Cableguys FilterShaper 3 Public Beta! Features and pre-sale

[Nielzie]

Oh wow, just noticed this This really looks totally awesome!!

I've been using VolumeShaper3 (and also Curve2) a lot lately and I'm really interested in this update. Will soon try. Very nice GUI by the way. You guys really know how to step up and improve, every time

[Jakob / Cableguys]

HUGE cutoff knobs!

But the waveforms are too tiny, there's so much space on the GUI left that could be used for bigger waveforms...

+1

Also any news on upgrade prices for existing FiltersShaper 2 users? I did see that purchasing now gets a free upgrade to v3, but for longtime users does that also apply (or is there a separate upgrade price?)

Yes, there will be an upgrade price.

[Jakob / Cableguys]

this looks fantastic,gonna dl it and try it out in fl,studio one pro and ableton live 9,1

Perfect!

[Breeze]

Another way to handle the envelope editor could be to have the full-sized edit screen tacked to the bottom of the GUI. It would always show the envelope currently being edited. This would make it faster to access the full editor and avoid having to switch back and forth between the full editor and the mini-editor. I suspect this would improve the workflow significantly.

But this would mean increasing the plugin height quite a lot if I understand it correctly?

Yes. I guess that could be too big for many people. It could even replace the mini editors completely but it's way too late for a big change like that.

[idfpower]

Cool plugin CPU hit is a tad high on my old computer (the folks with newer machines will prolly have no such issues), but it's fun messing with this

[Jakob / Cableguys]

Guys,

I would really, really, REALLY like a plugin like this that is so focused on filter modulation curves to allow me to change waveform presets on-the-fly with MIDI CC/Notes.

VolumeShaper and MidiShaper both have 10 waveform slots for quick changes. Please add these to FilterShaper 3 and PLEASE make the slots MIDI learnable!!

You can automate any wavepoint changes with your host sequencer, this can work in some cases.. or you can have two instances of FilterShaper and activate them on different parts of your song. But yes, automating waveform presets was more direct and a nice thing with version 2..

[Jakob / Cableguys]

Cool plugin CPU hit is a tad high on my old computer (the folks with newer machines will prolly have no such issues), but it's fun messing with this

Glad you like it! Yes, we try to concentrate on features and stability first, so still bit to do in regards to CPU usage.. maybe also with a 3.0.1 update.

[Jakob / Cableguys]

Yes! Currently there's two available: "Soft" and "Hard", which, combined with the S-K filters can add some lovely colours.

Great...do you plan on adding more types in near future?

We tried different options and those were the two which made most sense to us for the initial release. But lets see for later..

[fgimian]

Hey Jacob, I dropped you guys some feedback via email yesterday as I was already in touch with Michael.

Do you prefer that I post it here instead or would you be able to check out my points via email?

Cheers!

[Jakob / Cableguys]

Thanks for commenting but maybe my question wasn't clear.

Will you make the GUI of volume shaper resizable like Valhalla plugins?

Ah, got it. No, this is not planned for soon.

[Jakob / Cableguys]

I also miss the matrix for setting up the modulation - It's a lot more transparent to work with IMO.

Actually, that one-stop shop to set all modulation values was cool. It also allowed creating controls to different parameters from the same LFO and in different intensities. But you can't really have it both ways: now that we have LFOs and EFs modulating LFOs, it's no longer possible to easily show routings on a 2-D graph. Maybe it's time to start considering 3D representations of modulation routings?

Well, at least for the same LFO for different parameters we got a nice solution.. actually something which took long to test with users here in Hamburg. So solution for this is on its way! There's just a little bug still, so we left it out in the first beta.

[Jakob / Cableguys]

Nice update!
Haven't been using VS2 too much, I'm afraid, but this makes me feel like I've been missing out

Few things

- I think the drive parameter isn't ramped. It clicks awfully when turned. Modulation would be handy too.

Well spotted about the ramping! Yes, something to address still with the ramping, lets see if we get it done for 3.0 of - more likely - 3.0.1.

- In parallel mode, setting filters volume to Off sometimes causes a buzzing noise - VST buffer size dependent, seems like a click or an impulse on every process() call - and disables Filter 1 Pan. Possible bug and/or FL Studio related issue?

Oh, a bug! My bet is that the buffer does not get set to 0 when volume is off and instead, the last buffer gets repeated with every process call.. That should be very easy to fix - thanks for your detailed description here!

- Master limiter / clipper would be handy - driving the filters can make this thing VERY loud.

Yep. Noted for 3.x I guess a simple clipper would do as it's only needed in extreme cases?

- Please, please add foldback or sine shaper for filters

- The modulation options are very deep and I feel are not represented clearly on the GUI. Some kind of overview screen, maybe on a new tab, would be cool and might help with wrapping one's head around a preset.

You can see the modulation within a "parameter oscillscope" within each parameter knob, so you can see what's going on easily I guess? Each parameter has its own, dedicated set of LFOs and envelope followers.

Other than that, solid work, guys. Will keep messing with it and maybe upload a few presets in the process.

That would be perfect!

[Jakob / Cableguys]

Hey Jacob, I dropped you guys some feedback via email yesterday as I was already in touch with Michael.

Do you prefer that I post it here instead or would you be able to check out my points via email?

Cheers!

Posting it here would be perfect! But email is fine too.. might need a bit longer for us to answer via email, though, as Michael handles support cases there first prio.

[Breeze]

- The Envelope Follower is a great idea but IMO needs a few things to be really functional: there should be a Hold control; all times should be in milliseconds; there should be an option to filter the input (LP, HP and BP) along with a Frequency control. These would make the EF far more useful. Alternatively, you could minimize the GUI controls but optimize the background processing to render musically useful results. Currently it can make the filters sound quite bad, but I realize you're working on it.

Yes, there's quite some unfinished changes that we need to release for the envelope follower. First of all, the current modell is "flickering" too much.

About your idea with HP filtering the input signal - is there any envelope follower out there that does this? I'd be curious to learn about that!

Tokyo Dawn's TDR Feedback Compressor II and Klangheim's DC8C both implement adjustable HP filters on the sidechain (TDR has 3 adjustable slopes) but maybe the smartest implementation is Melda's MDynamics which uses both a low pass AND a high pass filter in series, both adjustable from 20-20k Hz; with both you can pretty much narrow in on whatever you want. Also the Attack and Decay values need to be limited to musically useful values, but I'm sure you're aware of that.

[fgimian]

Hey Jacob, I dropped you guys some feedback via email yesterday as I was already in touch with Michael.

Do you prefer that I post it here instead or would you be able to check out my points via email?

Cheers!

Posting it here would be perfect! But email is fine too.. might need a bit longer for us to answer via email, though, as Michael handles support cases there first prio.

No worries Jacob. Please note that some of the points I have made are similar or the same as others.

Questions & Comments:

- I notice the range of the Cutoff knobs is 50 Hz - 18 KHz instead of the extended 20 Hz - 20 kHz. Any reason that this is limited? Even at the lowest cutoff, bass is still coming through which means that sweeps won't be completely able to vanish when the cutoff is all the way down. Similarly for the upper limit.
- Is there a way to link LFOs? e.g. One LFO can control multiple things? I understand there's Copy and Paste but this means that any changes to one envelope must be copied to the others each time. This was actually possible in FilterShaper2.
- I'm personally colourblind and am finding one particular colour choice very hard to see. This is the value of knobs when selected, would you consider a brighter colour instead?
- Is there any way to choose what grid the snap is set for?
- The UI is a bit too dark for me too, i think you had the balance of brightness right with VolumeShaper3. Particularly the top half of the interface (where the filters are) is really dark on my screen and the knobs themselves are way too dark too.
- How exactly do you create curves on the LFOs? I can't seem to figure this out.
- When zooming into the LFO waveform, it would be ideal if all LFO manipulation controls (e.g. shift left, shift right, mirror .etc) remained in view.
- Combining the two drive knobs on the filters would probably be a good idea as I do find the current implementation a little confusing to work with.
- I'm finding it really hard to see what value each of my knobs are set to as the indicator is quite small and subtle, especially on the smaller knobs.
- I found myself constantly clicking the preset name in the top middle of the plugin and expecting the preset browser to pop up. Not sure, but should the preset browser pop up when clicking on the preset name?
- I think the filter selection menu probably should have some extra height below the last filter for neatness.
- The ability to link both filters would be great for multiband sidechain effects using the 6db/oct filters as a crossover.

Bugs:

- Start a new preset (from init) and switch the mode to Parallel. Now set one of the L or R volume to Off and you'll hear the audio on that channel become all garbed, like its been severely bitcrushed. To hear this clearly, ensure that your input signal doesn't have a lot of high frequencies.
- Open the plugin and hit the New button. Now hover over the Filter 1 Cutoff knob and notice that the border no longer appears around it.

My email includes inline screenshots where relevant which are harder to post here unfortunately