Vember Audio Surge is now open-source

[Dandruff]

Ok, thanks!

[Hanz Meyzer]

What is "Surge++", just a WIP name or do you plan to release a extra version?

[Gone soft]

Wow, just installed the open source version. Thrilled that I can now load so many additional Wt files and straight from the meny and all! Some interesting expanded functionality the sine osc.

Reaper doesn't see the Vst2 and only finds the Vst2 of "old" Surge. I can however load the Vst23 of the latest open-source just fine. Is that quite as it should be? I thought we could have it both ways... (perhaps a reaper issue with two plugins having the same name or something) EDIT: I've doublechecked that it's installed to the right location.

Resizing seems to work flawlessly. So much to be happy about here.

The Vst3 has a slightly blurry interface compared to the old commercial version.

Will you ever consider bundling a PDF manual in the installer that can be opened from the menu? So mouch more convenient when offline etc. Or was there a well thought out reason for this change that I missed within the 67 pages here perhaps?

[Gone soft]

Oh, forgot to ask: just what excactly is the "Timbre" modulation source? I can't find it in the manual or by searching in this thread.

[AJYoung]

Oh, forgot to ask: just what excactly is the "Timbre" modulation source? I can't find it in the manual or by searching in this thread.

It has to do with Surge's MPE capability. Essentially, "Timbre" is MIDI CC#74, but it acts as a per-voice controller. It doesn't do anything though if Surge isn't in MPE mode.

[Gone soft]

Timbre" is MIDI CC#74, but it acts as a per-voice controller. It doesn't do anything though if Surge isn't in MPE mode.

Ah, no wonder it remained a mystery to me who hardly uses a MIDI controller at all for my mostly texture based experiments...

[baconpaul]

What is "Surge++", just a WIP name or do you plan to release a extra version?

https://github.com/surge-synthesizer/surge/issues/1117 Is a version of a longer post I put on our slack about 8 weeks ago. Plans have shifted a tiny bit since I wrote that but basically: a “surge2” and we didn’t like the name surge2. The constraints in the surge architecture which made me say “that would be great but we can’t because...” are the ones we’re fixing. And then we’ll go do those things. Input welcome. Probably best you join our slack if you want to spend time on it too!

[baconpaul]

Wow, just installed the open source version. Thrilled that I can now load so many additional Wt files and straight from the meny and all! Some interesting expanded functionality the sine osc.

Reaper doesn't see the Vst2 and only finds the Vst2 of "old" Surge. I can however load the Vst23 of the latest open-source just fine. Is that quite as it should be? I thought we could have it both ways... (perhaps a reaper issue with two plugins having the same name or something) EDIT: I've doublechecked that it's installed to the right location.

Resizing seems to work flawlessly. So much to be happy about here.

The Vst3 has a slightly blurry interface compared to the old commercial version.

Will you ever consider bundling a PDF manual in the installer that can be opened from the menu? So mouch more convenient when offline etc. Or was there a well thought out reason for this change that I missed within the 67 pages here perhaps?

Thanks! Glad you like it.

On reaper: you see the VST2 of surge 1.5 and the VST2 and 3 of surge 1.6.3? Not quite sure I understood your state. I use reaper as a test bed for the synth all the time on mac linux and in my windows vm, and reaper is one of my primary VST3 testbed DAWs, but the VST2 also did load for me when I last tried.

The blurry interface is probably because we don’t support HDPI on windows yet (we do on macOS) and so at some scalings you get non-integer effects which don’t quite unblur. I know about it but its sort of the price we pay for zooming / vector graphics to arbitrary zoom. I think the solution is to figure out how to support HDPI on Windows in VSTGUI. That’s in the back of my mind as something to do.

Finally on the manual: Some of the fine volunteers for surge keep the manual up to date as online markdown content. We actually make sure the manual gets updated with each release, and I’m glad you read it and like it! But since the edit cycle is different than the release cycle, and since most folks do have web access, we decided to make it linked rather than included.

It’s not impossible to include HTML or PDF static version of the manual with our builds - it is a slightly tricky change to our installer pipeline and then we need to figure out where to put the resulting document and so on. But the project is staffed by volunteers, and none of us have that work on our current pipeline. Happy to add volunteers to the project who would like to help though!

Hope that helps. Glad you enjoy the synth!

