5 Oct
2005
5 Oct
'05
9:04 p.m.
Introducing WhySynth, a DSSI softsynth plugin.
WhySynth, as in 'Y'-synth, the super-sized, frankensteinized,
evolved and mutated, still rather dorky younger sibling of
Xsynth-DSSI.
WhySynth, as in (I sometimes ask), "_why_ am I working on another
softsynth instead of on paying gigs?" (Following my bliss?
Addiction? One last shot at misspent youth?)
WhySynth, as in a mostly-new design featuring:
- 4 oscillators per voice, in your choice of 6 modes (minBLEP,
wavecycle, asynchronous granular, FM, waveshaper, and noise),
- 2 filters, also in multiple flavors,
- flexible routing and mixdown to stereo output,
- 3 (or is it 6?) LFOs (instrument-wide, per-voice, and multiphase),
- 5 multi-mode envelope generators,
- abundant modulation options,
- and effects (well, Tim Goetze's Versatile plate reverb is all at
the moment, unless you count the DC-blocker anti-effect).
WhySynth is a work in progress. Actually, since the kid was born,
progress has slowed to a near-utter standstill, but if I can't
release often, I might as well release early.
Get your tarball, boring screenshot, and html-ized README today at:
http://home.jps.net/~musound/whysynth.html
then get your butts back to making cool music -- however you define
that. Cheers,
-Sean
9 Oct
9 Oct
3:30 a.m.
Whoaa!
Some really impressive specs. Are you trying to corner the market as in
"the only soffsynth you'll ever, ever need!!" :)
Can it run 'stand alone'?
Do you have some rough statistics on number of voices/gigahertz?
/jens
On Wed, 2005-10-05 at 16:05 -0700, Sean Bolton wrote:
Introducing WhySynth, a DSSI softsynth plugin.
WhySynth, as in 'Y'-synth, the super-sized, frankensteinized,
evolved and mutated, still rather dorky younger sibling of
Xsynth-DSSI.
WhySynth, as in (I sometimes ask), "_why_ am I working on another
softsynth instead of on paying gigs?" (Following my bliss?
Addiction? One last shot at misspent youth?)
WhySynth, as in a mostly-new design featuring:
- 4 oscillators per voice, in your choice of 6 modes (minBLEP,
wavecycle, asynchronous granular, FM, waveshaper, and noise),
- 2 filters, also in multiple flavors,
- flexible routing and mixdown to stereo output,
- 3 (or is it 6?) LFOs (instrument-wide, per-voice, and multiphase),
- 5 multi-mode envelope generators,
- abundant modulation options,
- and effects (well, Tim Goetze's Versatile plate reverb is all at
the moment, unless you count the DC-blocker anti-effect).
WhySynth is a work in progress. Actually, since the kid was born,
progress has slowed to a near-utter standstill, but if I can't
release often, I might as well release early.
Get your tarball, boring screenshot, and html-ized README today at:
http://home.jps.net/~musound/whysynth.html
then get your butts back to making cool music -- however you define
that. Cheers,
-Sean
--
12:40 p.m.
I reckon this as 'no'
On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 14:44 +0100, James McDermott wrote:
On 10/9/05, Jens M Andreasen
<jens.andreasen(a)chello.se> wrote:
--
Can it run 'stand alone'?
There are two fairly minimal DSSI hosts, ghostess and jack-dssi-host,
which receive MIDI and output to Jack, so the stand-alone feature
always comes for free...
James
12:58 p.m.
On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 16:40 +0200, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 14:44 +0100, James McDermott
wrote:
Why?
jack-dssi-host whysynth.so
...and you will have a stand-alone process with an ALSA MIDI port and
JACK audio output that will quit when you close the WhySynth GUI
window.
