KVR Audio

Bug Music · Post by **Bug Music** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 12:37 am

Hi Garrin,
The preset management is much better in the last build, thank you !

As jbraner pointed out (about the grayed out icons), I agree it would be nice to be able to edit the "init" or "blank" setting (as in when the plugin is first opened), and then hit the "save" button... to be prompted to enter a new name at that point.
It took me a little while to figure out that the save icon is grayed out until a new name was entered first.

Also it seems a bit too easy to delete a preset, it seems like there should be some type of an "Are you sure ?" dialog box before it's deleted.
Other than those 2 little things, the preset system is working well now !

Thanks again for making this free, and doing a Mac version also !

- Jay

DaveClark · Post by **DaveClark** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 3:00 am

Hi Garrin,

Version 0.9.0 is not loading in Samplitude Pro X5 Suite (16.0.2.31(DP3), x64) nor in Waveform 11 (11.0.26, build 8 April 2020). Strangely, it passed all validation tests for Waveform 11. Samplitude has been problematic for VST3 for a long time, so it may be their problem, but other versions of Resonant Amp and early versions of Swanky Amp did load in it --- didn't test every release, though.

Swanky Amp loads in many others: Cubase Elements 10.5 (v. 10.5.12, Build 123 of 12 Feb 2020), Wavelab Elements 10 (10.0.30, Build 116), Sound Forge 13 (13.0, Build 135, x64), Reaper 6 (v. 6.13/x64), Cakewalk by Bandlab (2020.5, Build 039, x64), FL Studio 20 (20.7.1, Build 1773, x64), and Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio 9 (9.0, Build 460, x64).

I wanted to make this public to cross-check with other folks and ask them to check their other hosts if they have them. I didn't actually run them yet, just trying to first instantiate them.

Update (02 August 2020): I compiled Swanky Amp from source with no changes other than directories, creating a debug version. It works fine in both Samplitude and Waveform. I then renamed both this debug version and the release version (downloaded, not re-compiled) and now the release version works, also in both DAWs. In troubleshooting this problem earlier as described above, I had checked and double-checked to be sure that there was no extra version of Swanky Amp lying around, but it's possible that these two DAWs got confused about the plugin; what is a mystery though is how they became unconfused! I'll check again after a reboot, but can't do that now.

Best regards,
Dave

Bug Music · Post by **Bug Music** » Thu Jul 30, 2020 9:34 pm

Hi again Garrin,
I've got a strange one here using the AU version of Swanky Amp, with the Mac version of Ableton Live Lite ver. 10.1.15.
Ableton sorts all the plugins by developer, and when I have the AU version installed, I can see that "Resonant DSP" appears to take ownership of PG Music's Band-In-A-Box AU plugin.

I will try to link to the screenshots that I took, since I'm probably not describing it very clearly.
Here goes, hopefully this works...

Without Swanky Amp installed ...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z28unkl5hnzt4 ... p.png?dl=0

With Swanky Amp installed...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j5jribpja60yd ... p.png?dl=0

I haven't tried to use the VST3 version in Live yet, but I will give that a try tonight, when I get some more time to play.

Thanks !

- Jay

Bug Music · Post by **Bug Music** » Fri Jul 31, 2020 1:58 am

Hi Garrin,
Well...
I had a chance to configure Live to use VST3 plugins, and the Swanky Amp VST3 is behaving properly, it is only the AU version that has that weird behavior in Live.

It's not a huge deal, but figured I'd mention it.
Thanks again !

- Jay

guitarzan · Post by **guitarzan** » Sun Aug 30, 2020 5:11 am

Hey, I guess everyone decided to take a summer break, but it's been a month now — anything new going on?

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Fri Sep 04, 2020 6:47 pm

Hopefully Garinn is OK - just keeping his head down?

DaveClark · Post by **DaveClark** » Fri Sep 04, 2020 7:08 pm

Hi all,

Hopefully he doesn't mind my telling you this, but not to worry. He was OK a few days ago and was keeping busy.

Regards,
Dave

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Fri Sep 04, 2020 7:51 pm

Thanks Dave,
You never know - with covid and all...

garrinm · Post by **garrinm** » Wed Sep 09, 2020 8:37 pm

Good news: I'm still around and working on the project. I've not been able to commit that much time to it this past month and I hit a few snags (and neglected to communicate this here, sorry). I'll make a push to get a 1.0 release out in September. Here is an overview of the current effort to get to a 1.0 release:

- The process of converting the DSP code (written in FAUST) into the C++ plugin code was causing some issues and was liable to introduce latent bugs. I've already chased down 2 of them, so it was time to address the underlying issue. I've been re-working that entire process. It's time consuming work and not trivial to get right but it should make for a much better code base.

