Xhip Synthesizer v8.1 (alpha & RC)

[audiojunkie]

Very cool!!

[satchnut]

Glad to see such a nice freeware synth suite still getting creative updates and rocking hard after all these years. One of the few. Bravo, sir.

[aciddose]

I'm a little nearer to another improved alpha version, at r1316 so far but nothing new on the page yet. I've unified some of the code between synth/effects for the GUI "widget factory". That'll make the config/skinning stuff apply the same way to both which is much nicer than handling two different systems.

The GUI stuff is quite a pain; lately I've been working on a ton of framework tweaks, no sense getting into details. A big remaining issue is how different bitmaps are selected "best fit size" when you scale the GUI up and down. I won't go into details because typing it out makes me nauseous.

I don't even remember the last big change I made to the synthesizer itself. More recently I did the parameter smoothing tweak and modulation rate division, but those are both very minor tweaks rather than a change to the core. The funny thing is most of the synthesizer dates back to the mid 90s using techniques invented by others in the early 80s at the latest. I think the biggest changes since 2004 have been the slightly tweaked "at 96k you hardly even notice the issues" filter and the through-zero Xmod along with anti-aliased nearest/linear interpolated PCM waves. That's one thing I'd like to get on the GUI somehow, , adjusting PCM options. One of many.

[aciddose]

I've put up r1317, windows, linux and both the synth and effects. (Note: The compressor and follower are still in a semi-unfinished state. The sidechain mix parameter is sort of useless as-is.) There are likely some remaining issues, I've made quite a few important changes. On both windows and linux the directories/paths used to store the files have changed. If you had a state saved in ~/.xhip/ you'll need to move that to ~/.config/xhip/ and ~/.cache/xhip/ for bitmap cache. If on an older version of Linux where those directories don't exist I'm not sure if the code will handle it or not. Unfortunately linux has no shared system-wide cache that is accessible to users as /usr/ and /var/ both need root for write permissions.

For shared resources I could still quickly switch to parsing the files in /usr/share/xhip/, but you'd need to be root to install the files there first and that's only really useful on a system where you're switching user accounts and want the same skins/bitmaps/whatever available on multiple accounts.

On windows, I've hopefully fixed the way I was handling WM_PAINT messages and optimized redraw a tiny bit. There shouldn't be any significant improvement there since it's just a minor tweak to how the hardware accelerated window image buffer is flagged for updates. It was flagging the whole window previously, although I don't think you'll notice any real measurable difference either way.

Startup time should be a bit better, although I still notice the effects taking forever during initial scan so I'll still need to look at how I can defer whatever is slowing it down. 50ms vs. 5ms though on that sort of stuff, not that big of a deal.

The effects now have a display for every widget and I'll need to add some ability to disable that. I've updated a lot of text readouts but not all of them. The configuration files now support horizontal whitespace, still no vertical whitespace though (the default config written out won't have any blank lines.)

[donquixote]

Glad to see such a nice freeware synth suite still getting creative updates and rocking hard after all these years. One of the few. Bravo, sir.

[aciddose]

https://soundcloud.com/xhip/hospitalier7

Seems to work.

[crickey13]

How long until the next stable release?

[aciddose]

Depends upon what you call stable. The "TODO" is laid out on the alpha page like so:
Xhip Synthesizer 8.1

• Complete all effect changes.
• Update effect preset imports.
• Minor GUI tweaks, alignment. Partially completed.
• Alphabetic sort function for presets in banks.
• New version/date/author chunks in preset banks.
• Linux xlib file dialog improvements.
• Include manual in distribution package.
• Improvements for Windows installer (NSIS.)
• Improved Linux installation/configuration paths.

The last entry on the list (linux paths) is getting tested right now. I've got the framework finished and just need to ensure loading from /var/ and /usr/ works right, and of course it should be fine given read access to path/file. A shared cache isn't possible on linux though as far as I can tell.

The manual + windows installer are relatively easy little tweaks. XLib dialogs need some work, at least a "show hidden files" switch. Preset/bank/state date or version chunks are required for the preset library to work correctly. Sorting is easy, font tweaks are easy (just time consuming.) Finishing the compressor + follower is more a question of cutting losses Options are either 1) keep it simple or 2) just throw more controls on there. I feel like the follower is quite acceptable as-is, although wonky. Most of the filter modes are just prototype and the sat/asym controls have no effect. Compressor needs a RMS level input + a switch for feed-forward compensation disable.

That's it. Plus a million things behind the scenes.

[crickey13]

It's nice to see this synth still being developed.

[aciddose]

It's unfortunate I've been so unfocused, but as a hobby project that's just the way it goes. It's a free-time thing and my interest waxes and wanes. When I posted this thread in May 2018 I'd thought I could possibly be done by September, or December perhaps ... but I hadn't anticipated it might be September 2022.

