Xhip Synthesizer v8.1 (alpha & RC)

[inkwarp]

that GUI is shocking.
you're pissing on your chips before you even start.
it's not personal, but you will not get many customers with your synth looking like that... seriously...

[Mutant]

that GUI is shocking.
you're pissing on your chips before you even start.
it's not personal, but you will not get many customers with your synth looking like that... seriously...

One of the best synth GUIs and one of the reasons it is my favorite VSTi.
What customers ? The plugin is free.
Seriously...

[yul]

Best GUI for me too Haven't checked the last rev but it's the only one I can right click and fine tune any parameter. It's just brilliant.

I am trying to figure out (again) how to obtain keyboard filter tracking over 100%. There used to be a routing (key x/+ cutoff or something) which would do this but I cannot make it work well.

Any suggestions please?

[felis]

Maybe?

Source - key,
Destination - Filter Frequency,
Mode - Multiply

[Halonmusic]

I think the gui is fine. It doesnt need to be fancy. Simple and clear layout, which Xhip has.

[aciddose]

I've always focused on functionality. For example I recently spoke to someone about "drum mode" and the lack of any ability to create custom keymaps. I'd like to eventually add layering and such but the GUI seemed to be most of the trouble (there is very little space in that tiny "control" section!)

I've realized though that a simple text-based list like a spreadsheet would actually do the job.

For example:
(key) (preset) (note) (parameter tweaks)
(C-4 60) (5) (C-4) (...)

That's actually not too bad of an idea and would fit in the control section. I may do that, but I don't plan to add it for 8.1 just yet.

I do have the effects saving dynamically with presets and banks now as you page through the presets. I haven't worked on Xhip for a couple weeks but it should be quick to finish up a new alpha version once I focus on it again. Mostly I need to test this and do some fine-tuning such as a button to bypass the effects sections.

[aciddose]

In the route section, is 'release' supposed to refer to release velocity?

Yes "release" is release velocity. I'll double check that. I remember testing it successfully along with polyphonic pressure but that doesn't mean bugs weren't introduced at some point.

Looks like I was testing it at some point and am currently passing zero rather than the actual release velocity value.

Code: Select all

	unsigned int note     = (data1 >> 8) & 0x7F;
	unsigned int velocity = (data1 >> 16) & 0x7F;
	note_off(note, 0);

Opps. So it's verified that it doesn't work correctly. I don't own any controllers with release velocity capability so this is something I'd never notice unless I checked it myself manually.

Thanks for letting me know! I'll have it working in the next alpha version.

[yul]

Hello Aciddose would you be so kind as to explain how to obtain 100+% filter tracking please?

Thanks!!

[felis]

.....
Looks like I was testing it at some point and am currently passing zero rather than the actual release velocity value.

Code: Select all

	unsigned int note     = (data1 >> 8) & 0x7F;
	unsigned int velocity = (data1 >> 16) & 0x7F;
	note_off(note, 0);

Opps. So it's verified that it doesn't work correctly. I don't own any controllers with release velocity capability so this is something I'd never notice unless I checked it myself manually.

Thanks for letting me know! I'll have it working in the next alpha version.

That would be fantastic.
That's always one of the first things I look for, and there have been several threads from others who use release velocity too.

I know nothing about coding, but can see that note_off looks like it's always assigned 0.

I just saw this thread a couple days ago, downloaded the synth, and that was the first thing I tried.
Other than that little glitch, I think Xhip is a very fine piece of work.
Thanks for making it, and for making it available for free.

[Mutant]

Hello Aciddose would you be so kind as to explain how to obtain 100+% filter tracking please?

Thanks!!

As felis wrote above, just with the additive mode.

[yul]

As felis wrote above, just with the additive mode.

Thanks Mutant but it doesn't seem to work so well.

I tried layering multiple additive key>+>tracking and it's sounds messed up. I tried bringing back to zero the actual tracking know just to be sure and it's still funky.

It looks like there is some rooting done at C3 or something and it's not going so well. Maybe I should be using key>+>cutoff instead? Not sure if this will work well with glide.

Could be this is just one place I shouldn't be bothering with here as I believe Aciddose said a long while back he did not intend this to work..

Thanks,

[DuX]

Stop pestering him about the LEDs. It's like saying "this hamburger is wrapped in a brown paper, please wrap it in white one". If you get my drift.

This synth of his sounds way better than a lot of subtractive VSTis I've ever heard, and quite up to par with a lot of commercial offerings. And it's given to you for free. Be considerate.

[inkwarp]

gui is important. end of. there's no need to have these garish colours and bits of the interface being crushed so it looks distorted.
i'm sure it sounds ok. there are inumerable additive synths.
also i don't use this myself because it's a pig in a poke.
it's just opinion for the developer to consider, no?

[aciddose]

Try not to even reply to the GUI comments, it's a waste of time. You'll give your fingers arthritis if you engage with all of them. It's very easy to complain pointlessly (without doing anything about it) about something so you'll never be short of complainers. If they were willing to invest a whole 60 seconds of effort they could have read where we already discussed future skinning capability.

Could be this is just one place I shouldn't be bothering with here as I believe Aciddose said a long while back he did not intend this to work..

We've gone over this. It works fine if you assign ADDITIVE parameter routing source "Key" to "Filter Frequency" or similar. This works because the value isn't limited until after all the modulation sources are mixed. You can assign ADDITIVE source "1.0" to "Filter Frequency" using positive or negative depth in order to offset the mid point.

In the future it will be possible to type depth: "40.0" or "sqrt(1/2)" to allow you to get exact values that are greater than -1 to +1 but that will only save you route rows, it's still possible to get up to 11x key tracking because there are 10 rows available.

[aciddose]

One thing you might find is an issue is parameter smoothing during voice stealing. When an inactive voice is activated the parameter routing values are applied directly, instantly to the parameters like volume. When an active voice is stolen the parameter is smoothed/filtered instead. This means a sudden change from velocity 0 to velocity 127 will not produce a click.

There should be a switch "smooth" as part of the route rows to entirely disable this since it is only needed for parameters which introduce a click. That said, cutoff frequency is a parameter which can click with the filter disabled

Internally the cutoff is actually limited to -400% to +400%. I could do the same for the KBT parameter which would allow you to use the parameter routing to add up to an additional 300% depth by sacrificing precision. That's fine I suppose since the precision needed is only really in fractions of 7 bit (128 notes) and it currently has 31 bit precision, so reducing it to 29 shouldn't be noticeable.

You can get far greater range and control of KBT by routing to the frequency value anyway though. The one difficulty is in computing the equation: KBT = (key + offset) * depth. This will be solved with the source: "expression evaluator" where you can simply type in the equation and use the output value directly. Since "Key" values only change on key press using the evaluator is not a bad solution. I'll need to actually implement that first though!

I have the evaluator working fine but the code to actually apply it to parameters via the "route" page isn't implemented yet.