Vember Audio Surge is now open-source

[The Nerdy Music Guy]

I'm glad people seem to be enjoying the update so far! People put an insane amount of work into it. Seems like it was worth it

Here are some more Surge sounds. A cinematic bass and a nice pad:

https://soundcloud.com/user-589036812-2 ... -1-x-surge
https://soundcloud.com/user-589036812-2 ... x-surgemp3

[crickey13]

Hopefully in a good way!

Of course.

I'm very thankful to the Surge Synth Team for continuing to develop this modern gem of a softsynth. Out of the complex digital softsynths, I believe Surge has one of the best GUIs to date, which makes programming new patches a breeze. I also love the way it sounds.

Surge has become one of my all-time favorites regardless of whether we're talking about paid options or not. I actually prefer it to some of my paid softies, it's just so cool and fun to program.

The inclusion of these new features, new filters, new effects, new skins, some GUI improvements... kind of make it one of the best synths of its kind.

Maybe it's not the most advanced softsynth out there, granted, but it's such a ridiculously efficient, reliable and solid workhorse and it doesn't tax my CPU too much. It's powerful enough to make some truly sweet patches without being an overkill. I think Surge is possibly the best possible balance between immediacy and flexibility.

I suppose I'm glad that Surge is still around and is receiving some killer updates. It's just such a fantastic plugin.

Anyway, sorry for the lengthy effusion and a big thank you for keeping this boon alive. We're so spoiled these days.

[uOpt]

Is anybody successfully using the new version on Harrison Mixbus on Mac?

I can only insert the 1.8.0 version by first creating a track with a different synth, then adding Surge, then turning off the other one. Removing the other one doesn't work. Directly creating a track with Surge as the Midi instrument creates a track with no synth.

Surge 1.7.x worked normally.

ETA: Works fine on Linux with 1.8.0 and Mixbus.

There seems to be a regression for the Mac.

I re-installed 1.7.1. The AU plugin shows the broken behavior above. The VST3 works fine. However, my 1.8.0 install only shows the AU plugin.

I tested the 1.8.0 install both with brew and by downloading the dmg, same behavior.

[baconpaul]

Is anybody successfully using the new version on Harrison Mixbus on Mac?

I can only insert the 1.8.0 version by first creating a track with a different synth, then adding Surge, then turning off the other one. Removing the other one doesn't work. Directly creating a track with Surge as the Midi instrument creates a track with no synth.

Surge 1.7.x worked normally.

ETA: Works fine on Linux with 1.8.0 and Mixbus.

There seems to be a regression for the Mac.

I re-installed 1.7.1. The AU plugin shows the broken behavior above. The VST3 works fine. However, my 1.8.0 install only shows the AU plugin.

I tested the 1.8.0 install both with brew and by downloading the dmg, same behavior.

Well I have now heard of a daw called Harrison mixbus the existence of which I was previously unaware!! I’ll download a demo this week and see what I can find. Any tips on setting up or how to repro considering I have never used the tool are welcome.

[oddy.o.lynx]

it was on "medium"
on "exact" it's a little bit better but still with latency..specially when I move fast

Noticing this too.

[uOpt]

Is anybody successfully using the new version on Harrison Mixbus on Mac?

I can only insert the 1.8.0 version by first creating a track with a different synth, then adding Surge, then turning off the other one. Removing the other one doesn't work. Directly creating a track with Surge as the Midi instrument creates a track with no synth.

Surge 1.7.x worked normally.

ETA: Works fine on Linux with 1.8.0 and Mixbus.

There seems to be a regression for the Mac.

I re-installed 1.7.1. The AU plugin shows the broken behavior above. The VST3 works fine. However, my 1.8.0 install only shows the AU plugin.

I tested the 1.8.0 install both with brew and by downloading the dmg, same behavior.

Well I have now heard of a daw called Harrison mixbus the existence of which I was previously unaware!! I’ll download a demo this week and see what I can find. Any tips on setting up or how to repro considering I have never used the tool are welcome.

Mixbus is very straightforward. After creating a new project you just click "+" for a new track, select MIDI track and on the bottom it displays the VSTs you have installed. I recommend that you first use a different VST that Surge 1.8 to see the correct behavior. Which is that the new channel strip shows three plugins at the top:
- the synth
- eq (always on mixbus strips)
- compressor (always on mixbus strips)

If you do this with Surge 1.7 AU or 1.8 then the synth is not actually inserted. The only way I can make those work is to create a strip with a different VST, then add Surge 1.8 as an additional plugin, then disable the other one and enable Surge.

Thanks so much!

[baconpaul]

OK cool

I just fixed couple of other irritants mentioned here (1: The lato warning happens every time not just once; 2: dropping onto window switches you to WT and 3: overpaint of the oscillator in the royal skin). I'll merge those today so the nightly should have them.

My guess is we do a super-tiny workflow and bug fix 1.8.1 mid next week with small fixes like this as well as some updated and expanded content we missed in the march to 1.8.0.

