Signaldust Sweep - a simple filter (1.1 is "zero-delay")

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2012-05-22: Updated with zero-delay model. Shouldn't sound terribly different, just somewhat smoother in most cases and probably distorts a bit less (except I bumped up the drive to compensate, so that's not really true).

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Since the response to this plugin has been overwhelmingly quiet, I'm going to assume that the general public didn't really like the somewhat subtle distortion with fairly nasty overload if you tried to go beyond the "sweet spot". So I figure, what the heck, let's try again and took it back to the drawing board.
xoxos wrote: for some reason i have the impression that the general public prefer big smeary things that get louder when you apply resonance and drive.
So 1.0 is here (since I'm fairly convinced I'm not going to do any more major changes), and unlike the previous versions, it now becomes smeary (not sure about big though) as you apply more resonance and drive. It's a whole lot more predictable too. Might even be useful as a distortion device now.

Download from the website or enjoy the lovely graphics:
Image

Unlike the previous versions, it will now distort whatever you feed it, as long as you feed it with high-enough amplitude (which is not very high if you set the drive to maximum). Unlike the previous versions, the morphed responses keep their shapes much better when you feed it something with very high amplitude.

The linear model is practically unchanged, so with minimum drive (and sane input level) it should behave more or less exactly like the previous version. As soon as drive is increased though, it will sound fairly different.

Apologizes to those (assuming any) who liked the original model better (feel free to keep your old versions as vintage treasure).

---- THE FOLLOWING KEPT FOR ARCHIVAL PURPOSES ----

Ok, this is very much beta [edit: can probably be considered more or less stable now] quality stuff right now, but I need some bug reports [edit: still welcome]. I admit this was made rather quickly (total development time about a week or so) but I thought it makes for a good tech-test and might be useful too.

The screenshot: [see above]

The download link. <-
(edit: still works, but now there's that website too)

The plugin itself is a simple filter with morphing LP->notch->HP response, which can be cross-faded with a bandpass response and the final result can be further cross-faded with the dry input. It's designed for manual foolery (or automation) so no envelope followers or LFOs or anything, sorry. Does have full parameter smoothing though (which someone already claimed a bit sluggish so comments on this and I just about might make it a bit less aggressive).

I could claim the filter to be modified Chamberlin SVF but it's been modified so much it's really not very much the same filter anymore. :P

The "safe" Q-range maps 100% resonance to 75% of the "full" range, such that random tweaking of the knobs should not result in accidental ear damage. With "full" range it goes for self-oscillation (though it's fairly weak without input signal). The saturation (which is controllable with the drive control) is in the resonance path only, so this isn't really a very good distortion device.

Oh and.. just because the "wet mix" is a knob, doesn't mean it might not actually make sense to bind it to a button on a MIDI controller (that's what I do).

As usual, we're 32-bit Windows VST format and you need a CPU with minimum of SSE2. We're back to the old GDI-only drawing code (and ugly GDI text and all that stuff) since obviously the OpenGL approach still needs more work.

edit: Small update 2011-06-27 since there was a slight mistake in coefficient calculation; might or might not sound slight better now.
Last edited by mystran on Tue May 22, 2012 7:11 pm, edited 6 times in total.

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most of the gui rendered as white rectangles (which did respond to mouse dragging) i got an 'abnormal program termination' message when i closed my host as well.

i couldn't tell you if i have sse2 or not, it's a dual core machine with xp sp3, so not venerable.
you come and go, you come and go. amitabha neither a follower nor a leader be tagore "where roads are made i lose my way" where there is certainty, consideration is absent.

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xoxos wrote:most of the gui rendered as white rectangles (which did respond to mouse dragging) i got an 'abnormal program termination' message when i closed my host as well.

i couldn't tell you if i have sse2 or not, it's a dual core machine with xp sp3, so not venerable.
I don't think there's any dual cores that didn't support SSE2 (plus that'd crash instantly). More likely an OpenGL issue. I'd be interested in what kind of graphics card/chip do you have?

edit: oh and screenshot would be highly-appreciated since that would probably help me guess what parts do and do not work.

