New Binaural Synth with Weird Modulations and (probably) Novel Synthesis - SHIFT (Free Trial)

[emotionalaudio]

Hi all!

This is my first post here, and I just released my first synth, SHIFT. I’ve never released anything before (so please bear with me lol), but I think you might be interested in some of the stuff it’s got going on.

Trial version is here: https://emotionalaudio.gumroad.com/l/SHIFTtrial

Lil demo video here:

The synth is a “non-traditional” subtractive synth, and it includes somewhat esoteric features like a binary comparator and strange attractors. There’s also a unique performance mode and a possibly novel type of synthesis (I’m calling it Neural).

The Neural oscillator is not AI or machine learning, it’s not trained to replicate presets or acoustic instruments (it's not, and can not be, trained at all). It creates new, real-time audio by solving some of the math equations (activation functions) that power sinusoidal representation networks (SIRENs). The Neural oscillator is basically a three neuron SIREN, but you can control the weights and the blend of active neurons. This creates some really interesting textures and timbres. The phase of the Neural oscillator itself, along with LFO 1 and OSC 1, feed the calculations of what is essentially an exposed, shallow neural network.

Speaking of calculations, the entire synth is procedural and math based. There are no samples or tables anywhere.

Also, Temporal (TMP) mode is a digital successor to analog-style retriggering. Instead of a voice card inheriting its own voltage during a voice steal (a byproduct of the limitations of physical capacitors), every new voice inherits the envelope states of the last-triggered voice, regardless of whether it’s stealing or not. This means that instead of static shapes, envelopes (and therefore the LPF) can be played in time. You can juggle the attack and release stages to make the envelopes/filter seem like they’re breathing. The second clip in the demo video shows off TMP mode.

Overall, I think it’s got an interesting mix of East Coast/West Coast sounds.

Here’s some tech specs

- Discrete left and right (PolyBLEP) oscillators, filters, and amps, for true stereo sound (no chorus or other effects required)
- LFOs 1 and 2 can offset their phase between the two channels, creating massive, swirling stereo images
- LFOs 1 and 2 can modulate parameters up to 20kHz
- SIMD optimized ZDF TPT filters (cascaded 24dB/octave low-pass filter)
- Custom ADSR envelopes with dynamically-calculated slopes. Selectable exponential/logarithmic curves, along with optional smooth-stepping
- Because of the audio-rate modulation capabilities, the entire engine is 2x oversampled
- Vectorized, resizable GUI (bottom right corner)
- On my MacBook (M3 chip), I was running 10 instances of the synth, all of them playing 20 active voices for a total of 200 voices, and my CPU was at 60% usage according to Reaper’s performance monitor. This was at a sample rate of 48kHz and a buffer size of 32 samples. That’s 200 voices x 17 oscillators per voice = 3400 oscillators, 400 filters, 400 amps, plus modulation and the global 2x oversampling. Also, this was using the Neural oscillator, which is computationally heavier than the standard audio modes.
- Pluginval certified strictness level 10

SHIFT features no DRM, and I’m selling it for $50 (this includes lifetime updates of course).

I’m actively developing the synth, so I’d love to hear any feedback or thoughts you’ve got about it!

And this is where you can buy it if you want: https://emotionalaudio.gumroad.com/l/SHIFT

Windows/macOS plugins (AU, VST3) + standalone app

[simmo75]

Congrats!This looks a little different. Is there a demo?

[Ah_Dziz]

Neat

[emotionalaudio]

Congrats!This looks a little different. Is there a demo?

Thank you! Right now there's just the demo video, but I'm working on posting a trial version ASAP. I'll post an update here as soon as it's online.

[mutagen]

Intrigued, awaiting the trial version. There's some interesting sounds in the demo video.

[emotionalaudio]

Intrigued, awaiting the trial version. There's some interesting sounds in the demo video.

Thanks for checking it out! Trial is up now, you can grab it here:
https://emotionalaudio.gumroad.com/l/SHIFTtrial

[zerocrossing]

Has anyone tried this one yet?

[oneguitarband]

Congratulations for all the work, I enjoyed watching the demo and it seems that everything that you have implemented works fine! Can't say I managed to realize the difference between TMP ON and TMP OFF at the second part of the video... Perhaps you should interchange between ON and OFF several times, not placed very far appart in time, so that the listener has more chances to understand what actually the difference is. I would also like to comment that the term 'binaural' is usually associated with more elegant processing of the left and right channel, based on psychoacoustic models and usually, Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTF) which are capable (theoretically) to provide a convincing 3D spatial impression of each sound source. Your stereo processing approach definately sounds interesting, I would however be sceptical about branding it with the term 'binaural'. Hope my comments helped...

