Sandman - yet another cool new delay that doesn't cost $299

[justin3am]

The next plug-in is super cool. It's a pretty aggressive effect based on some ideas from the Buchla modular synthesizer.

If it's something like a 296e, I might die.

[justin3am]

I have been playing with Sandman non-stop. It is so much fun when mapped to a controller.
I'm a bit bummed that you can't mess with the loop points without freezing the buffer but that's not a big deal.
It would be nice if there was a mode where changing the delay time didn't cause pitch wobbles (I assume that this is because of interpolation). Currently when you adjust the delay time, Sandman sounds a lot like the Echophon, but I don't always want that effect. Does that make any sense?

Other than that, I have no complaints. This thing is going to get a lot of use!

[BDeep]

I'm a bit bummed that you can't mess with the loop points without freezing the buffer but that's not a big deal.

Yeah I was wondering this too, would it be physically impossible?

[jens]

When the buffer isn't frozen, then where does the loop come from?

I'm not quite sure what you guys envision here...

[Aiynzahev]

Making VST's based on modular modules is a good idea

[justin3am]

When the buffer isn't frozen, then where does the loop come from?

I'm not quite sure what you guys envision here...

With the Tyme Sefari and One Small Clue's Lugosi, you can use the loop points to select the part of the buffer to which you are recording and the loop points always affect the delay time. With Legosi in particular you can choose to play back only a small part of the recorded buffer (because you can set the range of the 'Recording loop' independent of the 'Playback loop') which results in some very cool effects.

[justin3am]

Sorry, lots of edits. My initial reply wasn't very clear.

[Juanjo]

With the Tyme Sefari and One Small Clue's Lugosi, you can use the loop points to select the part of the buffer to which you are recording and the loop points always affect the delay time. With Legosi in particular you can choose to play back only a small part of the recorded buffer (because you can set the range of the 'Recording loop' independent of the 'Playback loop') which results in some very cool effects.

But that's the point, no? Lugosi is a static, "frozen" 2-sec buffer, roughly equivalent to Sandman with "sleep" on except that Lugosi can re-record over parts of the buffer... if sleep is off, the loop isn't frozen and Sandman is just a continuous delay, there's no actual loop so start/end points don't apply.

[justin3am]

But that's the point, no? Lugosi is a static, "frozen" 2-sec buffer, roughly equivalent to Sandman with "sleep" on except that Lugosi can re-record over parts of the buffer... if sleep is off, the loop isn't frozen and Sandman is just a continuous delay, there's no actual loop so start/end points don't apply.

I don't think so. With Record and Play active, Lugosi will continuously write over buffer. If you deactivate Record, it's like activating Sleep in Sandman. At least that is how I understand it.

The same goes for the Tyme Sefari; when Loop, Record and Play are active, you can change the loops size even when you are recording to the buffer.

[justin3am]

One of the cool things I like about the way Lugosi and Tyme Sefari work is that you can record different signals to different parts of the buffer. Then you can disable Record and scan through the different recordings like a super lo-fi wavetable.

[thelizard]

The next plug-in is super cool. It's a pretty aggressive effect based on some ideas from the Buchla modular synthesizer.

If it's something like a 296e, I might die.

Nope.

285e + Deflector Shield + Sandman's variable sample rate. That's all I will say for now. It's... pretty gnarly.

[thelizard]

I have been playing with Sandman non-stop. It is so much fun when mapped to a controller.
I'm a bit bummed that you can't mess with the loop points without freezing the buffer but that's not a big deal.
It would be nice if there was a mode where changing the delay time didn't cause pitch wobbles (I assume that this is because of interpolation). Currently when you adjust the delay time, Sandman sounds a lot like the Echophon, but I don't always want that effect. Does that make any sense?

Other than that, I have no complaints. This thing is going to get a lot of use!

Sandman originally had a mode that was non-interpolating. All of the beta testers (and I, to an extent) hated it, because it leads to tons of clicks and pops. It's only really useful for an extremely specific usage scenario, which is material with spaced transients (i.e. drums without lots of decay), and intense, sudden modulation (like a square wave). I could potentially remove interpolation in Sleep mode, but it would require some research. I'll take a look at it.

For the loop points in non-sleep mode, the real question is what your intended behavior is...

For instance, let's say I have a delay of 1 second, and I move the end points to 50%. Which behavior do you expect?:
A) A 500 ms looping delay
B) A one-second delay that features 500 ms of material, then 500 ms of silence.
C) A one-second delay that features 500 ms of material stretched out 2x.
D) A one-second delay that features 500 ms of material looped twice.

Edit: Juanjo is right though. Sandman is a standard delay-line, which is an all-pass interpolating ring buffer. Loop mode is -inf dB input, with 100% feedback.

