One-Synth-Challenge 55: MauSynth - Chat & Gossip

[RuediRena]

@all who were trying to help with my Reaper/Wine problem:

Thanks a lot, guys!

Unfortunately I can't manage to get Reaper to recognize MauSynth, fiddling with .dll files in different directories and all that stuff.

I am out for this month. Guess I take a sun-bath and work on a nice tan instead.

[ClaRago]

Same here, slightly pissed off since the synth seems to offer some nice capabilities. Looks as if the developer has done half the job.
Aiming for some coolness , maybe even a bit of drizzle , nice whisky and lots of comedy in Edinburgh for the Fringe festival. It should put me in a better mood.
Have to vote for the previous OSC straight away.

[oxebe]

Unfortunately I can't manage to get Reaper to recognize MauSynth, fiddling with .dll files in different directories and all that stuff.

Live 8 doesn't see it either (on winxp). I installed C++ runtime and put dll's where recommended but it didn't help. Pity because gui looks really pro and opinions of its sound I hear from you guys are very encouraging. Next time maybe... Eh, holidays and mountains are waiting, let's look at some landscapes and peaks instead...

[organic io]

Hey Mac guys, before you give up entirely, you might want to try this:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5186888

About halfway down the page there is a post from "Dewdman42" with a link to his wineskin which already has Reaper installed. This is what I based my Wine Renoise install off of because it was the only thing I could get ASIO/JACK working with, but also coincidentally I didn't have any problems with MauSynth and I didn't even have to install any extra dependencies.

Of note: I noticed when you run winecfg out of this wineskin, there is an override for the msvcr100 library. This is probably key to it working.

Dunno, but may be worth a shot for you guys? Good luck

[abovethoughts]

Wow, I didn't realize we had so many Linux users / proud of you guys / l

[organic io]

Wow, I didn't realize we had so many Linux users / proud of you guys / l

I don't think there are that many? I think most of the ones who said they gave up were Mac users. It's just that OSX happens to have Wine too because it is based on Unix

I'm a bit craazy in the head, I have Linux on my desktop at home, OSX on my laptop, and use Windows at work. I use several music softwares too. Whatever, I just use whatever works at the time that I need it

[abovethoughts]

Ok, well then not so proud of you mac users although you organic io get high marks because you use trackers !

[organic io]

Ok, well then not so proud of you mac users although you organic io get high marks because you use trackers !

Lol. Well... Mac really isn't as evil as people think. After using it a couple months, I don't mind it too much. At first I almost installed Linux on the Macbook, but then I thought "No, I'd rather spend my time actually working on music instead of spending hours fixing something every time Linux breaks".

[V'ger]

Big shame with the Visual C++ runtimes issues, there was no clues anywhere that the synth even depended on these files..

But neither was it apparent for Waldorf Edition LE suite or DDMF's Lincomp (and surely others too) which also needed them so even known companies will hide this information. I guess you don't want to announce next to your shiny new synth that it needs to install a package from Microsoft in order to run..

I finally got the Waldorf Edition LE to run by installing all of 2005, 2008 and 2010 Visual C++ runtimes packages from Microsoft, for some reason it seemed all needed them. If you can't install them directly, try to install them in a sandbox like for example Sandboxie and then pick out the relevant (or all) dll's you need from the sandbox install folder and put in the relevant system folder(s).

Unfortunately these runtimes are quite fickle as I never got my Lincomp to work, and that's on a bona fide Windows (XP) installation, so not surprised if it won't in a Mac/Windows setup for this synth.

Maybe the time has really come to set up a test team to check new synth before competition start, but with so many different environments it would be hard to catch all the issues though..

[oxebe]

Thanks a lot for the tip, V'ger!
I checked add/remove applications in control panel and saw that I have C++ 2010 runtime installed recently, as well as 2005 and 2008 runtimes. Were 2005&2008 installed with 2010 or were they here before I don't know?

For winxp I found installed C++ runtime dll files in: C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86... (actually msvcp60, ...80 and ...90). I copied them all to mausynth vst location, and I saw mausynth in my DAW! LOL And I can hear its sound... very nice So, will try to cook something for this OSC after coming back from holidays!

[Rob West]

A couple of nice things about the envelopes, in case anyones interested.


MauSynths envelopes are different from most softsynths in that a change of the Sustain is not instant, but directly tied to the timing of the Decay. To see what this means, and how it can be applied in practice, try the following experiment:

- Set all Modulation knobs to 0

- Disable Osc2/Noise/Delay and defeat the filter

- Set Osc1 to output Saw or Square

- Set the AmpEnv to A-0 / D-0 / S-10 / R-0 so you have a gate effect

- Set the ModEnv/Osc1Freq modulation knob to full

- Set all knobs of the ModEnv to 0, then hold CTRL and click the Decay knob

(Holding CTRL and clicking an object sets it to precisely 50%.)

Now press a key and hold it. You will get a nice smooth downward frequency sweep. Keep holding the key and move the Sustain knob rapidly from 0 to 10. You will notice that the frequency doesnt change suddenly and hard, but that it actually follows the Decay curve. Now try it with longer and shorter decay times and check the effect. Automate the Sustain knob to make use of this in the project.


Another nice thing is that you can also create 'upward decays'.

To check this out, start as outlined above. After you centered the Decay knob, set the Sustain knob past 2-o'clock. (3-o'clock will be fine.) You will notice that the frequency now no longer sweeps downwards, but upwards instead.

This can be expanded upon to create a 'dual attack' effect, where the first part is generated with the actual Attack stage and the second part is generated with the Decay stage. To check this out, start as outlined above. Hold CTRL and click the Attack knob to center it. Set the Decay knob to ca. 10-o'clock. Set the Sustain knob to full and keep the Release knob at 0. Press a key and hold it. You will notice that the frequency will at first rise slowly, (the actual Attack stage), and then much faster as the Decay stage kicks in. Keep playing with Attack and Decay for different curve shapes.

Note: Of course this works with the Filter too, but for it to really have a good effect you should (must) keep the Cutoff knob close to 0 and the ModEnv/FilterCutoff modulation knob at or below 50%. Otherwise the Filter will be too wide open and the effect will be 'swallowed'.


Happy Experimenting.

Very interesting. Will try those out and fiddle a bit. Good work, and thanks for sharing!

[djpeterso23662]

I was perplexed by the failure of Mausynth to load in my Reaper or VSTHOST. I was trying to use 32-bit only Mausynth with 32-bit hosts and finally realized that my download from Microsoft defaulted to the 64-bit VS runtime. After I installed the 32-bit VS runtime as well, Reaper picked up the black Mausynth only, VSTHOST 32-bit still did not recognize Mausynth, and VSTHOST 64-bit loaded all three Mausynth versions (I renamed their folders rather than the DLL).

All said, I like Mausynth well enough to feel it was worth the effort.

[V'ger]

Hm, quite a conundrum with the different runtimes etc, but good to see some of you getting it sorted.

[bjporter]

Looks like MauSynth has nice unison especially when combined with a saw... might be doing something new this time guys... ahhhh unison.

[idfpower]

Spam detected - maintenance required Gosh...and we're just 2 entries in...