Cytomic "The Drop" Resonant Filter

[andy-cytomic]

I have written to you on the site again. No response again, to my enquiry about a discount forThe Glue users...What gives?

I'm travelling at the moment, so replies are a little slow sometimes - sorry!

I can't find any emails I haven't replied to regarding discounts. Can you please email me again?

[meloco_go]

I had a small glitch/bug. I had the Drop set as a drum gate using ENV1 in trig mode. For some reason it would miss the first hit upon a new play, i.e. if I loop the this hit it opens up, but if I hit stop and then play it would miss the first time.
Never noticed this before.
This was in REAPER 4.78/x64 on Win7x64.

Thanks for spotting this, I'll have a look. Can you please email me so I can keep a track of things better? Should be easy fixed.

E-mail sent

[Ivan_C]

Hello andy ! Sorry if I come back to something you have said a few weeks ago...

However, in the cabinet simulation department I think they are all equally bad. Linear FIR impulse responses don't really cut it for decent tone. I feel to get that right there needs to be a full model of the coupled load of the power amp and the speaker coil + mass, with non-linearities of both modelled electro-accoustically and spatially. That is something I'm keen to investigate in the future, actually building a 3D model (lattice) of the speaker and cabinet, but I'm not sure computers are quite up for it just yet but they are getting more powerful.

Can you tell me why do you think that Linear FIR impulse responses don't give you what you are looking for ? I'm curious about what you mean. Indeed, there is a lot of things to do on this field like fully modeling cabinet instead of using impulse responses, but right now I think that you can get a very very good tone with some of the commercial impulse responses and cabinet simulation software (see what people say about the librairies OwnHammer or Rozen Digital for example). I wouldn't say even they don't sound decent

I'm just curious, no offence

[andy-cytomic]

Hello andy ! Sorry if I come back to something you have said a few weeks ago...

...
Can you tell me why do you think that Linear FIR impulse responses don't give you what you are looking for ? I'm curious about what you mean. Indeed, there is a lot of things to do on this field like fully modeling cabinet instead of using impulse responses, but right now I think that you can get a very very good tone with some of the commercial impulse responses and cabinet simulation software (see what people say about the librairies OwnHammer or Rozen Digital for example). I wouldn't say even they don't sound decent

I'm just curious, no offence

FIR is linear, so no distortion or drive or anything interesting, it just attenuates frequencies it doesn't add any frequency content that wasn't there to begin with. This is fine, but most guitar speakers and amps distort a bit, and there is interaction between the two that changes how this distortion sounds. This is too much for modern computers, but I like to keep an eye on the future with projects, so I can have them done when computers are just powerful enough for them to be reasonable.

[Ivan_C]

Sure, using impulse responses only does not provide any nonlinear modeling of the guitar cabinets into the simulation algorithm, but for me that doesn't mean it will sound "bad", especially if the preamplifier and the power amplifier distort already a bit.

I think that most of people, including professional guitar players and sound engineers, are not even able to tell if a guitar recording has been done with guitar cabinet miking or any modeling software. That's why commercial impulse response librairies are popular again nowadays.

That doesn't mean we can't do better of course, and in fact there are already a lot of things done on this field in commercial products. I'm thinking about my (old) algorithms in the Two Notes Torpedo products of course, but also in Vandal Amps where there is some cabinet modeling with nonlinearities (from Sascha Eversmeier working now at u-he), in TSE X50 v2 with the movement control, in Mercuriall Cab v3 from Roxolder etc. Most of recent guitar amplifiers simulations developers have also included the modeling of the interaction poweramp-speaker for a long time.

Anyway, I'd like to see what you can do on this field, but that's not fair to say that everybody else is doing bad things until then

[nori.lam]

Hi Andy,

Was wondering if you could consider adding a Beat mode to LFO 1 to allow for transport retrigging and also a Curve knob to control the attack of the 2 ENV's.

I am currently using LFO 2 with the UNI and ONCE toggles to make an envelope with curves, but it would be great to do it via the ENV's.

Hope you had a nice time travelling.

Cheers.

