Xhip vs Analog Hardware

[Mutant]

So in other words I should really implement some sort of method by which to save effect + route state data

Yes.

[WoodMan]

This time it is not a "A VS B", but Xhip with internal effects (no external processing of any kind) inspired by all the YT videos i could find of this beautiful piece of old hardware:

It is Hammond Novachord from 1938.

And the best music for it to play was composed in 1936 and first performed in 1938:
Samuel Barber - Adagio for Xhips
(use the download link on top right)
Don't expect to hear Novachord, it is more like my idealized dream of how it would sound.


ps. I used a MIDI file from this page, the 1st one.

Another nice string sound. Any chance you would be willing to share the preset?

Thanks

[Mutant]

Another nice string sound. Any chance you would be willing to share the preset?

There is a little problem with that.
I don't remember all the effects and route page parameters which were lost at the moment i closed my DAW.
I can share the basic preset, but it will not sound like in the mp3 i posted yesterday.
Some of the LFO -> Oscillator pitch values were dependent on keytracking and that makes a big difference to the sound.
Next time i will write it down in a text file.

Also about the Novachord on YT vs my sound:
My sound is 6 instances of Xhip played in stereo, so like 12 units of the old hardware, "recorded" directly to the DAW, bypassing the crappy 1938 speaker, room and smartphone microphone, added phaser, flanger (all of the 6 instances phase and flange independently with their free running LFOs at different phase), delay or reverb (don't remember), panned in stereo field.
Without all these differences and with some "radio speaker" type impulse, it would be closer to the real thing.

BTW In another project i made a sound that was pretty close to the choir like preset on the Novachord, used band pass filters with some resonance to get the frequency peaks where i needed them.
You can hear the choir sound at 2:00 in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BNvemnifWc
Lost that preset too. But because i wasn't happy enough with it to save it... Haha.
I guess the best chance to get it a close a possible would be if i had the Hollowsun/Soniccouture samples i could compare Xhip to, but i don't [edit], OR WAIT ! I think i have some free 70Mb sample pack i downloaded from them in 2010, found it in my "samples" folder just now. [/edit]

[aciddose]

That's another thing I'd love to get done at some point, I wish it was yesterday

Layering and unison control. If you could set up a six voice unison with different presets and direct control of pitch/etc on each and save the complete state for that in a single preset it would be awesome.

The stuff needed to accomplish this already exists! It just isn't on the GUI. Each voice can already have its own preset applied, each has individual pitch/panning/amplitude/etc and any number of "unison" / "layered" voices can be used.

That is what holds me back on things like this. It bugs me enough trying to fit it into the existing project that I end up just saying "well that's a Xhip 2 thing". Yet if I never finish "Xhip 1" why would there ever be a "Xhip 2" ?

The main problem has been finding motivation to actually work on this sort of thing anymore. I was far more interested in music and synthesizers years ago and it was always sort of oscillatory... now it seems to be just little blips once in a while almost unpredictably.

I think it may help to move Xhip to GIT, where I can use branches to make radical changes like complete GUI redesigns and fiddle with weird ideas without sidelining the main project.

[Mutant]

It is all OK if people understand that Xhip is still in beta stage and that to keep their old sounds, they need to keep the old versions, because old presets may not work in the latest Xhip.
Currently i have 2 versions active, one old with many features and one new with resizable gui and some new faster (i think) engine and more filter types.

This GIT ?

[fluffy_little_something]

I understand your lack of motivation. As one gets older priorities change, there is only so much time and energy. You don't even earn anything with freeware, not even recognition at a time when there are so many powerful plugins out there that do the same things and more.

I think many people don't like that permanent beta stage/work in progress thingy, either. They prefer a finished product, even if certain features are missing, but what is already there needs to feel perfect.
That's why something like Sylenth is still popular, it is limited, but rock solid and people don't have to download a new version every couple of months just in order to be up to date.

[aciddose]

Xhip hasn't been updated since 4th April 2012.

That was version 7.

This version is the "alpha" which will eventually (perhaps) become version 8.

https://soundcloud.com/xhip/ghah

(Problem with layering, don't mix presets that have low cutoff/volume + long release or you'll end up with 93 voices of mostly silence eating up the CPU.)

r674 on the alpha page supports layering in the unison page, but I've quickly added this and it's just for fun.

I suppose it needs some basic explanation.

Unison voices are full voices. Voices in Xhip, unlike a lot of software are not "optimized" to work with a single set of precomputed values from a single "preset". Each voice is fully independent.

