New drum-synth called smackbox. Beta-testing has commenced!

[sinkmusic]

Hey
This thing looks and sound good

I have just been playing a very little bit (several minutes so far), but i like it already !
It sounds rather "solid", and seems very versatile.
The pan is much needed, as the "per slot" volume (maybe as a 13th mixer-dedicated tab" if the gui can't provide more free space ?), and also a suggestion i coudl make is : give the user the ability to write a name in each slot, to remember the sound he's using (like "kick, ziiiip, snare1", etc).

12 slots is fine, btw. I also like the custom note mapping assignation stuff.
(I'll give a deeper report later)


PS : one more suggestion : one of the slots (or all?) could be mappable to more than 1 key, and would be tuned accorded to the mapping. Does it make sense ? The purpose is mainly to be able to have only one tab mapped on 3 keys for hi/med/low toms, or play pseudo-melodies, or get some deptiched 808 kicks like in Miami Bass... ? (maybe also i can just use the copy/paste feature and detune each copy to reach that, but it is only a suggestion, and that maybe by investigating a bit deeper it could bring up some "genuine" ideas?) ;

FR3 : choke groups ?

[shadoe42]

Would love to help out with beta testing.

[R.A.W.]

wow, nice sound so far, many sonic possibilities.

+1 for pan, choke groups could be handy, too. as for multi-outs, i could live with 2 stereo outs or another dedicated multi-out version like soniccharge did with microTonic.
some "stereo" option would be nice for the noise (another feature of microTonic i really like).

[ouroboros]

hi stefan
this is a great sounding, useful plug
I'll leave feedback in this thread too, with a disclaimer about my own subjectivity-
it looks great but there are a couple of gui issues to my eyes:
-the text at the bottom in the darker gradients is very difficult to read.
-the master volume? - I believe it is the knob next to the "crush" label, but it looks like it is a crush amount? I second the volume level for each channel sugestions.
-loading and saving of patches, whether "program" or "all programs" did not work for me. saving and loading .fxb in FL7 did work.
-the osc pitch envelope seems to move the attack parameter when the decay time is shortened. I'm unclear as to why this happens. (Just dense, sorry )
-I love the velocity-> noise/osc volume paramters. it allows for very dynamic lines.
-I take it the filter only applies to the noise osc, not the final product?
-when the osc. shape is at its min, .01, it (undersandably) creates a super low dc offset like signal that pegs the meters and won't release. .02 doesn't do this.
- a hat choke would be swell.

more to come. this is awesome

[stefancrs]

I think I am all set, beta-tester-wise! Thanks all!
If you're someone I already know here on kvr you can feel free to PM me anyway though

Now I just have to respond to all your great feedback. Phew.

[stefancrs]

I tried it in XT2 and the standalone.

a bit long loading time,
even on my C2D DAW.

How long? I get around 2-3 seconds on the two machines I've used.

I'd like to have a kind of "master volume knob" for each slot/sound.
(would not be so important with multiple outs)

The pan is much needed, as the "per slot" volume (maybe as a 13th mixer-dedicated tab" if the gui can't provide more free space ?)

-the master volume? - I believe it is the knob next to the "crush" label, but it looks like it is a crush amount? I second the volume level for each channel sugestions.

That's what the volume knob does, no? Maybe I need to move it away from the "crush" section to avoid confusion.

and some different coloured noises to choose from.

You don't think the colour control in conjunction with the EQ provides enough "sonic shaping" of the noise?

Multiple outputs

The thing is that due to the design of this drum synth (each sound generated in its own SSE channel, four simultaneously per SSE "process"), there would be a slight CPU hit when adding multiple outputs. But it might be very small, so I can give it a try. ATM I'm leaning towards three stereo outs, which in conjunction with a pan knob would be like six individual mono outs if one wanted to treat them like that.

Would that be ok with most of you?

[stefancrs]

only 2 drumsounds?

man, they really need to get SM optimized...

?

ok jag e cp...missade att det fanns 12 tabbar...ett för varje ljud va?

trodde det va två generatorer = två ljud = kanske inte så bra...


still, SM is highly unoptimized.

