Coding a better envelope for trance plucks, have I succeeded?

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Karbon L. Forms wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 7:21 pm good grief
I am literally unable to make the music I want with current subtractive synths. I am a very frustrated individual... I used that frustration to make something. And I intend for everyone to benefit from my work in some way. My goal is to make subtractive-synth-based electronic music easier by having a simplified paradigm that sounds good sooner and faster than the time you'd spend tweaking a bunch of other things in another subtractive synth.

Sawtooth into filter. (of course I'll provide some of the bells and whistles where needed).

You can do so much with that. It is unexplored territory. Ok, here's a metaphor, here's how I see subtracive synths. Early inventors explored just the opening of the cave of "sawtooth into filter". Digital filters have only gone a little bit into the cave. Analog filters have gone a lot farther in. But this cave is largely unexplored, very complex with many branches. It is the cave of chaos. All my work boils down to chaos. Without chaos, you get the sterile digital subtractive synths we have today.

Edit: I'm not talking about wavetable synths like Serum, that is cool, it's in its own category of "throw in every bell and whistle and something will sound good". We need that too, although I will not be participating in that paradigm.

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What is your opinion about the Casio CZ-5000 Cosmo Synthesizer?
The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.

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El°HYM wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 8:02 pm What is your opinion about the Casio CZ-5000 Cosmo Synthesizer?
I'm not familiar with that and I won't be familiar with most synths... I did make a blanket statement that all subtractive synths are problematic. Ok, that's not true. The paradigm of subtractive synths today are problematic, but some synths manage to do certain things well here and there, but unless it's all solved in one synth, I'm not interested in using it, and I'll only get so far with the music I want to make.

For example, Synapse Audio Dune3 is my favorite commercial subtractive synth because it does supersaws the best I've heard in any synth... except if you compare it to my supersaws.

Vember Audio Surge has decent filters, has almost all the bells and whistles, but it sucks at supersaws, it's your "do it all" subtractive synth that can do everything except what I need.

The kind of music I want to make is based in the 80s and 90s. So I don't need all the bells and whistles, I need an amazing filter and an amazing supersaw. And there are a lot of people who need it as well. Another goal with all this is to go deeper into what the 80s and 90s invented musically. There's deeper more powerful stuff to be uncovered in those genres and paradigms.

For example, take Blade Runner and its classic sawtooth lead with stringy pads.

Code: Select all

https://youtu.be/-fu7jN2_2pE?t=210
That can be expanded to HUGE and INTENSE supersaw ensembles that will compete with or complement hollywood's most epic string section. Fast forward to modern Bladerunner

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https://youtu.be/d3clrkLNTSA?t=142
and you start to hear a desire for bigger sounds.

Let's go to the 90s paradigm.

Code: Select all

https://youtu.be/2UaicKgrrgo?t=36
Need for Speed 3 music boils down the 90s aesthetic really well. It's full of screaming filters. Now imagine if you had five more variations of that screaming filter. I don't know how this music is so well made, all I know is that it will be easier to make with the tools I've spent my life working on.

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My experience is: You can't just copy the music you love, because you'll never be satisfied with your recreations. There's a brute force way to overcome this: Do it *better*.

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I think you need another hobby
I wonder what happens if I press this button...

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If I remember correctly, you did the Flower Child and other filters right?

I mean, I'd definitely love to hear your take on a whole synth, but will it get to the finished product state? Is that even your goal? You definitely have interesting ideas, I'll give you that. I hope you find what you're looking for, and share it with the world.

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Funkybot's Evil Twin wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 9:37 pm If I remember correctly, you did the Flower Child and other filters right?
yes
I mean, I'd definitely love to hear your take on a whole synth, but will it get to the finished product state? Is that even your goal?
yes, it's just that I don't have a roadmap to UI, that's my biggest hold up at the moment. And I'm still somewhat in a prototyping phase.

My most polished recent work is the hypersaw VST without a UI: SoEmHypersaw 0.71 (64 bit dll) [windows only]

here's a quick tweak demo: soundemote - quick hypersaw chord demo (mp3)

another hypersaw demo with flower child filter for the bass, everything you hear is a result of all my code (except for the reverb and percussion): soundemote - hypersaw synthwave (mp3)
Last edited by Architeuthis on Tue May 09, 2023 10:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Architeuthis wrote: Mon May 08, 2023 9:55 pm Does my envelope sound better for plucky sounds than your own synth's envelopes?
I'm not sure. I think I understand your goals, and I agree with a lot of what you're saying there, but I'm not convinced you've exhausted the capabilities of existing tools.