[emotionalaudio]

Congratulations for all the work, I enjoyed watching the demo and it seems that everything that you have implemented works fine! Can't say I managed to realize the difference between TMP ON and TMP OFF at the second part of the video... Perhaps you should interchange between ON and OFF several times, not placed very far appart in time, so that the listener has more chances to understand what actually the difference is. I would also like to comment that the term 'binaural' is usually associated with more elegant processing of the left and right channel, based on psychoacoustic models and usually, Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTF) which are capable (theoretically) to provide a convincing 3D spatial impression of each sound source. Your stereo processing approach definately sounds interesting, I would however be sceptical about branding it with the term 'binaural'. Hope my comments helped...

Thank you so much! And thanks for checking it out, I'm glad you liked the vid. I'm sorry my demonstration of TMP wasn't clear enough, I'm planning on making a video specifically on the mode and I'll definitely be doing the interchanging you mentioned. In the video, with TMP off, every note played has the slow attack time of the patch's programming. When TMP is switched on, the point at which a new voice attacks is dependent on the envelope states of the most-recently-triggered voice. So in the video when TMP is turned on, notice the slow attack of the initial C+G. The voices swell as they reach the peak of their attack, and when I play the F#, instead of beginning at "0", from the beginning of the slow attack, the new F# voice picks up immediately at the top of the envelope, where the C/G voices are. It doesn't have that long attack time. From that point on, I'm trying to show off the "breathing" effect that can be achieved by juggling the envelopes. And fair point about the term "binaural." Honestly the basic signal path of SHIFT was inspired by a hardware synth that uses the term, so I kept it as a nod to them lol. But thanks again for your comment, I really appreciate the constructive criticism!

[zerocrossing]

And fair point about the term "binaural." Honestly the basic signal path of SHIFT was inspired by a hardware synth that uses the term, so I kept it as a nod to them lol.

UDO Super 6?

[emotionalaudio]

And fair point about the term "binaural." Honestly the basic signal path of SHIFT was inspired by a hardware synth that uses the term, so I kept it as a nod to them lol.

UDO Super 6?

That's the one!

[zerocrossing]

So, I played with it a bit and two things struck me as odd. One, you can't turn unison oscillator off... or am I missing something? Second, it responds to polyphonic aftertouch, but in a channel pressure way, so if you send it you get glitchy modulation as it tries to use the last data sent. I'd expect it to work like U-He plugins, which respond to both in a correct manner. Both these things are deal breakers to me.

[emotionalaudio]

So, I played with it a bit and two things struck me as odd. One, you can't turn unison oscillator off... or am I missing something? Second, it responds to polyphonic aftertouch, but in a channel pressure way, so if you send it you get glitchy modulation as it tries to use the last data sent. I'd expect it to work like U-He plugins, which respond to both in a correct manner. Both these things are deal breakers to me.

First of all thanks for checking it out, I really appreciate your feedback. I've pinpointed the source of the issue with the polyphonic aftertouch. I don't currently have a polyphonic aftertouch-capable MIDI controller, so I'm going to rent or try to borrow one so I can test the fix.

And regarding the swarm oscillator, to silence it you'll have to put the Mix knob to 100% OSC 2. Or if you meant how to turn off the swarm and just use it as a regular oscillator, then no, you can't do that; OSC 1 is always a swarm.

I'm sorry to hear the synth wasn't doing it for you, but again, I really do appreciate your comments, especially regarding the poly aftertouch glitch. I'm going to get out the patch to fix that ASAP.

[wagtunes]

Just purchased. Love the way this sounds. It is unlike any other synth I have. Reminds me a bit of Arcsyn as far as its unique sound. Am using it for my latest track.

To the dev, great job on this. Will be using it a lot.

[zerocrossing]

So, I played with it a bit and two things struck me as odd. One, you can't turn unison oscillator off... or am I missing something? Second, it responds to polyphonic aftertouch, but in a channel pressure way, so if you send it you get glitchy modulation as it tries to use the last data sent. I'd expect it to work like U-He plugins, which respond to both in a correct manner. Both these things are deal breakers to me.

First of all thanks for checking it out, I really appreciate your feedback. I've pinpointed the source of the issue with the polyphonic aftertouch. I don't currently have a polyphonic aftertouch-capable MIDI controller, so I'm going to rent or try to borrow one so I can test the fix.

And regarding the swarm oscillator, to silence it you'll have to put the Mix knob to 100% OSC 2. Or if you meant how to turn off the swarm and just use it as a regular oscillator, then no, you can't do that; OSC 1 is always a swarm.

I'm sorry to hear the synth wasn't doing it for you, but again, I really do appreciate your comments, especially regarding the poly aftertouch glitch. I'm going to get out the patch to fix that ASAP.

OIC. That seems to be a weird design choice. Why not just have “1” as an option for osc 1?