KVR Audio

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:22 pm

Kriminal wrote:increase the polyphony, its way too low

Low polyphony is a feature! Playing styles of classic synths depended on low polyphony. You could have long release tails, but as long as you played enough new notes you could cut off the old ones when you needed, avoiding disonnance between different chords and keys.

But sure, it wouldn't hurt to offer a few more voices (as long as you can turn it back to 6 if you want). No classic analog polysynth I can think of had more than 8. I used 12 as a max on my synth, for people with one extra finger on each hand.

Kriminal · Post by **Kriminal** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:28 pm

its not a fetaure, its a limitation of older gear, something that should be ignored in todays world of computer music IMO

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:34 pm

Kriminal wrote:its not a fetaure, its a limitation of older gear, something that should be ignored in todays world of computer music IMO

Sure it's a limitation. But it was useable in performance and you can't play a lot of polysynth parts without it. It's like saying a monophonic synth is limited. Sure, it is if you want polyphony. But if you want to play a monophonic lead line, then a poly-synth is limited (unless it offers a mono/unison feature).

Or do you already get this, and that's why you're winking?

Anyway, martin_l seems to be pretty dedicated to emulating the original, warts and all, so I don't think infinite voices are a concern for him. If someone gave you a pristine JX-8P, would you throw it out because it only has 6 voices? I'm happy with guitars that only have six strings (I can barely handle that many!

)

Kriminal · Post by **Kriminal** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:43 pm

AdmiralQuality wrote:
Kriminal wrote:its not a fetaure, its a limitation of older gear, something that should be ignored in todays world of computer music IMO
Sure it's a limitation. But it was useable in performance and you can't play a lot of polysynth parts without it. It's like saying a monophonic synth is limited. Sure, it is if you want polyphony. But if you want to play a monophonic lead line, then a poly-synth is limited (unless it offers a mono/unison feature).

Or do you already get this, and that's why you're winking?

Anyway, martin_l seems to be pretty dedicated to emulating the original, warts and all, so I don't think infinite voices are a concern for him. If someone gave you a pristine JX-8P, would you throw it out because it only has 6 voices? I'm happy with guitars that only have six strings (I can barely handle that many! )

yes, i do get it, but i think its essential to be able to set polyphony on the user side....releasing a monophinic synth is a joke IMO, unless you can switch it to poly

Schiffbauer · Post by **Schiffbauer** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:45 pm

I am quite agree with Admiral - it's an real emulation of the JX8P - and
in addition to that belongs it's 6 voices. When I play Martins vst, there's
that real feeling, I've got from my old JX. The way of playing belongs to
this sound and it's character. Wether new waveforms nor more voices, please.

Or do we need 128 polyphony or more ROM-waveforms to a real Minimoog-emulation?
That's nonsense. The only thing this wonderful emulation needs to its final,
is it's unisono-modes and less cpu-load.

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:49 pm

Schiffbauer wrote:The only thing this wonderful emulation needs to its final,
is it's unisono-modes and less cpu-load.

And cycle-assignment!

Kriminal · Post by **Kriminal** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:56 pm

Schiffbauer wrote:I am quite agree with Admiral - it's an real emulation of the JX8P - and
in addition to that belongs it's 6 voices.

but having the option to increase/decrease would be good, and still not kill the original feel for purists

Schiffbauer wrote: Or do we need 128 polyphony or more ROM-waveforms to a real Minimoog-emulation?
That's nonsense.

you're just being silly now...my request was for something that would please everyone...not kill the project.

sonicpowa · Post by **sonicpowa** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 9:57 pm

LXNDR1 wrote:
sonicpowa wrote:Lovely sounding synth. Probably really close to the original JX8P. Are you concidering turning this to a commercial product some day? I would buy it.
the man is generous enough to give it out for free, take it and use it right now already

if you have extra money to spend just donate (contact the man for details)
i don't get the urge to buy something when it's already free. do money give some kind of validation to things?

i wish that mere paying for this synth turned it into a 100% accurate emulation of the original, how much time and effort could be spared then!

You are telling me instructions how to respond correctly about freeware?

What's wrong with encouraging him? I'm just telling it's that good and going to buy it if he makes really accurate commercial recreation of JX8P.
Anyways, yes I noticed it's free and I'm going to use it, thank you, your concern is noted.