--
Lars Luthman
PGP key: http://www.d.kth.se/~d00-llu/pgp_key.php
Fingerprint: FCA7 C790 19B9 322D EB7A E1B3 4371 4650 04C7 7E2E
On 10/9/05, Jens M Andreasen
<jens.andreasen(a)chello.se> wrote:
I reckon this as 'no' Can it run 'stand alone'?
There are two fairly minimal DSSI hosts, ghostess and jack-dssi-host,
which receive MIDI and output to Jack, so the stand-alone feature
always comes for free... 
1:15 p.m.
On Sunday 09 Oct 2005 15:59, Lars Luthman wrote:
jack-dssi-host whysynth.so
Simpler still, start with this (or make the synth's installer do this):
# ln -s jack-dssi-host /usr/bin/whysynth
Then you can just run
$ whysynth
for the same thing (a standalone GUI program with ALSA sequencer MIDI
input and JACK audio output).
Chris
1:45 p.m.
Very nice, hours of fun in there to be sure. But how can you handle MIDI
bindings? For example, to control one of the filter resonance knobs
rather than just the MIDI note/pitchwheel in?
d.
--
derek holzer ::: http://www.umatic.nl
---Oblique Strategy # 124:
"Once the search is in progress, something will be found"
2:06 p.m.
On Sun, Oct 09, 2005 at 05:45:33PM +0200, derek holzer wrote:
Very nice, hours of fun in there to be sure. But how
can you handle MIDI
bindings? For example, to control one of the filter resonance knobs
rather than just the MIDI note/pitchwheel in?
Plugins can specify default CC and NRPN bindgins in thier metadata.
- Steve
2:09 p.m.
On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 17:45 +0200, derek holzer wrote:
Very nice, hours of fun in there to be sure. But how
can you handle MIDI
bindings? For example, to control one of the filter resonance knobs
rather than just the MIDI note/pitchwheel in?
DSSI plugins map MIDI CCs to control inputs (or at least they should,
the DSSI API supports it). Unfortunately there is no way to see from the
"outside" (i.e. from another program) what the bindings are, only the
plugin host can see that - but that is a limitation in the ALSA
sequencer API that would be hard to get around.
--
Lars Luthman
PGP key: http://www.d.kth.se/~d00-llu/pgp_key.php
Fingerprint: FCA7 C790 19B9 322D EB7A E1B3 4371 4650 04C7 7E2E
3:01 p.m.
On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 16:59 +0200, Lars Luthman wrote:
OK OK, I buy that except that it will fail if jack is not running, hence
the stand alone qualifier.
/j
--
I reckon this
as 'no'
Why?
jack-dssi-host whysynth.so
...and you will have a stand-alone process with an ALSA MIDI port and
JACK audio output that will quit when you close the WhySynth GUI
window. 
3:21 p.m.
On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 19:01 +0200, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 16:59 +0200, Lars Luthman
wrote:
OK OK, I buy that except that it will fail if jack is not running, hence
the stand alone qualifier.
not if jack-dssi-host uses jack_client_open() with the appropriate
flags.
--p
I reckon
this as 'no'
Why?
jack-dssi-host whysynth.so
...and you will have a stand-alone process with an ALSA MIDI port and
JACK audio output that will quit when you close the WhySynth GUI
window.
4:18 p.m.
On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 13:22 -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 19:01 +0200, Jens M Andreasen
wrote:
This is getting silly.
All I wanted to do was to ackowledge that I have read thru Boltons site.
He has some humor in his style of expressing himself and a ton of
dependencies (of which I have most installed, but not all.)
Let Bolton speak for himself, please. Gentlemen please ...
/j
On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 16:59 +0200, Lars Luthman
wrote:
OK OK, I buy that except that it will fail if jack is not running, hence
the stand alone qualifier.
not if jack-dssi-host uses jack_client_open() with the appropriate
flags.
I reckon
this as 'no'
Why?
jack-dssi-host whysynth.so
...and you will have a stand-alone process with an ALSA MIDI port and
JACK audio output that will quit when you close the WhySynth GUI
window. --p
--
10 Oct
10 Oct
7:46 p.m.
