Cableguys FilterShaper 3 Public Beta! Features and pre-sale

[Jakob / Cableguys]

We've just released the public beta of FilterShaper 3!



FilterShaper 3 is a filter, volume and pan modulation effect with an improved irresistible waveform editor, growing sound library and slick interface. Ideal for both experimentation and detailed tweaking.

For advanced, multi-band sidechain compression. For in-depth editing. For subtle variations of sound. For filter sweeps and filter drops. For chopping beats or trance-gating synths. For any, most advanced filter, volume or pan modulations.

2 filters. 60 LFOs, 50 envelope followers: You'll have enormous modulation power at your fingertips. Even LFO amount and LFO speed can be modulated. LFOs can be MIDI-triggered, beat-synced or free-running, from very slow up to the audible range.

New Sallen-Key type filters (with filter drive) provide a sonically rich, fat resonant sound.

FilterShaper's knobs display all modulations in real-time; oscilloscopes show you the incoming and processed audio signal; a big, enlargeable waveform editor allows in-depth editing with a huge, precise oscilloscope.

FilterShaper 3 allows precise editing when needed, and sonic mayhem when wanted.

A shared online preset library gets you started, pre-filled with patches from our preset designers for (multi-band) sidechain compression, giant wobbles, evolving subtle variations and chopped beats.

For PC+Mac, 32/64bit, VST/AU.


Status quo

-- The preset library will see many additions and preset changes. If you're online, we recommend that you click the "Sync" button regularly.
-- The envelope follower will see some major overhaul that we'll publish within the next days.
-- We might join the filter's "Drive" and "Resonance Distortion" controls into one "Drive" control. Well, it's cool to have them separated, but on the other hand it makes it more complicated. Tough decision.. what do you think when playing with it?
-- The UI will see more tweaks and we'll enhance contrasts a bit. Let us know what you think of the current one, though!
-- More help texts will be added.
-- We will (re-)add undo- and redo-buttons for wave editing, as our other plugins have them.
-- We will reduce FilterShaper's CPU usage.
-- Bugs. Let us know about bugs!


Your involvement

Download the beta here:

Windows:
http://www.cableguys.de/downloads/Cable ... mo-Win.zip

Mac:
http://www.cableguys.de/downloads/Cable ... mo-Mac.zip

Then you can have a look at it right away. It corresponds to a demo version - it's fully functional and you can save your patches to the preset library, but you can only use one instance per song and you can't save presets with your songs.

FilterShaper 3 now features the same public preset library as Curve does. This means an ongoing stream of new presets, and you can share your own with others. We'd be more than happy to see some great ones by KVR users in the next days!

Please post any feedback here in this thread. Bugs, feature requests, wishes for changes etc - let us know! (Alternatively you can also mail us to contact@cableguys.de)


Pricing, pre-sale offer

FilterShaper 3 will be EUR 69/USD 89. But you can still get FilterShaper 2 for EUR 49/USD 69 which includes a free upgrade to version 3!

You can also still get the Cableguys Bundle, which is currently 20% off, and also includes a free upgrade to FilterShaper 3.

If no big issues pop up, we will release version 3 very soon.

[Breeze]

I love these shaper-thingies! Welcome to the new FilterShaper3! My comments:

- Nice new options in the filters; I agree that the Drive and "Resonance Distortion" could be one knob, as Drive is typically a characteristic of the entire filter structure. I'm sure you've considered adding more distortion color choices in the future...

- The modulation routing is significantly enhanced. And you have LFO's And EF's for the intensity of the LFO's. Wow! There's a lot of creative potential here!

- The Envelope Follower is a great idea but IMO needs a few things to be really functional: there should be a Hold control; all times should be in milliseconds; there should be an option to filter the input (LP, HP and BP) along with a Frequency control. These would make the EF far more useful. Alternatively, you could minimize the GUI controls but optimize the background processing to render musically useful results. Currently it can make the filters sound quite bad, but I realize you're working on it.

- Have you considered using the Envelope Follower to trigger one-shot envelopes? That could be very useful!

