Help me patch my new synth

[bayouland]

Thanks Jacques! I see that Jeff made an update so you can install 1.2 the way you want.

David

[fluffy_little_something]

So, what sets that synth apart from all the others out there? It looks very basic at first glance, like many SynthEdit synths 10 years ago.

[bayouland]

So, what sets that synth apart from all the others out there? It looks very basic at first glance, like many SynthEdit synths 10 years ago.

I think the fact that it has 3 different speed LFOs, 2 unison OCSs, X-Mod, Detune control from the LFOs
it will be free, and it will be available in 32 and 64 bit VST2, and 64 bit VST3. In my opinion, these make it a pretty versatile little synth. Just my opinion though.

David

[BlackWinny]

An amateur developer, especially when he is beginner, is always happy to share his creations. For me it is already enough to say that it is at least unique for the creator himself... and for the others too who at least enjoy the work of someone who is generous to share with others! And I never forget that all the great developers (I know that you, as me, like a lot Christopher Gill, but do you know how began Chris before making his first Superwave? And what about Xavier Kalensky, Benoit Serrano, Wolfgang Krumme, Thomas Weber, Andreas Ersson, Pascal Gauthier, Patrick Kunz, etc.?) have begun... by being first simple amateurs with a new creation which had not necessarily very original features. If we had discouraged many new creators as soon as their first very humble creation, the will to share (and perhaps the wonderful result to become several years later a very estimated creator for very original features) would have been immediately killed in the egg for many or them. With the obvious consequence that it would kill the creativity for almost everybody throughout the world, not more not less.

Is the creativity reserved to an elite who MUST be talented immediately at the very beginning???

And we should never forget that in creation of tools it is like in creation of compositions: the ideas come with the time, not at the very start. They come slowly during the acquisition of the knowledge and with the clarification of how works the development environment (or how works the music, when talking of composition... and even the performance which IS ALSO a kind of creation as a new layer above the composition) and of what it is able to allow you to do.

Every attempt to learn something new and to make new creations is respectable. No matter if these creations are shared or kept personal, but it is even more respectable when these creations are shared... because it is the best way to learn by the contact with and from others, and therefore the best way also to know if one progresses along the years. And it is a very respectable mark of generosity also. Every (and yet better: EACH) attempt to learn something new and to make new creations is respectable, yes! Even if at the beginning it is some creations which are very traditional and don't go out of the beaten paths! The expression of the talent (even if the talent itself is already there at the start) and the original ideas both come during the progression along the years and with the mastering of the tool or of the rules. Whatever the domain of what you do: cooking, sewing, mechanics, woodwork, painting, playing music, composing music... and creating instruments.

Would we say "Your baby is humdrum" to a mother who is so happy to have given life to a baby? Whatever the prettiness of her baby no-one would come in front of her and say "Your baby is humdrum". First because this baby is perhaps humdrum for someone but not necessarily for someone else, second because it is pitiful to say that sentence to a mother as well as to the creator of any creation, and third because absolutely nobody knows if that "humdrum" baby will have a humdrum life or a great life, and at last also because the future brothers and sisters of that first "humdrum" baby will have perhaps a very great life even if this first baby will not!

A child will be perhaps in his life a very talented writer... but he must pass by a mandatory step: learn the language he will have to use in his life, then master it. And yet... perhaps that as soon as his first years of child he will be happy to show his first poems or his first short novels of just 5 pages with the first small knowledge he has acquired! And it is with the years that the imagination and the variety will emerge! But these first attempts are extremely important for the building of the mind of that child and for his future life of creator many years later!

Even many great musicians of the present as well as from the past have begun by making musics which were not outside the beaten paths. But all these musicians would have never later created famous compositions which are today some of the most beautiful songs which are sung throughout the world if the public had killed their will to create as soon as the first years!



Cheers,
Jacques

[fluffy_little_something]

Sure, but still, these days a new synth should either sound superior or offer superior features.

The user interface is a bit inconsistent and "unusual", for instance the wheels on the right side.

Never mind, good luck for your evolution

[bayouland]

Added simple 6 band EQ section.

David

[fluffy_little_something]

That sure is an interesting addition
Why those frequencies, mere doubling of the previous band?

[bayouland]

Those frequencies are the equivalents of A0-A5.

