One Synth Challenge #140: Pendulate (exponent1 wins!)

[Alchemedia]

Hey, am I the only one with a feeling that the random generator isn't exactly random?! I've been flipping through sounds for a long time and started noticing that I seem to be switching 15-20 ready-made patterns, maybe with minimal differences, but I see the same waveforms and wavefolder curves regularly and... I feel cheated! Maybe is there something wrong with me or my computer?

Same here. Perhaps Dan will chime in to explain what's up with that.

[ELEX]

Hey, reloading a session in the state it wasn’t saved in is never the intended behavior. If you’re having this problem can you email support at newfangled audio dot com? ...

@DGillespie
In this case there isn't any problem, really. It was the default 'on' state of 'Lock Pitch Bend' that caused a somewhat counter-intuitive situation. It may be more intuitive to have it default to 'off'.

as for:

... Of course it should lock to the value from the first loaded preset, that would obviously be much neater. For now, I'm just glad things are loading as expected, with the thing turned off.

That was a bit presumptuous of me. Sorry about that. It's not for me to say how things should or shouldn't work, so please let me rephrase that: "Now I know how it works there is no problem at all."

Anyway, thanks for making this synth available at no cost. It is fun and really has character.

[doctorbob]

@aro ... glad you're close to being sorted. The various reverbs I mentioned all have different "characters" and are probably worth putting into your reverb arsenal! Also a good tip is to have a reverb buss track and route your tracks which need reverb into the same buss (sort of keeps the reverb "in the same space"). It's also quite a normal thing to do some EQ-ing on that buss track BEFORE the sounds enter the reverb vst to avoid the odd resonance happening within the reverb vst, and also to give the actual reverb the "character" you want by shaping the sound which is activating the various reverb elements.

Another usual thing is to use the pre-delay in the reverb, say around 75ms, this then lets the original sound come though first before the reverb kicks in (an Abbey Road Studios trick", along with other things).

Hope this is useful info, and I am not repeating things you already know.

dB

[DGillespie]

Hey, am I the only one with a feeling that the random generator isn't exactly random?! I've been flipping through sounds for a long time and started noticing that I seem to be switching 15-20 ready-made patterns, maybe with minimal differences, but I see the same waveforms and wavefolder curves regularly and... I feel cheated! Maybe is there something wrong with me or my computer?

Same here. Perhaps Dan will chime in to explain what's up with that.

Random button is totally random. The only tricky bit is to not randomize a couple of the parameters, and to randomly only choose a couple of the mod patches to randomly set to non-zero. Here's the code:

void GenerateAudioProcessor::randomizeParameterValues()
{
float modProbability = float(rand()%(10000))/250000.f; //From 0 to 50%
for (auto parameter : getParameterTree().getParameters(true))
{
if (!isParamCurrentlyFilteredFromJSON(parameter->getParameterIndex()))
{
if (!isParameterCurrentlyFilteredFromRandom(parameter->getParameterIndex(), modProbability))
{
float randomVal = float(rand()%(10000))/10000.f;
parameter->setValueNotifyingHost(randomVal);
} else {
parameter->setValueNotifyingHost(parameter->getDefaultValue());
}
}
}
}

[DGillespie]

Wow, that hosed the formatting, sorry. I'm not sure if there's a way to upload an image.

[FrogsInPants]

Wow, that hosed the formatting, sorry. I'm not sure if there's a way to upload an image.

In the full post editor, below the Save draft, Preview, Submit buttons there is an Attachments tab where you can upload images. But in this case, you should be able to preserve the spacing of the code by enclosing the block in [ code][/code] tags.

[Aro]

Thanks DB! I did download all of your suggestions, and I am experimenting with their different flavours. My inspiration for reverb is the soundtrack to "Mandy" and I was able to make mine dark and lo-fi, but I have no idea how to get it 'there'. But I think I did pretty good considering my knowledge so far. I'm only just starting to attune to the different reverb sounds. "Mandy" is a very obvious reverb sound, but I know there are a lot more subtleties of reverb to become familiar with. I'm a big fan of far away micing, which you can kind of achieve with pre-delay I think. Anyways, perking my ears up, that's for sure.

[DGillespie]

Screen Shot 2020-10-05 at 1.32.46 PM.png

Thanks!

This way you get color coding, too.

[Aro]

I just realized I was using Valhalla Room on all my tracks, instead of Surge. Makes a big difference. Surge has its place, but I'm going to rethink my reverb situation. Too bad. I was so proud of the sound!

[Alchemedia]

Wow, that hosed the formatting, sorry. I'm not sure if there's a way to upload an image.

You can upload images via WYSIWYG editor. I could be mistaken, however, I think the point of the OP was the random feature was loading misc presets rather than randomizing current settings. Thanks Dan!

[DGillespie]

Yes, the code was meant to illustrate that it is randomizing the settings.

[IV!]

Random button is totally random. The only tricky bit is to not randomize a couple of the parameters, and to randomly only choose a couple of the mod patches to randomly set to non-zero. Here's the code:
...

So, I don't know much about codes, so I went the other way. I opened Pendulate in Cakewalk, created the first three random sounds, and write down all their parameters. Then I opened Pendulate in VSTHost, created the first three random sounds again (just in case, even starting with a different pattern), and compared them. The parameters were identical Then I scrolled through about 250 random sounds and didn't notice exact repetitions, although there were very similar sounds (let's put it down to randomness ). Here's what I think about it:
1) The Pendulate randomization algorithm really knows how to generate an infinite (at least more than 250!) sequence of random numbers, but, alas, only one This means that all participants will get the same set of "unique" sounds, the only question is how much patience you have!
2) It is possible that some action in working with Pendulate restarts this sequence. In addition, it is exactly reset by restarting Pendulate. This means that you will need a lot of patience!
Conclusions? It's time to stop believing in magic buttons (after Santa Claus, you can definitely survive this) and go make your own presets...

Okay

[Aro]

I have a free plugin problem. That's why I haven't downloaded them in a while, except for OSC synths. I think I overdid it.

[H-man]

I have a free plugin problem. That's why I haven't downloaded them in a while, except for OSC synths. I think I overdid it.

Yeah but it's less expensive than a Commercial Plugin problem

[doctorbob]

I find "Init with OpenGL" works for me ...

dB