[baconpaul]

On the manual: I just updated it now, for instance, to include the TIMBRE information, so the PDF in an installer would now be stale. But understand the desire for internet isolated devices too.

[Gone soft]

Thanks! Glad you like it.

On reaper: you see the VST2 of surge 1.5 and the VST2 and 3 of surge 1.6.3? Not quite sure I understood your state. I use reaper as a test bed for the synth all the time on mac linux and in my windows vm, and reaper is one of my primary VST3 testbed DAWs, but the VST2 also did load for me when I last tried.

The blurry interface is probably because we don’t support HDPI on windows yet (we do on macOS) and so at some scalings you get non-integer effects which don’t quite unblur. I know about it but its sort of the price we pay for zooming / vector graphics to arbitrary zoom. I think the solution is to figure out how to support HDPI on Windows in VSTGUI. That’s in the back of my mind as something to do.

Finally on the manual: Some of the fine volunteers for surge keep the manual up to date as online markdown content. We actually make sure the manual gets updated with each release, and I’m glad you read it and like it! But since the edit cycle is different than the release cycle, and since most folks do have web access, we decided to make it linked rather than included.

It’s not impossible to include HTML or PDF static version of the manual with our builds - it is a slightly tricky change to our installer pipeline and then we need to figure out where to put the resulting document and so on. But the project is staffed by volunteers, and none of us have that work on our current pipeline. Happy to add volunteers to the project who would like to help though!

Hope that helps. Glad you enjoy the synth!

I only see Vst2 of the old commercial Surge, 1.5.2, in Reaper (Windows 10, 64.bit DAW and plugins). I see Vst3 of your fine open-source Surge so I'll just use that (was sceptical as there's generally been so much trouble for other devs with Vst3 buth this seems to run like clockwork).

Ah, I'll live with the slightly blurry interface. It only really bothers me when seeing it straight after or next to the old comercial version anyway, not excactky a major problem.

Yeah, I volunteer to help rescued cats so I absolutely know about not having enough volunteers to do everything people ask for. Unfortunately I've little to offer in the way of programming, I haven't even dared try to help with the organisations webpage for fear of klutzing up stuff...

So thrilled to see your continued dedication to this lovely synth, really an old favourite of mine that I've stuck with through the years since investing in the old commercial version in (checking archives) oh lord, 2012.... It still packs so much unique stuff, and I know it so well by now so it's fast to whip up a sound from scratch for me. Keep up the excellent work, such a labour of love!

[baconpaul]

So thrilled to see your continued dedication to this lovely synth, really an old favourite of mine that I've stuck with through the years since investing in the old commercial version in (checking archives) oh lord, 2012.... It still packs so much unique stuff, and I know it so well by now so it's fast to whip up a sound from scratch for me. Keep up the excellent work, such a labour of love!

I'll run the installer on windows and see what I see in Reaper. But most importantly: Thanks for the kind words! Appreciated. We should also be super thankful for Claes's original decision to open source it and see what happens as opposed to just leaving it un-upgraded. I wish more folks with great but near-abandoned software would consider doing that!

[Igro]

I see even Inigo Kennedy did some presets. Interesting.

[Iu Gob]

Thank you! Thank you for your great work on the updates of the awesome and wonderful Surge. Very good ,everyday better. I have a suggestion. I think it would be very interesting if each individual oscillator (3 Scene A + 3 Scene B) had Pan / balance control. Now it's only for each Scene (1 Scene A + 1 Scene B) . Thus the final stereo sound would be richer.
Thank you for your attention. Regards

[bjclulu]

Thank you! Thank you for your great work on the updates of the awesome and wonderful Surge. Very good ,everyday better. I have a suggestion. I think it would be very interesting if each individual oscillator (3 Scene A + 3 Scene B) had Pan / balance control. Now it's only for each Scene (1 Scene A + 1 Scene B) . Thus the final stereo sound would be richer.
Thank you for your attention. Regards

This is Awesome!

[overhishead]

question,

I just fired Surge up and clicked LFO1 twice, assigned that to a LPF cutoff in Filter1, adjusted the modulation range, and when i hold a long chord it sounds like it's not just a filter, but more, it sounds like it's arpeggiating the notes of the chord and I don't understand why but it's cool. normal synths just flatten everything with one filter at the end. does surge have a polyphonic filter?