- I think I keep mentioning this every time you come out with a new version of the Shapers: the wavelength of the envelopes would be so much more flexible, and easier to setup on the GUI, if the user could just set the numerator and denominator directly:

Numerators: 1 to 128
Denomintors: 128, 64, 64T 32, 32T, 16, 16T, 8, 8T, 4, 4T, 2, 2T, 1 Bar

All you would need to do is calculate the result in PPQ, or whatever internal timing you use. This would allow for every conceivable timing between 1/128 and 32 Bars (as you have, or technically 128 bars(!)) and for every possible musical use. (Ok: it might make sense to limit the numerator based on the denominator choice... )

- The GUI is too dark for me (especially compared to FS2!); it looks even darker than Volumeshaper 3 (VS3), probably because there are larger sections of darker grey. I would prefer more contrast, especially with the single-pixel lettering you're using. On a big screen with other "bright" plugins around it, it gets hard to see.

- I also preferred the green envelope color of VS3. Maybe you can offer different "skin" choices and/or envelope and mod.-degree line colors. Red's a little too military for my tastes.

- Thanks for implementing the magnified Envelope edit view. I definitely prefer to work on the larger view.

- The parameter status shown within the knobs is a brilliant idea, but again, the contrast makes it hard to see clearly; the world needs to see this!

- No bugs yet, but if I open an new patch, some controls are kept dark, like when there's no filter assigned, but I can't figure out how to make them appear normally.

That's it for now... nice work!

[Tricky-Loops]

HUGE cutoff knobs!

But the waveforms are too tiny, there's so much space on the GUI left that could be used for bigger waveforms...

[Breeze]

Another way to handle the envelope editor could be to have the full-sized edit screen tacked to the bottom of the GUI. It would always show the envelope currently being edited. This would make it faster to access the full editor and avoid having to switch back and forth between the full editor and the mini-editor. I suspect this would improve the workflow significantly.

[elxsound]

HUGE cutoff knobs!

But the waveforms are too tiny, there's so much space on the GUI left that could be used for bigger waveforms...

+1

Also any news on upgrade prices for existing FiltersShaper 2 users? I did see that purchasing now gets a free upgrade to v3, but for longtime users does that also apply (or is there a separate upgrade price?)

[murnau]

of course free for all v2 owners.

[S-N-S]

this looks fantastic,gonna dl it and try it out in fl,studio one pro and ableton live 9,1

[Breeze]

Another way to handle the envelope editor could be to have the full-sized edit screen tacked to the bottom of the GUI. It would always show the envelope currently being edited. This would make it faster to access the full editor and avoid having to switch back and forth between the full editor and the mini-editor. I suspect this would improve the workflow significantly.

Pardon my quoting myself here, but this would also be useful for the envelope "sub- modulators" (ie: Speed and Intensity) which could also be displayed there instead of on top of the GUI.

[faun2500]

Just tried this. My hope was that the oscilloscope could be resized (bigger!) so I could use it on my master out. I currently use Volumeshaper on the master as an oscilloscope and am very happy with it but please please please please please please can you make the gui resizable??? Please!

I agree that there is a lot of wasted space on this new plugin and I prefer the colours of volumeshaper (black grey white green).

[Liero]

Guys,

I would really, really, REALLY like a plugin like this that is so focused on filter modulation curves to allow me to change waveform presets on-the-fly with MIDI CC/Notes.

VolumeShaper and MidiShaper both have 10 waveform slots for quick changes. Please add these to FilterShaper 3 and PLEASE make the slots MIDI learnable!!

[Michael / Cableguys]

But the waveforms are too tiny, there's so much space on the GUI left that could be used for bigger waveforms...

You can expand the view of the waveform by clicking on the magnifying glass, than it looks like this:

[HcDoom]

Beautiful GUI. Can we choose different types of distortions or...?

[Jakob / Cableguys]

Beautiful GUI. Can we choose different types of distortions or...?

Yes! Currently there's two available: "Soft" and "Hard", which, combined with the S-K filters can add some lovely colours.

[Kenit]

Congrats
Can we link the Filter1 and Filter2?

[Jakob / Cableguys]

Congrats
Can we link the Filter1 and Filter2?

Not yet.. but it's something we definitely want to add! Especially useful if you set it up for multiband sidechain. If you use the 6dB LP on Filter 1 and 6dB HP on Filter 2 and set both to the same frequency and run the filters in parallel, it's a perfect band splitter.

Then you can modulate the volume of Filter 1 only, for example, and only got the bass ducking and pumping. Or other way round. Or both, but with different curves or intensities..

But it would also be useful to run one filter on the left, and one on the right channel (set the filters to parallel for that), and with a little different frequencies for a wider mix.