KVR Audio

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sat Nov 05, 2022 9:00 pm

Alright I better describe how to make it so I am the first before someone guesses and claims they came up with it first.

Very simple.

Distribute the starting phases of all saws equidistant + [optionally] a tiny random fixed offset otherwise you'll get a perfect harmonic and it will just sound like one sawtooth at a higher frequency.

Modulate the phases to a factor where all phases do not overlap.

Example: take 5 sawtooths. Phases will be 0/5, 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 4/5. Now modulate the phases 0 [UP TO] 1 times 1/5 [as in 0 to 0.3 or 0 to 0.5, it's up to you] so you can never have overlap or if you want some overlap 0 to 2 times 1/5. Now modulate the phases with random walk which can go from low frequency random to white noise, that will allow you to get sounds of supersaws to insane screaming pure white noise hypersaws.

The idea of a hypersaw came to me as I was trying to figure out a way to best distribute sawtooths with no overlap to prevent flanging and chorusing to maximize the desirable quality of a supersaw while minimizing the undesirable qualities.

SO.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SUPERSAW AND A HYPERSAW IS.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sat Nov 05, 2022 9:01 pm

A supersaw is frequency modulated

A hypersaw is phase modulated

that's it.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sat Nov 05, 2022 9:15 pm

oh. ok. So following that logic...
A megasaw is both (and will sound somewhere inbetween a hyper and a super)

Tj Shredder · Post by **Tj Shredder** » Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:24 pm

The result of a phase modulated saw, is a frequency modulated saw. Nothing new at all and no audible difference to be expected…

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:44 pm

Tj Shredder wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:24 pm The result of a phase modulated saw, is a frequency modulated saw. Nothing new at all and no audible difference to be expected…

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:46 pm

It's amazing how I explained why it makes a big difference, yet the next response is "there's no difference".

Ok thanks. Thanks for that opinion.

No wonder synths have been stuck in the 60s.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:49 pm

f**k it. f**k IT.

Adam. Please go and download the demo https://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/P ... ugNScript/

I will be sending you the hypersaw code shortly.

(Still working on the VST version, but I do have a plug'n'script version which is super inefficient, can only run like 8 sawtooths before it chokes the CPU)

Edit: Adam if you would post any audio featuring the Hypersaw it would be very much appreciated. Also feel free to start coding your own hypersaw. All of my code is free to use, there's nothing special or proprietary going on.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sun Nov 06, 2022 4:12 am

So far, I think the demos sound very good, especially the filter models. I’m excited to see what this synth ends up being, and frankly I don’t care if you call it hotdogs and beans.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sun Nov 06, 2022 4:13 am

zerocrossing wrote: Sun Nov 06, 2022 4:12 amfrankly I don’t care if you call it hotdogs and beans.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Tue Nov 08, 2022 4:44 am

[x] Noise generator
[x] One-pole filter
[x] Linear smoother
[x] Sample and hold
[x] Random walk
[/] Linear envelope
[x] Oscillator base
[ ] Hypersaw oscillator
[ ] Hypersaw audio plugin

random walk is done, tomorrow linear envelope is very easy to do and half done already, I should be working on the hypersaw directly by tomorrow, should come together hopefully in a few more days, just need to do some testing.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Thu Nov 10, 2022 10:04 pm

OK! SO!

Linear envelope is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated and is showing problems in my code base. I need to refactor my polyphony handler because currently it doesn't allow "releases" as in it's just on or off for a voice, so I need to refactor that system, it was only a rudimentary system to begin with, time to upgrade it!

Essentially it's crunch time, I want this hypersaw out ASAP.

I want to make one feature very clear for everyone, because I want you to use this feature, it's very important. When you get your hands on the hypersaw, be sure to make use of delay/random start times for the sawtooths. Instead of having a single envelope controlling the attack of the overall sound, you will have a random start time per sawtooth to graduate the sound to soften the attack in a more organic way. That is part of the hypersaw mentality and of my SYNTHESIZERS 2.0 mentality.

I am bringing SYNTHESIZERS 2.0 to the world, we are going to leave behind the 60s mentality. We need to go beyond the 60s. It's time to go beyond the dark ages for synths and enter a new age of renaissance of synths.