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:01 pm

Kriminal wrote: yes, i do get it, but i think its essential to be able to set polyphony on the user side....releasing a monophinic synth is a joke IMO, unless you can switch it to poly

I do agree it's silly to go to the trouble of making a virtual monophonic synth without also adding polyphony to it, as most of the emulations of vintage mono-synths do.

But if someone gave me a real MiniMoog (or even a Voyager or Lil Phatty) I wouldn't thumb my nose at it. I love mono-synth and don't think it's a format that's ever going to go away. (But yes, in virtual land, why not give them all that and more.)

Check out Rick Wakeman's story about buying his first MiniMoog for half price from the original owner who thought it was broken. From the Moog documentary

martin_l · Post by **martin_l** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 11:47 pm

sonicpowa wrote:Lovely sounding synth. Probably really close to the original JX8P. Are you concidering turning this to a commercial product some day? I would buy it.

Well, I was not quite decided about that yet. But I think it is not worth going through the hassle of copy protection, etc... And most things get cracked anyway. So, I guess I will just keep it freeware, but I might put a donation button on my page.

It is fun for me coding it, and i enjoy if people find it useful.

Cheers,
Martin

martin_l · Post by **martin_l** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 11:55 pm

Timfonie wrote:Bravo! I compared the real thing with the simulation and I agree you've come really close!

Well, almost. I would be surprised if there wouldn't be some difference in the filter. Yet the filter's character is similar.

Yes, there are some small differences, but I have to say that I am surprised myself how similar a simple cascaded state variable filter came. I just detuned the two stages slightly, and introduced some non-linearities in the response to the resonance values.

One thing I'd like to see is the range of the envelope follow parameters being extended a bit. I've found myself wishing a little more when the fader was allready set at value 99. The digits can stay the same from 0-99 though like the original.

Yup, there is a problem. I am not happy with the envelope timings myself. There is a very peculiar thing going on: the same envelop timings sound right when the envelop is used to modulate the pitch, but they seem too long for the VCA. I guess it must be related to the some sort of expander in the real one. I am still playing with the settings a bit.

martin_l · Post by **martin_l** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 12:01 am

mztk wrote:ah, it sounds great! thanks! it's been a good week for vintage repro.
one very minor criticism, is that it's too big for a 15.4" screen,
which a lot of laptops - like mine- have. loads of space on there!
can you explain a bit about the VU display? is that voices used?

I can try to bring things a bit closer together, but redoing all graphics elements will take a lot of time, and right now is not my priority.

One thought I have is to remove all separate readouts and have only one combined readout which displays the value of whatever slider is moved. I have to see how this will work out.

I don't understand what 'VU' display you are talking about? Do you mean the flashing LEDs? That was just for me to test the voice allocation scheme. The left column indicates whether a voice is triggered, i.e. a key is pressed, while the right column indicates whether a voice is still active or sleeping.

I want to combine them into one LED per voice having different colours.

martin_l · Post by **martin_l** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 12:09 am

AdmiralQuality wrote:
Schiffbauer wrote:The only thing this wonderful emulation needs to its final,
is it's unisono-modes and less cpu-load.
And cycle-assignment!

The Unison and Mono modes are definitely planned. About the cycle-assignment, I first have to figure out how to probe for pressed keys while loading the VST...

Regarding the polyphony, I could try to increase it to 8 (but switchable), but to be honest, I don't think I could push it much further, since it would get too CPU heavy. Initially I was dreaming of going for an MKS-70 or JX-10 with it's 12 voices and layering, but I think it will not be feasible.

I will see how much more I can optimize the engine, but I guess that I am already relatively close to the limit.

However, please keep in mind, that right now I am only considering 44100 kHz Samplingrate. The plug will work for higher, but waste a lot of cycles since it will ALWAYS use 4-fold oversampling. I am planning to reduce the oversampling, depending on the samplerate.

AdmiralQuality · Post by **AdmiralQuality** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 12:34 am

martin_l wrote: The Unison and Mono modes are definitely planned. About the cycle-assignment, I first have to figure out how to probe for pressed keys while loading the VST...

Ha! I'm sure you could just throw in a 3 way switch for it. Switches were expensive to add to the original, but they're free in software.

toine6 · Post by **toine6** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:52 am

Perfect this, and then make a Roland JX-10 synth for more voices, then everyone should be happy

PG8X (inspired by the JX8P): new beta version uploaded