One Synth Challenge #163: Cardinal by DISTRHO (Voting Started!)

[DRMR]

I think you'd first have to split the poly signal into individual streams and then mix them down into one.

[ELEX]

No need, there is at least one summing module that takes a single polyphonic input and converts to monophonic. Literally called SUM, if I'm not mistaken.

[DRMR]

Yes indeed, the VCV module `SUM` is available

[empphryio]

What's a good replacement for Caudal?

[DRMR]

Does it have to be polyphonic? because there are plenty of noise related modules included.

[RichardSemper]

One question about the rules: "No use of samples" << however there are several modules inside Cardinal that make use of samples. Is it still allowed to use these?
For drums I'll often put modulations on `SV Modular` drum modules, for instance.
(and then for the ultra pedantic there are wavetable oscillators, I assume those should be fine for sure)

If you would ask me the rational of the "sample rule" is:
a.) leveling the playing field. All participants know and have access to the same tools and resources. It avoids that individuals with access to turbo-porno-premium sample packs have an advantage.
b.) transparency about where the sound is coming from

The sample based drum oscillators are in the synth - leveling is given, everbody can use them ootb.
The sample based drum oscillators samples are fixed given that nobody changes the source and rebuilds them from source. so nobody can put their intergallactic-quality-and-price-tag samples into them and get an advantage ...

I have used them.

A better rationale might be:
That this challenge is about the synth: all sounds should be generated by the synth, not by other means whether vocals, real instruments, other software etc.
This means that samples included within the synth are fair game. Manipulating these within the synth is fine. Bringing in audio from another source whether samples or otherwise is not.

[bmanic]

EDIT: Turns out I did not run the latest version. I assumed I had downloaded it but I was still on 22.06. Keyboard input in text fields seems to be somewhat fixed. It's still quite wonky though, in the text module I can not use quite a few characters and some others do weird things. Like if I type a dot and a comma, neither show up and the dot actually deletes a row! I also can not type an exclamation mark into the text editor. This is on Reaper latest release, Mac OS Big Sur.


Question: Is there any kind of internal sample rate feature like in VCV where you can run it at stupidly high internal oversampling rates? This doesn't seem to be critical as Reaper has this feature built in and Cardinal seems to work correctly up to 16x oversampling but I'm still interested in knowing if it's available somewhere within the actual synth?

I noticed that some filter modules have built in oversampling when right clicking the module for extra options. This is however not always enough for complex feedback and audio rate modulated patches.

[DRMR]

Bugreports should go to github, not this topic

Cardinal synchronizes with your plugin host. Afaik there is no way to set any other sample rates. "complex feedback" is limited by what the Rack engine allows, which isn't much. There isn't any actual internal DSP graph. Modules are executed in the order in which they are placed in the patch .. it's extremely suboptimal way to do DSP so these kind of limitations become very apparent when you do "crazy" stuff like that
Then there's the absence of sample delay compensation etc. These are not things that Cardinal can solve, without drastically changing the way the Rack engine works (and subsequently all modules that are included, imagine forking over 70 code projects and changing their code .. not going to happen any time soon!)

We'll have to do with the limitations we are given

[bmanic]

Ah no wonder I couldn't get feedback to work. Thanks for the heads up!

2nd Question: Is there a way to save individual module presets? I see there is the option of "Copy/Paste and Open" in the right click menu.. but I can't quite figure out how to save stuff for individual modules to actually open?

3rd Question: Are there any truly BLANK panels available? I'd like to minimize the clutter and create clear structures so any truly blank panels available for VCV/Cardinal? Or is it possible to disable the background connector graphics to minimize clutter?

[FrogsInPants]

3rd Question: Are there any truly BLANK panels available? I'd like to minimize the clutter and create clear structures so any truly blank panels available for VCV/Cardinal? Or is it possible to disable the background connector graphics to minimize clutter?

The Bogaudio blank panels have a "Dark (low-contrast)" option with a nearly plain dark gray panel. Right click and select from the Panel submenu. It still has a couple of screws and a lighter gray border, but it'll probably suit you better than any of the others.

[ChristopherWD]

One question about the rules: "No use of samples" << however there are several modules inside Cardinal that make use of samples. Is it still allowed to use these?
For drums I'll often put modulations on `SV Modular` drum modules, for instance.
(and then for the ultra pedantic there are wavetable oscillators, I assume those should be fine for sure)

If you would ask me the rational of the "sample rule" is:
a.) leveling the playing field. All participants know and have access to the same tools and resources. It avoids that individuals with access to turbo-porno-premium sample packs have an advantage.
b.) transparency about where the sound is coming from

The sample based drum oscillators are in the synth - leveling is given, everbody can use them ootb.
The sample based drum oscillators samples are fixed given that nobody changes the source and rebuilds them from source. so nobody can put their intergallactic-quality-and-price-tag samples into them and get an advantage ...

I have used them.