If the stock ADSR envelopes aren't doing what you want, the first thing you should reach for is MSEGs. Luckily, Dune 3 gives you four of those. Here's one with a very steep initial curve (100% at 0ms, 54% at 1.63ms) and a very long decay relative to the sharp drop.
dune 3 mseg 1.png
Turn down the filter's Env Amt knob to 0% and use the mod matrix to route this MSEG to the filter cutoff. To use it for the amp envelope, turn Level down to 0% and modulate that. I couldn't figure out how to get a smoother curve, but maybe you don't need it here.

If you can't use MSEGs for some reason, you can try self-modulating the mod matrix. Again, Dune 3 allows this, though you might want to set the modulation mode (in the Settings tab) to "Audio Rate / Highest CPU" for maximum snappiness. Route your modulator, but leave the amount at 0. Then route a second modulator from the same source to the modulation amount on the previous entry. It's substantially more cumbersome than working with MSEGs, but it's there if you need it.

Hive 2 gives you similar options. The shape sequencer is more limited than "real" MSEGs, but for the purposes of making a pluck, it's fine. Hive has a more powerful mod matrix than Dune, allowing you to multiply a mod source by itself and compress or expand the modulation curve.

Phase Plant basically lets you modulate anything with anything, so I expected making a sharp pluck sound to be a breeze, but it actually gave me a lot of trouble. Maybe it's the filters. I haven't yet found settings I actually like.

All that said, I don't think it makes sense to discourage you from making new plugins, especially if you're already getting great results.
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Super Piano Hater 64 wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 10:23 pmI'm not sure. I think I understand your goals, and I agree with a lot of what you're saying there, but I'm not convinced you've exhausted the capabilities of existing tools.
You're right, I haven't exhausted the available tools because I don't want to be exhausted fighting with the tools to get what I want. That is going to interrupt the creative process. I will however exhaust my coding capabilities. There's great music made with today's tools so you don't need what I'm creating, I just want what I want to be easier to get to and in one place. :hihi:

Edit: I will be releasing the pluck envelope prototype for you to mess with and get a feel for the envelope. Just need to finish designing the control scheme. Edit: Oh wait I still need to add some vibrato features and velocity sensitivity.

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Architeuthis wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 8:32 pm
El°HYM wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 8:02 pm What is your opinion about the Casio CZ-5000 Cosmo Synthesizer?
For example, Synapse Audio Dune3 is my favorite commercial subtractive synth because it does supersaws the best I've heard in any synth... except if you compare it to my supersaws.

Vember Audio Surge has decent filters, has almost all the bells and whistles, but it sucks at supersaws, it's your "do it all" subtractive synth that can do everything except what I need
um, what? you can't be serious :lol:
FL Studio 21 - Waveform 12 | Surge - Variety of Sound

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Nug Wrangler wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 1:27 amum, what? you can't be serious :lol:
Very serious. Surge used to be my only subtractive synth for years. Edit: And Dune3 still doesn't satisfy my supersaw itch because of a lack of features in that department.

But, maybe I should clarify what I mean by "sucks". When I say that, I am ignoring that fact that you can use most synths and get a great sound with enough tweaking and effects and putting it behind a mix so you don't hear how it really sounds. When I say "sucks" I mean it's not living up to a much bigger potential that I see for supersaws and hypersaws.

Anyway, if you want to prove me wrong, send me a demo of your surge supersaw with midi if it's more than a sustained note and... well I'll just end up proving my point.

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Architeuthis wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 8:32 pm The kind of music I want to make is based in the 80s and 90s. So I don't need all the bells and whistles, I need an amazing filter and an amazing supersaw. And there are a lot of people who need it as well. Another goal with all this is to go deeper into what the 80s and 90s invented musically. There's deeper more powerful stuff to be uncovered in those genres and paradigms.
Yeah, some years ago I even coded my own synth, based on a scientific paper by Adam Szabo about the Roland Supersaw.

You should take a look at U-he Diva. It has the Jp-8000 oscillators and incredible analog filters. Probably exactly what you're looking for.

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izonin wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 6:12 amYou should take a look at U-he Diva. It has the Jp-8000 oscillators and incredible analog filters. Probably exactly what you're looking for.
I've already coded filters I'm happy with and Jp-8000 oscillators are just oscillators.

crunchy filter (mp3)

bubbly filter (mp3)

internally downsampled filter (mp3)

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Architeuthis wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 6:32 am I've already coded filters I'm happy with and Jp-8000 oscillators are just oscillators.
They're not standard oscillators, like those in Sylenth1 for example. You can read more about the Supersaw in this very interesting research.

https://www.adamszabo.com/internet/adam ... er_saw.pdf

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They're oscillators. Edit: As for the detune algorithm, I already have one I'm happy with.

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