Fathom Synth Development Thread

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Fathom Synth

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Yes, this release can import and export wave tables in Serum Wave Table format.
Just to be clear though it does not actually include any serum wave tables themselves.
You have to get those from other sources.

However, now with Fathom you can create your own wave tables and save them for use in Serum or vice versa.

Yes, the password has changed so you must email me for the password update.

Please also be aware that if you simply forward your Pro receipt I can answer immediately, where as if you only include the upgrade receipt or no receipt at all then I have to look up your email in the database, which takes five minutes and means I have to drop what I'm doing to look it up. Just FYI.

I have to be out of the office today, but I will come back tonight and answer more of the password requests.

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How to save wave tables in Serum format might be a common question so I will answer it here.

This is all covered in the new section in the manual on Serum Wave Tables, but just to paraphrase.

To save a wave table in Serum format follow these steps.

First make sure that you have placed your Fathom folder in a location of your hard drive to which the Windows or Mac OS allows applications to write to. If you forget to do this, and for instance place the entire Fathom folder under your programs folder then nothing will work because Fathom can not access the disk.

Second, open the Fathom GUI and click the gear icon in the top left to open the settings page. Under processor settings check the radio button under "Save Serum Wave Tables".

Third, in Fathom, add the Wave Table Oscillator and make any edits you want to the default table waves, or you can load one of Fathom's wave tables from the Fathom/Waves/Wave Tables folder and edit them.

When you are ready to save the table, select the wave table oscillator Parameters page and hit File. The browser will open and you can then select the Fathom/Waves/User folder in the left side folder window.

Hit "Save Table" ("Save" will only save a single wave not the whole table).

After hitting "Save Table" you will see two new files appear in the right side file list.

"Wave Table X" is the Fathom format XML file containing the saved wave table, which includes both the raw sample data and the individual Bezier wave envelopes.

"Wave Table X Serum" is the Serum format WAV file which consists of a single wave sample where each cycle consists of an individual wave in the table. This file can then be loaded directly into Serum or any other synth which recognizes the Serum WAV format.

If you hit "Save Table" and nothing appears in the list on the right side that means you put your Fathom folder somewhere on your system which needs administrator rights to write to disk such as your Mac Library folder or your Windows Programs folder, which prevents Fathom from being able to save anything.

To load a Serum wave table into Fathom simply click and drag one of the Serum WAV files from your operating system browser directly into the Fathom GUI and drop it right on top of either the left or right side wave table oscillator graph on the Wave Table Parameters page. You can also select it in the browser and hit "Load Table".

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Just a quick question (sorry if it was already answered in a past) - are you planning to allow more complicated FM synthesis in the future?

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Yes, however the next release will be Intel AVX Parallel Processing.

So that is a higher priority currently.

FM will soon have Force Single Cycle, Tonal Quantized Steps, Phase Modulation, and some other features on my list which people requested over the last few years.

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Would you be able to set ratio independently for each modulator? And have you thought about doing feedback loop?

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You'll have to give me a little more information on each of those in terms of exactly how you would want them to work.

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A MassiveX update includes

"- ADDED Preset, wavetable, noisetable, harmonization menu pinning to keep menu open, double

click to select and close menu, pinned state is default"

That would be a nice Fathom option, or for any synth with
lots of sound options.
Cheers

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FathomSynth wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 8:46 pm You'll have to give me a little more information on each of those in terms of exactly how you would want them to work.

Basically what I would love to do is to use the same FM algorithms that are used in DX7. Maybe in the future someone would even make it possible to load dx7 banks into Fathom.
To achieve that some changes in FM algorithms in Fathom should be implemented:


1. In case from a screen (see attachment) I would like to modulate 2 oscillator by 1 oscillator with a ratio 0.5, modulate 4 oscillator with 2 oscillator with ratio 2, and modulate 4 oscillator with 3 oscillator with ratio 4. Right now changing ratio in any oscillator changes ratio in all oscillators.


2. About feedback loops:

https://www.reddit.com/r/FMsynthesis/co ... mentation/



Of course it's up to you whether you want to add this features in future releases for Fathom, I understand that feedback loop is quite tricky.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

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I think that might be worth taking a user survey about. I would be more interested in expanded FM implementations that differ from the Yamaha style.

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There is no limit to the number of serial and parallel oscillator connections in Fathom's FM.

I don't think any new features are needed to do what you are asking.

So I would first try just connecting the oscillators how you want and see if it works.

I have not tested this in a while but there's no reason it should not work.

The only think I'm not sure about is if the FM ratios can be different.

If that is not the case I will make a note to change it in the next release.

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FathomSynth wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2019 8:40 pm There is no limit to the number of serial and parallel oscillator connections in Fathom's FM.

I don't think any new features are needed to do what you are asking.

So I would first try just connecting the oscillators how you want and see if it works.
1. Ratio is the same for all oscillators.
2. Feedback loops are not possible in Fathom - of course it's a matter of discussion whether Yamaha algorithm is the best - I'm not expert in this area, I know there were some tries to do zero-delay feedback loops in fm synthesis, I don't whether someone made any satisfying results. In ideal world (and infinity time of developers) there would be some switch in feedback loop which algorithm should be used :D but I'm realist on this one.

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So you need different ratios for different oscillators in the FM network?

Also, I'm not sure what a feedback loop in FM would accomplish, is that allowed in Yamaha FM?

That would create an infinite loop in Fathom's internal algorithm for FM,
so I don't see anyway that could be implemented.

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FathomSynth wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2019 9:04 pm Also, I'm not sure what a feedback loop in FM would accomplish, is that allowed in Yamaha FM?
Its a crucial part in all 32 algos. In 30 of them the feedback is within a single oscillator, one is across 2 and another across 3 oscillators. It requires a delay of 1 block or minimum 1 sample to achieve it. Different block sizes will sound different of course.
The feedback was mainly used to create noise, as with it, it would tend to chaotic behavior on higher feedback amounts...
I just made some DX like examples in Bitwigs Grid which does allow feedback...

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1. Yes - different ratios would expand much more possibilites in FM synthesis.
2. Yup, every algorithm in DX7 is allowing feedback loop:
Image

From my understanding it's a little bit cheated not to go to crazy:
"Tomisawa’s anti-hunting filter. The latter is used in all PM synths by Yamaha to stop self-feedback going crazy: the input from feedback is actually the mean of the previous two samples, not just the most recent sample."

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I'm not adding feedback loops unless I understand what exactly it does.

Fathom's FM logic is very simple, it finds the output of all input oscillators and uses it as the FM modulator input to next oscillator's own FM carrier.

The concept of a feedback loop would be meaningless for standard FM because you would need to find an oscillator's own output before calculating it's own input which of course is physically impossible.

The feedback loop in your diagram is obviously being used to signify something other than actually routing oscillator output to it's own modulator input. Until I know what that is I can not implement it.

Is there something specific you are trying to do with the feedback loops or do you just want them in Fathom because Yamaha has them? If you are looking for frequency generated distortion the Fathom already has that on every oscillator on the Distortion page.

Fathom's oscillator distortion does not use waveform overdrive or amplitude distortion, it uses internal frequency distortion, so if you play with that page it might give you exactly what you want. You can use that page to generate both harmonic and random distortion.

One thing I could do is enable you to use the distorted output of an oscillator, or the noise output, as the FM modulator output to the next FM oscillator input, that could produce some very interesting results.

Also, different FM ratios for each oscillator can certainly be done, I'll do that next release.

Also, it is probably a good idea to remind everyone again that the very next release is the Intel AVX Parallel Processing release, so that takes priority over everything else currently until it is out the door for everyone to use.

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