The mixbux and linux mouse one are on my list. I'm not entirely sure what the linux mouse problem is still and it works as I expect in my VM, but oddy and i are chatting to figure it out.

[baconpaul]

If you do this with Surge 1.7 AU or 1.8 then the synth is not actually inserted. The only way I can make those work is to create a strip with a different VST, then add Surge 1.8 as an additional plugin, then disable the other one and enable Surge.

Thanks so much!

The 18 VST3 works fine though right? That's what my testing shows?

Just want to be sure we are seeing the same thing

Looks like mixbus is some sort of ardour 6.2 variant. I'm not quite sure how to debug this but I can try a few things.

[Tj Shredder]

Well I have now heard of a daw called Harrison mixbus the existence of which I was previously unaware!! I’ll download a demo this week and see what I can find. Any tips on setting up or how to repro considering I have never used the tool are welcome.

Harrison Mixbus is based on the open source DAW Ardour...
Https://ardour.org

[uOpt]

If you do this with Surge 1.7 AU or 1.8 then the synth is not actually inserted. The only way I can make those work is to create a strip with a different VST, then add Surge 1.8 as an additional plugin, then disable the other one and enable Surge.

Thanks so much!

The 18 VST3 works fine though right? That's what my testing shows?

Just want to be sure we are seeing the same thing

Looks like mixbus is some sort of ardour 6.2 variant. I'm not quite sure how to debug this but I can try a few things.

I'm not being offered the VST version (on Mac) for Surge 1.8. 1.7.1 offers both AU and VST.

Are you saying that you get a choice with 1.8?

[baconpaul]

If you do this with Surge 1.7 AU or 1.8 then the synth is not actually inserted. The only way I can make those work is to create a strip with a different VST, then add Surge 1.8 as an additional plugin, then disable the other one and enable Surge.

Thanks so much!

The 18 VST3 works fine though right? That's what my testing shows?

Just want to be sure we are seeing the same thing

Looks like mixbus is some sort of ardour 6.2 variant. I'm not quite sure how to debug this but I can try a few things.

I'm not being offered the VST version (on Mac) for Surge 1.8. 1.7.1 offers both AU and VST.

Are you saying that you get a choice with 1.8?

I downloaded mixbus and the 1.8.0 VST3 opened just fine after a fresh scan yeah. That worked just fine.

The AU doesn't. But I can't even do the thing you mention where I can pull it onto a track.

It is really weird. I ran it in the debugger. The DAW calls my constructor but never calls my ::Initialize method so all my other methods return errors.

I am not confident I will be able to fix this problem.

[baconpaul]

Hmm yeah I read the ardour source and they are using an initialization path which is unfamiliar to me. I presume the surge AU doesn't work in Ardour either, almost definitely with the same problem. The code which doesn't call init is there, not calling init, plain to see. Hmm. Not sure why other plugins work or how robust our hand coded (currently) AU implementation is to less standard clients.

So lets try and figure out why the VST3 doesn't work for you? When you scan you just don't see it? Do you have reaper or something so you can see if another daw can load it for you?

[uOpt]

So lets try and figure out why the VST3 doesn't work for you? When you scan you just don't see it? Do you have reaper or something so you can see if another daw can load it for you?

Yes, Reaper sees both. It insists that the VST3 (but not the AU) is "2 -> 6 channels". I dunno where that is coming from.

I would normally not bother to report exotic DAW bugs, it's just that 1.7.1 works as expected. 1.8.0 also works if it isn't the first plugin is a mixbus channel strip.

Could you point me to the git location of the ::Initialize you want the DAW to call?

[uOpt]

So lets try and figure out why the VST3 doesn't work for you? When you scan you just don't see it? Do you have reaper or something so you can see if another daw can load it for you?

OK, I did a fresh install and another scan. Now I get both VST3 and AU. And the VST3 version works in Mixbus as expected. Who-hoo.

I messily mixed installs from your download and from brew. Could it be that one of the methods only installs the AU?

I have another fresh mac, I'll try it over there and report back. Thanks for your help.

[baconpaul]

So lets try and figure out why the VST3 doesn't work for you? When you scan you just don't see it? Do you have reaper or something so you can see if another daw can load it for you?

Yes, Reaper sees both. It insists that the VST3 (but not the AU) is "2 -> 6 channels". I dunno where that is coming from.

I would normally not bother to report exotic DAW bugs, it's just that 1.7.1 works as expected. 1.8.0 also works if it isn't the first plugin is a mixbus channel strip.

Could you point me to the git location of the ::Initialize you want the DAW to call?

The VST3 is 2->6 channels yes; it has optional separate outputs for each scene. The AU does not have this feature in 180.

The initialize method is in src/au/aulayer.cpp aulayer::Initialize in the surge codebase
The ardour startup path is libs/ardour/audio_unit.cc in the ardour codebase
You can see it is calling CA::Open but not Initialize before reset and stream format and if you trap it in a debugger you'll see the same
I tried Ardour 6.5 and the VST3 loads fine and the AU does not there.
I think we should probably go ask the Ardour devs honestly. But this doesn't look like a '1.8.1' fix.