KVR Audio

WOK · Post by **WOK** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 5:33 pm

In 0.8b pan works - it didn't in 0.8a

Watch that I have set the chorus driver to Hz (not V/Oct) for a direct setting of the mod frequ in Hz (same result depending on the knob settings but more obvious).
If you use the pre dly you just would have to try which sounds best with feedback +/-.
For checking the potential values of a module best is to connect a standard slider for testing - it will always adjust to the max/min values the module accepts.

A question: why new VCAs after the effects ?

I tested with an OSC. Mixing the full volume OSC plus the modulated chorus signal gives an overload / distortion at the output when testing in Synthedit (while testing constructions it's a good idea to listen to distortions or put a Peak Meter at the end in SE. In a DAW the channel fader will adjust the volume, but it's a good thing when full volume of the plugin is 0 db in the DAW.)

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 11:18 pm

Hello everybody!

The version 0.8c is online with the suggestions from Wolfgang... and I must confess that yes the chorus seems way better! The flanging effect which saturated the chorus has now totally disappeared and the chorus effect is much smoother with a really better stereo ensemble impression as I increase the Wet value.

It is here:

http://hsjp.eu/mao/BW-Tron/BW-Tron_08c.zip

There are perhaps yet new improvements to do by adjusting the Max values... I let you all give me your impressions.

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Mon Mar 06, 2017 9:25 am

Hey there, BlackWinny!

I've tested the BW-Tron, and I had a few comments on things I've found.

It shows up in SONAR's plug-in manager as "Mellotron". The folks who own the Mellotron trademark might not like that. And considering it's called "BW-Tron" everywhere else, people may have trouble finding it if it's called something else in a DAW's plug-in manager.

There are some problems with some of the samples in the "0 2 Violins" set: the middle A and G seem to restart when they reach the end of the sample, and there's a lot of 50 Hz hum in the A sample.

The Pan and Tone knobs are not in the same place in each "Set", which is confusing. Their positions are reversed.

The Attack, Release, Tone...really, none of the knobs goes back to the original, default setting when you pull up a new sound. This means the user will have to manually reset everything when pulling up sounds. I haven't tried making any presets, but I assume they don't update the knobs either.

The Octave button works completely the opposite of the way you'd expect: If you play a note and hit the octave UP button, the note DROPS an octave. If you hit the octave DOWN button (so that it shows -1), the note goes UP an octave. I tried it on a few sounds, and they all worked that way.

That's completely backward from how it's supposed to work...unless this is something everyone agreed to in a post I missed. But I think a lot of people will have trouble with it.

Changing the sounds causes a brief flash in the upper-left area of the plug-in, where the drop-down list of presets would be. It disappears, but it always shows up, no matter which Set sounds you change.

Changing the background color of the synth is inconsistent. Usually, it changes the outer strips, but not the whole synth to match. And in SONAR Platinum (where all these tests were done), if you change the background colors too often (to try to get the strips to match the rest of the background again), the whole thing goes black (except for the knobs), and it eventually crashes.

That's all for now. I just wanted to let you know about these, since I didn't see anyone else mentioning them. I hope this helps!

Steve

WOK · Post by **WOK** » Mon Mar 06, 2017 9:18 pm

[*]There are some problems with some of the samples in the "0 2 Violins" set: the middle A and G seem to restart when they reach the end of the sample, and there's a lot of 50 Hz hum in the A sample.[/list]

Didn't find anything. (which "0 2 Violins"?)

[*]The Pan and Tone knobs are not in the same place in each "Set", which is confusing. Their positions are reversed.[/list]

That seemed to be for "mirror symmetry" on the GUI, but is indeed now misplaced already due to the effect sections.

[*]The Attack, Release, Tone...really, none of the knobs goes back to the original, default setting when you pull up a new sound. This means the user will have to manually reset everything when pulling up sounds. I haven't tried making any presets, but I assume they don't update the knobs either.[/list]

Changing the "timbre" does not change the knobs (which is intended).
But there seems to be something wrong with the patch memory in general.
Maybe this will be gone if the plugin is saved with "128 presets" in Synthedit. (or the patch mem container must be removed and inserted again in the source).

