Charlatan v1.4.1 - free VA synth (Win VSTi 32-/64-bit)

VST, AU, AAX, CLAP, etc. Plugin Virtual Instruments Discussion
Post Reply New Topic
RELATED
PRODUCTS
Charlatan Charlatan - Time Capsule

Post

chk071, changes can't to be saved to dll. At 99% Reaper saves it to Documents and Settings\(yourname)\AppData (or Application Data)\REAPER\ or look it in the Charlatan.dll directory. There must to be some txt file.
But I don't have any idea about importing that file to Cubase.
karrikuh, could you tell what dlls do you use to Charlatan? or simpler (maybe not))) could you compile Charlatan with static dlls?
I want to launch your synth in WINE+REAPER environment, because I WANT YOUR SYNTH!!!!:D

Post

Mighty_ABOBA wrote:chk071, changes can't to be saved to dll. At 99% Reaper saves it to Documents and Settings\(yourname)\AppData (or Application Data)\REAPER\ or look it in the Charlatan.dll directory. There must to be some txt file.
But I don't have any idea about importing that file to Cubase.
The MIDI learn functionality is purely a host feature, the plugin knows nothing about it. The host translates incoming MIDI control messages into parameter values (according to user defined mapping) and notifies the plugin of the value change in the same way as when performing automation.
Mighty_ABOBA wrote: karrikuh, could you tell what dlls do you use to Charlatan? or simpler (maybe not))) could you compile Charlatan with static dlls?
I want to launch your synth in WINE+REAPER environment, because I WANT YOUR SYNTH!!!!:D
Charlatan is statically linked to the C++ runtime and should thus only depend on core DLLs already provided by a Windows base installation. I'm a Linux user myself so I might investigate compatibility with Wine at some point.

Post

I'm a Linux user myself so I might investigate compatibility with Wine at some point.
Sounds great!
Now I use wine 1.4 64 bit. I tried to launch it with WINEARCH=win32 prefix and with WINEARCH=win64. Identical results was in both prefixes.((
I have able to run Charlatan once. But it was something random, looks like accident(if this can be applied to computers=)))). Next time when I started Reaper, the plugin didn't able to run. After plugin cache cleaning and re-scaning Charlatan is absent in the plugin list and never came back :(

Post

This synth is amazing! (just used it for the 1st time version 1.2b)

I am interested if the filter is modeled on any hardware? It sounds familiar but i can't put my finger on it.

This synth has a fantastic quality to the sound. Modulation sounds really tight. I can hear that the filter/resonance does not have the intricate modelling of Diva, but it doesn't matter, it just sounds punchy and fat! Just as 'real' but without all the little changes as you sweep it.

In some ways i prefer the sound of Charlatan to Diva. Could this be due to lack of real time oversampling in Charlatan? (just guessing as Charlatan is so low cpu).

Real time up-sampling then down-sampling I think is a low quality process, offline with SoX is the only way to go. Diva has a lot of oversampling and i am wondering if this is having a negative effect on the sound. It does get rid of aliasing, but adds a certain 'nervous/plastic' quality in some plugins.

Not being able to turn oversampling on and off is annoying. I would love to be able to turn off all oversampling, change my DAW sample-rate to something insane, render, and then down-sample the results with my own choice of tools :)

anyway, to sum up, FANTASTIC!!

Post

thermal wrote:This synth is amazing! (just used it for the 1st time version 1.2b)
Thanks!
thermal wrote:I am interested if the filter is modeled on any hardware? It sounds
familiar but i can't put my finger on it.
Yes, the underlying models are roughly based on classic filter circuits. The 4-pole is supposed to be Roland style while the 2-pole lowpass and bandpass emulates a Sallen-Key topology (Korg MS20). However, I do not own any of the original hardware and hence did not attempt to replicate the exact behavior of the originals but rather tweaked the code until it sounded best to me.
thermal wrote:This synth has a fantastic quality to the sound. Modulation sounds really tight. I can hear that the filter/resonance does not have the intricate modelling of Diva, but it doesn't matter, it just sounds punchy and fat! Just as 'real' but without all the little changes as you sweep it.
You have a good ear by noting that the current version of the Charlatan filters lack some of the complex modulation interaction with high resonance. This is because right now I'm using slightly simplified models of the circuit which are of course less CPU hungry but IMO still deliver great sound. I do have filter code with more sophisticated filter models (more nonlinearities) and these expose the more complex high resonance behavior your are mentioning. However, the are some issues with them I'd like to sort out before I include them in an official release.
thermal wrote:In some ways i prefer the sound of Charlatan to Diva. Could this be due to lack of real time oversampling in Charlatan? (just guessing as Charlatan is so low cpu).
Charlatan uses 2x oversampling which I think is fine for all but the most extreme situations. I'm guessing that Diva uses a lot more (like 4x or 8x depending on the quality setting) but I doubt the up/downsampling filters are the dominant factor for any perceived difference in sound quality.
thermal wrote:Real time up-sampling then down-sampling I think is a low quality process, offline with SoX is the only way to go. Diva has a lot of oversampling and i am wondering if this is having a negative effect on the sound. It does get rid of aliasing, but adds a certain 'nervous/plastic' quality in some plugins.

