Cytomic "The Drop" Resonant Filter

[AgiKvr]

Just bought it...hihihihihi
Thanx for 30% off Andy

[xiphiuz]

Yep, and you can also track the cutoff frequency with midi note in addition to triggering the envelopes.

Yep, great. Even velocity is mapped to cutoff startingpoint if I am not mistaking. Its just an epic plugin!

[AgiKvr]

ooopsss!!!
No offline activation?
When is it planned???
my pc is not web connected

[aMUSEd]

Trying to learn the params for the modulation knobs is confusing the hell out of NI Kore 2 - it seems to just learn the param the knob is modulating, not the knob itself.

You can only learn the destination of the knobs because of limitations of plugin specifications like AU/VST. I actually have all the screen knobs as "macro" knobs, and exposed those to hosts and set the flag "not automatable" but that didn't help, you would get double automation and a complete mess that way so I had to remove them completely.

I am trying to find a workaround for this, but it will require adding extra functionality to all plugin standards as it seems a really useful but glaring omission from all of them.

So how does it work with Zebra's modulation knobs then? Or Massive's macros? It is possible to automate them without it also automating the knobs they modulate.

[andy-cytomic]

Trying to learn the params for the modulation knobs is confusing the hell out of NI Kore 2 - it seems to just learn the param the knob is modulating, not the knob itself.

You can only learn the destination of the knobs because of limitations of plugin specifications like AU/VST. I actually have all the screen knobs as "macro" knobs, and exposed those to hosts and set the flag "not automatable" but that didn't help, you would get double automation and a complete mess that way so I had to remove them completely.

I am trying to find a workaround for this, but it will require adding extra functionality to all plugin standards as it seems a really useful but glaring omission from all of them.

So how does it work with Zebra's modulation knobs then? Or Massive's macros? It is possible to automate them without it also automating the knobs they modulate.

The modulation / macro knobs in these two synths are fixed, they don't switch between what they are controlling, so they aren't the same thing at all.

Consider a drum machine like uTonic that has 8 "engines". You choose which is the current engine and then all the knobs map to control that single engine. If you change engine then all the on screen controls now map to a different engine. Now try recording automation, and you will find that it is the "target" of the knob that is automated, not the "macro" knob itself. Switch engine and you will no longer see the knob being automated. This is the situation you have in The Drop.

I could add fixed macro knobs to control a set of modulation depths at once, but that would complicate the gui somewhat. I would dearly love to be able to map out the knobs somehow so that control surfaces like Push can use The Drop properly, and I'm working with Ableton on this issue. Other plugin authors I think would also like a solution to this issue, for instance SonicCharge with uTonic, and any other plugin that has "banks" of controls that can change which target they are pointing to.

PS: I'll chat with the guys at NI as well to see if they have a workaround for this issue.

[andy-cytomic]

Yep, and you can also track the cutoff frequency with midi note in addition to triggering the envelopes.

Yep, great. Even velocity is mapped to cutoff startingpoint if I am not mistaking. Its just an epic plugin!

The envelopes are envelope followers so react differently to different input signal levels. If the input is a midi velocity trigger then you get velocity control of the how high the envelope reaches, which is kind of like controlling the envelope depth with velocity but smoother. If you don't want this then push the sensitivity up to full and no matter the velocity you get the same height the envelope reaches.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Could a workaround be to treat the knob/destination relationship as a bank type system? So you have 7 destinations: let's say if destination 1 is selected, the macro knob 1 parameter is mapped to a parameter called "macro1" behind the scenes. Then, when destination 2 is selected, macro knob 1 would map to automation parameter "macro8" behind the scenes.

If this is even feasible from a development perspective, it would mean existing presets would likely be broken, 7 times as many macro parameters, and it still might confuse users when they map knob 1 to LP Freq and suddenly it doesn't work when HP Freq is selected.

I didn't say it was a good workaround...

[andy-cytomic]

Could a workaround be to treat the knob/destination relationship as a bank type system? So you have 7 destinations: let's say if destination 1 is selected, the macro knob 1 parameter is mapped to a parameter called "macro1" behind the scenes. Then, when destination 2 is selected, macro knob 1 would map to automation parameter "macro8" behind the scenes.