Layering works by simply assigning a new preset to a unison voice along with the other unison settings (panning, pitch). By default each voice is set to track the preset assigned to the "root" voice. I've recycled the preset menu without adding this "null" option so once you set an override there is no way to undo it.

For example, set unison = 3. The first menu (top left, vertical orientation) controls the first voice, down one the second, and again the third.

Certain things will cause a reset, I haven't done anything special to make it work "correctly" and of course adding anything to the GUI that would be genuinely useful is a lot of effort assuming I could come up with any satisfactory ideas for it in the first place.

That said, you can now layer simple presets in a single instance, although you can't do anything that requires independent voice allocators (there is only one) nor effects or other post-processing. For those things you still need separate instances.

[.jon]

mmm just trying the new alpha, the mod matrix is pretty damn sweet. Everything seems to work just fine except for CC mapping (Reaper/Win7), which doesn't work. The knob shading is a bit too heavy for my taste, and effect knob labels are hard to read on most bg colours.

I had forgotten how good this sounds.

EDIT: too fast mod matrix & fx settings persist when changing patches.

[Soundplex]

Hey, I also tested the alpha of Xhip and had the following problems:

- loading (different) wav files always results in "error in riff, fmt chunk"
- Mod A or B inside the oscillators has just effect on pulse waves
- while a note is playing, turning the width will cause clicks (like the width is turned on/off). This is better in the alpha than in the last release, but still noticeable. Same with the supersaw dial.
- theres a problem with the filter q: preset clear -> osc a ramp -> any filter type -> q 100 -> open the filter slowly. the range until 250/300 hz will sound different (like there is no q) than it sound if the filter was full up and will turned down.

Why is the coarse range +/-32 and not 3 octaves?
Can different noise types be implemented?
How about a pan & phase dial foreach osc?

[.jon]

- Mod A or B inside the oscillators has just effect on pulse waves
- while a note is playing, turning the width will cause clicks (like the width is turned on/off). This is better in the alpha than in the last release, but still noticeable. Same with the supersaw dial.
- theres a problem with the filter q: preset clear -> osc a ramp -> any filter type -> q 100 -> open the filter slowly. the range until 250/300 hz will sound different (like there is no q) than it sound if the filter was full up and will turned down.

Why is the coarse range +/-32 and not 3 octaves?
Can different noise types be implemented?
How about a pan & phase dial foreach osc?

Modulation on OSC A affects pulse width, which is on analog synths and emulations often only available for pulse wave. On OSC B modulation targets pitch.

No clicks on width or supersaw twiddling here.

Filters all work like that.

Good point on the range, and I'd also like to see pink noise as well as individual panning.

I'd like to add one request: The GUI would be easier to read if modulation knobs were smaller, now there's lots of visually equal knobs.

[Soundplex]

Modulation on OSC A affects pulse width, which is on analog synths and emulations often only available for pulse wave. On OSC B modulation targets pitch.

I see, but it's an unusual feeling. These knobs on OSC A don't do anything to 4 out of 5 waveforms. There's the possibility to "bend" these other waveforms (with logarithmic read positions instead of linear). Have seen this on a synth and it sounded like PM.

Filters all work like that.

No, I may wrote it incomprehensible. Once the filter was fully open I can sweep back to that range and it has the full Q factor audible. So it just doesnt work in the case I wrote. Must be a bug, cause non of the filters I had to deal with in other synths act like that.

[Mutant]

The filters sound normal for me, but the filter selection menu is a bit buggy in the lower row, i pick the type, it doesn't update on the UI, or it updates but shows wrong type.
So maybe you wanted a low pass filter and you got a band pass instead ?

Also the high pass filter fully closed (max knob amount) and i still can hear a lot of the oscillators sound.
[edit]Checked the HP in other synths, same thing, so maybe that is how it is supposed to work.
I rarely use it that way.

[Soundplex]

I wanted to upload a symmetric filter sweep with the 24 db/o LP as mp3 but I can't
So there's a screenshot of the waveform.

You can see (and hear) the Q is about 18db lower in the beginning than in the end of the file - although it's the same frequency. And that happens to a range of 0-250/300 Hz.

Xhip Sweep Filter Q.png

[Mutant]

Doesn't happen in V674 32 bit in REAPER.

Use Box or Soundcloud to upload files.
https://box.com/

[.jon]

EDIT: can't replicate. (first upload was accidentally with 2 osc) I recorded 5 automated sweeps:

(starts closed)