David

[BlackWinny]

Added simple 6 band EQ section.

David

Great!

When you think that the DSP seems sufficiently correct (in its features, not necessarily in the quality of these features) we shall reorder the different sections (LFO, VCO, VCF, VCA, FX, etc.) and their subsection (for example for the VCF section: "High-Pass first filter" THEN "multi-type second filter THEN "Equalizer") so that the workflow becomes visually obvious just by looking at the GUI. It will in that way become a synth where all the features appear clearly for the persons who watch it for the first time (working permanently on this synth, things may seem obvious for you while not obvious for others, and all the art is to make these things obvious even on the details for those who discover the synth for the fist time).

First, make the list of all the sections, then in each section make the list of the subsections, then in each subsection make the list of all the components of that subsection, then for each component of that subsection make the list of all the MIDI controls which will be visible on the GUI.

It is with that ordered list that the GUI becomes immediately easy to order with the best disposition reflecting the workflow from the modulations and sound sources... up to the output of the sound.


So, when you think that everything is now present concerning the visual MIDI controls for the GUI... we are going to be able to do a GUI with in priority the clarity of the workflow then with the best readability of the disposition (space between the components, lines between the sections (and between the subsections), etc.

Then once it is done will come the time of tests to hunt the most terrible bugs in the DSP (crashes, bad routings, total inefficiency of some features, etc.). Once there remains only a small number of last flaws which are in fact wrong adjustments of some parameters, you will be ready for the public release.

Then will come the time to improve the features, make updates... and perhaps one day release a new full version or a brand new other creation.

[BlackWinny]

Those frequencies are the equivalents of A0-A5.

David

Yes.

It is precisely the best frequencies to spread an equalizer which has the purpose to act like a multi band-pass filter. It allows to color the sound of the synth with a very large variety of possibilities and with the best efficiency (much more than a single low-pass filter) in the subtractive synthesis. Synths which have an equalizer in the VCF section (after the low-pass filter and before the VCA instead of within the effect section at the output) produce always extremely beautiful sounds.

I think that yourself you already hear the difference.

[bayouland]

[fluffy_little_something]

Those frequencies are the equivalents of A0-A5.

David

Just found the frequencies unusual for an eq. The frequencies on Waves' Element for instance are 100, 600, 1500 and 9000 Hz, which I suppose correspond to musically relevant "sweet spots".

[BlackWinny]

Those frequencies are the equivalents of A0-A5.

David

Just found the frequencies unusual for an eq. The frequencies on Waves' Element for instance are 100, 600, 1500 and 9000 Hz, which I suppose correspond to musically relevant "sweet spots".

No, These common values are simply rounded values, either in the DSP itself... either simply to simplify the visual GUI. It depends the will of the developer.

But when they are efficient and give the most wonderful results... they in fact follow the principles I recalled. These are fundamental principles in the DSP for the coloring of the sound in a VCF (in the effect section, the equalizer can use any other cutoff values that you want, because in the FX section we are no more in the subtractive synthesis itself but in effects which are a complement to the synthesis itself). If in the VCF section your equalizer uses cutoff frequencies which are not the same as the note used as reference on each octave (generally the note A)... then you will have very strange unwanted behaviors in the amplitudes of your harmonics from an octave to another with the playing of the same chord (A major for example). Simply because your cutoffs are not correctly made to behave the same way from an octave to another if you use cutoffs at 250, 500, 1000, etc, instead of cutoffs at 220, 440, 880, etc. which are the best way to assure exactly the correct amplitude of the harmonics in the color of the sound for the same chord at each octave throughout all the keyboard.

In a VCF section (we don't talk about the FX section here! Be very aware of that!), when you want to use an equalizer, you have a huge interest to have band-pass filters with a cutoff on each octave (the cutoff used for the fundamental in a chord for the reference, A major played on each octave for example). That way you find much better the colors you want to give to each part of your keyboard because each octave has of course the frequency which is the double of the previous octave in your equalizer as well as on your keyboard... but it is also a very good preparation if one future day you want to add a keyboard tracking feature on the VCF which includes these band-pass filters.

[twal]

Thank you for taking the time out to make this synth, and give it for free

[sfd]

@fluffy_little_something

What are you doing? Throwing shit on an amateur developer.

You must have to much time at your disposal.