[*]The Octave button works completely the opposite of the way you'd expect: If you play a note and hit the octave UP button, the note DROPS an octave. If you hit the octave DOWN button (so that it shows -1), the note goes UP an octave. I tried it on a few sounds, and they all worked that way.

It's not a bug, it's a feature. The octave setting means the octave in which the sound is played on the keyboard (for keybopard "split" between A and B).

[*]Changing the sounds causes a brief flash in the upper-left area of the plug-in, where the drop-down list of presets would be. It disappears, but it always shows up, no matter which Set sounds you change.[/list]

Not here in Energy or Reaper.

[*]Changing the background color of the synth is inconsistent. Usually, it changes the outer strips, but not the whole synth to match. And in SONAR Platinum (where all these tests were done), if you change the background colors too often (to try to get the strips to match the rest of the background again), the whole thing goes black (except for the knobs), and it eventually crashes.[/list]

Clicking left or right side of the logo changes border or background. No crash here after several click. Might have to do with the preset problem mentioned above though, because the selection is saved in the preset (should be set to "ignore pc" in Synthedit automation)

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:31 am

WOK wrote:
[*]There are some problems with some of the samples in the "0 2 Violins" set: the middle A and G seem to restart when they reach the end of the sample, and there's a lot of 50 Hz hum in the A sample.[/list]
Didn't find anything. (which "0 2 Violins"?)

This image shows the problem with the "skins", where the panels don't always match the face. Sometimes, you can see thin lines where the panels separate from the face, which you can also see in the second .JPG attachment.

BW-Tron 1.jpg

In this image, you can see the 50 Hz "bump" in the violin middle-A sound. (It's also there in the G and other notes, just not quite as audible.) You can also see how the panel outlines sometimes appear when you change skins.

BW-Tron 2.jpg

KVR won't let me upload .MP3 or .WAV files, so you can listen to an example of the noise at the end of the violin (and the 50 Hz hum) sound here: https://soundcloud.com/shadowsoflife/bw-tron-a/s-Zfckr

[*]The Pan and Tone knobs are not in the same place in each "Set", which is confusing. Their positions are reversed.[/list]

That seemed to be for "mirror symmetry" on the GUI, but is indeed now misplaced already due to the effect sections.

There is no "mirror symmetry" exhibited in the layout of any of the other knobs, so I'm not sure why you'd do it here. This behavior appears to be inconsistent at best, and a mistake at worst.

[*]The Attack, Release, Tone...really, none of the knobs goes back to the original, default setting when you pull up a new sound. This means the user will have to manually reset everything when pulling up sounds. I haven't tried making any presets, but I assume they don't update the knobs either.[/list]

Changing the "timbre" does not change the knobs (which is intended).

If you "intend" to leave the knobs wherever they were each time a new timbre is loaded, then again, this is designed completely the opposite of the way most synths work. That's up to you of course, but I'm not sure how many users will enjoy resetting all the knobs each time they load up a new sound, just so they have a fresh starting point and know where they are with the settings. And if loading a stored sound doesn't reset the knobs, then how will anyone know what the knobs are really showing?

[*]The Octave button works completely the opposite of the way you'd expect: If you play a note and hit the octave UP button, the note DROPS an octave. If you hit the octave DOWN button (so that it shows -1), the note goes UP an octave. I tried it on a few sounds, and they all worked that way.

It's not a bug, it's a feature. The octave setting means the octave in which the sound is played on the keyboard (for keybopard "split" between A and B).

This is either a completely backwards "feature", or you did not read what I wrote (and I never said it was a "bug"). Like your other "feature" of not having the knobs show the actual value for newly loaded patches, this works completely the opposite of the way most synths work. On most synths (hardware and software), if you hit the "+" to go UP an octave, the notes are HIGHER, even though you're playing the same ones on the keyboard. You have it set to go DOWN an octave.

Maybe you should take a poll to see how many of these "features" your potential users are willing to deal with, and how many they'd rather see set to work the way most synths already work.

