paulnasca

djbarney · Post by **djbarney** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 6:15 pm

I just tried the VST plugin. It works great !

One question I have is, is there a way to get Zyn to acquire all the controls (using the MIDI learn window) that can be controlled, automatically ? For the moment I just went through and manually added what should be most of the controls but pretty sure I missed some and added some twice.

What I'm using is Jeskola Buzz with the Polac VST machine. Once the controls show up in Polac VST when they've been learnt in Zyn, that means I can use Polac's preset randomisation (you can see all the knobs move around to new positions in Zyn when hitting "randomise" in Polac). The Polac VST machine also has some cool morph and "breed" (genetic) functions that act on the controls. Already getting some cool presets and a good way of learning Zyn

, but wanted to be a bit more methodical about adding all the controls.

jackoo · Post by **jackoo** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 10:50 pm

Short answer: No. Certainly not *all* the controls. Not everything is automate-able.

If you save the whole setup in an xmz file or via the host (inside a project) the MIDI window will remember the settings. So maybe you can make sort of a template xmz file with all the controls you want, and use that.

BTW: Just to note that if you assign a MIDI CTRL value 1 to 127 then it will respond to MIDI CCs messages. If you want zyn to listen to automation messages from the host (and use the parameters seen from the host) you need to set CTRL to '0' or '*'.

But anyway you cannot add all the controls to the list. Most global controls you can add, but most stuff in the oscillator section cannot be automated (except the harmonics sliders, i think). Read the docu in VST_README.txt for more details.

When I wrote the automation routines, I didn't have in mind designing a sound from scratch, but rather shaping the sound via MIDI or host automation (mainly the filters, panning, volume, etc). Besides there are parameters which are impossible to change in realtime because of computational complexity (like most of the PAD Synth engine).

djbarney · Post by **djbarney** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 4:13 pm

OK, thanks that's great.

I can successfully acquire controls and my host has access to them.

You may have misunderstood my original question in the post above, or I explained it badly ...

I know I can manually acquire controls, but is there a way to dump all the possible controls into the MIDI window automatically without having to manually touch them ?

This would be up to a maximum of 100 controls if the VST_README.txt file is still accurate ...

- First in the list is parameter0, second in list is parameter1 and so on... max 100.

If that can't be done with MIDI then I'll have to do it manually, until I work out the OSC control of Zyn

.

jackoo · Post by **jackoo** » Mon Feb 16, 2015 9:24 pm

Let me clarify a bit that for you:

- You cannot manually acquire all controls (especially the OSC section)
- You cannot automatically aquire any of them. And that makes sense too. A control has to exist first before it can be 'aquired'. Think of a knob controlling the delay of an echo effect: If the patch doesn't have an echo FX created / attached in the first place, any pointer to that delay knob would be invalid.
- There may be much more than 100 controls in ZynAddSubFX ... If you consider the possibilities of 16 parts*16 kits*3 engines*8 voices *2 oscillators (per voice, including modulator oscillators)... *128 magnitude sliders * 128 phase sliders.... more than 200 million and counting.

However, in order to keep the host sane, no more than 100 (which is quite a random picked number) can be exported to the host or controlled by MIDI simultaneously.

I hope it's more clear now.
Cheers!

fundamental · Post by **fundamental** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 12:24 am

Your math's a bit off there, you'd want *(128 mag + 128 phase) which gets your number to 3,145,728

In reality the current number of parameters exposed in the git head is 6,449,326

jackoo · Post by **jackoo** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 7:22 pm

Thanks, fundamental - i failed my math, but my point stands. You're right. Still a large number if you're thinking to randomize *all* the parameters.

dwozzle · Post by **dwozzle** » Thu Feb 26, 2015 3:49 am

Late to the party, apologies for the dumb question, but is there a Windows VST version of 2.5, and if so where? Is it 64 bit?

I saw the announcement of 2.5 in the announce thread, but the download link on sourceforge points back to this thread, which has v2.4.1.496beta on the first page, a discussion of controller assignments at the end, and I didn't read through all 25 pages to try to find 2.5.

Some of the demos sound great!

How is cpu usage?

jackoo · Post by **jackoo** » Thu Feb 26, 2015 5:43 pm

no. and no.

dwozzle · Post by **dwozzle** » Thu Feb 26, 2015 8:24 pm

OK thanks for clarifying.

Will there be a Windows version of 2.5 at some point, and if so, roughly when?

Is the framework/environment this is built inherently 32 bit (a la SynthEdit), or might it be possible to make a 64 bit version some day without major rework?

c_voltage · Post by **c_voltage** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:00 am

rekkerd.org/zynaddsubfx-free-synth-plugin-updated-to-v2-5-0/
Well, it seem to anounced and updated two different things.
(It i the same grumble about Win and very very good midi learn)

fundamental · Post by **fundamental** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 12:52 am

Hopefully there will be a 2.5.x available in VST form, but this will involve merging the separate VST codebase back into the mainline official codebase (which is what the release announcement refers to).
This work has been discussed as a possibility, but merging has not begun, so no timeline is currently possible.
To my knowledge there's no inherent limitations which would prevent a 64-bit release.

jackoo · Post by **jackoo** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 5:35 pm

Current VST implementation is based on VST SDK 2.3 which is incompatible with 64bit. So it's not just clicking 'recompile'. I wouldn't necessarily call it 'major' work, but it's no little task.

Midi learn had been implemented (to some extent) in the VST before the 2.5 release of the official Zyn codebase. As well as audio inputs and multiple outputs. Current VST is already decently stable (or realtime-safe) - I've been using it a lot, without crashes for more than a year. A lot of parameters are already controllable by MIDI in realtime.

@fundamental: are there any features in 2.5 that improve the sound or add new possibilities to sound design? Or are they limited to architectural optimization / lowering CPU usage / bringing the code to a new standard? Please don't get me wrong, I fully admire the work you put into this project!!!

Cheers!

EDIT: Forgot to ask: are the patches for 2.4 fully compatible with version 2.5? Can patches created with 2.5 be played by version 2.4? Thanks!

fundamental · Post by **fundamental** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 7:22 pm

No major sound design additions have been made since 2.4.4, though there were a few minor additions in the 2.4.4 release.
The patch format is the same for both versions. 2.5.x should be able to read any previous version without a problem. 2.4.x should be able to read any 2.5 patch, but it will ignore features that it does not have.

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 5:58 pm

I am on Windows 7 64 bit. Should I even bother trying to install this, even if I try using JBridge?

If not, will that day ever come?

jackoo · Post by **jackoo** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 6:21 pm

'bother'?
[...]

umm... actually, after some thought, I would recommend that you never ever touch it. Please keep on waiting for that... day.

paulnasca

KVR Audio

Classic ZynAddSubFX VST download