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i would too :hihi: intel GMA driver for mobile? (i have a chipset # but i'd have to pm you that.. and i don't think it would help, my setup seems very generic).
you come and go, you come and go. amitabha neither a follower nor a leader be tagore "where roads are made i lose my way" where there is certainty, consideration is absent.

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xoxos wrote:i would too :hihi: intel GMA driver for mobile? (i have a chipset # but i'd have to pm you that.. and i don't think it would help, my setup seems very generic).
Well, Intel is already going to help. Now I just have to see if I can get my hands on one of those Intel chipsets to debug with their drivers...

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For what it's worth, I got an NVIDIA (GTX570 so runs anything) on my Win7 x64 desktop, and ATI x1300 on my 32-bit Vista laptop, and those work (which means 2 vendors out of 3 seem to be able to deal with my code), so either an XP issue that I've overlooked or Intel drivers not liking something I do.

I might be able to get access to some GMA chipsets at work, but I'm currently on holiday, so seriously a screenshot from someone with trouble would be appreciated; send to teemu@signaldust.com if you'd rather not bother with the trouble of getting pics to this forum.

edit: if someone has some Intel GPU on Vista or Win7, can you post here whether it does or does not work for you?

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When trying to load the plug in Reaper I get this:

Image

(first plugin where I've seen this error message btw.)

And after clicking ok Reaper crashes with a c++ runtime error.

AMD 64 X2, Win XP32 SP3

note that I "only" have an old Matrox G550 dual-head graphics card which is probably the cause for this I assume (though it should handle OpenGL 1.2 according to specs if I'm not mistaken)

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Works here in Wavosaur and Vsthost. Intense treble bite on it.
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This happens with Minihost (latest version) and Cubase 6.0.2:

Image

Specs:
Windows XP SP3 (32bit)
Geforce 8400 GS

I can turn the knobs (even if I can't see them).
I hope this helps :)

Cheers
Dennis

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No_Use wrote: note that I "only" have an old Matrox G550 dual-head graphics card which is probably the cause for this I assume (though it should handle OpenGL 1.2 according to specs if I'm not mistaken)
Congratulations on having the only card that I was seriously worried someone might still use, that does not support texture_env_combine (which is what the error complains about).

I'm sorry, you'll have to wait until I'll add a fall-back of one way or another (though judging from the problems the XP-people are reporting, I'm starting to think I'm going to be writing a software-only backend real soon now; too bad, OpenGL would have been nice from the performance point of view).

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Bronto Scorpio wrote:This happens with Minihost (latest version) and Cubase 6.0.2:

Image

Specs:
Windows XP SP3 (32bit)
Geforce 8400 GS

I can turn the knobs (even if I can't see them).
I hope this helps :)

Cheers
Dennis
Thanks for the screenshot. I think I know what's going on, even if I can't reproduce it right now (though I don't have access to an XP system right now).

I guess this is essentially the same problem xoxos had and since you're on NVIDIA this probably has nothing to do with Intel and everything to do with XP.

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No_Use wrote: (first plugin where I've seen this error message btw.)
Well, considering I wrote the very error message about 2-3 days ago I'm not terribly surprised you haven't seen it before. :D

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Don't think XP is an issue since it runs fine on my supposedly completely obsolete Windows ME system (Opteron 154 CPU and nVidia 7800 GS). 8) ;)

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eidenk wrote:Don't think XP is an issue since it runs fine on my supposedly completely obsolete Windows ME system (Opteron 154 CPU and nVidia 7800 GS). 8) ;)
REALLY?!? :D

That's actually pretty curious since I used to support down to Windows2000 but dropped that at some point, and I was pretty sure that there was something in the codebase now that actually does require at least Windows XP.

Anyway, I still believe it's Windows XP specific. Windows ME display model is almost certainly somewhat different, so it probably behaves the same as Vista/Win7 here.

Anyway, I think I'll see about compiling it again with my old GUI code in a minute (just need a bit of glue code), since I'm afraid fixing the XP issue is going to be several days worth work.

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Ok, compiled with the old GDI-only code which is tried and true and should work with a glorified toaster. Text looks like the usual GDI text now, and knobs look a tiny bit different since they are using old (partially vector) graphics, but I can't be bothered to do a new screenshot for such minor differences (plus I'll probably switch to the new knobs anyway in a day or two as I manage to write some more GDI glue).

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