Help and advice

Can I use SynthEdit V 1.5?

18/08/2023 / Stephen / 0 Comments

As of 15th July 2024 yes you can now use V1.5 for serious projects. It’s now out of Beta testing and is in a stable form. Unfortunately for anyone using older versions of Windows such as 7 it will not run on these versions. On Windows 8 it may run, but with some issues..

Can I use the new modules from V1.5 in V1.4?
Well they will work, but…this is a big but you could encounter serious issues if you use them in a VST, as they are not optimised for V1.4.

What’s New in V1.5? (Stable, but new additions may be made in the future)

System Requirements/Specifications.

Requires Windows 10 to run reliably.
macOS plugins require macOS 10.9 (Mavericks) or better.

New Features. (Subject to change)

MIDI 2.0 and MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) support.
MIDI output support in plugins (depends on DAW support)
Apple Silicon (ARM) support.
VST3 plugins are supported on mac (not all macOS DAWs support VST3).
SFZ (Sample Playback) now supported.
Windows in the editor are now ‘zoomable’ (<CTRL> mouse-wheel).
Searchable module browser.
New oversampling mode for control-signals (add * to pin name)
‘Export as JUCE’ supports additional plugin formats in some cases (AAX, CLAP, Standalone)
Faster loading of projects.
New XML-based project format (human readable)
‘Ignore Program Change’ feature returns.
VST3 bypass parameter support (add a Bool PatchMemory called “BYPASS”)

Known Issues.

MIDI out from VST3 plugins depends on DAW support. Some DAWs, like Cubase, do not support this.
Partially transparent images may render too dark on macOS.
Parameter limits (i.e. high-value and low-value) are not enforced in the SynthEdit editor but are enforced by the DAW in plugins. This behaviour is needed to support older projects.
It seems that some older graphics cards/PC’s even if they are running Windows 10 can cause SE 1.5 to crash on start up- there appears to be no solution apart from a new PC. It looks like its caused by old/buggy driver software which doesn’t support some of the graphics methods used in V1.5.

Universal VST 3 plug-ins.

A universal plugin is one that can run on either macOS or Windows. SynthEdit now produces universal VST3 plugins. This means you can offer the same download to macOS and Windows users. It will ‘just work’. SynthEdit universal VST3s support both Intel Mac computers and also ‘Apple Silicon’ (ARM) based ones such as the M1, M2, and later.
As a result of being universal, VST3 plugins now take a little more disk space and contain more files than with previous versions of SynthEdit.
Note: Universal VST3 plugins might fail to scan in some DAW’s. A workaround is to delete the ‘MacOS’ folder inside the VST3 plugin using some free software very kindly supplied by Davidson https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sozlsa0Xgzb4KPSn707g1nATNrZaW9Mz/view?usp=sharing. You do need to be careful using this software however. There is a read me with the software which you must read.

MIDI 2.0

SynthEdit 1.5 understands and works with MIDI 2.0.
This should work automatically in most cases. However, if you are using 3rd-party MIDI plugins you will need to use a MIDI Converter module to convert their incoming MIDI to version 1.0. You don’t need any converter on the output, SE will convert it back to MIDI 2.0 as needed.

MPE support implementation for various DAW’s:

Bitwig:
Note expression works for VST3 plugins. I (Jeff) set up my controller as a “Seaboard RISE” and set the bend range to 48.

Cubase:
Add an Instrument Track containing your VST3 plugin.
In the Inspector change the track MIDI input from “All MIDI Inputs” to your MPE controller. e.g. “Seaboard block”
In the Inspector open the “Note Expression” section. tick “MIDI as Note Expression”
Select “Tuning”, in the box below and assign it to “Horizontal/X”
Select “Brightness”, and assign it to “Vertical/Y”
Assign “Poly Pressure” to “Pressure(P)”

Ableton Live:
Ableton Live (MacOS) supports MPE for Audio Unit plugins on macOS.
Ableton Live (Windows) does not currently support VST3 Note Expression, but you can get MPE to work by following the steps below:

Firstly you need an MPE Control module to allow you to force the plugin into MPE Mode.

In Ableton Insert your VST3 plugin, then ensure that the VST plugins MPE Mode is set to “On”. Open Ableton’s settings and ensure that Ableton’s MIDI controllers MPE tick-box is Off. Yes that’s correct select Off! (On is actually off! Very confusing but blame Ableton’s programmers)

You then need to set up 16 MIDI tracks in Ableton to route all the channels to the VST3 plugin (If you don’t do this Ableton will merge all channels into one).

