Unfiltered Audio Sandman Pro: Available Now

[ericzang]

checked again with flute to find a specific circumstance when clicks appear. Worked well, clicks only when modulating slept start position past end position. I don't recall specifically what circumstance gave me the clicks during the early try out of the plug (user error?).

[Sampleconstruct]

I probably should have specified my clicking complaint and mentioned that these occur when modulating start/end position. But as this is one of the main features of any buffer freezer, clicks shouldn't occur imho. GRM Tools Freeze plugin is a perfect example for a click-free buffer freezer.

[cron]

Some thoughts on the clicking issue...

I can reproduce it reliably with a little help from Dent. I put a square wave modulator at max amplitude on Dent's bias control (with DC blocking disengaged) to make a waveform that jumped between +1 and -1. Fed this into Sandman Pro and froze the buffer. Set the start point to a + 1 section and the end point to a -1 section. Bingo! Modulate either with smoothing engaged and you get a click where it wraps from end to start (or vice versa). It doesn't matter where your start or end points are in the buffer, as long as the pointers are moving and there's a sudden 'jump' in the waveform where it wraps from end to start, you get clicks. It seems like the smoothing window doesn't 'recalibrate itself' properly when the loop points move. There's no click when the points aren't being modulated. I'm wondering if people are mostly getting this in conjunction with heavy sample rate modulation, as dropping down super low can create subsonic material that may as well be 'oscillating DC offset' (sorry I don't know the right terminology ).

There's some other odd behaviour with the smoothing window when you employ tiny looped sections too. There's a minimum size the smoothing window can be (determined by the sample rate control), and if you go below this size the smoothing window simply triggers again and again as fast as it can at a set rate, regardless of where you are in the loop. If the loop is shorter than this 'maximum smoothing rate', you get prominent amplitude modulation sidebands with S.Rate set high, and tremolo type effects when S.rate is set low. You can check out this effect by setting S.Rate to about 10% then feeding Sandman Pro some audio and freezing the buffer (so the audio is playing back at the correct speed). Modulate smallish sections (say, a single drum hit) with smoothing engaged, and there'll be a constant 3ish Hz tremolo over the whole thing, regardless of where you move the loop points. One can see how this exacerbates the issue above, as there's no smoothing where the buffer wraps round under these circumstances. The smoothing window is just retriggering as fast as it can at that set rate determined by the S. Rate control.

Hope this is helpful, and congratulations on releasing my new favourite delay.

[thelizard]

Some thoughts on the clicking issue...

I can reproduce it reliably with a little help from Dent. I put a square wave modulator at max amplitude on Dent's bias control (with DC blocking disengaged) to make a waveform that jumped between +1 and -1. Fed this into Sandman Pro and froze the buffer. Set the start point to a + 1 section and the end point to a -1 section. Bingo! Modulate either with smoothing engaged and it clicks like mad. It doesn't matter where your start or end points are in the buffer, as long as the pointers are moving and there's a sudden 'jump' in the waveform where it wraps from end to start, you get clicks. It seems like the smoothing window doesn't 'recalibrate itself' properly when the loop points move. I'm wondering if people are mostly getting this in conjunction with heavy sample rate modulation, as dropping down super low can create subsonic material that may as well be 'oscillating DC offset' (sorry I don't know the right terminology ).

There's some other odd behaviour with the smoothing window when you employ tiny looped sections too. There's a minimum size the smoothing window can be (determined by the sample rate control), and if you go below this size the smoothing window simply triggers again and again as fast as it can at a set rate, regardless of where you are in the loop. If the loop is shorter than this 'maximum smoothing rate', you get prominent amplitude modulation sidebands with S.Rate set high, and tremolo type effects when S.rate is set low. You can check out this effect by setting S.Rate to about 10% then feeding Sandman Pro some audio and freezing the buffer (so the audio is playing back at the correct speed). Modulate smallish sections (say, a single drum hit) with smoothing engaged, and there'll be a constant 3ish Hz tremolo over the whole thing, regardless of where you move the loop points.

Hope this is helpful, and congratulations on releasing my new favourite delay.