[*]Changing the sounds causes a brief flash in the upper-left area of the plug-in, where the drop-down list of presets would be. It disappears, but it always shows up, no matter which Set sounds you change.[/list]

Not here in Energy or Reaper.

Energy and Reaper have a very small market share outside of Europe (with Energy having almost none). If that's all your users use for DAWs, then feel free to dismiss everything I've said (which you pretty much did, anyway). However, if your users use SONAR, Cubase, Bitwig, Ableton, FL Studio or anything else, maybe you should see if they have the same problems. I can confirm this issue in SONAR and FL Studio. I didn't bother trying it in the others after I read WOK's dismissive response to my other points.

[*]Changing the background color of the synth is inconsistent. Usually, it changes the outer strips, but not the whole synth to match. And in SONAR Platinum (where all these tests were done), if you change the background colors too often (to try to get the strips to match the rest of the background again), the whole thing goes black (except for the knobs), and it eventually crashes.[/list]

Clicking left or right side of the logo changes border or background. No crash here after several click. Might have to do with the preset problem mentioned above though, because the selection is saved in the preset (should be set to "ignore pc" in Synthedit automation)

I'll start by saying I'm sorry you took this personally, @WOK. I've long been a fan of your work in plug-ins, and I've recommended them to others. Still, it's obvious you've taken some issues I reported to @BlackWinny (whom I respect for his help on KVR over the years) as "bugs". I did not use that term. In fact, I left my comments open, and simply questioned the issues, because I wasn't sure what he was considering a "feature". I only stated the facts on the things that didn't work (or didn't work properly) and offered my opinion on how users may be confused by some of the "features".

I have Mellotron emulations from UVI, IK Multimedia and ArtiFake Labs. Not one of these has the "octave" selector move the octave DOWN to lower notes when you choose to go UP an octave. ArtiFake Labs', IKMM's and UVI's emulations also have the samples/notes you're playing stop at the close to the same time (even if they're different instruments). ArtiFake's library is 1/10 the size of this one, so loading multiple instances isn't too much of an issue for some people. UVI's is huge, and SampleTron loads individual instruments which are only a few MB each. (I did not go into these issues in my initial post, because I was going to do more research today on them. After reading the response, I decided not to. But at 120 MB for the .DLL, this synth may cause problems for people on 32-bit systems with limited RAM resources. And Mellotron tapes are supposed to be roughly 8 seconds long. Some of these sounds are either a second or two short, or the samples are stretched/shrunk.)

Again, @WOK, I apologize if I somehow offended or upset you by listing these issues. I understand BlackWinny had hoped to release this soon, and I had only intended to let him know about potential issues I saw, based upon my experience with DAWs, Mellotron plug-ins, beta-testing and synths in general. If BlackWinny still decided to release the synth as it is, that's up to him, and I wish him the best of luck.

Steve

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:07 pm

Hello Steve!

A first thing that I don't understand is that issue you meet with the white skin. Is it the vertical grey lines?

In this previous post, at the point 6 at the end of the post, I wrote this:

6.
There are five skins:

a "Black" skin (lacquered black slightly cracked by the age)
a "White" skin (lacquered white very slightly cracked and faded by the sun)
a "Ebony" skin
a "Cuban mahogany" skin
a "maple" skin

About the "shift" of the keyboard, the aim is to separate the rooms. When I shift to the left, I get down in the octaves... and when I shift to the right I climb, I get up in the octaves. It seems natural, no ? The purpose is to make a distance between the range used by the left hand for the Set A and the range used by the right hand for the Set B. It is not at all the same purpose as in a synth where you use all the keyboard for a same sound and simply want to shift the musical octave used by the mechanical octave of the keyboard.

I thought this purpose was clear...

About the samples which are used, it is the samples from Taijiguy himself. No more no less. Not even reworked. So the length of each sample in BW-Tron is EXACTLY the length of the sample in the Taijiguy collection given that it is actually this collection which is used and without any retouch. The same for incidents in the progression of the samples. Myself I have not these short silences that I effectively hear in your example. I have made my tests with Mulab 6 32-bit, Mulab 7 32-bit, Mulab 6 64-bit with Jbridge, Mulab 7 64-bit with Jbridge, Reaper 5 32-bit, Reaper 5 64-bit with Jbridge, Cantabile 2, and SAVIhost. And a friend makes the tests in Cubase 8.5. And none of us have these issues. I don't recuse the existence of this incident, since it is clearly heard in your example... but is it really due to the plugin? Hmm... not sure.