This page explains how to set up several tracks to handle all the MIDI channels of MPE in Ableton.
https://support.roli.com/support/solutions/articles/36000019096-ableton-using-the-seaboard-rise-grand-with-ableton-live
Note that the automatic MPE support in Ableton 11 does not work with VST3 plugins yet.

Reaper:
With Reaper, MPE with Audio Unit plugins works provided the instrument has an ‘MPE Control’ module, and the user switches it to ‘MPE On’.
For VST3 plugins I (Jeff) needed to use the same export setting as for Ableton Live
(‘MPE Emu’, and enable MPE from the MPE Control module). But it worked right away on a single instrument track.

New program features.

Preset Modified:
A new option in SE 1.5 is the ‘Preset Modified’ indicator. You can use it to add an indicator to your preset menu to show that the user has modified an existing preset in some way.
Below we use the ‘Concat’ module to add an asterisk (*) to the preset name whenever the preset has been modified.
The asterisk is entered into the ‘List to Text’ module as the ‘item list’. i.e.: “,*” (a comma followed by an asterisk).

Cubase “Bypass” button:
To support the Cubase bypass button you will need to add a dedicated ‘Patch Parameter – Bool’ to your plugin. Rename it as “Bypass”.
Then you can hook that up however you prefer to implement the bypass. For example, you can connect it to a switch module that sends the input signal directly to the output whenever the bypass mode is enabled.

How to emulate “Ignore Program Change”
This feature enables the ‘Ignore Program Change’ feature to work in plugins. (previously it worked only in the Editor). Whereby when you change a preset, one or more controls will stay as they were, unchanged. This is useful for controls like ‘Master Volume’ or ‘Master Tuning’ which you might not want to change with each individual preset.

Saving projects in VST2 format:
SynthEdit 1.5 (and future later versions) does not directly support the saving of VST2 plugins (only VST3 is supported).
However, some projects can also be loaded in the older version (SynthEdit 1.4) and exported as VST2 plugins from there.
To save some hassle SE 1.5 export has a tick-box option ‘Create a VST2 using SE 1.4’. All this does is automatically launch SynthEdit Version 1.4 (if it’s installed) and export the same project from there.
Limitations:
The project file you are converting must be compatible with the SE 1.4 file format *.se1 not the newer *.synthedit file format
The project must rely only 64 bit modules that are SE 1.4 compatible
You must have the latest SE 1.4 installed (Build number 695 or later)

Multi-channel VST plugins:
SynthEdit plugins with more than 2 inputs or outputs can now load into Cubase as multichannel plugins (1 ‘bus’, many channels).
Alternatively, when exporting you can choose “Outputs as Stereo Pairs” which will create a plugin with multiple buses, each with two channels.
Note: If you change these options, Cubase may fail to recognize the change unless you delete Cubase’s existing plugin cache file (VST3plugins.xml) and rescan the plugin.
Some DAWs like Ableton Live might not recognize multichannel plugins (only ones with the “stereo pairs” option).

I see that V 1.5 can be downloaded, is it OK to use, or should I wait?
If you are only going to use it to see what’s new, and try out the new functions and modules yes it’s fine. From experience it may not run (or be glitchy and buggy) on older PCs.
It will only run on Windows 10 or 11.
Sorry Windows 7 and 8 users, but your options are:
1) Upgrade your PC
2) Stay with V1.4.
Just remember its still undergoing Beta testing and is subject to update and changes, some of the newer modules are still a work in progress so are not fully functional.
Use with care as updates may well “break” an existing design made with the current version number of V1.5
As always with Beta software bug reports are welcome (NOT HERE) but at the “GroupsIO” message board: groups.io/g/synthedit/messages using the hashtag #bugreport. It’s free to join up and you’ll find a lot of help and support on there.

About LFOs- using the standard Oscillator.

23/11/2024 / Stephen / 0 Comments

An LFO is a low-frequency oscillator that is used to modulate a synthesizer controls automatically, and in a regular fashion. They are often used to modulate the filter cut-off frequency at a slow rate, for vibrato and for tremolo effects. Though it’s almost identical to an oscillator that produces audible waveforms, its frequency lies in the subsonic range between 10 Hz and 0.001 Hz. The most common waveforms are sine and triangle as shown below.

We can use the standard oscillator module to create an
LFO in SynthEdit.
Click on the module, and in the oscillator’s Properties window you will
see two modes for setting the frequency;
1 Volt/Octave,
1 Volt/kHz.
I recommend using 1V/kHz as it’s easier to work out your frequency ranges.
Since 1V = 1kHz, then 0.001V = 0.001kHz or 1Hz. It’s easier to work out 1 volt per kHz values, than using the 1 volt per octave formula below (unless you enjoy maths).

