KVR Audio

Korg Supporter · Post by **Korg Supporter** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 1:18 pm

I can't check yet, but if you can add harmonic drawbars for waveform editing, that would be super useful. I wish there would be oscillator or filter panning, but it's fine that way.

Edit: Wow, it does have an additive synthesis mode, though as others said, we need to bring PWM back.

gentleclockdivider · Post by **gentleclockdivider** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 1:31 pm

Wow , that was unexpected .
Charlatan 1 has been one of my favourite freebees , simple architecture and awesome sounding filters .
Can’t wait to testdrive Ch.2

audiojunkie · Post by **audiojunkie** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 2:35 pm

karrikuh wrote: ↑Fri Oct 20, 2023 6:33 am

After several years in the making, I'm pleased to announce the next major iteration of Charlatan, the free Virtual Analog synth!

Charlatan³ has been redesigned from the ground up in order to better meet the needs of today's productions. Besides the new powerful synthesis engine, the completely revamped user interface offers an ultra-fast workflow and encourages a creative sound design process much like what the original synth is known for.

Feature summary

* Two dual oscillators per voice with custom drawable waveforms, cross-modulation (Phase Mod, linear Frequency Mod, Ring Mod) and windowed hard sync
* Two multi-mode filters per voice with 9 filter types each and flexible routing
* Oscillator unison with up to 7 unison voices per synth voice
* Four modulation generators with user-definable shape where each can operate either as LFO or envelope generator
* Four Modulation transformers (XFORM) allow reshaping any control signal through a user-defined mapping
* Arbitrary routing of modulation signals via Drag'n'Drop
* High-quality master FX section
* Very low CPU and RAM usage
* Optional internal 2x oversampling
* Preset browser
* FREEWARE

System requirements

* Windows 10 or later, Ubuntu Linux 20.04 x86_64 or compatible distribution
* A CLAP or VST3 compatible host application
* An Intel x86_64 compatible CPU with support for SSE4.2 extensions

Status and availability

- Public Beta available now.
- Synth architecture has been finalized, no breaking changes planned, unless a critical flaw is discovered during Beta testing that warrants a breaking change.
- Feature freeze for initial release
- Factory preset library is limited currently, community contributions welcome!

Download
Charlatan v3.0b1 Windows
Charlatan v3.0b1 Linux

FAQ

- Will there be a Mac version?

No plans currently. From what I gathered over the years, supporting the Apple platform is a time-consuming commitment which I can't really justify for a spare-time project. Instead, I'd rather support open platforms like Linux, in the hope to help them gain adoption.

- Will it load patches from Charlatan 2.0?

Not at this point. While being much more capable overall, Charlatan³'s architecture differs from that of its predecessor in ways that it could not reproduce every preset accurately. One could consider an import option in a best-effort fashion, without any guarantee to achieve identical results. However, I'm not sure whether it's worth the effort, given that the former architecture is so simple that you can basically dial in every patch within seconds.

- The plug-in does not load / is blacklisted by my DAW

Please make sure that your system meets the systen requirements listed above

- Where are the presets located on my hard drive?

The easiest way to find out is to open the preset browsers menu and click "Open file browser".

Thank you so much for supporting Linux!!! This looks like a beautiful synth!!!

hlmst · Post by **hlmst** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 3:08 pm

Killin' it! Looking great & seems to run blazing fast on my 12th gen Intel - it may actually beat the venerable synth1 on cpu costs

No way to pull off a PWM unless using the inverted sawtooth method right?
Also, any chance you could cram in a couple of waveshapers under the 2nd filter slots or something without violating the feature freeze?

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 3:16 pm

hlmst wrote: ↑Fri Oct 20, 2023 3:08 pm Killin' it! Looking great & seems to run blazing fast on my 12th gen Intel - it may actually beat the venerable synth1 on cpu costs

I was also very surprised by the low CPU footprint. Sounds great at a very low price.

Good programming, I guess.

0degree · Post by **0degree** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 3:16 pm

For some reason the the synth is detected as FX instead of instrument on Bitwig Studio 4.4 (the VST3 version)

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 3:17 pm

Oh, BTW, I know what's the synth for next month's OSC.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 3:19 pm

gentleclockdivider wrote: ↑Fri Oct 20, 2023 1:31 pm Wow , that was unexpected .
Charlatan 1 has been one of my favourite freebees , simple architecture and awesome sounding filters .
Can’t wait to testdrive Ch.2

It's more better.

Only issue I see is that the operation is a bit subpar in some points. E.g. the modulation assignment/amount could be better. The additional window makes it a bit fiddly. And, the two main envelopes, amp and filter could be on one page, and not on separate pages, which makes it a bit slower.

pigfront · Post by **pigfront** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 3:37 pm

VST2 please!

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 4:05 pm

Zipede · Post by **Zipede** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 4:09 pm

Awesome, Thank You!!!

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 4:34 pm

Does the button labelled "D" in the oscillator section refer to "Drift"? Pressing that button deactivates the filter somehow.

The controls really could need tooltips when hovering over them...

Edit: Nevermind, found the description in the QuickGuide file:

"D" button bypasses filters and routes the oscillator signal directly to the master FX section.

audiojunkie · Post by **audiojunkie** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 4:40 pm

Does anyone know if the GUI scales up for high resolution screens (HiDPI)? I'm especially interested in the Linux version.

ZonderP · Post by **ZonderP** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 5:41 pm

Despite saying that a requirement would be Windows 10 +, the Clap version runs perfectly fine on my Windows 7!

Please try to keep it so...

Kokoala · Post by **Kokoala** » Fri Oct 20, 2023 6:39 pm

Great, one of my favorite back to a new life

Charlatan³ Free VA synth updated to v3.1.2 (Win/Linux)