Fathom Synth Development Thread

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Fathom Synth$32.00Buy

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Yes, it's exciting. I have to go in and try some things in Reaper to catch up. I'll be doing that in the next day or so.

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First ever kvr post!!!!

Just bought and had a little play. It's very nice and I can see this going places with a little bit of refinement. I have just a few suggestions

1. I would find it easier to drag an oscillator/filter/effects block and choosing the type in the main panel. This way I can audition different oscillator and filter types without having to delete the block, adding a different block and then connect them. Would speed up workflow x1000.

2. Modulators use real world time divisions instead of numbers e.g. 1/2, 1/2T etc. Although I think it's been said before.

3. In the modulator panel, setting precise amounts of modulation is quite difficult. The circle is quite small. Maybe having the ability to drag the bar around the knob might be easier, if I make sense. Also the default modulation is multiply, which is an 'x'. Looking at the pane it looks like this is a delete button and will delete the modulator.

4. I think the preset/browser/load buttons are in the wrong place. They are actually in the pane with the modules which makes me think they are associated with the module.

5. A manual! There are parameters that I have no clue what they do. Especially distortion and detune.

Sorry for ramblings. I think this has potential and I want to help make it better. Xx

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Mik_lo wrote:First ever kvr post!!!!

Just bought and had a little play. It's very nice and I can see this going places with a little bit of refinement. I have just a few suggestions

1. I would find it easier to drag an oscillator/filter/effects block and choosing the type in the main panel. This way I can audition different oscillator and filter types without having to delete the block, adding a different block and then connect them. Would speed up workflow x1000.

2. Modulators use real world time divisions instead of numbers e.g. 1/2, 1/2T etc. Although I think it's been said before.

3. In the modulator panel, setting precise amounts of modulation is quite difficult. The circle is quite small. Maybe having the ability to drag the bar around the knob might be easier, if I make sense. Also the default modulation is multiply, which is an 'x'. Looking at the pane it looks like this is a delete button and will delete the modulator.

4. I think the preset/browser/load buttons are in the wrong place. They are actually in the pane with the modules which makes me think they are associated with the module.

5. A manual! There are parameters that I have no clue what they do. Especially distortion and detune.

Sorry for ramblings. I think this has potential and I want to help make it better. Xx
How lucky you are for your first post! Here you are within fans of this new synth... and fans around an excellent and very kind developer!

Welcome!
:D :D :D :clown:
Build your life everyday as if you would live for a thousand years. Marvel at the Life everyday as if you would die tomorrow.
I'm now severely diseased since September 2018.

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Mik_Lo, Welcome! Great post with some brilliant ideas. I will add them to the list. The mod amount dial is 1/100 per mouse wheel and 1/1000 per click, but yes you are right the graphics could show this better. Yes, a manual would be a huge help!

mik82, thanks for the compliment!

Wow, Fathom has Fans! I guess that means now we need to make T-Shirts.

The release of 1.0.6 will be Monday (Tomorrow), I’ve had to do some extra testing. But here’s the list of features it will have.

www.fathomsynth.com/versions

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Got the slogan for the t-shirt: Fathom This!

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FathomSynth wrote: The release of 1.0.6 will be Monday (Tomorrow), I’ve had to do some extra testing.

But here’s the list of features it will have:
http://www.fathomsynth.com/versions
Musical Gym wrote:Got the slogan for the t-shirt: Fathom This!
Double like! :tu:

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lmao, brilliant!

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Is there a reason the pulse width of the wavetable oscillator can't be modulated? I assume there is as there is a delay until after the knob is released before the sound and visualisation of the wave changes.

Otherwise haven't found any problems with testing. First synth I've bought in ages!

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Actually it could easily be modulated if a mode option was added to the wave table engine
which uses an internal filter instead of a Fast Fourier Transform.

But in order to understand why a couple of the dials are not currently modulated,
some background info is necessary.

Fathom always uses the Fast Fourier Transform to take any wave you draw
and then derive the component partials and then reconstruct the wave using
the component partials (sin waves). You can see this by saving one of your waves
in wav format and look at both the raw and band limited versions.

