One Synth Challenge #140: Pendulate (exponent1 wins!)

[DGillespie]

Great thanks! You can generate something kind of like white noise by turning sub 1 and 2 all the way down and turning chaos amount and chaos shape all the way up. Then fits with osc sync, interval and the note played to taste.

With this setup chaos amount will fade between the noise and a sine wave.

[IV!]

Many thanks to Doctor Bob, I've known about pizmidi for a long time, maybe it's time to give it a try!

TJ Shredder, I have Cakewalk recently, still digging into it!

Hey, am I the only one with a feeling that the random generator isn't exactly random?! I've been flipping through sounds for a long time and started noticing that I seem to be switching 15-20 ready-made patterns, maybe with minimal differences, but I see the same waveforms and wavefolder curves regularly and... I feel cheated! Maybe is there something wrong with me or my computer?

[L-EctroBit]

Hey everyone, I’m pleased as punch you guys selected Pendulate for an OSC. I’d be happy to offer a copy of Generate to the winner. How do I go about that?

Thank you for your generosity and for supporting this great contest. Any help you can give with the sound design and use of Pendulate will be greatly appreciated here.

[Leonard Bowman]

Every time I re-open the project, the pitch bend range on each instance resets to +/- 12 semitones, which is a bit of an issue because some of my workflow demands a range of +/- 2 and I don't have to manually reset the range every time I load the project.

I'm using Reaper 6 on windows 10. Luckily I can get around using the PitchWheel Control Center JS plug but that still costs me some resolution, which is pretty important to my purposes.

[Aro]

I like the base material this synth offers, and I'm really inspired, but I want so badly to work with paid for plugin effects to rough it up a bit. I can't even come close to the sound I have in my head using the reverb effect that comes with my DAW.

So, I'll definitely be playing around with this synth, but I'm not sure I'll be competing.

[doctorbob]

@aro you can use any of the free reverbs around ...

Various TAL ones, Oril River, Valhalla SuperMassive, EpicVerb, DragonFly Series of verbs, to name a few ... google is your friend.

dB

[ELEX]

Every time I re-open the project, the pitch bend range on each instance resets to +/- 12 semitones

Under 'settings' is a sneaky button called 'pitch bend lock'. It is on by default and does exactly what it says. Therein lies the problem.

[FrogsInPants]

Every time I re-open the project, the pitch bend range on each instance resets to +/- 12 semitones

Under 'settings' is a sneaky button called 'pitch bend lock'. It is on by default and does exactly what it says. Therein lies the problem.

Hmm, if "pitch bend lock" is resetting the bend range whenever the project is opened, it seems to me it's doing the opposite of what it says.

[excuse me please]

@Aro
https://vst4free.com/effects/Reverb/?page=1

[garliccorgi]

I want to immediately share a small demo that I made last month when TJ Shredder suggested Pendulate in the General OSC theme!)

This synthesizer looks and sounds like something developed in a secret military laboratory in an attempt to learn the technology of a crashed alien spaceship. However, scientists managed to combine retrieved from the spaceship sound modules with earth electronics, creating something like a synthesizer... And in this capacity, the synthesis of earth and alien technologies was able to imitate to some extent all existing methods of sound generation, be it frequency and phase modulation, physical modeling, virtual analog, etc.

Some scientists have hypothesized that the capabilities of extraterrestrial modules are much broader than our usual applications, so in the OSC community (a world-famous close-knit group of amateur and professional enthusiasts of sound, music and effects, capable of overclocking synthesizers over 400-500% of their stated potential and finding features in them that were often not known even to the developers of these virtual devices) under the guise of a monthly synthesizer was sent Pendulate - virtual synthesizer, which is the world's first stable hybrid of human and alien technologies, Version 1!

No additional instructions were given, and I can guess why - this might raise suspicions, especially given the already very distinctive synthesizer interface, replete with unique elements and frighteningly strange oscillation graphs. However, among researchers, all the same, very soon rumors began to spread with warnings and unspoken instructions, which was quite understandable - even among those who first saw the extraterrestrial modules and those who integrated them with earth equipment, no one knew exactly what function they performed on the alien spaceship...
https://soundcloud.com/user-5930296/pendulate-wip
This is the result of my initial research - a short track that does not go beyond infra-and ultrasound, and demonstrates some "typical" sounds for this... synth. All next week I will be on a business trip "not far" from the place where the "emergency landing" of the spaceship was detected, after which I will start writing a detailed audio report (a musical track) about the capabilities of the created hybrid technology and, possibly, about the primary purpose(s) of the alien sound modules. For the sake of convenience, I will continue to communicate on the forum in the same conversational style and with the same cover story, as I fully trust the OSC community in terms of privacy.

Good luck to all and... safe yourself!

lol the little wip song wound up being a good accompanyment to your little flavor text. felt like reading the opening text crawl to a nintendo game about a synth

[ELEX]

Hmm, if "pitch bend lock" is resetting the bend range whenever the project is opened, it seems to me it's doing the opposite of what it says.

I suppose upon loading the plugin initializes the lock button with the bend range at it's default value, before loading any preset, which then gets the locked default value. So I'd say the button does what it should do with, in this case, a rather inconvenient result . Of course it should lock to the value from the first loaded preset, that would obviously be much neater. For now, I'm just glad things are loading as expected, with the thing turned off.

[DGillespie]

Hey, reloading a session in the state it wasn’t saved in is never the intended behavior. If you’re having this problem can you email support at newfangled audio dot com?

Fair warning, I’m sick at the moment and my 2yo is home from school for the next two days, so I won’t be able to look at it until Wednesday, sorry.

Thanks,
Dan

[MorphedDreams]

wow, awesome synth, I hope I'll have time to participate in challenge.

[Tj Shredder]

Hey, reloading a session in the state it wasn’t saved in is never the intended behavior. If you’re having this problem can you email support at newfangled audio dot com?

Fair warning, I’m sick at the moment and my 2yo is home from school for the next two days, so I won’t be able to look at it until Wednesday, sorry.

Thanks,
Dan

I have the same Problem in Bitwig on OS X (10.14) with both versions of Pendulate (Vst2&3). The Bend range isn't remembered. But its worse than that. I thought I could just set the range in Bitwig to 12 instead of the MPE standard of 48, but there it does not do the bend according to the setting it stays where it is but cuts the higher range.
The same is true for Generate btw... same bug... (I won't win here anyway so got Generate and are happy to have paid for it...; - )
It only happens if MPE is checked! If I uncheck MPE it behaves as expected! Less of a problem with Pendulate, but Generate I want to play with MPE activated!
I would propose to set the MPE PB to 48, and the setting of the PB in the patch is limited to the global channel. Then I would never be forced to change it on browsing through presets while playing the sounds with my LinnStrument...

The pitch bend lock is actually doing what its intended to do. It will lock the pitch bend on program changes...

[Aro]

@ Doctor Bob and excuse me please

Thanks for the tips! I actually thought of using the Surge effect plugin, and got pretty close to the sound I was looking for.