Cytomic "The Drop" Resonant Filter

[contrast]

Parameter automation is not subject to the same limitations as MIDI. The resolution of the parameter value is the same as it is in the plugin. Sometimes better, even, than in plugins with bad GUIs.

That said, it's still less precise than an envelope inside the plugin itself, in that VST2 plugins only get a parameter update at the start of every buffer that the plugin processes. That's generally not any worse than your audio interface latency settings and in many cases better (eg. Live lets you pick a size independently from your audio settings).

IIRC VST3 allows for more detailed automation data, not sure about AU or AAX.

[camsr]

Guess which DAW has the best automation envelopes?

FL Studio.

IOW I really look forward to The Drop and hope any DRM that might be present will not be too invasive.

[Nokenoku]

That sounds like slow automation to me, but it does have a triggered synth envelope with a fast decay time, are you referring to this envelope "plip"? If so then you can do this kind of thing easily with The Drop, either by triggering the envelope via midi or via a "manual trigger" automation gate control, where an upward step of the control from below 0.5 to above 0.5 will trigger the envelope. The internal processing of The Drop is always done at audio rate or above if you have oversampling enabled, which, along with the very detailed analog modelling, will give ultra smooth results.

Being able to trigger an internal envelope is good, but I'd really like to be able to also use external automation.

I know the automation could be faster than in this example (there's actually an option in FL Studio, but the highest setting is eating loads of CPU), but what I meant with "slow" is stuff like this:
https://www.box.com/s/65c1d135e9b5546b4220
This is what I get from Fabfilter Volcano with the same automation going on.

This is not a limitation of the plugins, but a limitation of the midi spec itself. You don't want to be drawing really fast automation curves to a cutoff knob with midi cc values. That's just the wrong way to go about doing it. As Andy pointed out, most filter plugins have built in envelopes that can be triggered in a number of ways to do exactly what you are trying to achieve.

I'm not "drawing".
In this example I used the Envelope-Controller of FLS, which just passes automation data to a plugin (not sure, if such automation is passed with the old MIDI protocol). And as shown in the first example, SOME plugins can actually process data fast enough.
Using the tools of FL Studio is more versatile than using an internal envelope ... and it's just another way to work.

I just started to work on a track, where I really want full freedom for my bassline. So I control volume and filtering entirely by automation.
Sadly I can actually only use a few filter plugins, because most I tried totally "smooth up" every automation data they get.

[andy-cytomic]

Thanks for pointing out what you actually had in mind with your particular host, but please lets keep this on topic and not fall into a battle between DAWs.

The Drop will have you covered in multiple ways:

1) you can switch smoothing off on the cutoff controls so you will get linear segments interpolated between "setParameter" calls. If you host can chop up the processing chunks small enough you will be very fast automation with this. You can also do step sequencer style automation with this. There is a secondary "offset" knob that will still have smoothing which will sweep both low and high pass cutoffs at once as well.

2) you can pass an arbitrary signal into input 3+4 and do audio rate frequency modulation with this, you could even use a plugin like the Expert Sleepers or Volta to control The Drop in this way like you can with analog modular

3) the drop already has a very high quality analog modelled envelope follower that you can switch to follow input 3+4 instead of the main input 1+2

4) the drop has an AHR envelope that you can trigger via automation or midi

So the last 3 ways get you per sample (over even lower if you oversample) ultra smooth wobbling of the cutoff. If you do want to use method 1) then you probably won't even have to switch smoothing off since my algorithm is highly adaptive, if the time between "set" calls is small my algorithm backs off the smoothing since it knows that the values are actually where the cutoff should be.

[pough]

Andy, I'm going to go against the grain and encourage you to take your time and not release the Drop until you're completely satisfied. Don't listen to these people trying to rush you.

Mind you, I'm really only saying that because I tend not to make much money in the summer and will miss out on any special early pricing.

[Bronto Scorpio]

Please wait until 2013 with the release
I promised myself not to buy any plugins or other music related stuff in 2012 and I haven't bought anything so far

Cheers
Dennis

[Nokenoku]

1) you can switch smoothing off on the cutoff controls so you will get linear segments interpolated between "setParameter" calls. If you host can chop up the processing chunks small enough you will be very fast automation with this. You can also do step sequencer style automation with this.

Yesss

2) you can pass an arbitrary signal into input 3+4 and do audio rate frequency modulation with this, you could even use a plugin like the Expert Sleepers or Volta to control The Drop in this way like you can with analog modular

This gets better and better!

Thank you very much for your detailed answer!
Waiting for "The Drop" just got harder.

[n0rd]

A couple more audio examples, these are bass arpeggiations played from an akai mpk mini live with some knob tweaking. I was in a daze last night drinking some red wine and nibbling on 70% dark chocolate playing these on headphones. I'm tweaking the cutoff, resonance, decay time of the env and filter drive:

http://www.cytomic.com/files/thedrop-moog-arp2.mp3
http://www.cytomic.com/files/thedrop-ms20v2-arp.mp3

I'll post some examples head to head with the Moog Prodigy and MS20v2 tomorrow some time, just geeky sweeps where you can listen to the distortion tones and intermodulation tones of the two to hear the quality of the models in a more scientific way.

Niiice! What was being filtered? (What audio/synth/oscillator(s) was the source?)

[andy-cytomic]

Niiice! What was being filtered? (What audio/synth/oscillator(s) was the source?)

Thanks! I have an internal test oscillator plugin that generates a smoothly adjustable waveform between triangle <-> saw <-> saw with pulse <-> pulse. For these examples I was just using a pure sawtooth without any imperfections so all the tone is coming from the filter. I used loads of drive into the filter. When the cutoff is high you can hear the sharp bite to the tone which comes from solving all the non-linear equations "implicitly" which means without any feedback delay anywhere in the circuit model. This isn't just for resonance, each one pole low pass has feedback as well which needs to be solved for to get crisp results. This does take extra cpu but has huge benefits in terms of tone and how things sound when modulated, everything bends, and everything sounds right even at the highest drive, resonance, and modulation depth levels.

(edit: forgot to say the notes were recorded into Ableton Live coming from the built in arpeggiator of an Akai MPK mini, and I also used this controller mapped via midi to adjust the cutoff, resonance, drive, and envelope decay time)

[eightBiT]

Please wait until 2013 with the release
I promised myself not to buy any plugins or other music related stuff in 2012 and I haven't bought anything so far

Cheers
Dennis

Please don't.


Haven't anticipated the release of an fx plugin this much before.

Clips are sounding fantastic.

[Bronto Scorpio]

Please wait until 2013 with the release
I promised myself not to buy any plugins or other music related stuff in 2012 and I haven't bought anything so far

Cheers
Dennis

Please don't.

[andy-cytomic]

I've got the first scientific sweep style head to head with The Drop and the MS20 rev2.

Very impressive indeed!

Well I've just upped the ante

I have been working for some time now on a more accurate model that includes buffer saturation on the MS20 rev2 and I've finally nailed it. This is the finest analog model I've done to date and the cpu usage is very respectable. I am absolutely gobsmacked with the results, but you can judge for yourself:



Well that is the MS20 rev2 done, now on to the Moog Prodigy

[n0rd]

Well I've just upped the ante

Juicy squelchy goodness...

[Nokenoku]

This is really impressive!

And YAY, it's saying "coming soon" in the video.
(Jaja, I know ... ^^)

[homunculus]

Beta please!!!!