On Oct 9, 2005, at 11:18 AM, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
Yeah, addicted is right. I code in a very experimental, improvisational
way. If I could manage only a _few_ cycles of scrapping and
reinventing,
I would be much more efficient!
On Oct 9, 2005, at 8:45 AM, derek holzer wrote:
Let Bolton speak for himself, please. Gentlemen please
...
Bolton speaks for himself, thusly:
On Oct 8, 2005, at 10:30 PM, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
Whoaa!
Some really impressive specs. Are you trying to corner the market as in
"the only soffsynth you'll ever, ever need!!" :)
Right-o, as in Guinness is the only beer you'll ever, ever need,
and Gentoo is the only distro you'll ever, ever need!!
Do you have some rough statistics on number of
voices/gigahertz?
That depends on the patch. With a simple two-oscillator, single filter
patch playing 16 voices, my 933MHz Pentium 3 barely breaks a sweat
(17% CPU according to top, 22% according to qjackctl). One the other
hand, with the most expensive patch I can think of, it maxes out at
only two voices.
On Oct 9, 2005, at 3:33 AM, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
WhySynth, as
in (I sometimes ask), "_why_ am I working on another
softsynth instead of on paying gigs?" (Following my bliss?
Addiction? One last shot at misspent youth?)
Heh :) Once you have done one, you are addicted.
This is not nescessarily a bad thing. Laying out a synthesizer
requires
as much consideration as laying out say; the main theme for film-score.
A few cycles of scrapping and reinventing is expected, perhaps even
required. Very nice, hours of fun in there to be sure. But how
can you handle
MIDI bindings? For example, to control one of the filter resonance
knobs rather than just the MIDI note/pitchwheel in?
That's one of the things I haven't done yet, and one of the awkward
parts of DSSI. Several people (two?) have pointed out that DSSI
provides for binding MIDI CCs/NRPNs to ports ('knobs'), but the plugin
must declare these bindings to the host before the GUI gets a chance
to run. So you either have to make them hard-coded, or require
the user to exit-and-restart in order to implement custom bindings.
If you wanna hard-code your own bindings, I'll tell you how....
(Just look in src/dssp_synth.c for the Y_PORT_GLIDE_TIME binding
to the MIDI portamento time CC, follow the example, and recompile :-/)
Thanks, everyone, for your comments and questions,
-Sean
28 Oct
28 Oct
10:36 p.m.
WOW. Whysynth is very cool. For subtractive synthesis on linux it seems
very frugal on cpu cycles. Nice. I haven't fooled much with the other
osciliator types but look forward to. I followed the suggestion (I think
:) ) at the bottum of this email regarding assigning various midi
controllers to various synthesis parameters. I added
case Y_PORT_VCF1_FREQUENCY:
return DSSI_CC(0x00);
to y_get_midi_controller at line 633 of dssp_synth.c in an attempt to
connect a continous controller that alsa sequencer shows as parameter 0.
However I get no varience of cutoff frequency. I'm quite certain that
param 0 cc messages are getting at least to jack-dssi-host. Can you
think of something I might be missing, here?
Thanks!
-Garett
Sean Bolton wrote:
On Oct 9, 2005, at 11:18 AM, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
Yeah, addicted is right. I code in a very experimental, improvisational
way. If I could manage only a _few_ cycles of scrapping and reinventing,
I would be much more efficient!
On Oct 9, 2005, at 8:45 AM, derek holzer wrote:
Let Bolton speak for himself, please. Gentlemen
please ...
Bolton speaks for himself, thusly:
On Oct 8, 2005, at 10:30 PM, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
Whoaa!
Some really impressive specs. Are you trying to corner the market as in
"the only soffsynth you'll ever, ever need!!" :)
Right-o, as in Guinness is the only beer you'll ever, ever need,
and Gentoo is the only distro you'll ever, ever need!!
