.com. Also check out the site for some of our tracks.

Peace
Scalar

LighthouseAtDawn wrote:

To conclude, it's in a good state as a starting point for new, interesting VSTi's. Let's see, when the first wave of new, cool AdditiveSynths comes out. Let's hope they'll be for free - Causal Agency have not mentioned any license, so I guess it's not GPL'd. What a shame. If they had GPL'd it, it would be assured that all 'derivates' are free synths also. Now other people may make a biz from their work... Best, -LaD-

I did not know about that. I definitely want to GPL it then. How do I go about that?

Thanks,

Scalar

scalar wrote:

I definitely want to GPL it then. How do I go about that?

I think you simply have to state with the download that you release it under the GPL license. Maybe you must include a certain text-file with some specific info related to the GPL license.

More information is available here: www.gnu.org

scalar wrote:

I did not know about that. I definitely want to GPL it then. How do I go about that?

I'm not an expert at this too, but as far as I know, you need a copy of the license file (available at the free software foundation http://www.fsf.org)

There are different versions of licenses, the first (older) one being most restrictive about what people are allowed to do with your code, the later versions allowing more freedom to (commercially) use your code.

For your purpose, maybe the original GPL would fit the best, but that's what you have to decide.

Just put this license file as a textfile or html into the package. Additionally, some comments at the top of your source files could state that this code is released under the GNU public license. It's very common to do it like this.

Hope this helps!

Best,
-LaD-

Wow! And in comes the author. Great!

It would be fantastic is someone could take this and run with it. It would be nice to have a freeware additive.

I quite like the GUI by the way. It's nice and clear, although the X's give a wrong impression. Seems like you're turning things off and not on.

I hope you did well in your project - whatever it was.

Perhaps the fantastically talented programmer of Ganymed and Vivaldi could be persuaded to take over and develop this synth further?

Teksonik, I bet it's not a bad idea

y'all know what i'm gonna say so ....well you know

I posted a new version of the synth with minor changes to the interface and under the Gnu GPL.

There is a message board on my website www.causal-agency.com where questions about the synth
can be asked. I will post there too in case i am going to start to work on the next version.

There are also a few tracks on the website in case anybody wants to listen to them.
We are bringing out a d'n'b record in 2 weeks.

Peace,

Scalar

I just posted the new dll that is compiled in release mode and runs almost twice as fast.

its going to be to download here soon or at my website:

www.causal-agency.com

-- Philipp Wassibauer

Are there any presets for this synth yet? - last time I tried it I couldn't get a sound - a good preset or 15 would be a useful starting point I think

Sadly it still can't save presets... Someone kind help Scalar out here please

Now I remember - the first time I tried this, it crashed my Orion Platinum soon as I tried to open it. Tried the upgrade again last night - crash.
So I hope this version is 'just right' or I'm going to throw hot porridge on it and go back to that nice soft bed.

But it sounds like I may have caught 'a bug' as well. Tis' flu season after all.

I dont think it will work with orion. I started using that program when i was half done with the synth and i did not work in it. Since I had 5000 lines of code already I was not up too looking for the bug. Sorry about that.

Peace,
Scalar

Very good work!!
I love additive synthesis.

Scalar, what are you thinking about making a more powerful VSTi based on your code, expanding it with re-synthesis capabilities??
I'm thinking of a Kawai K-5000-like VSTi. (what a dream...).

Many thanks for your hard work and, obviously, for the C++ code in GPL.

Cochrane

Just as an aside to this if the ImpOSCar that G Media have in the pipeline is a true clone of the Oscar hardware it has oscillators that will do additive synthesis in a very basic way.

Just the fundamental sine and 24 harmonics but you can add multiple copies of the harmonics to control the volumes of them. It is like pulling teeth sometimes, especially with the hardware, and it is only a monosynth so there's only the envelopes for filter and amp but quite a good introduction to a complex form of synthesis.

Heres hoping.

Tim