Complex numbers for Sound Synthesis

[witti]

Cool stuff ! Thanks !

[whiteaxxxe]

Originally Posted by IXix

I love it when nerds talk dirty.

bruhahaha ... :-))

[Smashed Transistors]

A short test/demo of the latest revision of the cXf synth.

Demo cXf synth rev07
(added delay & reverb, no phasing nor flanging, all sounds generated by the cXf synth).

Same core as rev02 but a lot more modulation sources (2 x ADSR, 2 x LFO with ramps and random generator), a second oscillator, better antialiasing, glide, morphing between presets, noise phase distorsion in the filter for dirty sounds...
And the internal oscillators can be replaced by the incoming signal... so that it works like a MIDI controlled effect.
Still i try to limit the number of sliders under 20:

[IXix]

Cool.

[SaulT]

That is dope, I really dig it.

[Smashed Transistors]

3 voice polyphonic strings: a short test

This is my first attempt to do polyphony with "MIDI stacking".

It is an old trick from the hardware era, it consists in chaining instances of the same js effect.
The first processes and filters one note-on out of three
The second processes and filters one note-on out of two remaining
The last processes whatever remains

MIDI
    process        process        process
--> 1 out of 3 --> 1 out of 2 --> remains 

Audio
    calc voice1   calc voice2    calc voice3
--> Add to spl --> Add to spl --> Add to spl -->

Even if this is the easiest way to implement polyphony... as I play with it I found it has too many flaws.
The main one being that you have to set all the instances to the same setting...

much like the old Oberheim synth modules..
(http://www.synthmuseum.com/oberheim/obe4voice01.jpg)

The other main flaw being inappropriate voice stealing in many circumstances

So for the moment, I will focus to debugging/releasing this as a nice monosynth.

I will proceed with polyphony afterwards

[SaulT]

Tale posted a way of doing this... IIRC it involved a round-robin of each note getting its own channel. I.e. the first note is on channel 1, the second note on channel 2, etc. Stack x number of effects and have each one listen to a different channel, but listen to all channels for note-offs.

[Smashed Transistors]

Originally Posted by SaulT

Tale posted a way of doing this... IIRC it involved a round-robin of each note getting its own channel. I.e. the first note is on channel 1, the second note on channel 2, etc. Stack x number of effects and have each one listen to a different channel, but listen to all channels for note-offs.

http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...87&postcount=7
Yes, I had a look to it (generally speaking Tale's work was a motivation for me to come back to jsfx).

I wanted it to be simpler by integrating it in the synth.
Eventually stacking/filtering is the same thing as round robin. Every unit receives one note-on out of three.

The problem with round-robin is that the older note on is stolen even if another note was released...
With high polyphony it may be OK, but i am dealing with 3 to 6 voices...
when a note is stolen, you hear it.
i will use a better method but it will be trickier to implement (already did it with a simplistic synth).

Anyway, the stack feature is already in the jsfx, it can be useful for punctual need of polyphony so i won't remove it.

[Tale]

Originally Posted by Smashed Transistors

The problem with round-robin is that the older note on is stolen even if another note was released...
With high polyphony it may be OK, but i am dealing with 3 to 6 voices...
when a note is stolen, you hear it.

Yeah... BTW, I don't think I use round-robin anymore, but look up the next "free" MIDI channel.

Anyway, that strings demo sounds really good, very "organic".

[Smashed Transistors]

Wow.. it's 1:00 in the morning. I've been experimenting with the IBlit vsti as an input to the cXf. Quite weird sounds.

Originally Posted by Tale

Yeah... BTW, I don't think I use round-robin anymore, but look up the next "free" MIDI channel.

Maybe i can do something similar with stacking but it won't be easy.

My other issue is to synchronise the sliders of all the units.
If i change a parameter on a unit, i'd like the others to be set the same way..

Maybe it is possible to design a "Master" unit that will control the others though sysex. I never tried to play with sysex in js...