A better rationale might be:
That this challenge is about the synth: all sounds should be generated by the synth, not by other means whether vocals, real instruments, other software etc.
This means that samples included within the synth are fair game. Manipulating these within the synth is fine. Bringing in audio from another source whether samples or otherwise is not.

Thank you for the clarification. I was unsure if some of the modules were forbidden since they contained in-built samples so I tried to limit what I used, but this helps and I'll explore more what this synth has to offer now.

[DRMR]

2nd Question: Is there a way to save individual module presets? I see there is the option of "Copy/Paste and Open" in the right click menu.. but I can't quite figure out how to save stuff for individual modules to actually open?

So the problem with this is related to https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/issues/87
There is no user location defined for storing such output. And since we work cross platform we need to have locations defined for all supported OSes. We also can't make this location configurable .. because where would you store the configuration?

[bmanic]

2nd Question: Is there a way to save individual module presets? I see there is the option of "Copy/Paste and Open" in the right click menu.. but I can't quite figure out how to save stuff for individual modules to actually open?

So the problem with this is related to https://github.com/DISTRHO/Cardinal/issues/87
There is no user location defined for storing such output. And since we work cross platform we need to have locations defined for all supported OSes. We also can't make this location configurable .. because where would you store the configuration?

Couldn't there just be a "Save.." option then? Then use the "Open" to find the file you saved?

[Zombowie]

Here's my submission:

https://soundcloud.com/mika-ritola/zomb ... al_sharing

It's an ambient track. There's only one instance of Cardinal. The patch is generative (I think, not quite sure about the exact definition of the term) and there's some randomness involved, so it's a ~6 minute snippet of the patch doing whatever it does. There's no editing except at the beginning and the end.

DAW: Reaper
Plug-ins used: Cardinal (x1), ReaEQ(x1), ReaComp (x1), ReaLimit (x1), Airwindows ToTape6 (x1)

I hope you like it!

[ZioMau]

Hi guys...


- THE HISTORY -

This month you, men, made me crazy!
I'm a "preset finder" not a "cable stretcher"! In late august i was waiting for a 2 million patches virtual synth but i later discovered the "dark nothing"! Music in my mind is like a wild horse, must grab it quickly but if i spend time for create timbres...it run away. Moreover i don't have the skills to do it! So, i tried to download those few presets but none of them seemed useful to me...until the MyLoFi bank. It was a good starting point, enough for my ideas and so i decided to partecipate (I was too eager). Step by step, cable after cable, tweak by tweak i learned to do something and while more then a half of the MyLoFi patches were softly or sometimes heavily modified, others were made from a simple subtractive synth with 3 oscillators, filters, envelopes and some effects, that i crafted from scratch. As i said time ago, i always learn from KVR OSC!


- THE SONG -

at the beginning i had in mind a kind of accents shifted prog style tune, or...a swinged blues, but nothing of them fitted so well with Cardinal, so during an evening, while i'm eating a good pizza, some good Acid and hip hop blended nu-jazz sounded in the air. I was inspired, but now, the final track is totally different from the style i heard that evening. Anyway while listening those nice songs at the pizzeria, i was thinking "is this jazz or not?", and because i figure jazz with the yellow color...


- SUBMISSION -

YELLOW OR NOT

https://soundcloud.com/zio-mau/ziomau-j ... al_sharing


- TOOLS -

DAW

Cockos - Reaper 5.99
--------------------

INSTRUMENTS:

Distrho - Cardinal x 15
----------------

AUDIO FX:

Cockos - ReaEq x 11
Cockos - ReaComp x 5
Sonimus - Soneq x 1
Cockos - ReaDelay x 5
Togu Audio Line - TAL Reverb 4 x 2
Sinus - Freeverb Too x 2
Voxengo - MSED x 1
Xfer - OTT x 1
Boz Digital Labs - Bark of dog x 2
Infected Mushrooms - Wider x 1
Melda Prod. - MBandpass x 3
Melda Prod. - MAutopan x 1
Mode Machines - Giant Verb x 1
Sixth Sample - Deelay x 1
Togu Audio Line - Dub Delay x 1
A1 Audio - Trigger Gate x 1
----------------------------

MIDI FX

Cockos - ReaControl Midi x 3
Midi note filter (js) x 3
TobyBear - Chordator x 2
WOK - D-Arp x 1
----------------------------

MASTER CH FX

Tokyo Dawn Labs - TDR Nova
Analog Obsession - BusterSE
LKJB - Luftikus
Togu Audio Line - Dub Delay (used for 4 secs from 0:12)
Melda Prod. - MStereoExpander
Thomas Mundt - LoudMAX64
----------------------------

METERING FX

Voxengo - Span
Youlean - Loudness Meter
Melda Prod. - MStereoScope


and i'm sorry if i don't focus on sound making or using only Cardinal fx modules.

Special thanks to MyLoFy for saved me with his presets and special thanks to KVR OSC admins for...everything else as always!

Ciao

ZM


...the workspace