Fathom Synth Development Thread

[SparkySpark]

zzz00m: what a great suggestion!

[Vortifex]

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[gentleclockdivider]

Sorry, fell a bit behind on the thread last couple days.

I'll read through everything in the last couple pages tomorrow and record all sampler feature requests.

Not sure why you said the oscillators sound thin. You can draw your own waveforms, if you don't like the way the waveforms sound just draw the one you want. Also there are 8 detune voices plus noise and distortion. Plus you can add as many oscillators as you want and detune them manually in addition to all the detune voices. I'm not sure how much fatter it could be? Is there a specific synth you are referring to for comparison which sounds "fatter"? Fathom's oscillators are alias free, maybe you are use to hearing more aliasing.

Thin as in 'bandlimited ' due to the limited number of partials , I know there is also an option to use 'play waveform RAW samples ' for the wavedraw osc. , but I wonder , are these wirtten into ram , where are they stored ?
Looking at a spectrum analyzer and playing lower octaves ( hand drawn saw wave ) , clearly shows the obvious gap ( where the highest partial ends ) 128 partials really ain't enough
The fm implementation is also verry weird , inserting 2 partial oscilators , where one is the modulator and the other is the carrier , however making changes to any of the fm parameters (ratio multiply ,divide, amopunt etc ) is also reflected in the other osc , iow they are both set to modulator and/or carrier ..very confusing and counter intuitive .
I am just using the freeware mono version , don't know if this is also the case with the commercial version

[jmg8]

Here I get up to 400 partials. That is in the full version. So maybe it is a limitation of the free version, not sure.

[Kwurqx]

Here I get up to 400 partials. That is in the full version. So maybe it is a limitation of the free version, not sure.

At the lower threshold of audiorate (20 Hz), those 400 partials will give you up to 400 * 20 Hz = 8000 Hz (8 kHz). Just one octave above that (e.g. the A at 44 Hz) you'd surpass 16 kHz with the highest partial(s).

That would seem enough to create detailed spectrums, even at (very) low notes.

Spanning over half a century by now, my ears are not those of a baby (or bat) anymore. For most adults the audio world ends at about 15 kHz (and dropping every year).



Maybe it's indeed the bandlimiting and the lack of artifacts (e.g. aliasing) you miss in the signal.

Fathomsynth can sound real clean. If so desired "dirt" can/must be intentionally introduced.

Or use the FM bits, since I understand that this specific part of Fathom still bypasses the FFT/iFFT that lies at the core of Fathomsynth and its bandlimiting.

Personally, I love Fathomsynth. Especially for it's deep control over the oscillators. And, that being said, over almost all functional blocks (like filters, envelopes, etc.). Not much unexpected happens, and most things I expect to happen, do happen.

The FREE MONO (!) is also one of the best tools to enter (or expand) your own wonderfull world of sounddesign without breaking your wallet before you decide to invest. Fathomsynth has already risen to the top in the FREE plugin world.

Since I'm spewing nothing praise already. Many praises to Fathomsynth and its developer(s). I bet Fathomsynth is on a race to the top, considering what you achieved allready and the rate of development.

Also: praise for the interactive approach in the development proces. Understanding the value of the wisdom of the crowd.

I allready did my little bit of contributing by buying this wonderful and promising machine. And by leaving positive comments and recommendations where relevant.

I hope that the evergrowing complexity of this magical machine will not be it's eventual downfall....

BTW...I'm not being payed to write all this positive stuff...it's just my honest personal opinion.

[FathomSynth]

Kwurqx, Hey, thanks so much for comments and also support of the project, and this of course also applies to so many of you who visit this thread regularly and contribute to the feature design and reporting problems.

gentleclockdivider, Hi, I'm really glad you posted your comment. Kwurqx has a good point which I overlooked, the oscillator partials using the "Partials" dial go up to 400. You're absolutely right 128 partials would for sure sound very thin, so first try upping the partials to 400 and see if that helps.

Also, on the oscillator Noise page there is a "Distortion" dial which has a magic algorithm for thickening the sound a little. Also on the oscillator Distortion page there is a Phase Pressure dial which will double the oscillator phase without detuning it and this will drastically beef up the thickness.

After 2.23 is out I will be doing some redesign work on the oscillators, and I will be increasing the oscillator partials to 500 or over, such that you can go from 20 Hertz to 15000 Hertz on one note. I think this is somewhere between 500 and 600 partials. Bumping the max partials in Fathom is a no-brainer since it is just an integer and has no impact on any algorithms or the code in a functional sense.

