chipsounds from plogue

[Liero]

Stupid, quick question:

Is chipsounds a sampler or a synth? Or something in between? The aria engine is a sample playback engine, right?

I can't definitely hear any sample wishy-washiness while playing the demo, tho. How many samples went into one 8-octave range patch?

[davidv@plogue]

Stupid, quick question:

Is chipsounds a sampler or a synth? Or something in between? The aria engine is a sample playback engine, right?

I can't definitely hear any sample wishy-washiness while playing the demo, tho. How many samples went into one 8-octave range patch?

There's a page or two on the subject in the user's guide which you can get with the demo here: http://www.plogue.com/?page_id=274 starting page 52


Basically ARIA is a synth engine that can either run sample players or oscillators, combining the two however I please.

chipsounds is roughly 90% synth and 10% samples.

The obvious sampled stuff are some loops in the multisamples category and in the drums (4bit/dmc playback).

Otherwise for bare chips, only the SID contains samples for the combined waveforms and the ring modded wavedforms. chipsounds 2.0 will not require those samples anymore since i now have my own full emu. (just not integrated yet)

[rpc9943]

Hey david are you still working on that integration? Thx

[davidv@plogue]

Hey david are you still working on that integration? Thx

Of course, but 2.0 will not come this year.
Il working on 1.1 now, with a bunch of new stuff.
Incremental release, not a major one.

[DrGonzo]

A bump for this seriously cool plug.

I bought it when it was released but didn't really have time or use for it until now. I've got a request to make a 8-bit/sid-style remix and after an hour or so checking out QuadraSid and the lot I remembered Chipsounds. So damn spot on. Great presets as well.

[Compyfox]

I just saw a video from Torley.com regarding this monster, and I'm definitely impressed. Being a QuadraSID lover for a long time now, this one is bound to take the cake with several chips (though I do miss the ones from the Sega Genesis and Gameboy devices, maybe it'll be added in an update, then again there are alternatives out there).


What I ask myself however:
Is this pure synthesis or are there wave files used in terms of OSC? It uses about 100MB on the HDD according to specs, and the video tutorials hint at that as well. (aparently, only for the SID chip, then again, the DIY mbSID doesn't use wave samples as OSCs if you configure it to run as a drum machine)


I only ask because IIRC QuadraSID was pure synthesis - and for years it was impressive and nearly unbeatable (which is why it was supported by Chris Huelsbeck, Rob Hubbart, etc).

Don't get me wrong, this thing does sound awesome. I'm just curious of this might just turn into another rompler.

[davidv@plogue]

Don't get me wrong, this thing does sound awesome. I'm just curious of this might just turn into another rompler.

The list of what is sampled and what is pure synthesis, and what is synthesis from "tables" is all described in detail in the manual.

which is a free download:
http://www.plogue.com/?page_id=274
(bottom)

check page 52: "chipsounds Sound Sources explained"

the original gameboy is in the list btw, just not the GBA (which is kind of pointless since its a sample playback unit). As far as the FM stuff goes, we are evaluating them.


Cheers

[Compyfox]

Thanks David.

So the 4 voices "combined" in the SID is actually sampled. Couldn't that have been handled via synthesis as well? (4 layers)

Still trying to understand the differences between QuadraSID and your Chipsounds VSTi in this case.

[Nokenoku]

Huh .. totally forgot about this plugin. Wanted to try it out long ago already.

*saving the demo to desktop now*
Ha!

[dub3000]

Thanks David.

So the 4 voices "combined" in the SID is actually sampled. Couldn't that have been handled via synthesis as well? (4 layers)

Still trying to understand the differences between QuadraSID and your Chipsounds VSTi in this case.

the combination waveforms are pretty weird and not easy to get right with emulation - it's a bit chaotic. davidv has posted some blogs about the amount of effort that he's gone into to model them for some future development work. there are microscope pictures of the actual SID chip internals in there somewhere, it's pretty crazy.

[davidv@plogue]

it's pretty crazy.

Indeed, the "combined waveforms" are not mere mixes, or ANDing or ORing of bits, but some weird analog phenomenon between two digital parts.

[Compyfox]

Forgive my constant bragging there, but if they're that weird, how could QuadraSID reproduce a similar sound?

Of course I could still finish my yearlong mbSID project, but I love some of the presets in QuadraSID (and the simplicity of the VSTi usage). And neither of them use samples. At least not to my understanding.

[davidv@plogue]

Forgive my constant bragging there, but if they're that weird, how could QuadraSID reproduce a similar sound?

I can only guess since hes licensed his SID generation from ccs64
see (http://www.remix64.com/interview_michae ... _refx.html)
and this is closed source

To be frank, I didnt check it much, and concentrated on the real chips for inspiration. But i would be very surprised if quardasid could accurately reproduce ring modulation betwen two combined waveform voices, something that not even reSID does. (to be fair, I dont know if ill figure that out either, its not a much used thing in the scene)
In the mean time, the multisamples i made of them are the most awesome sound ive ever recorded, so i dont really care if people like that patch or not.

Of course I could still finish my yearlong mbSID project, but I love some of the presets in QuadraSID (and the simplicity of the VSTi usage). And neither of them use samples. At least not to my understanding.

Combined waveforms require either
1)very complex approximation maths, that to my knowledge have only been figured out by alankila here: http://www.bel.fi/~alankila/c64-sw/combined-waveforms/

2)fully sampled (chipsounds 1.0), static, but 100% accurate down the smallest weirdness.

3)using a wavetable. reSID has one wavetable for 6581 and one for 8580 while chipsounds 2.0 will have many many variants that will be used choosable.

see
http://ploguechipsounds.blogspot.com/20 ... tures.html

Even when i get 3) done in chipsounds 2.0, I will still keep the samples, for comparison and for people who just want the 100% exact sound. But as i said that would only be a 100% accurate combined waveform of that particular SID chip at that particular temperature and stars allignment.

I dont claim my stuff is perfect, but at least i'm pursuing my own research all the time.

[dub3000]

cheers david... btw, how are you approaching the SID filter for future versions of chipsounds? i notice the v1 filter saturates nicely, but it'd be nice to be able to raise the saturation threshold on it a little (at the moment i just back off on the volume).

i tend to use the sid with lots of voices as a pad in tracks, comes out pretty nice. i always wanted a 16 voice SID chip...

[davidv@plogue]

cheers david... btw, how are you approaching the SID filter for future versions of chipsounds? i notice the v1 filter saturates nicely, but it'd be nice to be able to raise the saturation threshold on it a little (at the moment i just back off on the volume)

The filter is another one of those completely wacky features of the SID.
As you say for the SID filters in chipsounds 1.0, I only modeled _one_ chip I had (R4AR), with many A/B comparisons of Noise sweeps, listening for the "grunge" it made in the low frequency register and slaving on spectrograms. (not fun)

for 2.0 ill have to analyse my collection of 6581's on various fronts, first being the Fc curve, then the saturation, and make presets of settings that match this or that chip i have, and let users tweak it to their liking.