Cytomic "The Scream" stomp box distortion plugin

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Like Funkybot has said, I need schematics to be able to implement a preset. I've bought multiple tube screamers to make sure The Scream is bang on in terms of quality, but I'm not going to buy every single modded TS to reverse engineer just for presets.

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to simulate component variance (and allow limiting them to some desired range), I don't know.

The Scream already does! Hit the Rand button and you can set how much randomization of the component tolerances you want to set.

[cptgone]

That's great
(having had to stop making music for a long while, and catching up with new stuff lately, I'm no longer as familiar with my tools as I'd like)

[Old Frengly]

Like Funkybot has said, I need schematics to be able to implement a preset. I've bought multiple tube screamers to make sure The Scream is bang on in terms of quality, but I'm not going to buy every single modded TS to reverse engineer just for presets.

Afraid to say not yet.
Apparently it uses "NOS Toshiba 1S1588 clipping diodes." Khttps://www.guitarworld.com/news/godlyk ... ts808-tmv2
Some info on the changes for 5h3 first Godlyke mod - "looking at the circuit board they swapped at least one capacitor with a Nichicon gold and a couple of resistors." from: https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... t-34136470

Not much help really, but it doesn't seem that much else is available about them

[andy-cytomic]

I also don't love drive being at 0 in all the presets. The lock feature will negate a lot of the drawbacks of that, but I'm thinking it may make more sense to just come up with a default preset that sounds good and has reasonable levels for each preset+mod. Maybe a low to mid gain setting for each.

For future pedals, it may make sense to just have a preset system for the circuit that users can previous/next their way through, then just have presets for the entire plugin that include both the circuit preset + any pedal settings.

Thanks for the feedback!

[RobGee]

Thanks for the presets, they should give me an idea of what this is capable of when I test it out.

[dayjob]

these presets are excellent. so useful and the scream sounds just amazing. kinda blown away.

[Zero dB]

Hi Andy. I just updated from the old 2017 version to the latest beta. Please can you clarify what the new HD mode means? I want to retain exact sound settings compatibility with existing projects; HD seems to be off by default on existing projects. Is this a new addition and adds better quality, ie was it always previously "off"?

This HD mode is seemingly unrelated to oversampling settings - is that right?

Overall, sonically, should this new version be 100 per cent identical when loading previous settings?

Thanks!

[andy-cytomic]

Hi Andy. I just updated from the old 2017 version to the latest beta. Please can you clarify what the new HD mode means? I want to retain exact sound settings compatibility with existing projects; HD seems to be off by default on existing projects. Is this a new addition and adds better quality, ie was it always previously "off"?

This HD mode is seemingly unrelated to oversampling settings - is that right?

Overall, sonically, should this new version be 100 per cent identical when loading previous settings?

Thanks!

The old plugin only had the HD mode, so this is an error in loading of old projects if HD is off for those presets. For a lot of uses HD off will sound almost identical and use lower cpu. I’ll make sure to check if there is no HD setting in the loaded preset to switch HD on for the next release.

[jamcat]

Not sure about the other presets, but the DS-1 preset doesn't sound anything like a BOSS DS-1 to me.

The BOSS DS-1 is much harsher, shrill and nasty. The Scream's DS-1 preset is quite tame and warm.

There are plenty of DS-1 demo videos on YouTube with settings that you can watch to compare. And you can compare to Audiority Distortion 1, too, which comes quite close to the DS-1 sound.

[meloco_go]

Not sure about the other presets, but the DS-1 preset doesn't sound anything like a BOSS DS-1 to me.

The BOSS DS-1 is much harsher, shrill and nasty. The Scream's DS-1 preset is quite tame and warm.

There are plenty of DS-1 demo videos on YouTube with settings that you can watch to compare. And you can compare to Audiority Distortion 1, too, which comes quite close to the DS-1 sound.

Are you sure it's not SD-1? If the preset is called DS-1 it is obviously a typo. Very different pedals, SD-1 is close to TS, but DS-1 is radically different.

[jamcat]

Are you sure it's not SD-1? If the preset is called DS-1 it is obviously a typo. Very different pedals, SD-1 is close to TS, but DS-1 is radically different.

Well crap! Disregard my previous post!
Lysdexia strikes again.

[Zero dB]

Hi Andy. I just updated from the old 2017 version to the latest beta. Please can you clarify what the new HD mode means? I want to retain exact sound settings compatibility with existing projects; HD seems to be off by default on existing projects. Is this a new addition and adds better quality, ie was it always previously "off"?

This HD mode is seemingly unrelated to oversampling settings - is that right?

Overall, sonically, should this new version be 100 per cent identical when loading previous settings?

Thanks!

The old plugin only had the HD mode, so this is an error in loading of old projects if HD is off for those presets. For a lot of uses HD off will sound almost identical and use lower cpu. I’ll make sure to check if there is no HD setting in the loaded preset to switch HD on for the next release.

Got you, thanks.

Can you briefly explain what HD mode does and/or the disadvantages of turning it off? Thanks again.

[andy-cytomic]

...Can you briefly explain what HD mode does and/or the disadvantages of turning it off? Thanks again.

With HD mode on the full circuit as shown in the schematic is modelled at once, but this takes more cpu. With HD mode off a lot of cpu is saved by splitting up the circuit into smaller chunks, and lowering the detail a little. This more less accurate and less detailed modelling is what most plugins aim do as their full quality.

For the non HD version the circuit is split into 4 parts:

1) input
2) drive
3) tone and level
4) output,

and each stage processes independently and passes its output to the next stage. It also uses a simplified solver, the input and output are using a variation of the dk method, the tone stage is linear so can be solved in one step already, and the drive stage removes a few of the more detailed non-linearities like the op-amp slew rate limiting, and each drive diode's non-linear capacitor behaviour (so LEDs won't sound quite right).

There is another little section of the manual written!

[jamcat]

So HD mode is using Kirchhoff’s laws to solve the entire thing as a system of equations?

[andy-cytomic]

So HD mode is using Kirchhoff’s laws to solve the entire thing as a system of equations?

Yes. More specifically it uses MNA (modified nodal analysis), which is a variant of Kirchhoff's current law.

Here is a pdf of the matrix being solved:
https://cytomic.com/files/forums/scream ... matrix.pdf

And this is that pdf zoomed out: