New drum-synth called smackbox. Beta-testing has commenced!

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stefancrs wrote: Mon Dec 01, 2025 7:58 pm
sinkmusic wrote: Mon Dec 01, 2025 7:05 pm
edit: btw, for toms, you can also assign the same sound to several keys/pads and use pitch follow so they get different pitch.
Yes, that's a nice feature to have.
(Just not the absolute best, because if you follow the regular Midi mapping, toms are often mapped to F, G and A, while hats are mapped to F#, G# and A#).
Sorry, I don't follow? The way I have it (also in the old Smackbox) is so you can put sound 4 at F, G and A if you want, and whatever you want inbetween. That's what the numbers on the keys in my screenshots represent, which sound to use for that key/pad.
It's me who's sorry :lol: It's easier with an actual software than with a screenshot :)
I thought the mapping would be "from F to B" (therefore : including also F#, G#, A#), and I didn't remember how the previopus version worked.

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sinkmusic wrote: Mon Dec 01, 2025 8:21 pm It's me who's sorry :lol: It's easier with an actual software than with a screenshot :)
I thought the mapping would be "from F to B" (therefore : including also F#, G#, A#), and I didn't remember how the previopus version worked.
No worries! And copy/paste makes sense anyways, I wanted it to create the hihats ;)

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Will this work ok for choke groups? There are only two then, but I don't think you need more very often? (nevermind the non-alignment ;))
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It seems perfect, yes

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Great news! Thank you so much for bringing it back. I've always loved its sound. I think more outputs would be great. Also, the ability to control the sound duration using the keyboard. And adding the option to import samples into the source would be fantastic.
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Iu Gob wrote: Tue Dec 02, 2025 4:13 am Great news! Thank you so much for bringing it back. I've always loved its sound. I think more outputs would be great. Also, the ability to control the sound duration using the keyboard. And adding the option to import samples into the source would be fantastic.
Thank you!

You mean like velocity -> decay modulation? That could be cool...

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stefancrs wrote: Tue Dec 02, 2025 5:24 am
Iu Gob wrote: Tue Dec 02, 2025 4:13 am Great news! Thank you so much for bringing it back. I've always loved its sound. I think more outputs would be great. Also, the ability to control the sound duration using the keyboard. And adding the option to import samples into the source would be fantastic.
Thank you!

You mean like velocity -> decay modulation? That could be cool...
:tu:
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Got CPU usage down by about 50%. Will have a look at adding sample support (it will be something very basic though).

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Added triangle, sawtooth, square wave and (somewhat lofi) sample support.

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It looks good and the featureset is great! I'm looking forward to it ! :phones:
Any ETA when a beta might be available?

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sinkmusic wrote: Tue Dec 02, 2025 9:13 pm It looks good and the featureset is great! I'm looking forward to it ! :phones:
Any ETA when a beta might be available?
It will probably be feature complete in the next few days. After that I need to test in a few different hosts and build it for different platforms.

Then I need to decide on demo version / pricing / licensing. This time, if I am to get back into this, it's to see if I can create something monetary out of it as well.

I'd say in a week or two?

I might need help creating presets though!

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Added velocity->decay modulation, goes from -1 to 1, so either higher velocity shortens or lengthens the sound. With that, I think it's feature complete.

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In the oscillator section, have you considered more complex oscillator shapes (under the hood), so it would help greatly creating cymbals sounds?
For instance, filtered white noise is fine for older kind of sounds (like combo organ drum machines), but in order to create something close to Roland analog cymbal sounds (think : tr808, tr606, dr110, etc), you may need something more advanced than a single waveform. So being able to choose a "tr cymb" model (which would be 6 detuned square waves) would allow for fast and easy cymbal sounds creation.

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sinkmusic wrote: Wed Dec 03, 2025 12:32 pm In the oscillator section, have you considered more complex oscillator shapes (under the hood), so it would help greatly creating cymbals sounds?
For instance, filtered white noise is fine for older kind of sounds (like combo organ drum machines), but in order to create something close to Roland analog cymbal sounds (think : tr808, tr606, dr110, etc), you may need something more advanced than a single waveform. So being able to choose a "tr cymb" model (which would be 6 detuned square waves) would allow for fast and easy cymbal sounds creation.
You actually get similar(ish) sounds by using the square oscillator with noise FM + highpass filter.
Just stacking 6 detunes squares in the osc section won't get you close to those.

But then again, now we also have sample support, so one can always use that ;)

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Ok.
I know that there are several ways to skin a cat (I got some nice cymbal sounds using 2 osc + ring mod, for instance), but that's also right that I love the cymbal model on my Elektron Rytm. It features a very rich sound by having more detuned oscillators.

Yes, this is partly why I asked for sample import :)
But one advantage of synthesis is that you aren't limited to the sample length (unless you have loop points in your sample, but that's another story). With pure synthesis, you can get crazy long cymbal sounds, for instance.

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