Cytomic "The Scream" stomp box distortion plugin

[andy-cytomic]

Ok, two problems ( bitwig, x64, doze)

First, it's WAY too CPU intensive, and second, it crashed closing (sandboxed, not sure how to report)

EDIT: N/M, it doesn't have any characteristic that beats the PA "greenscream" so it's not relevant.

Oh well.......

In my testing I found the Plugin Alliance bx_greenscreamer sounded the least like an analog TS808 tube screamer of almost all products I tested. I found the best sounding one to be the free Mercuriall TSC, which is too low passed at the top end, but overall the closest in tone, apart from The Scream, to the analog units I've used. If you want low CPU and like the tone of the bx_greenscreamer then please use it. If you want something like sounds like an actual tube screamer pedal then I would use something else.

The Scream is the most accurate emulation, and super deep since you can modify every parameter of every component in the entire model to create amazing sounds. You can adjust the battery voltage and bias position to for all kinds of create effects, and switch between arbitrary sets of diodes, or even bypass them completely to get a TS9 TURBO sound. Nothing else comes even close to what The Scream offers in terms of tone and customisation, but it does take more CPU, there is always a tradeoff! To lower CPU you can disable oversampling, it takes around 6% CPU on my laptop without oversampling.

[aMUSEd]

Tied it - turned off all OS, cycled through Linear Phase to Minimum Phase... Cubase doesn't adjust the Latency

You have to turn off both the realtime and render oversampling to have no latency.

Why would you need to turn off the offline oversampling too - that has no bearing on realtime use surely?

Well can you please tell the Cubase guys that? For latency compensation to work I need to report the latency to the host. If oversampling is disabled for realtime there is zero latency, so I can easily report that to the host, but as soon as you try and do a render then I need to switch the latency to some non-zero amount, which crashes Cubase. So the only workaround is to report a constant latency if either realtime or render settings are not x1. Great huh?

Ah but I'm not using Cubase, so in other hosts would this not be a problem?

[andy-cytomic]

Ah but I'm not using Cubase, so in other hosts would this not be a problem?

I have the same code for each DAW, but given enough time and resources I could do specific testing with each DAW and add special case handling for DAWs that aren't broken, but this will take a while to pull off reliably. For now just set the realtime and render to x1

[Chandlerhimself]

Here are some quick guitar example I threw together.

https://soundcloud.com/chandlerhimself/the-scream-test

First is the unaffected sound then with with The Scream on. I didn't use any mods for this although the mods sound great.

1). No drive applied, just using the level to kick the amp into slight break up. (Common blues usage)
2). Slight rolled off tone and a lot of drive to try to get a smooth lead sound
3). Used as a slight boost and a way to cut the flubby low end(common metal use). Notice the tighter bass and note definition.
4). Used to boost a distorted amp for a lead tone. It cuts better and adds a lot of sustain. (Common rock usage)

I could have played with the setting more, but I thought I'd save that for a video. When is it going to be officially released? I'd like to do a video review. I should also mention it feels really good when playing it. Not too stiff or squishy.

I should note that I'm also having the windows crash problem though.

[morelia]

Here are some quick guitar example I threw together.

Thanks for posting. Two tones in there really appeal to me. Not sure what amp (4th and last sections) but sounds like it has a place for me.

[bmanic]

We already knew it'd be CPU intensive. That was the whole reason Andy started the topic to see if there are people willing to trade CPU for a "spot on" super flexible emulation.

But what is "flexible" about it?

Are you kidding? This sounds to me like you haven't really understood what's available with the plugin.

You can change pretty much everything in the plugin. Tons of ready made diode emulations.. and you can even "roll your own" if you go into the advanced mod page.

It's amazingly flexible.

[Liero]

This does indeed sound better than basically every other guitar pedal emulation I've tried, including the very new Kazrog stuff.

Unlike other pedals this one doesn't seem to go into mushy harshness at really high drive levels. The bias and voltage knobs alone make this a very flexible distortion unit...

Andy, how long many man-hours did development take? Any other pedals on the horizon? For pedal maniacs this is an appetizer, albeit an extremely tasty one.

[Klinke1]

1. Is it stereo?

2. Revalver: Did anyone of the tweak-heads here try to exchange: Diodes/Resistance/OpAmps/Tolerances?
There is a Screamer and Rat and more.. to tweak.
Did anyone mention/test that? (is it taboo in a Cytomic topic?)
..!?

--------------


i scream, u scream..
(I'd like danish soft-ice, please, or a russian Plombir...yay)

You have to turn off both the realtime and render oversampling to have no latency. The problem is that Cubase crashes ..