Do you have some rough statistics on number of
voices/gigahertz?
That depends on the patch. With a simple two-oscillator, single filter
patch playing 16 voices, my 933MHz Pentium 3 barely breaks a sweat
(17% CPU according to top, 22% according to qjackctl). One the other
hand, with the most expensive patch I can think of, it maxes out at
only two voices.
On Oct 9, 2005, at 3:33 AM, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
WhySynth,
as in (I sometimes ask), "_why_ am I working on another
softsynth instead of on paying gigs?" (Following my bliss?
Addiction? One last shot at misspent youth?)
Heh :) Once you have done one, you are addicted.
This is not nescessarily a bad thing. Laying out a synthesizer requires
as much consideration as laying out say; the main theme for film-score.
A few cycles of scrapping and reinventing is expected, perhaps even
required. Very nice, hours of fun in there to be sure. But
how can you handle
MIDI bindings? For example, to control one of the filter resonance
knobs rather than just the MIDI note/pitchwheel in?
That's one of the things I haven't done yet, and one of the awkward
parts of DSSI. Several people (two?) have pointed out that DSSI
provides for binding MIDI CCs/NRPNs to ports ('knobs'), but the plugin
must declare these bindings to the host before the GUI gets a chance
to run. So you either have to make them hard-coded, or require
the user to exit-and-restart in order to implement custom bindings.
If you wanna hard-code your own bindings, I'll tell you how....
(Just look in src/dssp_synth.c for the Y_PORT_GLIDE_TIME binding
to the MIDI portamento time CC, follow the example, and recompile :-/)
Thanks, everyone, for your comments and questions,
-Sean
10:55 p.m.
On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 18:35 -0600, Garett Shulman wrote:
WOW. Whysynth is very cool. For subtractive synthesis
on linux it seems
very frugal on cpu cycles. Nice. I haven't fooled much with the other
osciliator types but look forward to. I followed the suggestion (I think
:) ) at the bottum of this email regarding assigning various midi
controllers to various synthesis parameters. I added
case Y_PORT_VCF1_FREQUENCY:
return DSSI_CC(0x00);
to y_get_midi_controller at line 633 of dssp_synth.c in an attempt to
connect a continous controller that alsa sequencer shows as parameter 0.
However I get no varience of cutoff frequency. I'm quite certain that
param 0 cc messages are getting at least to jack-dssi-host. Can you
think of something I might be missing, here?
You managed to hit one of the two CC numbers that DSSI plugins are not
allowed to use to control parameters. CC 0 and 32 (Bank select MSB and
Bank select LSB) are interpreted by a DSSI host as "change program
bank", and instead of sending the CC events directly to the plugin it
should use select_program() to select a new program bank in the plugin.
If you use any other CC number it should work.
--
Lars Luthman
PGP key: http://www.d.kth.se/~d00-llu/pgp_key.php
Fingerprint: FCA7 C790 19B9 322D EB7A E1B3 4371 4650 04C7 7E2E
9 Oct
9 Oct
8:33 a.m.
On Wed, 2005-10-05 at 16:05 -0700, Sean Bolton wrote:
WhySynth, as in (I sometimes ask), "_why_ am I
working on another
softsynth instead of on paying gigs?" (Following my bliss?
Addiction? One last shot at misspent youth?)
Heh :) Once you have done one, you are addicted.
This is not nescessarily a bad thing. Laying out a synthesizer requires
as much consideration as laying out say; the main theme for film-score.
A few cycles of scrapping and reinventing is expected, perhaps even
required.
mvh // Jens M Andreasen
6910
days inactive
6933
days old
linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org
15 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
Chris Cannam -
derek holzer -
Garett Shulman -
James McDermott -
Jens M Andreasen -
Lars Luthman -
Paul Davis -
Sean Bolton -
Steve Harris