I am currently planing a new softsynth for HD-Rec (or other CAMD oriented apps).
Because I am in planning phase, everything is still open. I was wondering, what features people really like in synthesizers.

I will do a graphic to explain my so-far-plan, but here quickly in text form:

* 4 waveform generators that can be connected by various alogrithms
* algorithms: FM, AM (multiply), wave shaping (lookup), mix (add)
* waveform generator can be sample, noise, saw, triangle, square, free-hand
(wheras interally they are all the same, just looped samples)
* all generators have a wave sample (or multisample), an LFO and Envelope that are freely assignable to pitch, volume and others.
* wavesamples can be pitched in harmonic intervalls
* at the end of the wave generator chain is a filter with various HighPass/BandPass/LowPass/Distorsion implementations, including LFO and Envelope
* Appregiator (e.g. for C64 blurb sounds)

The whole thing makes a "layer". An instrument can consist of 1 to 4 layers.

What do you think? Is this a good and flexible synth, or is something missing?

Such a synth can do old-school C64 sound, but also mature synth sounds and acoustic instuments via samples.

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Homepage: http://www.hd-rec.de

@Wanderer

If you can, put a lot of presets...

Will this new HD-Rec version be OS4.x native?

thanks, andres

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Im just so happy to hear hd-rec is alive and kicking. I just love music program news and specially yours.

For the synthesizer a c64 alike is a must :) as many people loves the sound. Now combining with modern sounds is love in the air. a 303 bassline alike synth funktion is also very welcome.

A drum synthesizer like microtonic on pc is nice. Also a synth for making kicks. And then i mean to be able to really change many knobs etc. I dont remember what the plugins on pc is called. Infected mushroom has a tutorial for making own trance kicks.

Other then that i dont know. I dont have that much knowledge of techstuff.
I like also visual stuff specially for mastering purpose etc.

EDIT: I was to edit my post before anyone replied but too late :)
Im lousy in describing. What i really meant is that the synth should have the possibility of c64 sounds, 303 etc. Not one machine each ;) Sweeper can do most of the stuff but as you said your new softsynth is more quality and thats good. A kick plugin should be able to do all kind of kicks, for rock, hiphop, techno, trance, pop whatever. The infected mushroom was just one example of how to make a trance kick like they use. So its not a one song use plugin ;)

Last edited by Kicko on 11-Nov-2008 at 08:43 PM.

@andres

This is not a new version of HD-Rec. This will be a softsynth plugin for HD-Rec.

I will implement the audio renderer in C, so a native version can easily be compiled.
The GUI, however, will be 68k, everything else would be too much work. If you pay me 10.000EUR, I will port TUI (GUI Toolkit of HD-Rec) to OS4 and do a native GUI.

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@Kicko

Note that this is not another "news". I would like to discuss in this thread what people think a good synthesizer should do.

To my opinion, it should be a multi-purpose synthesizer, not something specialized to created a certain freaky sound you have heared somewhere in a techno song or something, and that works only for you in one song.
Considering that we have nearly NO synthesizer at all on Amiga (well, we have Sweeper, Bernds Sampler and Pasis Organ), a multi-purpose synth should be very welcome. The synth I described above can do roughly 80% of all synth sounds you can hear in the Radio (or heared in the past), this includes TR x0x style sounds too. It can do also bleep-bleep like Hively Tracker, and it can do Sample based "natural" sounds. Similar to Sweeper, but more flexible. (Sweeper has all combinations of algorithms hardcoded for speed reasons), and doesn't use more than 2 generators.

Here is an adhoc demo of some Sweeper Sounds (no samples!)

http://www.hd-rec.de/HD-Rec/mp3/Sweeper_Demo.mp3

... and a more complete song (uses samples for drums only)
http://www.hd-rec.de/Archive/DemoSongs/SweeperDemoV3.mp3

And a sample based piano song (Bernd's Sampler):
http://www.hd-rec.de/Archive/DemoSongs/Tenderly.mp3

4 Wave generators can create more complex sounds than you hear above, also I would do something like mip-mapping for better (smoother) audio quality. Oversampling would also be thinkable for offline-rendering of the finalized song.

I thought about Equalizer and Chorus function, but that's the task of the audio mixer, isn't it?

Last edited by Wanderer on 11-Nov-2008 at 06:07 PM.
Last edited by Wanderer on 11-Nov-2008 at 06:03 PM.

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@Wanderer

You missed out Phonolith from your list of synths. It seems to work quite well for my needs any way.

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@Wanderer

I liked the quality of the Tenderly.mp3. Very impressive.

How do I find out how to do a similar thing?

Googling "Amiga Bernds Sampler" did not turn up anything usable. What is it? How does it relate to HD-Rec?

ggw

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@Wanderer
The most interesting real synth out there for me are the Hartmann Neuron, Yamaha SY99 or FS1R. Simple VA emulation like the An1x or JP8000 got would be interesting too. But Neural synth and FM Synth make more interesting sounds I think.
NeuronVS exists as PC Softsynth.. but it would be to much work to create a equal synth... it would be illegal allso. A FM Synth like FS1R... yes great, but even FM8 can't do what that machine can course of the missing Formant shaping technique where Yamaha holds the patent on it. But a cool FM synth where you can edit your own Algorithms would be fine. Where a carrier can allso be a SFX source, a different wave not only a sine.. or even a sample... whatever ;)) FM rulez!

