One Synth Challenge #192: Six Sines by BaconPaul (johnkhf Wins!)

[67maxx]

...

[Taron]

mmm your video makes me want to add some full-cycle positive only windows to the synth for AM usage. Like a TX4 over a whole period and a blackman harris window or some such. I'll think about that before 1.1. Adding waveforms is pretty easy

Also I clearly need two random phase modes. Random phase as we have it now and random phase but still operator phase coherent. I’ll add issues for both of these in the morning

Lovely video again

YES! YES! YES!
All of it!

The other thing I noticed, whereby this could be a processing matter, is that TX3, 4, 7 and 8 all have a slight slope in their "flat" parts. Or was that intentional?

Guys, I envy your knowledge! For me, AM and FM are just radio... where AM is for boring stations and FM is for good music!

...not too far off, hehe. But I hope I could demonstrate how powerful and exciting AM is, too. It really expands the FM universe dramatically.

Right now I can't pry myself off of the stupid little ditty I did, but skipped showing in the video. It's just that sound and a little drumset (all Six Sines, too), but it's stunning how far that one little sound can go. It gets so complex that it feels like there were at least 2 more effects (Chorus, Distortion) on it, whilst still being simply by itself. And there's something about the quality of the sound. It's lively, organic, clean and dirty at the same time. Six Sines has a massive future ahead, I believe, and will be one that people know!

[H-man]

Hey, and apologies if this has already been covered, but how do I hear the Wave Phase from the Sources mod section (just below the Wave name).

Obviously it's good having the different wave shapes to use for the sources but I'm not getting how to get any sounds from modding the phase?

[Taron]

If you use "Modulation" to change the phase, it only gets modulated at the beginning of the note and can't modulate during the playing of the note. That looks a bit confusing and won't sound like much at first, but it makes sense in a way, I guess. If you wanted to "move the phase", you'd use another oscillator on phase modulation instead.
Okay, this sounds like I should make at least one more video, hahahaha...

[H-man]

If you use "Modulation" to change the phase, it only gets modulated at the beginning of the note and can't modulate during the playing of the note. That looks a bit confusing and won't sound like much at first, but it makes sense in a way, I guess. If you wanted to "move the phase", you'd use another oscillator on phase modulation instead.
Okay, this sounds like I should make at least one more video, hahahaha...

Okay I have it now thanks. Feedback seems to mask the effect so turn that down and you can hear it (more for some wave types than others).

[Taron]

Sweet!
Well, secretly I am hoping I can motivate BaconPaul to ponder over hooking up a proper Oscilloscope as part of the GUI, which would really only show one note, straight out of the generators in a single wave-window, or potentially specified length.

This would immensely enhanced the sound design experience! External scopes can't quite keep up pleasantly.
Could be turned on/off, if need be, in case processing issues mattered?!

[baconpaul]

If you output them directly they have a dc blocker applied which will do that - if you use them internally they will not - the blocker is late in the chain

[Taron]

Exactly. Not to mention that you can have just a single (last or first or loudest) note being displayed in the scope, regardless as to what's played. That's a huge advantage!

[baconpaul]

As to scope

I agree an internal scope would be useful. but it's not super duper easy.

Part of the goal of six sines is to help us factor code for short circuit and the next version of surge. So if i added a scope to six sines it would be part of moving our waveform draw / scope / mseg type code from surge into a shared library. (Which would then also allow msegs in short circuit)

although i gotta say, your videos are an awful good demo for unplugred's lovely scope.

[pone]

An option to use exponential FM in Six Sines would be cool, very unique

https://ristoid.net/modular/fm_variants.html


I just happen to prefer the spectrum it makes

[Taron]

As to scope

I agree an internal scope would be useful. but it's not super duper easy.

Part of the goal of six sines is to help us factor code for short circuit and the next version of surge. So if i added a scope to six sines it would be part of moving our waveform draw / scope / mseg type code from surge into a shared library. (Which would then also allow msegs in short circuit)

although i gotta say, your videos are an awful good demo for unplugred's lovely scope.

Somehow I tend to forget that you're also doing Surge, which is another one of my favorite synths. Pffff.... no wonder.
Hehehe, yeah, unplug.red's scope is snazzy lookin' and works quite well. But yeah...
What makes Six Sines so compelling is its directness, "simplicity" and beautiful sound. No overload of complex parameters, pulldowns and so on. I've already said it, but I think it will become a beloved synth!

I have to say, though, I've had a bunch of crashes in Reaper lately with the nightly version. Mostly when adding a new CLAP instance. But just today the vst3 crashed, too, while editing notes in the pattern sequencer. I'm almost thinking about trying to compile the source and run a debug, but I'm on the mac now and yet have to get into XCode. Anyway, just an FYI on the crashes, which seem to relate to some initializations?!

[baconpaul]

Yeah I fixed a bug last night in the nightly which would cause a crash in duplicate and insert. Basically the day between introducing midi parameters smoothing and yesterday morning was crash prone. Everyone should grab latest nightly if they are on one older than feb 6 or so.

Sorry bout that. Was a dumb mistake

[Taron]

No worries! I'm just glad it wouldn't send you on a "wild goose chase", which so easily can happen. This is great!
THANK YOU!

[seap]

Red Herring Funk

By Seap for One Synth Challenge 192, February 2025

https://soundcloud.com/seap681/red-herring-funk-osc192


All sounds from: Six Sines by BaconPaul

Kick and Snare patches courtesy of Exponent

Instruments:
13x VST3i: Six Sines (BaconPaul)

Effects:
1x VST3: LoudMax (Thomas Mundt)
2x VST3: ValhallaSupermassive (Valhalla DSP, LLC)
10x VST: ReaEQ (Cockos)
1x VST: ReaLimit (Cockos)
1x VST: ReaXcomp (Cockos)

[Taron]

Almost forgot, here's Part 4 - Making a simple drumset...