Vember Audio Surge is now open-source

[baconpaul]

I'll give the nightly beta a go.

Here's the download link for convenience:

https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/nightly

Ha thanks yeah, Forgetting that is definitely a symptom of ‘Friday evening brain’- appreciated

Oh of course I should have said: patches and tracks saved with the beta won’t work the same in 1.8 since 1.8 is missing potential features (but at this point we are patch stable to 1.9 so will work in the release)

[melomood]

Still luvin this synth. Going beta this time

[baconpaul]

Cool
And if the beta - although it’s already had lots of testing - doesn’t work just reinstall 181 and you’ll be fine unless you saved a patch or session which uses one of the new beta feature of course

[melomood]

noted

[FapFilter]

no criticism, just to add another perspective as a noob on this synth who has only started tinkering just recently with this for a short time, so take it as some initial impressions:

i personally think Surge already has more than enough features as it is.
I was actually surprised how good it is.
But i think it's first and foremost the interface that could use some major overhaul in usability / bring it to todays standards for ease of use and clarity.
I'm not against new features, but at least as far as i'm concerned, it's the interface that actually needs to be worked on the most. At least don't completely neglect it in favor for “just“ more and more features.
I'm sure this means also the hardest work, but i'm a little concerned that just throwing in more and more features, while keeping the current GUI, could just create a bigger and bigger mess.

Maybe the GUI/workflow will grow on me, but as i've said in the beginning, these are my initial thoughts on this

[crickey13]

Adding new oscillator types will hardly clutter the interface, it's just another option in the osc submenu.

Not to sound like a fanboy, but while Surge GUI may be kind of busy, it's just a consequence of synth's complexity as well as its one-tab approach and I don't find it that hard to come to grips with. I honestly find it a lot easier to deal with than in case of many other synths.

Any considerable "overhauling" of the interface would probably result in a multi-tab mess, which would defeat the whole purpose and appeal of the project. The interface might benefit from some cosmetic improvements, but any "major overhaul" should be out of the question.

[melomood]

what he said

[FapFilter]

fair points,
as i've said, these are only my initial impressions - that of course might be flawed

[EvilDragon]

But i think it's first and foremost the interface that could use some major overhaul in usability / bring it to todays standards for ease of use and clarity.
I'm not against new features, but at least as far as i'm concerned, it's the interface that actually needs to be worked on the most. At least don't completely neglect it in favor for “just“ more and more features.
I'm sure this means also the hardest work, but i'm a little concerned that just throwing in more and more features, while keeping the current GUI, could just create a bigger and bigger mess.

Don't worry, we hear you! I also have some qualms with Surge's GUI, and a complete overhaul is planned for the release after the initial Surge XT release that is planned for this summer. You can check out what is roughly planned for that milestone.

However, we will not stray from the initial goals that Claes set back in Vember Audio times, which is - minimize the amount of tabbing and have as many things readily available right in front of you for quick workflow.

So, the plan is to enlarge the default 100% zoom level dimensions to a 16:9 format (roughly 1200x800), reorder various blocks for better signal flow representation, and also make room for more parameters in oscillator, filter and effect blocks (because we need more parameters there, and using JUCE for Surge XT and onward will allow us that in a rather simple manner).

Basically, there WILL be even more features coming, and there WILL be a GUI overhaul. But don't expect it to be super minimalistic, it will still have all the current blocks. Just laid out in a way more logical manner (what do the keytrack sliders have to do to the left of waveshaper block? Why is the scene highpass in the middle of the GUI? Why is keytrack root dangling also around the middle rather than in the filter section? Why aren't keytracks actually in the filter blocks? These are only some problems we have identified and already solved in the tentative GUI overhaul I'm supervising - but it's not solid for public yet.)

Any considerable "overhauling" of the interface would probably result in a multi-tab mess, which would defeat the whole purpose and appeal of the project.

That is exactly the opposite of what our overhaul will do, as mentioned above. We're keeping Vember Audio UX values, but just sorting things out in a way more logical manner. It should be an even greater joy to use, that's what we're striving for!

[FapFilter]

Wow that really sounds great!
Just wanted to raise my voice from a different perspective to at least state that an improved GUI should not be completely forgotten about
(just in case it did, as i've never been following it's development, but this sounds really nice! )

[EvilDragon]

We're aware of many things that could be improved or added to Surge, which is why our GitHub issue tracker has over 200 open issues And considering UI/UX is a pretty huge interest of mine, rest assured it is never going to be forgotten (well, at least for as long as I am around in Surge Synth Team, and I don't plan on leaving any time soon. Possibly ever...)

Feel free to browse that issue list through, it's one way of seeing what might be next in store for Surge, both in close and more distant future. For your interest, check the "UI", "UX" and "Skinning Engine" labels.

[crickey13]

fair points,
as i've said, these are only my initial impressions - that of course might be flawed

It's not flawed, an opinion is an opinion, nothing wrong with that. From what I gather, you're probably a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of possibilities, which is more than understandable. It just means you want something more simplified and less "autistic", I guess you may want to check out Vital for that, it's a lot less... intense I guess. And it's a lot more interactive, Surge is very old-school in quite a few respects, but I that's one of the reasons I love it.

That is exactly the opposite of what our overhaul will do, as mentioned above. We're keeping Vember Audio UX values, but just sorting things out in a way more logical manner. It should be an even greater joy to use, that's what we're striving for!

That's awesome. What I meant was that the synth should stay roughly the same workflow-wise. It's perfectly fine to reinvent the softsynth in the spirit of the original design instead of revolutionizing the whole concept and "the major overhaul" sounds a bit like the latter. Doesn't matter, looking forward to seeing new revisions, exciting times.

[FapFilter]

It's not flawed, an opinion is an opinion, nothing wrong with that. From what I gather, you're probably a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of possibilities, which is more than understandable.

It's actually not the sheer number of options (Tranzistow does this for me though ) , but as far as my initial impressions go, seemingly “unnecessarily“ cramped and illogical layout, often not visible on the first glance what's doing what.
And of course my opinion can be flawed, they often have been, especially when i'm still not really familiar with some new stuff, prejudicedly thinking something should work like this or that and it turns out after a while, that the implemented solutions aren't actually that much worse (sometimes actually better) than i was initially wishing for.

[EvilDragon]

I can warmly suggest Surge's manual, which is also interactive, in a way: right-click anything in Surge, and you will have a [?] menu entry that will open your web browser and jump to the relevant spot in the manual explaining the thing you've clicked on.

[Teksonik]

I can happily report that the display issue I reported earlier has been fixed.