Cytomic "The Scream" stomp box distortion plugin

[jbraner]

Most of the current EHX Big Muffs use the bigger cap values, but the Green Russian reissue uses the smaller caps, and has a HUGE bassy sound.

I still prefer the (non bassy) tone of the "normal" ones

[skyshaver]

Hey, just had a go with "The Scream" into an Amplitube Mesa Mark III and it sounds fantastic. Makes the guitar as lively as it would be in the real world, very responsive to fingers, pick and rolling back the volume/tone knob. Seems to help the amp sim as well. Hard not to get lost in all the mod possibilities and actually concentrate on playing, thanks a bunch.

[andy-cytomic]

There's a new Beta of The Scream ready. Nothing much has changed, just fixed a small bug where the LED wasn't working on the GUI when the plugin ACTIVE switch was automated. I've also built against a slightly more compatible SDK on the Windows side, so anyone running Windows 7 will hopefully be happier now.

The Scream Beta v1.0.10 (12 Dec 2017)
https://cytomic.com/scream

• Fixed: Active LED now displays correctly when host automation is used
• Fixed: (Win only) built against v140_xp SDK on for Windows 7 support

PS: R&D on the efficient mode is pretty much complete, I've got some great results for a very efficient solver that still includes both buffers, the main clipping diodes and op-amp clipping. It's looking good for a final release Q1 2018!

[flurp]

Hi

I bought The Scream and it's really awesome
but i've put around 30 instances of it and it's killing my CPU... and it seems like it's running even though there's no audio on the track. Does it generate some kind of low noise ? Is it possible to bypass the plugin when there's no audio to save some CPU ?

i've set it to 1X stream already (8X on bounce)

Thanks

[HcDoom]

Hi

I bought The Scream and it's really awesome
but i've put around 30 instances of it and it's killing my CPU... and it seems like it's running even though there's no audio on the track. Does it generate some kind of low noise ? Is it possible to bypass the plugin when there's no audio to save some CPU ?

i've set it to 1X stream already (8X on bounce)

Thanks

Why 30 instances?

[flurp]

because rock n roll
seriously, this ain't much to me

[Robert Randolph]

because rock n roll
seriously, this ain't much to me

Just 2 weeks ago I worked on a rock track with over 70 tracks of guitar (40 of them were DI)... and it only required 5 instances of The Scream.

I somehow wonder if your project organization/routing could be improved.

[electro]

Will all the presets be in the next release?

[Echoes in the Attic]

I had a big muff in high school (a green one) and one thing I always thought was cool but never understood was that while the tone knob operated predictably for most of the range, when you put it all the way down, it had some different effect, like it wasn't at maximum darkness, it had some kind of boost happening as well that made the sound ultra fat. I'd usually use it with the tone either around mid way or all the way down. What was this?

If you're asking me for input I have no idea! I've not modelled a Big Muff Pi yet, could be something to do with that circuit type, or something odd with your particular unit.

http://www.kitrae.net/music/big_muff_guts.html

Check out the caps called the "CLIPPING/BLOCKING CAP" in the diagram. These are in series with the back-to-back diodes, that are in the collector to base feedback loops of the transistor clipping stages. These caps control the frequencies at which the negative feedback occurs. Smaller caps raise the minimum frequency at which clipping occurs. Below this frequency, the signals are passed unclipped, which will sound like a boost of the low frequencies.

The triangle Big Muffs, and the earlier Sovtek Big Muffs (Civil War, Green Russian) used fairly small caps here. This is why they sound so bassy - some of the low frequencies aren't being clipped, and are passing through at relatively high gains. The Big Muffs from the mid and late 1970s used much bigger caps for the clipping/blocking caps, which meant that pretty much all frequencies were clipped. Most of the current EHX Big Muffs use the bigger cap values, but the Green Russian reissue uses the smaller caps, and has a HUGE bassy sound.

Sean Costello

Thanks for the input! I understand the basic operation of the Biff Muff circuit, the question was specifically to do with the Tone knob doing something different when at it's lowest position - something would jump and the pedal would not sound the same "dull" way it did just before the lowest position is what I am understanding from the question. Can you please shed some light on this odd Tone knob behaviour?