I have always said though, Xhip is a no-strings-attached fun project for me based upon my own interest in synthesizers and music gear. I'm not always motivated to invest a whole lot of effort, but when I do take an interest in something like a compressor effect I really find it bothers me if I don't have full control where I want. So rolling my own and re-inventing the wheel has always been part of the gig. Unless something stops me, I've always known Xhip would always remain free and that I wouldn't lose interest in it until my very last days alive.

So don't let anticipation leave you frustrated, but given enough time it certainly has a chance to get there ... or somewhere ... eventually, if we're lucky! The alpha version may be "unstable" in the sense of a work-in-progress, but I produce all my own musical junk and use it daily for audio processing tasks. All the demos I've posted to soundcloud or elsewhere are typically made with some combination of almost entirely the latest stuff.

It's made as a toy to entertain myself; I enjoy both the making and using of the tools. I've always believed such creative tools ought to be freely available to everyone on earth for all time. It never hurts to have a little fun.

[FrettedSynth]

It's made as a toy to entertain myself; I enjoy both the making and using of the tools. I've always believed such creative tools ought to be freely available to everyone on earth for all time. It never hurts to have a little fun.

Quite a "Toy" as you call it, Thanks for continuing to share.
Mighty fine sounding if you ask me.

[audiojunkie]

It's unfortunate I've been so unfocused, but as a hobby project that's just the way it goes. It's a free-time thing and my interest waxes and wanes. When I posted this thread in May 2018 I'd thought I could possibly be done by September, or December perhaps ... but I hadn't anticipated it might be September 2022.

I have always said though, Xhip is a no-strings-attached fun project for me based upon my own interest in synthesizers and music gear. I'm not always motivated to invest a whole lot of effort, but when I do take an interest in something like a compressor effect I really find it bothers me if I don't have full control where I want. So rolling my own and re-inventing the wheel has always been part of the gig. Unless something stops me, I've always known Xhip would always remain free and that I wouldn't lose interest in it until my very last days alive.

So don't let anticipation leave you frustrated, but given enough time it certainly has a chance to get there ... or somewhere ... eventually, if we're lucky! The alpha version may be "unstable" in the sense of a work-in-progress, but I produce all my own musical junk and use it daily for audio processing tasks. All the demos I've posted to soundcloud or elsewhere are typically made with some combination of almost entirely the latest stuff.

It's made as a toy to entertain myself; I enjoy both the making and using of the tools. I've always believed such creative tools ought to be freely available to everyone on earth for all time. It never hurts to have a little fun.

Very well said! Linux has been my hobby lately (even more than music making), and I’ve been incredibly appreciative of your Linux support! I hope this project continues to remain a fun hobby for you! Best, —Sean

[aciddose]

I'm quite happy it seems "linux paths" is finally off the list. You have to manually cd /usr/share, sudo mkdir xhip, sudo mkdir resources, sudo sudo sudo sudo sudo, but at least it works to share knobstrips and such across a system. Still no fallback when ~/.cache/ and such don't exist though. (I'll upload that with a future version, I'd like to do a bit more testing first.)

https://soundcloud.com/xhip/cubanbc

Special chunks in banks should be the next really easy one. I'll just throw a database in there and that'll be able to contain and carry any text-based data in the future. That way the embedded banks can have a version like "r1333" tied to them and based upon that it can decide to overwrite older versions or put up a message box asking what to do. I'm tempted to dive into the compressor/follower problems but it's nice tidying up these infrastructure issues.

[Teksonik]

Just wanted to report that loading the Init preset or any other preset for that matter does not change the Unison settings.

Load the Init Preset
Add Unison Voices and Detune.
Load any other preset
Unison settings are not changed.

Same with FX. They are not changed when loading another preset either.

Windows 10 21H2 64 bit.

[aciddose]

Only "preset" effects tab are linked with the preset. Likewise, unison are "control" parameters not part of presets yet. The only parameter still hanging out in the control section moved into presets is "modulation rate divisor" = "MODDIV". Handling the other parameters is on the to-do list, but that's mostly a UI and interfacing (vst) issue. It's impossible to add/remove or change the order of automation parameters in a vst2 plug-in and have hosts load old projects correctly. So any "new" parameters either need to be added to the end of the list (like moddiv) or completely hidden from automation. In the future I'll adopt a system where parameters that aren't yet automatable get completely hidden, and in order to use automation as it currently exists will require some additional GUI stuff to map automation inputs to actual parameters.

One possible solution was using the existing routing system/page to do that... but in testing this has sucked because it doesn't allow me to animate controls on the GUI like they used to work.

To get FX to work, go into the effects tab, then preset tab, then use some effects. Switch presets, you'll find the effects.preset tab updates and the effects load based upon the preset you select. Switch back to your original preset and the preset effects you originally selected will be loaded.