...Slimebergs..
Thanks for the info!
---------------
*Checks own liquidity:
it's a desert... reminds me a bit of down-under.
Btw.. what's the most common/successful tactic to evade drop-bears?
Umbrella, combat roll, play MTV-charts?
Stay Save..btw. (At least for the next 2-3 updates..cough )


Whatch Out..BEHIND You!.......(just kidding)

[meloco_go]

1. Is it stereo?

Yes it is.

2. Revalver: Did anyone of the tweak-heads here try to exchange: Diodes/Resistance/Opamps/Tolerances?
There is a Screamer and Rat and more.. to tweak.
Did anyone mention/test that? (is it taboo in a Cytomic topic?)
..!?

It would be interesting comparison to try these things back to back. I tried ReValver A LONG time ago and back then it was disappointing (like pretty much all amp modelling those days), I have no doubts they improved greatly since then.

[andy-cytomic]

This does indeed sound better than basically every other guitar pedal emulation I've tried, including the very new Kazrog stuff.

Thanks!

Unlike other pedals this one doesn't seem to go into mushy harshness at really high drive levels. The bias and voltage knobs alone make this a very flexible distortion unit...

Andy, how long many man-hours did development take? Any other pedals on the horizon? For pedal maniacs this is an appetizer, albeit an extremely tasty one.

I started work in the second week of Jan, that's around 16 weeks total, on top of 3 years of building a circuit solving / code generating framework that I first used in The Drop and have been honing ever since - it does lots of the grunt work and allows me to concentrate on the higher level models of each individual component. Doing another pedal based on similar circuit components to those in The Scream will be quicker, but every circuit has its own little quirks which make them sound cool, so it's hard to make accurate estimates.

[andy-cytomic]

1. Is it stereo?

2. Revalver: Did anyone of the tweak-heads here try to exchange: Diodes/Resistance/OpAmps/Tolerances?
There is a Screamer and Rat and more.. to tweak.
Did anyone mention/test that? (is it taboo in a Cytomic topic?)
..!?

Only subjects that are taboo are ones that are too off topic or boring, so please lets talk about re-valver and the options available with that software and how it compares to The Scream

[Robmobius]

Great sound! Bought!

[zvenx]

Andy, I mentioned it here and emailed you, not sure if you saw/got them.

1. Cubase on Mac it isn't being recognised.
2. Nuendo on PC it is, but crashes Nuendo when I quit Nuendo (which may be indeed the same exit issue you mentioned before)
3. Is post, pre, mix only changeable by double clicking and typing in new values? will there ever be a knob or slider one can use the mouse or mouse wheel to change?
thanks
rsp

[Compyfox]

Diode Count adds more diodes in series.

Just a technical Q - would diodes in parallel make any sense? And if so, what would that entail?

HOWEVER... my skills with electrical circuits aren't outstanding... so I try to find out where the positions of the caps are in "simplified mod" mode. I take it that "HP Cap" is C103 on the circuit, sucking out the frequencies for the OP amp (bass, to add "saturation"/distortion to the source signal). And the "LP Cap" is actually C106, influencing the Tone Pot's transition steepness. Others that are not as skilled might be wondering "wait, is this a Bandpass setup?! So that might be better to address in a manual (where is the manual anyway?)

HP_Cap = C103, LP_Cap = C105, I'll update those names to HP_Cap_C103 and LP_Cap_C105 to make life easier C106 adjusts the frequency of the tone boost / cut part of the circuit, when the TONE pot is at 50% then this part of the circuit is bypassed.

Ah... understood. So C105 (Low Pass) and C103 (High Pass) affects what the OP Amp is getting frequency wise, C160 adjusts the cutoff steepness of the tone dial.

I'm sure they do but I couldn't easily track down many SPICE LED models.

I have basically ZERO experience with SPICE. Tried it, gave up. Couldn't wrap my head around it.

In fact, I'm confused what the white arrows and black arrows stand for. Plus / Minus?

There is a bug on shutdown on windows that I'm tracking down - do you have any other issues on Windows if you don't try to close a song / remove the plugin from a track?

It crashes every time I unload the plugin in some form. But if I saved the project with SCREAM on it, it reloads fine. Aside from the demo limitations of course.

I did send you Crash Dumps last night. Maybe you can make sense of it.




Else - looking foward to the SD-1 mod (though I do prefer the DS-1 more - then again, probably way different circuit).

And I'd also love to know comparisons between REVALVER and THE SCREAM. IIRC, Revalver was among the first tools that offered "modding of amps" on a circuit diagram, which was then simplified (dare I say dumbed down) by tools like IKM Amplitube and POSITIVE GRID Bias (which took ages until that stuff was fixed).

[Lazylefteye]

Bought
S-Gear just got a new friend
To be honest I don't fully understand the whole MOD thing, but it so easy to switch things around and experiment, who cares if I don't understand the technical side of it. Getting some great sounds from subtle to
Looking forward to seeing how "The Scream" progresses.
Great work Andy