If this is even feasible from a development perspective, it would mean existing presets would likely be broken, 7 times as many macro parameters, and it still might confuse users when they map knob 1 to LP Freq and suddenly it doesn't work when HP Freq is selected.

I didn't say it was a good workaround...

Actually it isn't a workaround at all.

I had each of the knobs as parameters exposed in the plugin as you are suggesting, but this doesn't work. There is no way for me to tell the host to ignore recording automation for those knobs. I tried in various hosts, and all the time it failed. Double automation would be recorded, and if you then switched destination the macro knob would now point to a new destination and all automation playing back for the macro knob would control that new destination, and the duplicate automation would also continue controlling the original destination. So you would have to continually and manually delete the macro knob automation all the time otherwise odd things would happen. It is much better to only have the final destinations exposed which is what I have done.

[andy-cytomic]

ooopsss!!!
No offline activation?
When is it planned???
my pc is not web connected

I wanted to roll things out gradually. The online activation is working well, which is step one. Step two is implementing support for offline activation, which I expect should be ready in a couple of weeks, along with some bug fixes.

[ElevatedBeing]

Just had a small session with the drop, it's really amazing. I was surprised with the vast possibilities shown in the presets, especially the SFX section. Are there any plans for some kind of presets sharing? Maybe through a "company forum" here on KVR?

[AgiKvr]

ooopsss!!!
No offline activation?
When is it planned???
my pc is not web connected

I wanted to roll things out gradually. The online activation is working well, which is step one. Step two is implementing support for offline activation, which I expect should be ready in a couple of weeks, along with some bug fixes.

Ok, I will be patient...

[penguinfromdeep]

I noticed some kind of faint 'ringing' when the HP filter is enabled ... Like there was some kind of oscillator going on, it seems to be also affected by the env. This is even with resonance values way below self oscillation (actually it happens even when reso is at zero). I will make some audio clip soon to explain the problem.

[xiphiuz]

Yep, and you can also track the cutoff frequency with midi note in addition to triggering the envelopes.

Yep, great. Even velocity is mapped to cutoff startingpoint if I am not mistaking. Its just an epic plugin!

The envelopes are envelope followers so react differently to different input signal levels. If the input is a midi velocity trigger then you get velocity control of the how high the envelope reaches, which is kind of like controlling the envelope depth with velocity but smoother. If you don't want this then push the sensitivity up to full and no matter the velocity you get the same height the envelope reaches.

While enjoying some classical music in the car I had the same thought. Still amazing!

[btw]

I noticed some kind of faint 'ringing' when the HP filter is enabled ... Like there was some kind of oscillator going on, it seems to be also affected by the env. This is even with resonance values way below self oscillation (actually it happens even when reso is at zero). I will make some audio clip soon to explain the problem.

I am experiencing this as well, and it's not so faint under certain circumstances. Here's Diva's default preset with the cutoff on its filter rolled off a bit, into The Drop's default preset with HP filter activated, HP freq automated from 0 - 20 kHz over 8 bars. No compression, just normalized to 0dbfs.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iqps8af70jpz3 ... inging.mp3

[btw]

If you play a synth via midi (external instrument or vsti) you can put a version of the drop on top of it. If you activate midi within the drop and set the envelopes also to midi instead of audio in. you can retrigger the envelope via every midi-on message that you normally would use for triggering (only) the synth. This way its very handy to use the drop on f.e. a vsti that has great oscs but a weak filter and use the filter(s) of the drop instead.

Worth noting for any Logic users who might attempt this: in Logic, instrument plugins cannot pass MIDI through to effects plugins like The Drop. This is an annoying limitation of Logic (or is it the AU spec in general?), but you can achieve the same effect by routing your instrument track's output to a bus, setting the bus output to No Output, creating a second instrument track and selecting The Drop as the instrument plugin (from the MIDI-controlled Effects menu), and selecting your bus as the side chain input to The Drop. Set up a MIDI-triggered envelope in The Drop, arm both instrument tracks for MIDI recording, and enjoy.