Charlatan³ Free VA synth updated to v3.3.2 (Win/Linux)

[karrikuh]

2 - looks incomplete (I mean - e.g. some knobs are sensitive to mousewheel, others not)

Mouse wheel adjustment is only possible to discrete parameters currently. I will consider it for others parameters, thanks for the suggestion!

[karrikuh]

For a future update, I’d like to see a dynamic UI (like in Pigments, Vital, or Serum) to better visualize how the modulations are affecting the sound.

Once the HW accelerated UI rendering is in place, I will look into real-time visualization of modulations.

[satYatunes]

Is this skinnable?

No, not planned currently, sorry.
You can of course try to replace the embedded PNG resources using sth like Resource Hacker - as has been suggested - but you will be mostly on your own there. One hint I can give you: be careful that the images have the exact same pixel dimensions and color format (e.g. RGB vs Grayscale, with or without alpha channel) as the original which you want to replace.

Thanks for your response. In this thread, someone tried to replace images via resource hacker but it didn't work. Not sure if he/she followed the dimensions and colour format. I will try and report my experience.

When you re-work the UI and need a designer, feel free to contact me.

[yzcoruhT]

For a future update, I’d like to see a dynamic UI (like in Pigments, Vital, or Serum) to better visualize how the modulations are affecting the sound.

Once the HW accelerated UI rendering is in place, I will look into real-time visualization of modulations.

Is there any donation button available?

y-

[audiojunkie]

Thank you for this!! I have a question: With the Reworked UI skin, does this synth now support HiDPI (Scaling for high resolution monitors) for Linux? Thank you again!

No, this was really just the graphics and color design work.

Supporting hi-res displays is still planned but requires a complete rework of the underlying UI rendering, including hardware acceleration, which is quite a big undertaking. The good news is that I did start some exploration in this direction throughout the past months and have settled on a rough concept.

The current plan is to introduce the feature in two steps:
1) Render the UI in standard resolution like before and upscale the result. The result will not necessarily be pretty but should at least make the plugin usable on UHD monitors. The upscaling will already make use of HW acceleration (i.e. Vulkan) and therefore serves as a compatiblity testbed wrt. the various end user systems.
2) Rework UI to properly render graphics at high resolutions. This is the bulk of work and I'm not sure if I manage to finish this until the end of the year.

Please understand that due to the overall amount of the effort involved, it is impossible to come up with a halfway reliable timeline at this point.

Thank you! To this day, I have not been able to use the synth. I appreciate the fact that you plan to support this! I understand it will take time.

[wikter]

someone tried to replace images via resource hacker but it didn't work. Not sure if he/she followed the dimensions and colour format. I will try and report my experience.

When you re-work the UI and need a designer, feel free to contact me.

Someone here. In fact plug-in didn't loaded, I tried to keep the size, in fact I recompressed It to match size, format & Alpha but It refused to load, maybe a CRC or parity control blocked It?

[brok landers]

Thanks so much Karrikuh - extremely useful additions to my absolute favorite free synth by far - and as a sounddesigner i am not easily wowed.
But pleeeease... Give it at least 12 voices, if you can. Charlatan can do absolutely gorgeous pads - for which one needs 12 voices (up to 6 for the chord itself, and 6 for at least one release overlap).
Do you think that's possible?

It's not hard technically, but I have personally never felt limited by the 8 voice limited (not encountered 6-note chords so far...). I will add it to the list of possible future enhancements.

Hi Karrikuh,
great - thanks for considering this. Actually 6 note chords are not uncommon.
Btw. - should you implement the 12 voices, could you maybe do it the way so we can exactly determine the maximum voice count to be used - in steps of 1? So it's "retrigger", "legato" and then instead of "poly" there's "2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12" in the dropdown menu? Would that be doable? Because often it can be beneficial to deliberately let the determined voice count cut voices in release stage, in order to not overpower the sequence due to too many release overlaps? For pads that wouldn't be necessary - but there's other uses where this is greatly beneficial. I miss that.

However, here's a real problem i am facing - someone already mentioned it:
I too am experiencing heavy knob movement lags in the latest version. I am using Studio one 7.2. - but it also was present in v7.
Could you please either let me know how i can do something about that (if that is the case at all) - or, if it' a possible bug or so, fix it? What do you say?

[karrikuh]

However, here's a real problem i am facing - someone already mentioned it:
I too am experiencing heavy knob movement lags in the latest version. I am using Studio one 7.2. - but it also was present in v7.
Could you please either let me know how i can do something about that (if that is the case at all) - or, if it' a possible bug or so, fix it? What do you say?

I cannot reproduce it, I tried various hosts under Windows 10 as well as WINE (Linux). It might be a system setup specific problem. Not sure what to do about it at this point, I'm afraid.
Just curious, if you automate a parameter in your DAW, will the knob move properly in this case?

[brok landers]

However, here's a real problem i am facing - someone already mentioned it:
I too am experiencing heavy knob movement lags in the latest version. I am using Studio one 7.2. - but it also was present in v7.
Could you please either let me know how i can do something about that (if that is the case at all) - or, if it' a possible bug or so, fix it? What do you say?

I cannot reproduce it, I tried various hosts under Windows 10 as well as WINE (Linux). It might be a system setup specific problem. Not sure what to do about it at this point, I'm afraid.
Just curious, if you automate a parameter in your DAW, will the knob move properly in this case?

Hi Karrikuh,
like a miracle the problem vanished. And i haven't changed anything on my system, nor did i update Studio One since then. Very strange.

However - what i noticed since long, but always forgot to mention is, that the lfos, when synced to host, are running off over time. Both xlfo and the normal lfos. In the beginning everything is all right. but slowly but surely when f.e. a note is held over 16 bars or so, the timing gets more and more out of sync.
Also when just playing (not triggered from the host but playing it from the keyboard) the synth and having f.e. 2 lfos both running at the same sync speed, they are totally off after a short period of time - even when the lfos are triggered in the same phase. At least here it behaves like that.
Could you please have a look into this?

[Notbob]

I can't load the presets. I've tried 4 different ways ( open @ top of instrument, right click preset box opens blank window, can't copy & paste, can't dragndrop,). Running in Cakewalk. The V3.3 loads and opens wonderfully, and looks and sounds very nice! I've loved V1 since 2014 or so, and was excited that this V3.3 boasts "Preset Browser". But no luck with the loading. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[brok landers]

I can't load the presets. I've tried 4 different ways ( open @ top of instrument, right click preset box opens blank window, can't copy & paste, can't dragndrop,). Running in Cakewalk. Th>e V3.3 loads and opens wonderfully, and looks and sounds very nice! I've loved V1 since 2014 or so, and was excited that this V3.3 boasts "Preset Browser". But no luck with the loading. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Seems like a typical Cakewalk issue. I had problems in Cakewalk, too. All other Hosts (Studio One, Bitwig, Reaper) work flaelessly here.
Try checking thev lstest version of Cakewalk If you haven't.

[brok landers]

However, here's a real problem i am facing - someone already mentioned it:
I too am experiencing heavy knob movement lags in the latest version. I am using Studio one 7.2. - but it also was present in v7.
Could you please either let me know how i can do something about that (if that is the case at all) - or, if it' a possible bug or so, fix it? What do you say?

I cannot reproduce it, I tried various hosts under Windows 10 as well as WINE (Linux). It might be a system setup specific problem. Not sure what to do about it at this point, I'm afraid.
Just curious, if you automate a parameter in your DAW, will the knob move properly in this case?

Hi Karrikuh,
like a miracle the problem vanished. And i haven't changed anything on my system, nor did i update Studio One since then. Very strange.

However - what i noticed since long, but always forgot to mention is, that the lfos, when synced to host, are running off over time. Both xlfo and the normal lfos. In the beginning everything is all right. but slowly but surely when f.e. a note is held over 16 bars or so, the timing gets more and more out of sync.
Also when just playing (not triggered from the host but playing it from the keyboard) the synth and having f.e. 2 lfos both running at the same sync speed, they are totally off after a short period of time - even when the lfos are triggered in the same phase. At least here it behaves like that.
Could you please have a look into this?

@Karrikuh - have you had a chance to look at the lfo issue i described above? If you want, i can send you a preset which demonstrates the problem.

[karrikuh]

However - what i noticed since long, but always forgot to mention is, that the lfos, when synced to host, are running off over time. Both xlfo and the normal lfos. In the beginning everything is all right. but slowly but surely when f.e. a note is held over 16 bars or so, the timing gets more and more out of sync.
Also when just playing (not triggered from the host but playing it from the keyboard) the synth and having f.e. 2 lfos both running at the same sync speed, they are totally off after a short period of time - even when the lfos are triggered in the same phase. At least here it behaves like that.
Could you please have a look into this?

@Karrikuh - have you had a chance to look at the lfo issue i described above? If you want, i can send you a preset which demonstrates the problem.

Yes, I did try reproduce it the other day, without success. So, feel free to send me a preset which demonstrates the issue.

[brok landers]

However - what i noticed since long, but always forgot to mention is, that the lfos, when synced to host, are running off over time. Both xlfo and the normal lfos. In the beginning everything is all right. but slowly but surely when f.e. a note is held over 16 bars or so, the timing gets more and more out of sync.
Also when just playing (not triggered from the host but playing it from the keyboard) the synth and having f.e. 2 lfos both running at the same sync speed, they are totally off after a short period of time - even when the lfos are triggered in the same phase. At least here it behaves like that.
Could you please have a look into this?

@Karrikuh - have you had a chance to look at the lfo issue i described above? If you want, i can send you a preset which demonstrates the problem.

Yes, I did try reproduce it the other day, without success. So, feel free to send me a preset which demonstrates the issue.

Ok - this is the second time i feel stupid because the problem kinda partly vanished. It now works both in reaper and studio one when i swear it didn't a few weeks ago, when i wrote the "bug report".
However - it works when played back quantized from the host. It doesn't work when played live. When i just play on my keyboard and hold the note, the lfos run out of timing. At least i have tried right now and can confirm this - both in Reaper and Studio one.
i have attached the preset where you can clearly (hopefully) hear that when you just play the note from your keyboard and hold it for a longer period of time.
Please let me know if you can verify that. Otherwise i feel even more stupid.

[mixyguy2]

I can't load the presets.

Me either. And I'm not using Cakewalk. It acts like it doesn't see them even though they're there.