First, I'm so happy that someone used modulation + Bias to generate waveforms. I originally wrote Dent as a simple patch to process and generate CV, and it grew from there. It's only going to get more fun as we add more modules to it.

For the Smooth + tiny loop thing, I've intentionally kept that behavior since the original Sandman. I like that when I'm using Sandman as a weird wavetable oscillator, it gives two different waveform flavors. I figure that if a user is creating loops that are <20 ms in length (the loop size that triggers the oscillating smoothing window behavior), it would be a fun "feature" more than anything.

Sampleconstruct: Conveniently, I have a copy of GRM Freeze that I haven't used in a long while. I'll throw some test signals at it and see if I can tease out what they're doing. Thanks for the reminder!

[cron]

Ah, I was wondering if the tiny loop thing was deliberate! It can indeed create some very cool effects. I do wonder if it perhaps exacerbates the clicking issue though as there's no smoothing where the buffer actually wraps once you get down below that length. I can see why this would be difficult/impossible to fix though, as there's always going to be obvious amplitude modulation when you try to smooth loops below a certain length. One of those 'choose your trade off' things I guess. I personally quite like it switched off anyway at those sort of sizes for those ultra-pristine 'through the sample and out the back' Gantz Graf effects.

There does seem to be something up with the smoothing window getting 'confused' by changing loop lengths as per the first paragraph though. Fingers crossed that one's not to tricky to untangle.

[thelizard]

Sandman Pro 1.0.1 is now available, and is highly recommended for all users: https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... n_pro.html

This build fixes:
-Certain per-mode delay parameters were not modulating correctly.
-Decreasing the number of active taps was causing a massive CPU spike.

If you were experiencing GUI issues on Windows (Massive GUI-related CPU spikes, black screen, etc.) we'd like for you to try the following:
1) Run it once and then close the interface.
2) Open Windows Explorer.
3) Type (or copy-paste) %APPDATA%\UnfilteredAudio into the address bar. This should take you to the options and presets folder.
4) Locate SandmanPro.uao. Right Click, Open With, Notepad.
5) Find "EnableOpenGL". For it's "val", set it to "0".
6) Save and close the options file.
7) Sandman Pro will now render with software only.

Please let us know if this fixed anything for you. If you were not experiencing GUI bugs, ignore those steps.

[ericzang]

Great! I am no longer getting high CPU use due to GUI open in Reaper! This is with OpenGL = 1.

Minor issue, tooltips still only flash for a ms. vst2 and 3.

Thanks very much for your good work!

[thelizard]

Great! I am no longer getting high CPU use due to GUI open in Reaper! This is with OpenGL = 1.

Minor issue, tooltips still only flash for a ms. vst2 and 3.

Thanks very much for your good work!

Wait, so the GUI issue appears fixed even with OpenGL on? While unexpected, that might make sense. The Multitap bug was an issue caused by a denormal in our interpolator code. The interpolator is used in a few spots on the GUI, so that may have been it...

[ericzang]

Yes, just double checked, normal CPU use with:
<VALUE name="EnableOpenGL" val="1"/>

Also, Fault (expired demo) and Indent also no longer have the CPU GUI issue.

[thelizard]

Yes, just double checked, normal CPU use with:
<VALUE name="EnableOpenGL" val="1"/>

Also, Fault (expired demo) and Indent also no longer have the CPU GUI issue.

Those haven't been updated yet. Did you update REAPER recently?

[ericzang]

GUI CPU issue was tested with Reaper 5.26 & 5.27. Yes, Reaper recently updated Nov 7 to 5.28, so maybe that was it.

[cron]

Many thanks for the update thelizard. Diving into octave jumping modulation on the pitchshifters immediately here!

[xx JPRacer xx]

I still have the same CPU spike in all the plugins in Reaper 5.28 (and Bitwig) when the GUI is visible. BUT, disabling OpenGL in SandmanPro fixed the problem for me.

[Richard deHove]

Yes, fixed here as well. Just a hog now instead of unusable.

[thelizard]

Yes, fixed here as well. Just a hog now instead of unusable.

Can you let me know your basic system specs (OS, video card, DAW)?