Fathom Synth Development Thread

[FathomSynth]

Bibz1st, Thanks.

Brewt, Yes, you are correct, only one octave would need to be defined and the reset would be exactly the same by proportion.

It actually would be an easy feature to implement. The internals would be trivial since I could use the same table mechanism just with different values. The only part that would take any work would be adding such a page to the user interface.

I'll make sure this goes on the list.

[brewt]

Excellent. Looking forward to it.

[Tj Shredder]

Finally starting to play around with Fathom. I am kind of astonished how much heavy aliasing I get with an "alias free" oscillator. Also changing the pulse width of a rectangle creates an interesting wave form, but not what I would associate with a width modulated rectangle wave form... (I just started with the little tutorial in the new Beat magazine from Germany...)
And one important question regarding playability with my LinnStrument. I do get pitch bend without setting up any modulation, but the range for MPE compatible controllers is way too small. Is there a way to set that pitch bend range?

[Distorted Horizon]

Just saw that Fathom commercial. "find your ocean".. Cool

[FathomSynth]

DH, Thanks.

Tj, Currently there is no way to change the pitch bend range. In 2.7 it is set to a whole step. But I do plan to add that to the new settings page when I get time to implement it.

However, if you modulate the master pitch dial with an LFO bipolar and set the mod amount to zero that will block the pitch wheel from that dial, then you can modulate any of the oscillator pitch dials, for instance pitch note or even octave, with the pitch bend modulator and that will increase the range to anything you want.

If you are using version 2.7 you should not be getting any aliasing at all, zero.

Exceptions are if you are using FM or AM dials or modulating wave table parameters, or frequency pulse oscillator with high values on dials.

But normal oscillators should be clean. They use wave sample buffers of 16384 samples with bicubic spline interpolation between points at run time and real time adjustment of the number of partials as a function of note frequency and detune modulation.

Here's what you should be seeing for the spectrum. This is the wave draw oscillator playing a saw in Ableton. The first picture is 260 partials and the second is 400 partials. In the first, the signal level is -18 dB and the high frequency noise floor after the last partial is -168 dB which is a difference of 150 dB, which is less than one part in one million. It is designed to be the lowest alias synth on the market, If you are seeing something different then there could be a bug.

FathomSaw.png

FathomSaw400.png

[tonedef71]

Just curious.

What is happening with the notes C8 and above on Scrubbing Monkey's patch "Modern/Bell Chimes"?

Although it actually sounds really cool (sounds like some sort of frequency modulation might be happening), why does it only sound that way from C8 on up; usually a cool sounding feature would be represented for more of the musical range?

EDIT: I believe I hear interesting artifacts on other patches too, but it is especially noticeable (and rather impressive) on this patch.

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

Just curious.

What is happening with the notes C8 and above on Scrubbing Monkey's patch "Modern/Bell Chimes"?

Although it actually sounds really cool (sounds like some sort of frequency modulation might be happening), why does it only sound that way from C8 on up; usually a cool sounding feature would be represented for more of the musical range?

EDIT: I believe I hear interesting artifacts on other patches too, but it is especially noticeable (and rather impressive) on this patch.

Ya like that Uh?

Ancient Chinese technique I learned by walking backwards with only one shoe....

Just kidding.

I was wondering when some one would ask.

I believe it has to do with that patch and maybe the others too being based on FM. Whats happening is that as the pitch gets higher the modulator and carrier start to weave in and out of each other. This was the main reason for the DX 7 having break points. Mod- carrier relationships have limited range. What really should have been done is to use keytracking as break points to fade out one mod/carrier and fade in the next range.

In other words on Bell Chimes there should have been another oscillator starting at say C6 but set at a higher pitch or a different mod/carrier ratio in order to deal with those higher notes.

But glad you liked the consequence.

Sometimes at those high notes it even causes notes to be out of tune.

[tonedef71]

Just curious.

What is happening with the notes C8 and above on Scrubbing Monkey's patch "Modern/Bell Chimes"?

Although it actually sounds really cool (sounds like some sort of frequency modulation might be happening), why does it only sound that way from C8 on up; usually a cool sounding feature would be represented for more of the musical range?

EDIT: I believe I hear interesting artifacts on other patches too, but it is especially noticeable (and rather impressive) on this patch.

