Deimos - free synthesizer (Windows, MacOS, Linux)

[mikeyo]

Thanks a lot, i really like this, it sounds great. Didn't have any issues at all and i used the VST3 (Deimos_1.0.0-beta.5.vst3) version with Cubase (v13.0.55), Windows 11 (Home 24H2)/SSD, Intel i9 10920X (3.50GHz), 64GB RAM, NVIDIA Quadro P2000.

[Saffran]

Beta 5 have new preset organisation. How is we to add our own presets?
Nice factory presets. I now understand how to work with the sequenser.

[Tom Trnk]

Beta 5 have new preset organisation. How is we to add our own presets?
Nice factory presets. I now understand how to work with the sequenser.

Thanks!
I'm not sure I understand correctly, but the preset organization hasn't really changed, besides the banks now showing icons to distinguish between folders on disk and the built-in factory presets.
Saving your own presets should work the exact same way as before!

[Tom Trnk]

A new update has landed: Get it here!

This update now finally also includes support for MacOS systems
Mac is not my primary environment as a user or developer, so I'm curious to hear whether it works well. Feedback highly appreciated!

There's one issue I'm aware of already: when using two-finger scrolling on the touchpad, the knobs don't work properly. Dragging with one finger worked for me though, and using a connected mouse worked as well.

-----

A small feature got added as well:
In the middle row for modulation, right clicking the source assignment allows to assign a second source. The two modulation sources are then multiplied together.

One example usage is multiplying with the ModWheel/Pressure/Expression sources to make a modulation respond to playing performance.
It's not limited to performance mod sources so I'm sure more interesting ideas are readily found

Have fun!

[seafire]

Can you change the thread title so it refers to previous name, to avoid confusion?

[Saffran]

Beta 5 have new preset organisation. How is we to add our own presets?
Nice factory presets. I now understand how to work with the sequenser.

Thanks!
I'm not sure I understand correctly, but the preset organization hasn't really changed, besides the banks now showing icons to distinguish between folders on disk and the built-in factory presets.
Saving your own presets should work the exact same way as before!

First time install gave that result that's cited. After shutdown, restart of the plugin loaded the Deimos presets folder.

[Iu Gob]

I really liked it. Awesome synth. Wonderful filter.
I think increasing the polyphony would be a good idea, as well as adding a second LFO.

Thank you so much for sharing!

[The Sound Of Merlin]

I really liked it. Awesome synth. Wonderful filter.
I think increasing the polyphony would be a good idea, as well as adding a second LFO.

Thank you so much for sharing!

I totally agree! Please be a little more generous and add an extra LFO and an extra filter (series, parallel and panable) and then please let us route the oscillators to the filters in Pigments style. However, sound quality comes first and that's a great feature of Deimos!

[onerob]

A new update has landed: Get it here!

This update now finally also includes support for MacOS systems
Mac is not my primary environment as a user or developer, so I'm curious to hear whether it works well. Feedback highly appreciated!

Thanks for the Mac version. Could you build it in AU format as well?

[Tom Trnk]

Thanks for the Mac version. Could you build it in AU format as well?

I can try! While the AU format isn't a priority, the framework I'm using seems to have good support across many formats .. so I will have a quick look next week to see how much extra effort it requires.

I really liked it. Awesome synth. Wonderful filter.
I think increasing the polyphony would be a good idea, as well as adding a second LFO.

Thank you so much for sharing!

I totally agree! Please be a little more generous and add an extra LFO and an extra filter (series, parallel and panable) and then please let us route the oscillators to the filters in Pigments style. However, sound quality comes first and that's a great feature of Deimos!

Thanks
The commercial product I'm working on will have some of the extra features you mention
For Deimos I might still be able to squeeze an extra LFO into the auxiliary slot. I'll put that on my list!

[onerob]

Thanks for the Mac version. Could you build it in AU format as well?

I can try! While the AU format isn't a priority, the framework I'm using seems to have good support across many formats .. so I will have a quick look next week to see how much extra effort it requires.

Thanks. It's possible for AU to be used in Logic, Garagerband, Studio One, Live and Reaper, so it wouldn't be a wasted effort. (That being said, Logic can be quite picky about validating a plugin so it might mean more work that you wouldn't necessarily welcome).

[Tj Shredder]

The only AU only Hosts are Logic and Mainstage, and maybe some which transfer from iOS. And as Bitwig user, I think Bitwig is one of the few DAWs that does not support AU. Protools as well…
But there are wrappers which can help out. I just found out, Bidule does wrap even AUv3, which let me use some of the wonderful MPE iPad synths in Bitwig…
To be future save, I would actually go the CLAP route. Its pace is way faster than VST3 back in the day, and according to Urs U-He, they get things faster done since they base all their code on CLAP in the first place, and then wrap them for VST/AU/AAX… which all only support a part of the features of CLAP. First of all per voice automation, which is crucial for expressive MPE playing…

[Tom Trnk]

New update Deimos 1.0.0-beta.7 is out now!

I've finally been able to get it working on Linux!
So far there's a CLAP plugin that I'm able to use in Bitwig running on Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS.

The MacOS version now also adds AU support.
I was able to get it working inside Reaper - thanks to @onerob for the hint about it supporting the AU format! I hope it's stable in other hosts as well, don't know yet.

Other than that:
The auxiliary slot can now be used to get a second LFO.
It was pointed out to me that the UI could actually fit a 9th modulation slot, so that's there now
I also added a handful of new factory presets I used in a track recently.
And a bugfix for the knobs going crazy when using the two-finger scrolling on a mac touchpad, oops.

Hope you all enjoy the update!

[onerob]

Thanks for including AU! Unfortunately, as often happens with new and beta plugins, Logic is not validating it (or at least my old version of Logic isn't). What's the minimum supported MacOS version? I'm on 10.15.

Here's the error that the validation process throws up:

Code: Select all

VERIFYING SPECIAL PROPERTIES:

VERIFYING CUSTOM UI
Cocoa Views Available: 1
  Deimos_View
    PASS

DEFAULT PRESET: 0, Name: 

HAS FACTORY PRESETS

VERIFYING CLASS INFO
ERROR: Class Data fields aumu, Saaa, TTap do not match component description

WARNING: Preset name is not retained in retrieved class data

TESTING HOST CALLBACKS
    PASS

* * FAIL
--------------------------------------------------
AU VALIDATION FAILED: CORRECT THE ERRORS ABOVE.
--------------------------------------------------

[Tom Trnk]

Thanks for including AU! Unfortunately, as often happens with new and beta plugins, Logic is not validating it (or at least my old version of Logic isn't). What's the minimum supported MacOS version? I'm on 10.15.

Here's the error that the validation process throws up:
<snip>

Thanks for getting back so quickly!
The minimum version is 10.15 so that should be fine.
The error message immediately lead me down the right path, thanks for including that. I had a little time today to look into it, managed to fix it and got the plugin to successfully load in a trial version of Logic.
I updated the download on the itch page, AU plugin should now say beta-7.1 and hopefully works on your end too!

While giving it a quick test in Logic, I found that the mouse doesn't behave as expected when changing knob values. It works, but for some reason it doesn't hide and lock the cursor, so it's easy to use up all the screen space when dragging before getting to the desired knob position.

I wasn't expecting this to not work in some hosts. I'm considering adding an option to change how quickly mouse movement adjusts knob values .. that should at least make it more comfortable if hide and lock doesn't work reliably.