Despite all the modulations on the page everything is pre-calculated and run through the FFT
to generate high speed run-time tables that are absolutely alias free.
Even if the partials dial on the previous page is modulated everything is pre-calculated
across 64 partial buffers x 32 wave table buffers.

The reason why modulating many of the wave table dials is possible even though pre-calculated
FFT's are used is because the FFT for the left and right side tables x 16 waveforms per table
is done separately so that when the left or right wave index is modulated and the bottom
dials such as amount or frequency are modulated, since everything being combined
is post FFT zero alias, the combined waveforms are also zero alias.

However! Pulse width can not be modulated post FFT because if you change the pulse
width of a waveform, since you are really changing the waveform itself, it introduces aliasing.

If you want to see something cool, set Skip Cycle to 3 and bounce the Fathom track
to an audio track and look at the resulting waveform. It will "chop" your wave at sub
note frequencies with zero alias.

But like I said if you really want to modulate pulse width, its not hard to add an internal mode
to use filtering instead of the FFT. The sound quality is not quite as high but it still works ok.

I can do that in a future release if there is interest.

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Does the 1.0.6 release also fix this browser bug?


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Yes. Version 1.0.6 (out tomorrow) will store the current folders and recall them
even after closing and opening the host.

In your example, say you are in E:\Plugin\Fathom\Programs\User\RM

You open the browser and hit the up arrow twice and the root changes to Programs.
Then you expand User and select RM and the right side loads the programs in RM.

With the fix now, when you open the browser it remembers and sets
the root and path box to E:\Plugin\Fathom\Programs.
And it also remembers the sub-folder User\RM and loads the programs in RM into the right side.

The only thing it will not do is visually expand User\RM.

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FathomSynth wrote:I can't think of any reason that saved user presets would disappear.
During testing every day I save presets in the user folder and folders all over my computer
including folders in my visual studio debug directories, and in two years of testing
I've never had any disappear. The file browser dialog wraps a normal windows file system access.
Also, the file list on the right is generated from reading the drive folder not form anything internal,
so if you save a preset and you see it pop up in the list on the right that means
that it is physically impossible for it not to be somewhere on your computer.
(Unless Reaper is somehow deleting files it doesn't like when it closes).

However, I just tired it myself now, and I just noticed that if you try to save a preset
with a blank name at the top, it will not save it (so watch out for that).
In the next release I will change it so that if it has no name it will still save it under a default name.

Please try this, hit Browser, go to the user folder, save your preset and immediately
go into windows explorer and see if the new preset file is there in the folder.
Then close Repear and see if it is still there. And let me know so I can debug it.
Seems to be working fine now. It may have been an issue with the
preset being nameless- it was just so sudden so hard to tell. Will be playing around in 1.0.6 to see what goes on. Thanks

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Version 1.0.6 is now released !

Here is the change list
www.fathomsynth.com/versions

Highlights include:

You can now import single cycle WAV files into the wave draw editor.
Note and octave pitch dials are now continuous.
The modulation amount can be modulated.

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Just installed 1.0.6, and it seems something is changed and all presets are too hot(?) and there is distortion creeping in all presets. Does not happen with previous versions.

Edit: Something has changed for sure, but it does not affect all the presets after all. Still investigating, trying to single out what the problem is exactly.

Edit #2: I have narrowed down to Analog Saw oscillator, so far. It seems that there is an inherited distortion to the oscillator itself in 1.0.6.

Edit #3: It is most apparent when Partials are set near 17-18 (see screenshot
Untitled.jpg
). Waveforms oscillator with similar settings does not experience the same distortion. Is it supposed to be like that?
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

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I just tried it myself and its clean, also checked it with the spectrum analyzer.

I notice you have it modulated.
1) Could you post a picture of the modulator panel and envelope for that modulation.
2) Check the Noise panel Distortion dial and see if that is up.
3) Also check the Distortion and panel see if anything is turned on.
4) Which preset is it?
5) Does your host have a spectrum effect, if so, post a picture.

I'll get this fixed for you pronto and make a new release if necessary.
Everett

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