Cytomic "The Scream" stomp box distortion plugin

[metalifuxx]

Will you have presets for some of the various popular hardware TS mods, such as Analogman's brown and silver (flat/neutral mids) mods?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I've never seen a manual document and describe every internal component before. Why would anyone need to do that?

Jamcat, you know you can edit each of those caps, resistors, and diodes in The Scream right? The entire circuit can be easily modded by the end user in the plugin and it will behave like the hardware would if you made those mods. Even if you don't know what you're doing, you can still play around with different values, or open modified Tube Screamer schematics and start matching values, or just use the randomization options for slight changes and stereo width. It's so much more than a Tube Screamer capture and sounds even better (Cytomic's got about the best anti-aliasing in the business).

Explaining the basics of how the modding works is definitely needed in the manual. That's why anyone would need it.

[meloco_go]

I'm starting to work on final presets for The Scream and wanted to share a mastering one to get feedback:

https://cytomic.com/files/forums/scream ... -drive.zip

I've made it a transparent subtle drive + tone pedal, with lots of headroom, and adding around -60 dBFS maximum harmonics for a 0 dBFS input sine wave. You can gain stage this, up or down, by using the input / output gain. For example you can use the input gain at -12 dB and output gain at +12 dB to get the loudest harmonic at -72 dBFS.

The pedal voltage has been increased to 18V for more headroom, so if you want more drive you can lower the power voltage. The high pass capacitors have all been changed to very low cutoffs, around the 2-5hz, which is typical for mastering equipment. The drive signal path high pass and low pass are wide open as well, so when using the drive knob it will add distortion across the entire spectrum. The drive amount, which is added to the "dry" signal is from around -20dB to 1dB for the drive knob from lowest to highest (which corresponds to "dry" + drive signal level of 0dB to +7dB). The tone knob has also been changed to add subtle treble boost or cut from around 8khz.

You can load this preset onto any channel, then open the Rand panel, and click "Randomise" to get endless subtle stereo variations.

A similar setting is living on my master for a few years already. I forgone using console emulations once I set The Scream like that.

[andy-cytomic]

Will you have presets for some of the various popular hardware TS mods, such as Analogman's brown and silver (flat/neutral mids) mods?

I don't have an of Analogman's mods, but if you can post schematics of them to me I can reproduce the same component values / settings (eg if they use a different type of op-amp I can change those values based off the datasheets for them).

[andy-cytomic]

A similar setting is living on my master for a few years already. I forgone using console emulations once I set The Scream like that.

Have you tried the new preset? If so are you using a -12 pre / +12 post on the top gain knobs?

[metalifuxx]

Will you have presets for some of the various popular hardware TS mods, such as Analogman's brown and silver (flat/neutral mids) mods?

I don't have an of Analogman's mods, but if you can post schematics of them to me I can reproduce the same component values / settings (eg if they use a different type of op-amp I can change those values based off the datasheets for them).

This site could yield some interesting ideas for modded TS presets. Think it compiles schematic info for the known mods that TS clone builders/companies have done.

The Screamer Lab
http://beavisaudio.com/projects/screamerlab/

Silver mod
https://www.harmonycentral.com/forums/t ... nt=3023455

[andy-cytomic]

This site could yield some interesting ideas for modded TS presets. Think it compiles schematic info for the known mods that TS clone builders/companies have done.

The Screamer Lab
http://beavisaudio.com/projects/screamerlab/

Silver mod
https://www.harmonycentral.com/forums/t ... nt=3023455

Thanks for the links! All of those mods and more are already covered

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

My favorite screamer pedal is Plumes by Earthquaker. I think I posted the schematic earlier in this thread but some Plumes mods built in via presets would be terrific. I tried and got close but there were some parts where I couldn't determine what was what or how to modify.

[Old Frengly]

My favorite screamer pedal is Plumes by Earthquaker. I think I posted the schematic earlier in this thread but some Plumes mods built in via presets would be terrific. I tried and got close but there were some parts where I couldn't determine what was what or how to modify.

I assume that you've had a look at the info provided by Earthquaker here: https://www.earthquakerdevices.com/plumes

Then I've found a couple of posts with circuit layouts for the pedal:

• https://effectslayouts.blogspot.com/201 ... lumes.html
• https://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/20 ... lumes.html

Might help a bit...

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Yeah, that first Effects Layouts site has the schematic:
https://effectslayouts.blogspot.com/201 ... lumes.html

I think it was somewhere after that IC1-B where I couldn't quite figure out how to best modify The Scream to match it exactly. Note: that pedal does have 3 different modes and the switch goes between them. But I can't read a schematic to save my life.

But anyway, it's by far my favorite Screamer style OD pedal for guitar. Others just sound too honky in the mids and Plumes is "just right".

[meloco_go]

A similar setting is living on my master for a few years already. I forgone using console emulations once I set The Scream like that.

Have you tried the new preset? If so are you using a -12 pre / +12 post on the top gain knobs?

I just tried, it is nice. I use conservative levels, so I didn't feel the need to reduce the drive.
A suggestion though: can you add pre/post lock functionality? Or maybe it is already implemented and I missed it?

[andy-cytomic]

A similar setting is living on my master for a few years already. I forgone using console emulations once I set The Scream like that.

Have you tried the new preset? If so are you using a -12 pre / +12 post on the top gain knobs?

I just tried, it is nice. I use conservative levels, so I didn't feel the need to reduce the drive.
A suggestion though: can you add pre/post lock functionality? Or maybe it is already implemented and I missed it?

Do you mean a pre / post opposite link that preserves the total gain? This gets complicated with DAW automation. The way I worked around this was to provide a "pad" button in 6 dB increments for The Drop, between -12, -6, 0, 6, 12, would that work?

[andy-cytomic]

Yeah, that first Effects Layouts site has the schematic:
https://effectslayouts.blogspot.com/201 ... lumes.html

I think it was somewhere after that IC1-B where I couldn't quite figure out how to best modify The Scream to match it exactly. Note: that pedal does have 3 different modes and the switch goes between them. But I can't read a schematic to save my life.

But anyway, it's by far my favorite Screamer style OD pedal for guitar. Others just sound too honky in the mids and Plumes is "just right".

Yep, that's easy to reproduce. I'll make the mod 1 / mod 2 switch be the switch between the diodes. I won't be able to match any particular pedals diodes unless I have the pedal, but I can match the general sound.

[bmanic]

A similar setting is living on my master for a few years already. I forgone using console emulations once I set The Scream like that.

Have you tried the new preset? If so are you using a -12 pre / +12 post on the top gain knobs?

I just tried, it is nice. I use conservative levels, so I didn't feel the need to reduce the drive.
A suggestion though: can you add pre/post lock functionality? Or maybe it is already implemented and I missed it?

Do you mean a pre / post opposite link that preserves the total gain? This gets complicated with DAW automation.

Couldn't it just be behind a modifier key? Like holding ALT/Option/CTRL held while moving input gain would move output gain in the opposite direction.

[andy-cytomic]

ok, I found a more accurate version of this:

https://docs.pedalpcb.com/project/Greengage.pdf

Here is the preset for it:

https://cytomic.com/forums/scream-pedal ... es.tsp.zip

The main difference is Plumes uses op-amps at the input / output instead of BJT, but that shouldn't make too much difference to the sound, The Scream will have a tiny bit more non-linearities at the buffers. Also Plumes is -9 to +9 V, The Scream is biased at 9V between 0 and 18V, but that also shouldn't matter in practice.