Cytomic "The Scream" stomp box distortion plugin

[zvenx]

Gooodness Gracious.. for the spots I ffwd to in the video, and listened to I couldn't hear a difference.
I have always said, as someone who does complain how long you sometimes take to release stuff.. your dsp is top top top notch.
rsp

[jtsterays]

The best analog modelling dev on the market. Also, i love your video style, it's just badass to me. When the plugins are perfectly modelled, just pull up an analyzer, A/B with the hardware then let the plugins speak for themselves with minimal talking, most of the other companies can't do that because their emulations are bad, the only other people i know who do something similar with the same quality are Plogue and Relab. Also, what's the source audio you used for the intro? sounds really nice.

[solidtrax]

As usual: Insanely good Andy!

[andy-cytomic]

The best analog modelling dev on the market. Also, i love your video style, it's just badass to me. When the plugins are perfectly modelled, just pull up an analyzer, A/B with the hardware then let the plugins speak for themselves with minimal talking, most of the other companies can't do that because their emulations are bad, the only other people i know who do something similar with the same quality are Plogue and Relab. Also, what's the source audio you used for the intro? sounds really nice.

Thanks! It doesn't take too long to do a matching video, especially after all the time it takes to develop the models behind the matching, and I like having it on record like this for transparency. I encourage other devs to do such videos as well. Having a full schematic editor where you can change every value of every component not only helps me fine tune the matching of circuits, but also provides transparency over the details of what is being modelled.

The intro sound is my playing guitar through The Scream with no further processing. The riff is something basic I made up, and first did on synth for the A124 Wasp filter matching video using the filter itself, then used it again for the CF100 filter matching video but swapping over the filter. For this video I played the same riff but on guitar and through The Scream.

[andy-cytomic]

While doing the latest matching video I noticed a couple of pops and clicks when pushed very hard in certain ways, which I fixed for the videos, but not in an optimal way.

I've spent the last couple of weeks getting the symbolic simplification engine of my circuit solver more efficient and handling more difficult cases, and the results are excellent, with the lowest cpu usage I've ever come up with.

I'll do a new release of The Scream which includes the more robust and more optimised solution, which will give a cpu saving and better solution when pushed hard. The MD version is now on average about 0.2% lower cpu and the HD version 0.6% lower than the current release on my M1 Max laptop when running without oversampling - which is the toughest case, and amounts to a 15% cpu saving for each.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Cool stuff Andy! Now please step out of the R&D phase and enjoy the fruits of all this work. Move into the "release a bunch of guitar pedals and new compressor plugins" phase. Big Muff next please.

[andy-cytomic]

Cool stuff Andy! Now please step out of the R&D phase and enjoy the fruits of all this work. Move into the "release a bunch of guitar pedals and new compressor plugins" phase. Big Muff next please.

I've got kits of a g-series bus compressor and two 1176's (so I can get the stereo action right), and I'm itching to finish my first Cytomic synth with all the filter's I've done as well. I'll try and fit in a stomp in between each.

[Havok]

Cool stuff Andy! Now please step out of the R&D phase and enjoy the fruits of all this work. Move into the "release a bunch of guitar pedals and new compressor plugins" phase. Big Muff next please.

I've got kits of a g-series bus compressor and two 1176's (so I can get the stereo action right), and I'm itching to finish my first Cytomic synth with all the filter's I've done as well. I'll try and fit in a stomp in between each.

Please please please be rev. A 1176's!!

[electro]

Cool stuff Andy! Now please step out of the R&D phase and enjoy the fruits of all this work. Move into the "release a bunch of guitar pedals and new compressor plugins" phase. Big Muff next please.

I've got kits of a g-series bus compressor and two 1176's (so I can get the stereo action right), and I'm itching to finish my first Cytomic synth with all the filter's I've done as well. I'll try and fit in a stomp in between each.

Having perfected distortion stomp modeling wouldn't it make sense to start pumping out more such as Muff? There are already too many AMP sims in a saturated market so having Cytomic as definitive market leader focusing on distortion stomp modelling seems like the window of opportunity to seize now.

[andy-cytomic]

Having perfected distortion stomp modeling wouldn't it make sense to start pumping out more such as Muff? There are already too many AMP sims in a saturated market so having Cytomic as definitive market leader focusing on distortion stomp modelling seems like the window of opportunity to seize now.

I never mentioned doing amp sims in the near future, the 1176 is a compressor. Amp sims are well done the road in terms of things I want to tackle, but having said that, much as with stomps, I think there is still a lot of room for more accurate and detailed tube pre and power amp circuit models.

As perspective there was already a saturated market for G-Series bus compressors when I released The Glue around 15 years ago, and already loads of filter plugins when I did The Drop, and tons of tube screamers on the market when I released The Scream. I will always bring something new to the table and try to push the boundaries of detail and accuracy while still keeping the cpu reasonable.

[JerGoertz]

Okay, so Cytomic modular synth when???

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Andy, how hard/easy would it be to add different pot tapers to The Scream (and I guess the upcoming products) and would that even be of interest to you? I think it might be cool for pedal builders/modders in particular if it was easy to go between Audio Taper, Vintage Taper, J-Taper, Linear, and Log Taper pots.

[andy-cytomic]

Andy, how hard/easy would it be to add different pot tapers to The Scream (and I guess the upcoming products) and would that even be of interest to you? I think it might be cool for pedal builders/modders in particular if it was easy to go between Audio Taper, Vintage Taper, J-Taper, Linear, and Log Taper pots.

The taper is just a function call for each pot, but it would add a little extra cpu since there would either be a switch (branch) or a non-inline function call through a pointer, both of which can't be as easily optimised. It's a reasonable suggestion and something I will perhaps tackle down the line if there is more of a call for it, and it fits with being able to change capacitors / resistors.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Just curious, do you match pot tapers in the models? Like is one linear vs. audio taper elsewhere based on what was in the original pedals? I'm assuming yes considering how close the knob positions line up, and it's just sort of baked in to the model but what do I know!

[andy-cytomic]

Just curious, do you match pot tapers in the models? Like is one linear vs. audio taper elsewhere based on what was in the original pedals? I'm assuming yes considering how close the knob positions line up, and it's just sort of baked in to the model but what do I know!

Yes but only roughly. Actual pots are usually done very cheaply, for example an audio pot is mostly just two different slopes, one flat and one steep, sometimes three on more expensive pots. I've done low order efficient polynomials that match the endpoints and the a few other points but are smoother in general than physical pots in terms of continuity of the slope.