[justin3am]

285e + Deflector Shield + Sandman's variable sample rate. That's all I will say for now. It's... pretty gnarly.

Say no more. I can imagine.

Sandman originally had a mode that was non-interpolating. All of the beta testers (and I, to an extent) hated it, because it leads to tons of clicks and pops. It's only really useful for an extremely specific usage scenario, which is material with spaced transients (i.e. drums without lots of decay), and intense, sudden modulation (like a square wave). I could potentially remove interpolation in Sleep mode, but it would require some research. I'll take a look at it.

No need, I was just expressing my initial thoughts. I would say that Sandman is perfect as is.
I was just thinking about Subtex Lofi plus and thought it might be cool to have that kind of sound when changing the delay time (if you haven't tried it, when you increase the delay time, the output pretty much turned the signal into noise ).

For the loop points in non-sleep mode, the real question is what your intended behavior is...

For instance, let's say I have a delay of 1 second, and I move the end points to 50%. Which behavior do you expect?:
A) A 500 ms looping delay
B) A one-second delay that features 500 ms of material, then 500 ms of silence.
C) A one-second delay that features 500 ms of material stretched out 2x.
D) A one-second delay that features 500 ms of material looped twice.

Edit: Juanjo is right though. Sandman is a standard delay-line, which is an all-pass interpolating ring buffer. Loop mode is -inf dB input, with 100% feedback.

Understood. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. If you were to implement such feature I would expect either behavior 'A' (which I believe is what the Tyme Sefari does) or 'D' (which is what Lugosi does when the 'Record' loop is longer than the 'Play' loop).

That said, you shouldn't take my comments as criticism (or even as feature requests). As I said, I think Sandman hits it's target perfectly. My intention was just to start a conversation about the way Sandman works and why you made certain design decisions (though I'm not questioning those decisions). I'm not a programmer (well, kinda but not really) but it's fascinating to me to read about development methods and philosophies. Your plug-ins are their own things and I think it's cool that they are not direct clones of things that already exist.

[thelizard]

For the loop points in non-sleep mode, the real question is what your intended behavior is...

For instance, let's say I have a delay of 1 second, and I move the end points to 50%. Which behavior do you expect?:
A) A 500 ms looping delay
B) A one-second delay that features 500 ms of material, then 500 ms of silence.
C) A one-second delay that features 500 ms of material stretched out 2x.
D) A one-second delay that features 500 ms of material looped twice.

Edit: Juanjo is right though. Sandman is a standard delay-line, which is an all-pass interpolating ring buffer. Loop mode is -inf dB input, with 100% feedback.

Understood. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. If you were to implement such feature I would expect either behavior 'A' (which I believe is what the Tyme Sefari does) or 'D' (which is what Lugosi does when the 'Record' loop is longer than the 'Play' loop).

That said, you shouldn't take my comments as criticism (or even as feature requests). As I said, I think Sandman hits it's target perfectly. My intention was just to start a conversation about the way Sandman works and why you made certain design decisions (though I'm not questioning those decisions). I'm not a programmer (well, kinda but not really) but it's fascinating to me to read about development methods and philosophies. Your plug-ins are their own things and I think it's cool that they are not direct clones of things that already exist.

No criticism taken! I like to bounce ideas around and ask for opinions. Those were the only four options that immediately came to mind, so I wanted to see if there were other cool ideas worth pursuing. I looked at something like A while developing Sandman, but I didn't like the general feel of switching modes as much. D would be pretty cool, but is completely different than the general focus of Sandman. B and C both bring up a lot of issues involving defining which 50% of the audio gets treated. Those would pretty much need to forcefully sync with the host, instead of behaving like a normal delay.

[jens]

But that's the point, no? Lugosi is a static, "frozen" 2-sec buffer, roughly equivalent to Sandman with "sleep" on except that Lugosi can re-record over parts of the buffer... if sleep is off, the loop isn't frozen and Sandman is just a continuous delay, there's no actual loop so start/end points don't apply.

I don't think so. With Record and Play active, Lugosi will continuously write over buffer. If you deactivate Record, it's like activating Sleep in Sandman. At least that is how I understand it.

The same goes for the Tyme Sefari; when Loop, Record and Play are active, you can change the loops size even when you are recording to the buffer.

One of the cool things I like about the way Lugosi and Tyme Sefari work is that you can record different signals to different parts of the buffer. Then you can disable Record and scan through the different recordings like a super lo-fi wavetable.

I must admit this goes over my head right now - I guess I'll have to think about it for a moment...
probably I'll end up drawing a few sketches (sometimes it helps to visualize things).