About the MIDI controls shown on the GUI, when I change a timbre among the list I don't see any change among the knobs. And when I reload a preset I see the knobs take their new values following the values saved in the preset. So I don't understand how you can get different results. A little video showing that weird result on your system would be helpful.

But at 120 MB for the .DLL, this synth may cause problems for people on 32-bit systems with limited RAM resources.

I write this plugin today in 2017. It is intended to work for the next 5 years, about. Let's transport us in the middle of that 5 five years period, so in 2 years and half. Honestly, in 2 years and half, so at the end of 2019, will there be yet many people using a 32-bit system with limited RAM resources? Even today, are there so many people still using old age systems? Probably less than 10% of the computer users.

So I don't understand.
Jacques

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:14 pm

Wow.

Okay. I'm out. Good luck, guys. You're going to need it.

Steve

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:30 pm

planetearth wrote:Wow.

Okay. I'm out. Good luck, guys. You're going to need it.

Steve

It's a shame that you prefer to leave that way, Steve. I would have liked to understand why appear these issues that you hear in the samples. I can't understand as long as I don't have any clue since I don't have these issues.

Put yourself at my place, having absolutely no clue to understand what happens in the result that gets someone. As you say... "good luck !"

Would you be happy to see the user who gets these issue leave without giving any clue ?

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:35 pm

BlackWinny wrote:
planetearth wrote:Wow.

Okay. I'm out. Good luck, guys. You're going to need it.

Steve
It's a shame that you prefer to leave that way, Steve. I would have liked to understand why appear these issues that you hear in the samples. I can't understand as long as I don't have any clue since I don't have these issues.

A "shame"? Seriously? I've had to put up with you and WOK dismissing everything I've said, and I'm only trying to help! It's not as if I'm getting anything out of this!

Look at the samples yourself in an analyzer if you can't see the image I posted here and if you won't listen to the audio example I made!

I've worked with many professional developers in beta-testing their synths and sounds and in developing demo music for them. You guys take the damn cake, I'll give you that.

Steve

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:40 pm

planetearth wrote:
BlackWinny wrote:
planetearth wrote:Wow.

Okay. I'm out. Good luck, guys. You're going to need it.

Steve
It's a shame that you prefer to leave that way, Steve. I would have liked to understand why appear these issues that you hear in the samples. I can't understand as long as I don't have any clue since I don't have these issues.
A "shame"? Seriously? I've had to put up with you and WOK dismissing everything I've said, and I'm only trying to help! It's not as if I'm getting anything out of this!

Look at the samples yourself in an analyzer if you can't see the image I posted here and if you won't listen to the audio example I made!

I've worked with many professional developers in beta-testing their synths and sounds and in developing demo music for them. You guys take the damn cake, I'll give you that.

You two could have at least said you'd look into the issues I presented, or asked any of your other "beta-testers" if they'd seen anything similar. Instead, you decided to take my comments personally, as if I'd insulted you. Grow up, guys.

Steve

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:47 pm

I think there is a misunderstanding in the word "shame". I'm french, and I have always learned that expression "It's a shame that.." understood as "Quel dommage que...". Is there another translation that I would have missed?

For the sample with that issue, I have answered that I hear it, yes, but I would like to have a clue from someone to search what could be the reason...

Hey... I'm a beginner in developing! I'm not a professional, and even as amateur developer I have many things to learn. Until now I have made first little plugins only for myself, and BW-Tron is the very first one that I simply would like to share with others... but I'm a beginner, not an experimented developer. Even the helps from Wolfgang these last days are helps on details which are probably obvious for an experimented developer, but I'm not and these helps have helped me to progress.

