Anacreon Synthesizer | Anacreon 2.5 Released

[biscuitdough]

Will the preset format be changed again with 2.5.4? I haven't been testing Anacreon much because it's been a couple rounds so far of presets getting deprecated and making the presets (for me) is kind of a pain. If I want to re-create a an old preset I need to have made a screenshot of it and even then it's still a bit fussy.

I'm hoping that the customizable layout will allow me to change the view enough for better separation. That would make things a bit easier. The three oscillators tightly packed with the same colours and having lines cris-crossing them makes it a bit of a challenge.

I'm not so good at wrangling synths.

Seconded. I really want to try this synth, but I haven't bothered yet because it seems like any version's patches could stop working in the next update.

[pough]

Having a preset updatimafier works for me. I have only made a few presets, so far, but if I'm going to make some more it's good to know they can cross over with me.

[Kott]

@Kott and @ahanysz and @all,

I've decided to work on the Linux version before 2.5.4 - wish me luck!

Luck and strong patience!

[Kitt Rainbolt]

@all do you want me to spend time on creating a patch updater for any previous versions, or just for going forward?

@Kott - as a daily linux user, I'm looking forward to being able to use my plugin on my preferred OS. Compared with Visual Studio for Windows, I'm really thinking it shouldn't be too bad. They broke everything they could with that IDE! Probably will end up using Python to write a build script to make my life easier / might struggle a little bit with graphics / loading resources into memory, etc.

[bmanic]

@Erich

I think only you can answer that. If the paid user base is really small, then I'd just move forward and perhaps make it so that users can download older versions for backwards compatibility.

Once you have a robust system enough then you can start implementing backwards compatibility in each version if at all possible.

[boomt]

Been playing around with the demo for this and am liking what you've done @Erich. It would be really nice if you could just type in the voltages for the oscillator gain instead of dragging or shift dragging to get it exact. I notice that the filters are not stereo and think it could be useful to link the cutoff points of 2 of the filters so they both both move at the same time, which would be useful for stereo.

Still assessing whether to get this, and am really liking it so far.

[pough]

@all do you want me to spend time on creating a patch updater for any previous versions, or just for going forward?

I've really just got two presets from 2.5.2.3 that I would like to keep using, so going forward works for me. And maybe some guidelines on moving from percentage to V (lfo and env) and knob tilt to V (osc) would be nice.

[Kitt Rainbolt]

@pough Voltage guidlines:
+-1V =Doubling/Halving Frequency= +-1Octave //for frequency controls
+-1V=Doubling/Halving of amplitude=+-6dB //for amplitude controls

@boomt:
Typing in values is going to be supported in the future, definitely by 2.5.4, the next major release, maybe sooner.

@bmanic:
There are currently 10 users - I think I might be able to put all the previous versions in a big zip file and offer them for download? No reason not to, I suppose! Good thought, will implement.

[edit] @bmanic backward compatibility is annoying because of the following issue: the DAW knows about the parameter count of your VST / is keeping track of all those parameters for automation / in project save files, etc. There's no way to tell the DAW "this is the same plugin, but not really - you need to remap these controls to these other controls."

The best thing I can do is make it so that those controls stay in exactly the same place in the list of controls and tack all changes onto the end. The problem with that is that there are certain aspects of the synth that don't play well with that paradigm, namely the patch cables. Right now, each potential connection is stored as a specific control. When you connect oscillator A left out to filter A in, you're actually flipping the "oscA L->fltA In" switch to "on"

As you can imagine, that results in thousands of parameters, which normally isn't a problem because you can "hide" them from being automated, but the DAW is aware of their existence, which means that all those thousands of parameters need to stay in the same place.

I think I have an algorithm that can sort the parameters by what version they first appeared in, which would potentially fix the problem, just have to get it working in such a way that it doesn't cause new problems!

In the meantime, the only real way to deal with this is to give access to old versions like you said.

[Kitt Rainbolt]

@boomt:
I forgot to mention - you can tie any modulate-able knobs together by doing this: (the knob at the bottom controls them now)
[edit] you can even connect an envelope or LFO to the mod input on that bottom knob to modulate both filters simultaneously in a nice, tied-together way.

Anacreon Filter Gang.png

[pough]

@pough Voltage guidlines:
+-1V =Doubling/Halving Frequency= +-1Octave //for frequency controls
+-1V=Doubling/Halving of amplitude=+-6dB //for amplitude controls

Um... So, if for example I had lfoB set to 10% gain that would be... 10% of 1V? 10% of 6V? They now go up to 10V, so 10% of 10V?

And the osc gain knobs went +-6V? +-10V? Turned halfway up to the right would have been... 3V? 5V?

Or were the percentages percentages of 6dB? Do I need to do two maths for each one, converting percentage into dB and then work out what V to get me that amount of dB?

[boomt]

@boomt:
I forgot to mention - you can tie any modulate-able knobs together by doing this: (the knob at the bottom controls them now)

Thanks for this! I've decided to take the plunge and purchased a copy of Anacreon.

[boomt]

@Erich After a while the UI can get a little busy with all the cables and they tend to blend in with the background yellow colour, I'm guessing this will be alleviated with the GUI update you are working on?

[Kitt Rainbolt]

@pough - there wasn't actually any standard to the percentages before, that's the crazy thing about it... I'm pretty sure an octave tended to be something like 6 point something percent - I'll try and figure it out today and get back with you. I should be able to get it where you take percentage times some number less than one but greater than zero to get volts.

@boomt - Awesome! welcome aboard - 2.5.4 will ship with a more toned down GUI that has color coding. Additionally, 2.5.4 will read from an XML / HTML - like config file where users can lay out their own GUI complete with color choices, your own animations for knobs, lots of other tweaks, etc.

[pough]

@pough - there wasn't actually any standard to the percentages before, that's the crazy thing about it... I'm pretty sure an octave tended to be something like 6 point something percent - I'll try and figure it out today and get back with you. I should be able to get it where you take percentage times some number less than one but greater than zero to get volts.

That would be great, thanks! Even if it's just close it would be helpful.

[Kitt Rainbolt]

@pough 16.25% is roughly equal to 1V for pitch / frequency inputs, but there is no consistent rule that I can find for gain inputs because amplitude is being handled exponentially vs linearly now...

Multiply percentage by 0.06154 to convert to volts for patch destinations that go to frequency inputs.