Not being able to turn oversampling on and off is annoying. I would love to be able to turn off all oversampling, change my DAW sample-rate to something insane, render, and then down-sample the results with my own choice of tools :)
Designing Oversampling filters is all about trade-offs (CPU usage, linearity of magnitude/phase response, latency) so they won't degrade your audio per se. However, in real-time audio processors, you will often prefer to use low-latency, CPU efficient filters which may cause slight artifacts (nonlinear phase distortion etc.). If you have multiple oversampled processors in series then of course these artifacts accumulate. In this regard, I agree with you that it might by disadvantagous if every plugin implements its own oversampling. In fact, in my projects, I follow the same strategy as you wrt. oversampling, i.e. rendering at very high samplerate and offline downsampling with HQ tools. I admit though that I never did any honest listening tests to check wether this really makes a difference...

Post

Thank you for this great synth.
Has anybody ever really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

Post

The filter performance is great. Even at the highest pitches with sawtooth wave and high resonance the aliasing is practically inaudible. In this aspect it performs much better than the Fabfilter One filter, and uses about 33% less cpu.
Has anybody ever really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

Post

I have a problem: charlatan not respond to velocity changes. :shock:

Post

a bug ? sometimes keeps playing notes in renoise 2.8 after stopping the sequence / releasing the keys

Post

2 other things : some daws do not support midi tools , would it be possible to implement a simple arp in the charlatan? the second question , would it be possible to make the lfo " sharper" . i know the thing is certainly not designed for dubstep / electro but the lfo curve seems a little wide for some sounds . and + 1 on the comment about a oversampling switch to turn off when desired .

Post

pigfront wrote:I have a problem: charlatan not respond to velocity changes. :shock:
Click the little "Velo" button near the master volume.

Post

Some suggestions for possible updates:

- Distortion. select pre- or post- filter
- Reverb. (You could copy from open source software?)
- GUI colour options. Synth1 allows you to enter code to change the colour to anything. Red may be a little provocative to work with for a long time. (I'm not a fan of the GUI being a Massive rip, but people seem to like it and I guess it's too late... :lol: )
- LFO sine wave option.
- Oscillator phase control
- Third oscillator? Possibly this would make an improvement to the synth? FL's 3xosc remains popular.

I guess it's really hard to compete with the Tyrell N6 (and Zebralette), but currently I would still prefer to use the Synth1 for what it it does.

I like the fact that it is written in C++, and not synth edit. Big up. :D

Post

pigfront wrote:I have a problem: charlatan not respond to velocity changes. :shock:
Velocity only affects modulation depth of the Mod envelope, not the amp envelope. So, yes, velocity support is very minimalistic currently, and, personally, I don't even use it that often for analog synth style sequences. I have been thinking about adding a velocity sensitivity control to both envelopes at some point, but couldn't convince myself yet of its importance enough to actually implement it.

Post

K82 wrote:2 other things : some daws do not support midi tools , would it be possible to implement a simple arp in the charlatan?
No, certainly not. I don't want to waste my sparetime reimlementing something others have already brought close to perfection, so no built-in arp or FX. I'm more sympathizing with the UNIX philosophy which is to provide tools that "do one thing and do it well". Maybe it's time to switch to a decent host? :)
K82 wrote:the second question , would it be possible to make the lfo " sharper" . i know the thing is certainly not designed for dubstep / electro but the lfo curve seems a little wide for some sounds .
Sorry, but I don't really get what you mean by here...
K82 wrote:and + 1 on the comment about a oversampling switch to turn off when desired .
Charlatan only uses the minimum amount of oversampling (that is 2x) to provide decent sound quality at 44.1kHz. It might make sense though to have it automatically be switched off when operating at host samplerates >= 88.2kHz.

Post

I don't see any reason for including things like an arp, a reverb, or a third oscillator. Two oscillators is ideal for analog-style synths. Reverbs are readily available elsewhere, even for free.
I do agree that the red GUI is not overly nice, it looks a bit cheap because of the colors. But then again, the synth is free, so let's appreciate and focus on it's sound quality instead, which is very good, better than with many commercial synths :)

Post Reply

Return to “Instruments”