Originally Posted by Tale

Anyway, that strings demo sounds really good, very "organic".

reverb helps...
i added an option that modulates the envelope time depending on the noteon velocity... I also played with the modulation wheel.

[Smashed Transistors]

Here is the last stable release.
Will write some tutorial stuff soon.

CXF synth rev09
Feature update:

Added time factor/vel sensitivity to ADSR
Aux oscillator mix is now modulated
External input
- can be used as a MIDI controlled effect.
- select Auxiliary Osc Ratio / Source
- External: the external signal is processed by the cXFilter
- Ring mod External: the external signal is ring modulated and
processed by the cXFilter

cXFilter
- some new noise modulated presets.
- "morphing" between two presets
- 15 modulation sources available for "morphing" (ADSR/lfo...)
Frequency shifter
- coupled with the pitch bend and note pitch
- presets for simplified operation

LFO and VLFO
- LFO : "fast" from 0.1 to 40Hz
- VLFO: "slow" from 0.125s to 32s
- sine/ramp/inv ramp/random
- modWheel controlled vibrato
Glide
- presets
- separate glide effect for aux oscillator for dissonant transients

MIDI stack
- polyphony by stacking (equivalent to round robin)
- set 5 instances in a track
- set them to the same preset
- the first in the chain must have "MIDI Stack 5" as Glide/MIDI stack
- the second, must have "MIDI Stack 4"
- ..
- the fifth must have "MIDI Stack 1"
- the first in the chain (ex Stack5) is the MASTER :
if you tweak its sliders it will send sysex to its slave.
(if you want to automate sliders you only need to automate
the masters sliders).

[IXix]

Very cool!

edit: but the link is broken... (in your sig too)

[Smashed Transistors]

Originally Posted by IXix

Very cool!

edit: but the link is broken...

Just fixed it

[witti]

Yeah, thank you !

It seems that it's only outputting some sound when you press play in reaper.
Is that intended ?

Cheers
witti

[Smashed Transistors]

Hello Witti
No, that's not intended at all...


i can't figure out why it happens.
Maybe some optimisation on the Reaper side that shuts up the JS effects while it is not playing.
Maybe there is a way to tell Reaper that this is a synth ?

As far as i can tell, i don't know, i browsed all the options/Preferences but i didn't find something.

For the moment, i just set a void loop and let reaper play while i tweak the presets.

[witti]

First i looked if you've added something like 'play_state'... hope you are investigating further... Cool stuff, as i already said !

[Smashed Transistors]

Originally Posted by witti

First i looked if you've added something like 'play_state'... hope you are investigating further... Cool stuff, as i already said !

Added pin_in and pin_out... doesn't changed anything. :-/

[witti]

Has it to do with the gate thingy in the TiaR_KBD_03.jsfx-inc file ?

[Smashed Transistors]

Thanks for your debbug help witti.

I found it: i forced expression to zero when the plug received an all notes off signal... and reaper sends an all notes off when it stops !!

I updated the stash. https://stash.reaper.fm/21993/TiaR_CXF_synth_09.zip

Sorry for the bug.
BTW it doesn't work with ReaJS since i use midirecv_buf.. all idea are welcome (i like to use reaJS along with SAVIHost to have standalone synths)

[Smashed Transistors]

Just uploaded it to the stash. It's still basic but i plan to update it from time to time.
A short user guide to the cXf synth rev09

[Smashed Transistors]

Here is the cXf synth "deluxe". It is the same as before with x4 oversampling. Very low aliasing, higher CPU.

[IXix]

Thanks! All my spare time is being eaten by DIY so I haven't had time to play with the synth yet but I'm looking forward to trying it when I get my life back.

[Smashed Transistors]

Have a great DIY week end IXix ;-)

Here is a short demo of the "deluxe"(x4 oversampled) edition. I think the bass sounds is more "punchy" than what i formerly had.