PG8X (inspired by the JX8P): new beta version uploaded

martin_l · Post by **martin_l** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 8:25 am

Dear All,

finally, I uploaded a beta version of the synth I am working on for the last couple of month. It is inspired by the JX8P and I am trying to capture as much of it's character as possible. The "working title" for it is PG8X, trying to merge the names of the progammer PG-800 and JX-8P without coming into conflict with copyrighted names. If anyone has better suggestions, let me know.

The synth is made with Synthedit, but the sonud generation is entirely handled by custom modules, which I have written in Assembler and C++.

Please, give it a go, and let me know what you think, especially if you encounter any problems or bugs.

http://sites.google.com/site/mlvst0

Edit: download location for the latest beta versions:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e5oop1vf8vpl ... eezxa?dl=0

Cheers,
Martin

Schiffbauer · Post by **Schiffbauer** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 9:21 am

Lol man - I'll give it a go and I was surprised as I've seen it
here - I used a Roland JX8P ten years ago in my setup and had
over 2000 selfprogrammed sounds. Unfortunately I've all these on
Datasheets - wrote per hand - so there's no sysex. I little bank
I'd hosted 2 years ago on patcharena. A Bank about 500 Patches of my
old JX8P, I'd convert6ed for the EFM r8xp. So I'll try it.
The original JX8P has ist own unique sound - I think no other synth sounds
like this. It is used - by example - by Tangerine Dream on "TYGER". Could
sounds very analog and very digital......

ciao
armin aka Kujashi

toine6 · Post by **toine6** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 9:41 am

Seems really nice, has the same vibe as my JX8P, you seem to have even added a little bit of the super faint noise that happens whenever you press a note. Seems slightly harsher than the real article, but it's pretty close in overall sound. I've only tested for 5 minutes though, and without a proper keyboard. Very exciting!!

Anyone want to buy a used JX8P?

androidlove · Post by **androidlove** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 9:50 am

interjection! this sounds amazing. thank you!

guitarbro · Post by **guitarbro** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 10:12 am

Uses a lot of CPU and seems to have a denormal value problem.
Maybe you should use more standard modules (as they are typically more CPU efficient).
but other wise very good.

martin_l · Post by **martin_l** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 10:22 am

guitarbro wrote:Uses a lot of CPU and seems to have a denormal value problem.
Maybe you should use more standard modules (as they are typically more CPU efficient).
but other wise very good.

I started out with the standard modules, but I could not get the correct waveform for the Pulse, and also had tremendous aliasing problems for the hard sync.

My first C++ modules sounded ok, but used WAY too much CPU. Now, having recoded everything in SSE assembly, it is already better, but still too heavy. I am still trying to squeeze out more performance.

Actually, I would be quite happy, if it was a simple denormal problem. but I can't really find any. Attaching Jeff's denormal detector does not show anything. It is still possible that there are some denormals WITHIN the modules, but when I was running the code through a debugger, I could not spot any either.

What makes you think that it is demormals? Do you get CPU spikes?

Cheers,
Martin

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 10:29 am

guitarbro wrote:Uses a lot of CPU

Confirmed. For a chord on a single instance it uses up to 19% of my Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU in Ableton Live 8.
The sound quality is very nice indeed. I didn't use the original synth so far but in the past (around 2004/2005) i had Roland analog synths like Jupiter 8, MKS-80 and MKS-50.

Schiffbauer · Post by **Schiffbauer** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 10:33 am

It's sounds very similar to the real GEM. The few factorysounds on this
bring on the feeling I'd once upon a time. I'll try to recreate the
sounds of my two document files of paper-datasheets and a make a bank
til the next weekend.

BTW it's a cpu-hog - so this is a question to the synthedit-developers
here on KVR to fix this problem.
A really nice synth and a good emulation - so all my old sounds are not
lost......

ciao
armin

SWAN808 · Post by **SWAN808** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 11:04 am

martin_l · Post by **martin_l** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 11:10 am

SWAN808 wrote:Mac?

Right now, unfortunately, I have to say no, since I use synthedit for the GUI.

However, since most of the sound processing stuff is written in custom modules, I would be happy to make them available to somebody who is experienced in writing VST's (or AU's) for MAC.

martin_l · Post by **martin_l** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 11:27 am

Schiffbauer wrote:Lol man - I'll give it a go and I was surprised as I've seen it
here - I used a Roland JX8P ten years ago in my setup and had
over 2000 selfprogrammed sounds. Unfortunately I've all these on
Datasheets - wrote per hand - so there's no sysex. I little bank
I'd hosted 2 years ago on patcharena. A Bank about 500 Patches of my
old JX8P, I'd convert6ed for the EFM r8xp. So I'll try it.
The original JX8P has ist own unique sound - I think no other synth sounds
like this. It is used - by example - by Tangerine Dream on "TYGER". Could
sounds very analog and very digital......

ciao
armin aka Kujashi

Please don't spend too much time yet with patches, as the vst will most likely undergo some more major developments, which will probably change the order of automatization parameters, and hence render old presets unusable.

I will announce when it reaches a mature state, where I will try to maintain backwards compatibility for patches.

Cheers,
Martin

Glyn Darby · Post by **Glyn Darby** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 11:49 am

excellent recreation Martin.I had a JX8p when they first came out and its was one of the synths i regret selling.From my memory it sounds pretty damm close to the real thing,good luck with it.cheers glyn

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 12:00 pm

Nice!

Self noise is probably a wee bit high, but cool that you modeled it.

The real JX-8P had a nastier click when amplitude envelopes were retriggered at dramatically different velocities, but this sounds close enough.

Love that you can change programs and the voice continues, like a real programmable polysynth. Congrats.

Make sure you implement cycle assignment too. And increasing bend range to at least 1 octave would be nice.

CPU usage on my Core2Quad q9300 @ 2.5 GHz is about 5% with all voices going. Fine, particularly considering the 12x oscillator and 4X filter oversampling you're using.

Would be nice if you could push the filter resonance into self oscillation (you could make a real JX-8P or JX-3P do this by tweaking trim pots inside).

Not crazy about the switches on the GUI needing so much mouse travel. SE must provide a better control type for this, no? Sliders are ok, but a coarse/fine mode would be nice.

What's the list dropdown do?

logicgate · Post by **logicgate** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 2:11 pm

Martin, this is really good already!

Please keep going!

AdmiralQuality wrote:CPU usage on my Core2Quad q9300 @ 2.5 GHz is about 5% with all voices going. Fine, particularly considering the 12x oscillator and 4X filter oversampling you're using.

CPU is around 5-7% on my Core2Duo (3.16 GHz). One patch (Tone Echo) goes a little over 7%.

AdmiralQuality wrote:Not crazy about the switches on the GUI needing so much mouse travel.

I agree with the Admiral about this.

AdmiralQuality wrote:What's the list dropdown do?

It looks to me like Martin has included some debugging stuff.

bM3w · Post by **bM3w** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 2:56 pm

Nice