[andy-cytomic]

Sure, using impulse responses only does not provide any nonlinear modeling of the guitar cabinets into the simulation algorithm, but for me that doesn't mean it will sound "bad", especially if the preamplifier and the power amplifier distort already a bit.

I think that most of people, including professional guitar players and sound engineers, are not even able to tell if a guitar recording has been done with guitar cabinet miking or any modeling software. That's why commercial impulse response librairies are popular again nowadays.

That doesn't mean we can't do better of course, and in fact there are already a lot of things done on this field in commercial products. I'm thinking about my (old) algorithms in the Two Notes Torpedo products of course, but also in Vandal Amps where there is some cabinet modeling with nonlinearities (from Sascha Eversmeier working now at u-he), in TSE X50 v2 with the movement control, in Mercuriall Cab v3 from Roxolder etc. Most of recent guitar amplifiers simulations developers have also included the modeling of the interaction poweramp-speaker for a long time.

Anyway, I'd like to see what you can do on this field, but that's not fair to say that everybody else is doing bad things until then

I was only meaning to comment on software using linear FIR filters alone to "model" the cab (and power amp interactions with the cab) section, if people doing more advanced models that are physically motivated and have non-linearities then I think this is a good thing, so sorry for not being specific to exclude those people.

[andy-cytomic]

Hi Andy,

Was wondering if you could consider adding a Beat mode to LFO 1 to allow for transport retrigging and also a Curve knob to control the attack of the 2 ENV's.

I am currently using LFO 2 with the UNI and ONCE toggles to make an envelope with curves, but it would be great to do it via the ENV's.

Hope you had a nice time travelling.

Cheers.

There isn't room on the interface to add more advanced triggering options for LFO 1, sorry, I want to keep it with only the most important controls for each part. The TRIG button is your friend, you can automate this to re-trigger LFO 1 whenever you want, so I suggest programming a clip to get the job done.

It is not possible to add curve to the analog modelled envelopes, they using a circuit similar to a Moog Taurus, and this gives a very pleasing a smooth sound. It isn't possible to "circuit bend" this to produce arbitrary curves, so you are doing the best thing possible, just use LFO 2 with ONCE, that is what it's for!

LFO 2 is not an analog model, it is a pure mathematical construction that I band-limit so it can run smoothly at oscillator frequencies.

Also you could also use another plugin to generate envelope / LFO shapes and using the FM input to modulate the things in The Drop.

I hope that helps!

[barryfell]

What are the demo restrictions of The Drop? It doesn't state on their website as far as I can see.

[dayjob]

using the hell out of this thing lately. it's so funky and has such presence and detail. the mod bus is a thing of beauty. those LFOs and envelopes can get plenty weird. such a great plug in.

[sqigls]

yeah it's a keeper.

[andy-cytomic]

What are the demo restrictions of The Drop? It doesn't state on their website as far as I can see.

Trial mode has the following limitations:
1) automation is disabled, you have to use the graphical interface to edit the plugin settings
2) the about box will show every 5 minutes
3) you can save settings in songs but they will not be loaded unless you buy the plugin
4) you can load presets from disk but you cannot save them to disk

Currently the above text is shown every time you open the user interface when in trial mode. These limitations may change in the future, so always check the dialog box text for the most up to date version.

[jackson881]

Are there any updates on the progress of adding MIDI learn to The Drop? Really would love to use it with a controller.

[andy-cytomic]

Are there any updates on the progress of adding MIDI learn to The Drop? Really would love to use it with a controller.

Which DAW are you using? Logic, Live, Cubase, Studio One, Bitwig, Tracktion, FLStudio, Reaper, Digital Performer, and Sonar can all map midi cc to plugin parameters.

MIDI learn in Cytomic plugins is still planned in the future but there are bug fixes and support for VST3 which have priority.

[jackson881]

Thanks Andy. I use Ableton and Pro Tools mostly. Ableton is obviously easy to workaround, but there is no way that I know of to map MIDI to an effects plugin in Pro Tools unless the plugin has a MIDI learn feature and is set up to accept MIDI input.

Great to know that it will at least be coming in the future.