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:57 pm

BlackWinny wrote:I think there is a misunderstanding in the word "shame". I'm french, and I have always learned that expression "It's a shame that.." understood as "Quel dommage que...". Is there another translation that I would have missed?

For the sample with that issue, I have answered that I hear it, yes, but I would like to have a clue from someone to search what could be the reason...

Hey... I'm a beginner in developing! I'm not a professional, and even as amateur developer I have many thing to learn. Until now I have made first little plugins only for myself, and BW-Tron is the very first one that I simply would like to share with others... but I'm a beginner, not an experimented developer. Even the helps from Wolfgang these last days are helps on details which are probably obvious for an experimented developer, but I'm not and these helps have helped me to progress.

The "reason" is because the original samples weren't cleaned, and the person who made them didn't remove the 50 Hz hum from the electrical mains/power supply. (It would have been a simple, easy fix.) The samples weren't edited, or if they were, it was done carelessly. Just because you got these samples from someone else, that doesn't mean he knew what he was doing when he sampled the instrument or created the samples.

I'm aware that you have many things to learn. I tried to be polite in my first note, and I've been polite to you every other time I've spoken to you. But between your original note here dismissing what I said and WOK's previous note also dismissing what I said, I'm not going to be the one "teaching" you anything.

Have a good day, gentlemen. And I wish you luck.

Steve

BlackWinny · Post by **BlackWinny** » Tue Mar 07, 2017 2:10 pm

I got the samples directly from Taijiguy himself, Steve. From his own website.

I they have to be cleaned, I'll do. Wasn't it useful to begin by telling that point when I asked for a clue?

I just have to learn how to do. I can use Wavosaur, Ocenaudio or Audacity which have all three probably the features to do that. I just have to learn how to make it.

And again... I have never intended to insult anybody. You pointed something on the expression "shame". I didn't know that it was also an insult, for me it has always been understood as "Quel dommage que..." which doesn't carry any insult ("It's a shame that I came too late to see the beginning of the movie." carries an insult ?).

That's why I answered replying that I don't understand. Sorry, my English is probably riddled with mistakes... It is not at all my natural language.

WOK · Post by **WOK** » Tue Mar 07, 2017 5:31 pm

planetearth wrote:I've had to put up with you and WOK dismissing everything I've said, and I'm only trying to help! It's not as if I'm getting anything out of this!

You'll get a nice free plugin. With a bridge in a 64bit host you'll also have no problems about ram. It is a (Mellotron-) sample player, so 120MB is not much IMHO.

I am not the maker of the plugin, I just explained that some of your problems do not appear in my PC. And that others (like the Octave button - it's not named "transpose") was meant to function like it is.

Look at the samples yourself in an analyzer if you can't see the image I posted here and if you won't listen to the audio example I made!

blackwinny wrote:Myself I have not these short silences that I effectively hear in your example.

If you "intend" to leave the knobs wherever they were each time a new timbre is loaded, then again, this is designed completely the opposite of the way most synths work.

The "timbre" is the sample set, not the preset. In my opinion it's good to be able to select the sound independenly from the whole preset settings.

Wow.
Okay. I'm out. Good luck, guys. You're going to need it.

Well......

planetearth wrote:Instead, you decided to take my comments personally

I didn't. The only one becoming upset directly was you. Me and blackwinny just said that some errors do not appear here, and that others like "octave" or the plugin size are no problems for us. At last it's a free plugin made from free samples.

WOK · Post by **WOK** » Tue Mar 07, 2017 5:43 pm

@blackwinny

The positions of the tone/pan knobs could be changed, as the "symmetry" plan has become obsolote because of the added effect section.

The patch mem for the background colors should be set to "ignore program change" so it's not saved in the presets.

There are no presets appearing when opening the plugin. Did you save it as VST with the option "Programs: 1" (which should be "Programs: 128)?

After adding/removing knobs including patchmems in a project, sometimes Synthedit gets buggy. You may have to copy the first preset to the other 128 in the "patch automator" (or remove the "patch automator", save and reopen the project in SE and add it again).

The last two points may be responsible for the described problems with presets / knob changes and crashes with the background color selection.

BW-Tron Beta Tests