PS: great point about the dc blocking caps allowing for a bass boost, I hadn't analysed the circuit enough to pick up on that. There is a wealth of mods in this area to alter the tone, for example it would be nice to add a shelving filter here to limit the total gain of the bass boost

Just to be clear, it was a while ago so I don't remember if the bass boost happened quite suddenly or not, but I thought it happened pretty suddenly towards the bottom of the tone range. But what Sean is saying sounds like it makes sense compared to what I remember. I just recall that it wasn't simply dulling the sound as the tone was lowered on the left side of the dial, it did actually seems to make it beefier. And I remember that often I'd play with it all the way to the left for rhythm guitar, because that's where it had the biggest sound.

[andy-cytomic]

Just to be clear, it was a while ago so I don't remember if the bass boost happened quite suddenly or not, but I thought it happened pretty suddenly towards the bottom of the tone range. But what Sean is saying sounds like it makes sense compared to what I remember. I just recall that it wasn't simply dulling the sound as the tone was lowered on the left side of the dial, it did actually seems to make it beefier. And I remember that often I'd play with it all the way to the left for rhythm guitar, because that's where it had the biggest sound.

The thing Sean is talking about doesn't change when turning any knobs, it's a fixed capacitor value in the negative feedback of the transistor gain stage. I thought you were talking about something that changes due to the moving the tone knob, is that right?

[andy-cytomic]

Will all the presets be in the next release?

There won't be any presets until near the final release, which is hopefully by the end of Q1 2018.

[andy-cytomic]

Hi

I bought The Scream and it's really awesome
but i've put around 30 instances of it and it's killing my CPU... and it seems like it's running even though there's no audio on the track. Does it generate some kind of low noise ? Is it possible to bypass the plugin when there's no audio to save some CPU ?

i've set it to 1X stream already (8X on bounce)

Thanks

The final version will detect silence at the input and output of the plugin and halt processing until there is something at the input. Till then I suggest automating the power/bypass button (not the square silver ACTIVE button), as this will do manually what will happen automatically. Also you may want to activate the Dynamic Latency setting the the settings.xml file to reduce latency when processing at x1 realtime, but some hosts can't handle this.

The final version will also have an MD mode which takes a fixed and much lower amount of CPU, and there will also be an "HD on render" option like there is in The Drop.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Just to be clear, it was a while ago so I don't remember if the bass boost happened quite suddenly or not, but I thought it happened pretty suddenly towards the bottom of the tone range. But what Sean is saying sounds like it makes sense compared to what I remember. I just recall that it wasn't simply dulling the sound as the tone was lowered on the left side of the dial, it did actually seems to make it beefier. And I remember that often I'd play with it all the way to the left for rhythm guitar, because that's where it had the biggest sound.

The thing Sean is talking about doesn't change when turning any knobs, it's a fixed capacitor value in the negative feedback of the transistor gain stage. I thought you were talking about something that changes due to the moving the tone knob, is that right?

Yeah from what I remember, the sound seemed to get really bassy and huge all the way to the left (tone all the way down). Maybe it actually had a bass boost when turned all the way left? I can't find any info to corroborate that online though.

[andy-cytomic]

Yeah from what I remember, the sound seemed to get really bassy and huge all the way to the left (tone all the way down). Maybe it actually had a bass boost when turned all the way left? I can't find any info to corroborate that online though.

Like I said originally I don't know what is going on unless I do a full circuit simulation as well as having your particular unit in front of me to measure. When I do a big muff emulation I'll let you know if my unit does the same thing, but it could be specific to your pedal (and those built around the same time).

[flurp]

The final version will detect silence at the input and output of the plugin and halt processing until there is something at the input. Till then I suggest automating the power/bypass button (not the square silver ACTIVE button), as this will do manually what will happen automatically. Also you may want to activate the Dynamic Latency setting the the settings.xml file to reduce latency when processing at x1 realtime, but some hosts can't handle this.

The final version will also have an MD mode which takes a fixed and much lower amount of CPU, and there will also be an "HD on render" option like there is in The Drop.

awesome, thanks for your answer !