Bernd's Sampler (Bernd Roesch) is a Sampler Player Softsynth with quite well designed filters and non-mathematical envelopes (Envelopes are (handdrawn) samples too). It was originally implemented as a B&P plugin, and later turned into an HD-Rec plugin.
I will try to get my hands on the latest version and put it on www.hd-rec.de.

And yes, I forgot about Phonolith. But IIRC it is "just" a nacked sample player, correct me if I am wrong. It is a plugin for Horny, and you don't have DSP Effects like in HD-Rec (Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Flanger, EQ, Compressor, Distortion etc. etc.) So you are not really any better than a mod player. I should add all trackers to the list as well, but I don't really regard them as softsynths. (is "Paula" a hardware synth?)

@Psycreator
In Germany, luckily, there are no software patents. So I could do it. Also, I dont think that a company would see an Amiga program (if they ever get it running on their machines) as a thread to their patent. Too expensive to sew me, too less money involved.
But before we get somehting like neural net synthesis, lets go for the "usual" suff as I said. This is the problem of the "Amiga" thinking. Trying to reach the stars before having a working telescope.
E.g. using neural nets is nice for marketing, but we dont need marketing. E.g. AN1x (I own one) boils down to a quite simple synth, simplier than I described above. The whole "virtual" stuff is only marketing.

Last edited by Wanderer on 12-Nov-2008 at 09:15 AM.

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@Wanderer

So you got caught up on my idea?!

Too bad I don't have any time at all to work on my secret project since months... I would really like to make something of it!

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ok, here is the concept so far: (still a bit rough)

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HD-Rec, Sweeper, Samplemanager, ArTKanoid, Monkeyscript, Toadies, AsteroidsTR, TuiTED, PosTED, TKPlayer, AudioConverter, ScreenCam, PerlinFX, MapEdit, AB3 Includes and many more...
Homepage: http://www.hd-rec.de

@Wanderer

Hello Thilo. If you are going for a broad appeal, i guess the bread and butter Moog cascade filter and the system surrounding it is the way to go, isn't it?

So, a few oscillators, with saw, pulse, square and sine/triangle, going through a hi/lo pass filter combo into an ADSR Section.

@Wanderer

nice project and thread!
keep us updated!

edit: now all hdrec needs is a tracker interface ;)

Last edited by spotUP on 12-Nov-2008 at 03:00 PM.

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@spotUP

Yes, I was close to do a tracker view for MIDI Tracks. But as I never use(d) a tracker, I am not very motivated and I dont have experience what's important and whats not.
But sure, a tracker interface could be done in a week or so.

I am currently re-writing the whole GUI Toolkit, so I am quite busy. This will also fix some Gadtools problems and make it look nice on all platforms.

BTW; I am planning to make HD-Rec free and open source. So if someone is interessted to do a tracker, I can provide the source.

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HD-Rec, Sweeper, Samplemanager, ArTKanoid, Monkeyscript, Toadies, AsteroidsTR, TuiTED, PosTED, TKPlayer, AudioConverter, ScreenCam, PerlinFX, MapEdit, AB3 Includes and many more...
Homepage: http://www.hd-rec.de

@broadblues

Phonolith is not really a synth. As Wanderer said, it's a sample player, but at least with ADSR envelope amp and you can make multi-samples (key and velocity ranges, layered sounds). So it's a little bit more than old tracker programs could do.
But thanks for thinking of my software

@Wanderer
Phonolith is not a plug-in for Horny, it's an completely own application.

@Timo

Hello Timo

So Phonolith has it's own AHI out, right? That means you can not use it in parallel if HD-Rec has Audio switched on.
And here lies the problem were we would need the camd concept for audio.

HD-Rec plugins don't use AHI, they open an "AudioPort" to transfer the data to HD-Rec's Audio Mixer. Same is for HD-Rec itself.

BTW, any 68K version in sight?

In the gallery of Softsynth I also forgot RockBeat. (but i am not an OS4 guy, so my world exists out of 68k apps...)

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HD-Rec, Sweeper, Samplemanager, ArTKanoid, Monkeyscript, Toadies, AsteroidsTR, TuiTED, PosTED, TKPlayer, AudioConverter, ScreenCam, PerlinFX, MapEdit, AB3 Includes and many more...
Homepage: http://www.hd-rec.de

@Wanderer

Make it 6 oscillators.

Quote:

This is the problem of the "Amiga" thinking. Trying to reach the stars before having a working telescope.

Exactly my thoughts too.

Quote:

Sweeper, Bernds Sampler and Pasis Organ

What are these and where can I download them from ? Any related websites ?

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a tracker interface would make the app useable for me. me as well as many other amiga musicians come from the protracker school and just don't feel comfortable using other 'modern' editing modes.
i'd love a tracker interface.

edit: i just have to put this here.. as this thread attracts the audioboys...
octamed for amiga is dead again, someone, please save it!

Last edited by spotUP on 12-Nov-2008 at 07:03 PM.

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@spotUP

Im with you with the tracker interface :) Would be more fun to make music again, specially drums/bass etc. Notation is good for melodies/chords specially if live playing and recording notes. So maybe a coder that uses renoise/digibooster etc could give a helping hand. I belive i would get some energy back to make more music again :)

@Wanderer

Hi!

Yes, Phonolith has an own AHI out. Davy was working on something like camd for audio, but not for Amiga anymore...
And no, I don't plan a 68k version. In fact, I don't plan to program anything anymore at home. Enough programming at work...
But Phonolith is open source and can be found on sourceforge.