Edit: 60s mentality will be reserved for Synthwave.

-------

Edit: We are going to see creativity applied to oscillators, filters, envelopes, additive synths, drum synths, every freaking aspect of a synth is going to be taken apart, explored, reassembled in new ways, made more organic, made more robust, more powerful, everything will be questioned, re-examined, and it's not just me that will be doing this, all developers will start to do this, and if you are not doing this, you will not be able to sell your products.

Edit: FFS, and yes, I know we're already seeing bits of creativity here and there, but it's been painfully slow and such creativity has been painfully overused, and painfully gradual, usually rehashed, slightly upgraded, etc.

Edit: Ok, let me list my favorites of modern synths:

[Additive] FL Harmor & NI Razor
[Physical] AA Chromaphone & NI Prism
[Subtractive] Dune3 & Serum
[Drum] Microtonic drum synths need an upgrade for the modern day so I cross this one out.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sat Nov 12, 2022 1:34 am

Lastest Update November 11, 11:
DOWNLOAD: Hypersaw PROTOTYPE VST (Windows Only) is available now. It is very CPU inefficient, UI sucks, controls are difficult to use. I am releasing it because the polished version is taking a bit longer than expected. Try it out, enjoy if your CPU can handle it. PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE ZIP.

Lastly, Apologies if your DAW does not recognize it.

Here's what the hypersaw starting point preset should sound like: quick hypersaw demo[mp3]

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sat Nov 12, 2022 3:46 am

FFS... my headphones are broken and I couldn't assess my preset starting point or audio demo.

I just updated BOTH [the preset and the audio demo] after listening to it on good headphones.

NOW you should be hearing the full f**king power of the hypersaw.

bluesawsq · Post by **bluesawsq** » Sat Nov 12, 2022 7:27 pm

Thanks for the prototype plugin, was fun to test it.

It sounds pretty similar to saws with random pitch modulation.
Like this one created in Serum by Au5:

Similar sounds with higher number of oscillators can be done quite easily in Kontakt. I was able to recreate the "hypersaw starting point" preset in Kontakt. The sound is not exactly the same but it's pretty close. The difference is mostly in the random distribution and how fast the plugin is able to modulate phase/pitch. Random walk noise, or Brownian noise, or red noise is relatively low frequency, so you can get quite good result even without high modulation rates. In the end, I think it would be quite difficult to identify what type of algorithm is used to create those sounds, like is it random phase modulation or random pitch modulation.

Your idea is interesting, i.e. restricting phase modulation to different ranges for each saw to prevent overlapping phases. But the end result is not that different. I guess when you use random modulator, modulating pitch or phase, you will get overlapping phases very rarely anyway. So it's not really necessary to restrict the phase ranges like in your synth.

The random phase modulation in your prototype plugin seems to have constant average frequency and modulation amount for all notes. I think that is a problem because low notes are be very noisy and high notes sound almost like clean saw. The random modulator frequency needs to be key tracked to make the sound more consistent over the whole keyboard range. High notes should have higher modulating frequency and low notes lower modulating frequency. But I guess that is just a limitation of the prototype and you are already implementing keytracking in the final plugin.

Keep up the good work.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sat Nov 12, 2022 7:59 pm

My "Hypersaw 2.0" actually has pitch compensation and I decided I'd rather just release the 1.0 prototype because I figured I would rather just have a separate instance for low and high notes (in favor of a consistently insane sound). And yes, the final version will have options for pitch compensation.

I'm actually really curious what phase modulated saws would sound like using sines or triangles instead of noise. I might have to add that into the final version.

Thanks for the video. Wait, is he really using only 3 saws for that sound?

eDiT: aLsO tEcHnIcHaLlY tHaT iS nOt cHaOs mOdUlAtIoN!!! wAiT A mInUtE... wAt iF i aCtUaLlY iNcLuDe cHaOs mOduLaTiOn aS aN oPtIon!

Or does Serum actually use a chaos equation?

Edit: Ok I've actually called noise as chaos in Flower Child but in my defense I called it that only because I intended to have actual chaos modulation at some point.

Hypersaw Symphony, orchestral analog-emulated synthesizer