- I still think there are some voicing issues. I agree with the general comment that the amp sounds dark no matter what. I think I need to tweak the gain stages a bit more.

- Dave Clark has very generously written code to integrate his work on accurately modeling vintage tone stacks. You can find some of his plugins here http://www.execonsultingtx.com/download ... nd-32-bit/. There are some unresolved issues getting this to work properly, but I'd really like to include that work into the 1.0 release.

I'll be checking on the forum more actively moving forward.

Thanks for your patience (and concern),
Garrin

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Wed Sep 09, 2020 8:48 pm

Good to hear you're OK

garrinm · Post by **garrinm** » Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:50 pm

I'm writing up a quick update on the ongoing development. I'm appreciative you fine folk have been very supportive of this project and putting hours into testing it out. And I think the silence of the last couple of months was probably not a good way for me to acknowledge that. In an effort to rectify the situation I'm posting this quick update and will release a blog post shortly after the next update to the software (hopefully next week).

What's going on right now?

Like I said previously, I've had to re-write a big component of the build process to avoid some issues arising with the (mis)use of the FAUST library. I'm very happy with the progress and think it's well worth it for a few reasons: 1) fewer stability issues / they will be easier to diagnose, 2) more modular code base will be easier for people to read and/or branch from (not much point in open sourcing code if it's unusable).

I've also managed to (successfully) integrate one of the tone stacks provided by Dave Clark. It sounds great and really helps bring out the best of SwankyAmp's tube model. I'm thrilled with this development, as will many of you I suspect. Big thanks to Dave for that. In future releases I'd like to integrate more of his tone stacks. This will allow for some much more diverse sounds.

I'm sneaking an extra feature in here: dynamic cab. I've just started testing it out, so I'm not sure how audible it will be. But the modeling and technical work are done on that one. As part of this work I've refined the cabinet model and I think it's now better balanced.

Given the re-write of the FAUST functionality, I've had to wire the amp a bit differently than before. As a result, the distortion model is a bit different. In particular the gain staging wasn't being used very effectively previously, so this has been ameliorated (at least in my opinion). Sadly there's no longer the option to "blend" gain stages (what used to happen when the gain stage knob landed between two integers).

I'm excited to push out the next update, hopefully next week if I don't encounter any major snags.

Thanks,
Garrin

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Thu Sep 17, 2020 8:23 am

I'm excited to push out the next update, hopefully next week if I don't encounter any major snags.

Thanks for the update.
I look forward to trying it out

guitarzan · Post by **guitarzan** » Thu Sep 17, 2020 6:22 pm

I'm looking forward to trying out Swanky Amp some more this fall too.

I'd be interested to hear more about how your dynamic cab works, as well as more detail how Swanky Amp itself works if you ever get a chance (especially any insight into power amp sag in general) — I know it's open source, but I don't know anything about DSP.

garrinm · Post by **garrinm** » Mon Sep 21, 2020 7:24 pm

Alright, at long last here is the next update: Swanky Amp 0.10.0. This is a candidate for the 1.0 release. I'll fix bugs or make minor tweaks to this version until it runs smoothly, and then it'll become 1.0. After that the only incoming features will be the addition of tone stacks, possibly the addition of cabinets, and perhaps minor improvements to the UI.

http://www.resonantdsp.com/swankyamp/

Many things changed in this version, here is a summary of the major changes. Note that you will want to revisit your presets since the relative levels of the amp stages has changed and so has the distortion levels. Moreover the output level has a base +10 dB, since it was nearly always the case that that knob had to be turned up about 10 dB.

* New tone stack provided by Dave Clark which is based on the Fender tonestack
* Dynamic cabinet (I'll explain a bit more what I did there in a future post guitarzan): you'll notice the heavier distorted outputs will be a bit darker when this knob is turned up, and overall the amp is more reactive
* Cabinet rework: the cabinet is now better balanced, especially in the lows and upper mids. With the dynamic setting I find it sound much better.
* Gain stages can now be overdriven more easily for additional sounds in the crunch and hi-gain regimes.

Upcoming work:

* Blog post to cover the technical work that went into this
* Update the website material
* Correctly restore preset name when exiting / restoring the plugin
* Additional tone stacks
* MSI installer for windows

Thanks,
Garrin

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Mon Sep 21, 2020 8:38 pm

Hi Garrin,
I'll look forward to trying this out tomorrow

Is there any reason to use the installer right now? (does it install any presets or anything else?)
Or is it OK to just copy the vst3 file manually?

Swanky Amp (release 1.4.0)