Ya like that Uh?

Ancient Chinese technique I learned by walking backwards with only one shoe....

Just kidding.

I was wondering when some one would ask.

I believe it has to do with that patch and maybe the others too being based on FM. Whats happening is that as the pitch gets higher the modulator and carrier start to weave in and out of each other. This was the main reason for the DX 7 having break points. Mod- carrier relationships have limited range. What really should have been done is to use keytracking as break points to fade out one mod/carrier and fade in the next range.

In other words on Bell Chimes there should have been another oscillator starting at say C6 but set at a higher pitch or a different mod/carrier ratio in order to deal with those higher notes.

But glad you liked the consequence.

Sometimes at those high notes it even causes notes to be out of tune.

Thank you for the explanation; it makes sense. I do like the sound of the interweaving on that patch. In the hands of a gifted music producer, it could be leveraged for interesting effect; somewhat akin to how chiptune composers used the quirks/flaws of the MOS Technology 6582 SID chip to create some interesting sounds.

[teilo]

For instance before the 1700's when Bach's Well Tempered Clavier was written to demonstrate the "new" western scale tuning, if you wanted to play in the key of F# instead of C you would have to retune your harpsichord.

This is a common misconception about Well Tempered Clavier. Actually, this was not written for Equal Temperament. We aren't sure exactly which temperament it was written for, but it wasn't Equal. There are some who believe it was a temperament that Bach himself invented. Some even go so far to say that he encoded his temperament in the art squiggles of the title page of the book. (I believe this is possible, because Bach liked to play games like that, and hide "easter eggs" in his works.) But in any case, every key in the temperament had a different character and the pieces in Well Tempered Clavier were each written to showcase the particular character of each key in this new temperament.

There were several different temperaments in Bach's time that could be described as "well tempered." It was actually a term of the art at the time.

The wikipedia article on this is actually quite good, and covers all the various opinions of the scholars on this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well-Tempered_Clavier

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

Just curious.

What is happening with the notes C8 and above on Scrubbing Monkey's patch "Modern/Bell Chimes"?

Although it actually sounds really cool (sounds like some sort of frequency modulation might be happening), why does it only sound that way from C8 on up; usually a cool sounding feature would be represented for more of the musical range?

EDIT: I believe I hear interesting artifacts on other patches too, but it is especially noticeable (and rather impressive) on this patch.

I played around last night with ball chimes. I added an oscillator to generate a similar timbre only on notes C6 and above. I was able to eliminate all of the 50s sci fi sounds on most notes. It still showed up on A9 though.

It led me to a few thoughts.

1) Keyscale the ratio across the entire keyboard
2) Draw a symetrical wave in Wave draw with a similar timbre and use it f or the high notes.
3) use a pure sine wave for those high notes.

Like you. I kinda like the bonus sci fi stuff in the high register.

Maybe some FM masters will chime in with some thoughts.

Fathom handles FM differently than most others I have used. I actually prefer it because its easier to get what I consider to be cool FM sounds.

[dnoiz]

Hi,

today i updated to Fathom Pro to v2.7.

unfortunatey it cannot be loaded to Studio One Pro 3.5.5. (And also not in Maschine) - on Windows 7 Ultimate x64.
No problems with v2.3 to v2.6.
After update v2.7 it disappears from the Instruments Browser in Studio One, when downgrading to v2.6 and clearing
the Plugin Blacklist v2.6 is there again.

Is this a known issue ?

thank you
Daniel

[wagtunes]

Question:

Is 2.7 the latest version? How can I tell which version I have installed?

[dnoiz]

Hi,

yes 2.7 is the last version.
You can see the version when scrolling over the FATHOM logo of the Instrument.

[tonedef71]

How can I tell which version I have installed?

I believe you can hover the mouse pointer over the Fathom logo in the upper left corner of the UI to see the version number.

I have a similar question of my own. Both the free mono and full poly versions of the plugin are installed on my machine. Is there a way from within the UI to determine which version, free mono or full poly, of Fathom that I have instantiated at the moment?

[wagtunes]

Hi,

yes 2.7 is the last version.
You can see the version when scrolling over the FATHOM logo of the Instrument.

Thanks. Where is the download link for the latest version?