Also, it's not entirely fair that I pretended not to know what you are talking about since alias free oscillators do have a tendency to sound thin in general even with high partials. And I will be adding a new Analog emulation algorithm soon which will help immensely in this regard. I mentioned this a while back in this thread but it got buried. This algorithm emulates the subtle air pressure sound you get from Moog oscillators, and it is probably the missing element you are referring to. I'm guessing you probably own a hardware analog synth which is why you are hearing a difference that some people would not if they only use digital synths. Anyway, this problem will be solved shortly with the new algorithm, I just had not had a chance yet to get it in.

Also, in regard to previous comments about sampling other synths. I'm not against doing this, however it actually requires a host application. You can't insert a VST instrument into another VST instrument, since this is impossible. So the only way to do it would be to create a stand-alone host build of Fathom. It is possible to do this with the JUCE C++ framework. However, sorry to say that this will not be happening anytime soon, as there are much more important priorities, the Sampler, Arpeggiator, and above mentioned Analog algorithm being good examples.

Sorry if I missed any comments above, I'll be reading through the last few pages later today after testing 2.23.

[ENV1]

You can't insert a VST instrument into another VST instrument, since this is impossible.

Yes, its possible.

ImageLines DirectWave can do it and DiscoDSPs Highlife can do it too.

(I have the latter and it works great.)


EDIT: Plus there are other examples. Phrazor, besides the standalone, also comes in a VST and VSTi variant and being a host it can (obviously) host plugins. Same for FLStudio, energyXT, and various chainer plugins. So its definitely possible to host plugins within plugins, its been done numerous times.

(DirectWave and Highlife are the only two i know that support hosting specifically for the purpose of sampling the hosted instrument though.)

[Distorted Horizon]

Arpeggiator

By "arpeggiator" you mean "sequencer"

[gentleclockdivider]

Kwurqx, Hey, thanks so much for comments and also support of the project, and this of course also applies to so many of you who visit this thread regularly and contribute to the feature design and reporting problems.

gentleclockdivider, Hi, I'm really glad you posted your comment. Kwurqx has a good point which I overlooked, the oscillator partials using the "Partials" dial go up to 400. You're absolutely right 128 partials would for sure sound very thin, so first try upping the partials to 400 and see if that helps.

Also, on the oscillator Noise page there is a "Distortion" dial which has a magic algorithm for thickening the sound a little. Also on the oscillator Distortion page there is a Phase Pressure dial which will double the oscillator phase without detuning it and this will drastically beef up the thickness.

After 2.23 is out I will be doing some redesign work on the oscillators, and I will be increasing the oscillator partials to 500 or over, such that you can go from 20 Hertz to 15000 Hertz on one note. I think this is somewhere between 500 and 600 partials. Bumping the max partials in Fathom is a no-brainer since it is just an integer and has no impact on any algorithms or the code in a functional sense.

Also, it's not entirely fair that I pretended not to know what you are talking about since alias free oscillators do have a tendency to sound thin in general even with high partials. And I will be adding a new Analog emulation algorithm soon which will help immensely in this regard. I mentioned this a while back in this thread but it got buried. This algorithm emulates the subtle air pressure sound you get from Moog oscillators, and it is probably the missing element you are referring to. I'm guessing you probably own a hardware analog synth which is why you are hearing a difference that some people would not if they only use digital synths. Anyway, this problem will be solved shortly with the new algorithm, I just had not had a chance yet to get it in.

Also, in regard to previous comments about sampling other synths. I'm not against doing this, however it actually requires a host application. You can't insert a VST instrument into another VST instrument, since this is impossible. So the only way to do it would be to create a stand-alone host build of Fathom. It is possible to do this with the JUCE C++ framework. However, sorry to say that this will not be happening anytime soon, as there are much more important priorities, the Sampler, Arpeggiator, and above mentioned Analog algorithm being good examples.

Sorry if I missed any comments above, I'll be reading through the last few pages later today after testing 2.23.

The wavedraw mode only goes up to 128 partials ( fathom mono version )


and the partial oscilator , the editor only has 64 partials

So yes , it could well be that is this the cae only with the mono version
Is there an option to turn off the gui effects , spectro gram , key indiciators etc ..
And lastly , is it correct that the full version now currently sells for 20 dollar , is there a catch ?

[FathomSynth]

The wave draw expanded view partials dial goes up to 400 in FathomMono64.dll, I just tried it myself.

Which version are you running?

Go to the main page and click on the Fathom logo in the upper left corner and report here the version?

[Vortifex]

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[ZeePok]

Where is the Fractal Reverb announced in the thread title?

viewtopic.php?p=7218635#p7218635

[zzz00m]

Where is the Fractal Reverb announced in the thread title?

Coming soon in v2.23

[Vortifex]

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[FathomSynth]

Fractal Reverb demo tracks are still at the very top of this thread on page 1.

Fractal Reverb will be a new FX unit added to Fathom's existing collection of FX audio units, not a separate product.

2.23 will be coming out sometime this week.