Heh, neh. And, well, I wouldn't say "highly", but there's room for optimisations still. Most of them are up to the synth/effect dev though, because the biggest CPU issues usually are because of how the schematic is made. But there's still SOME room for optimisations in SM too, even if the gain from those won't be as big as the gains from optimising a schematic can be. But let's try to keep this thread about the smackbox beta

[robindrieghe]

is it tested in fl yet?if not..... :p

[stefancrs]

PS : one more suggestion : one of the slots (or all?) could be mappable to more than 1 key, and would be tuned accorded to the mapping. Does it make sense ? The purpose is mainly to be able to have only one tab mapped on 3 keys for hi/med/low toms, or play pseudo-melodies, or get some deptiched 808 kicks like in Miami Bass... ? (maybe also i can just use the copy/paste feature and detune each copy to reach that, but it is only a suggestion, and that maybe by investigating a bit deeper it could bring up some "genuine" ideas?) ;

This is already doable. You can put a slot on any given key, and you can use the "track" knob (does it need to be relabeled?) to set how much the note pitch affects the pitch of the sound.

FR3 : choke groups ?

This one will probably have to stay low priority atm, I'm not entirely sure how I'd go about implementing it the best way in the current design scheme (not GUI but implementation design that is ).

[Chris Walton]

I think I am all set, beta-tester-wise! Thanks all!
If you're someone I already know here on kvr you can feel free to PM me anyway though

Now I just have to respond to all your great feedback. Phew.

Aah damn, I was just about to ask if you have one more slot open

If you still need somebody with an extremely slow CPU (it has SSE), and FL Studio, to test ....

[stefancrs]

You fall under the "if you're someone..." clause I don't _need_ somebody with an extremely slow CPU and FLS though PM me your add.

Sorry robindrieghe

[Lance]

(3 or) 4 outputs could be enough. And with multiout I'd feel the on-board panning redundant. Panning is a typical host mixer task. The most important is the elemental sonic possibilities (not onboard fx and such things which can be added outside of the plugin) to make classic and innovative electronic drum and percussive sounds.

It would be great if this plugin can compete sonicwise with these:
http://www.elektron.se/products/?prod=ES_SPS1-std
http://www.jomox.de/xbase.html

[stefancrs]

Sorry, I forgot this one!

hi stefan
this is a great sounding, useful plug
I'll leave feedback in this thread too, with a disclaimer about my own subjectivity-
it looks great but there are a couple of gui issues to my eyes:

Good good!

-the text at the bottom in the darker gradients is very difficult to read.

Agreed, especially on some LCD screens. Will fix.

-loading and saving of patches, whether "program" or "all programs" did not work for me. saving and loading .fxb in FL7 did work.

You mean via the hosts fxp handling? Will have to look into this. Keep in mind that a patch is an entire drum-kit, and a bank would be a bank of kits

-the osc pitch envelope seems to move the attack parameter when the decay time is shortened. I'm unclear as to why this happens. (Just dense, sorry )

I don't think you're dense, I mean, what you say is what it looks like. Anyway, what really happens is that the display doesn't really show how long the envelope is, it always displays the entire envelope, so when you decrease the decay time so that it gets nearer to the attack time, the attack and the decay section gets closer and closer to being of equal length. This is what happens

-I take it the filter only applies to the noise osc, not the final product?

Correct.

-when the osc. shape is at its min, .01, it (undersandably) creates a super low dc offset like signal that pegs the meters and won't release. .02 doesn't do this.

This is a bug! Will fix!

[stefancrs]

(3 or) 4 outputs could be enough. And with multiout I'd feel the on-board panning redundant. Panning is a typical host mixer task. The most important is the elemental sonic possibilities (not onboard fx and such things which can be added outside of the plugin) to make classic and innovative electronic drum and percussive sounds.

I disagree I don't want to route the hats to different outputs just to have slightly different panning on them

It would be great if this plugin can compete sonicwise with these:
http://www.elektron.se/products/?prod=ES_SPS1-std
http://www.jomox.de/xbase.html

Highly subjective, and people friggin adore the machinedrum Plus, it has a whole bunch of features that smackbox does not have (sample support etc) that I don't plan to add.

[Andywanders]

First off let me say that this looks really nice stefancrs.

I'd love to try it but I'm about to take a two-week holiday so I can't. Besides, so far whenever I've tried SM plugs on my main DAW they haven't worked - none of them. This is probably due to the fact that I use WIN 98 on that (don't ask).

Some suggestions if you don't mind:

One stereo out and two mono outs should be enough if CPU is an issue. But with this configuration pan controls would be needed. Kick and snare can be on mono outs and panned by the host, but the rest...

Chokes for hi-hats is a must IMO. I read what you said about it being difficult but if it's do-able I encourage you to try.

I don't think you should worry about "width" - leave that to other FX plugins and save CPU.

Great looking GUI

I'm looking forward to trying out the demo on my XP lappy when I get back from holiday.

Cheers,