How low can you go? The stock SE Oscillator will (Since an update in 2019) go down as low in frequency as -1e27 kHz (0.00000000000000000001 kHz)… that’s well below 0.01 Hz.
An oscillator’s default output range is +5 to −5 volts. By adding a Level Adj
module in after the oscillator’s Audio Out plug you can adjust the
LFO’s output amplitude.
Note: If you make the range of the Level knob -10 V low to 10 V high, then when the Input 2 voltage is negative it will invert the phase of the waveform, and when it is positive the waveform will be in it’s normal phase.
Using the LFO is as simple as connecting to the Pitch plug of a filter (NB there are some filters such as the Butterworth EQ range that should not be modulated), the Pitch plug of an Oscillator (only small amounts are needed here) or the Volume plug of a VCA (it’s better to use a VCA than a Level Adj module).

By default this LFO will be “monophonic” this is because it is not connected to the MIDI-CV converter module. However we really don’t need to have a polyphonic LFO (and it would be a waste of valuable CPU resources too).
If you decided you really needed a polyphonic LFO, then you could connect the Phase Mod plug to the Pitch plug of the MIDI to CV module, and set the PM depth level to 0.
This is OK if you don’t mind having a few options an LFO wouldn’t normally have such as Pink/White noise. There is however a couple of excellent 3rd party LFO modules from TD modules which give you lots of extra options, see the TD LFO modules post.
We can also have even more complex modulation possibilities with a “complex LFO” by having a number of LFOs modulating each other.

Registration checking..

17/11/2024 / Stephen / 0 Comments

Registration system for VST plugins.

These modules allow you to have a simple Registration System for your VST Plugins by having a serial number that is directly linked to both the product name (name of your VST) and the registered user name.
The “Registration Check” module allows you to provide a basic system to register users of your plugins. The idea is you issue each user with a serial number. The serial is linked to the user’s name (or email).
Use two “User Setting – Text” modules, one to save the user’s name, and a second to store their serial. This data will be stored on disk and recalled any time the user loads the plugin. Each User-Setting-Text module needs a “key” which identifies what the setting is called. On the first User-Setting module, set “Key” to “Registration Name” or similar, and set the second module’s Key to “Serial” or similar. (Ref to the diagram below).
Registration Setting information will be saved to the following folders:
For Windows systems;
Windows C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\ProductName\Preferences.xml
For MAC OS systems;
MacOS ~Library/Preferences/ProductName/Preferences.xml.

Basic example.

In the example shown below a LED is used to indicate that a valid serial number has been entered.
In practice, you might choose to use this signal to restrict the features of your instrument, or to add periodic noise bursts etc.
To generate serials, use the “Registration Serial Generator” module
Important Note: You must not share this module with your end-users.
Note: You must ensure you enter the same “random seed” into the Registration Serial Generator that you used in the Registration Checker. The seed should be different for each of your plugins (otherwise the same serials will activate all of them). Currently, it’s necessary to generate each serial number manually.

The Registration Checker in use in a VST:

Product Name:
Ensure you enter a unique product-name into the User-Setting-Text module at the time of creating your VST. Otherwise the system will mix up serials from different products and you’ll end up with a total mess.
The “Default” setting is not important, it can be left blank, however you can put a useful message in here such as “Enter User Name”. Note: If you are using the Password hide module there is no point as your message will become **********, so it would be better to use another Text Entry with the appropriate control labels.
Random Seed:
You must enter this Integer in the Registration Check module’s properties when programming the VST It MUST be unique to each plug-in you create (not for each one of the same type you sell though!)
User Name:
The user enters their User Name or E-Mail address in here, which they have supplied to you (email is best, the chances of two people having the same e-mail address are, well pretty remote).
Serial Number:
The user enters the serial number generated by the combination of their user name, and the Random Seed Integer.
In this example Text Entry 4 Changes to Registered = True when all the three variables match: Random Seed, User Name, and Serial Number. In practice you can use this to disable certain parts of the VST, add random noise bursts etc. which will then be removed when the correct registration details have been entered.

Hiding your passwords.

One more helpful thing you can add is the password hide. So if a user is making a video of something with the plugin the serial numbers are shown as asterisks after entry like ****** instead of 235256 for example if the registration screen is displayed on the main control panel.

Creating Passwords.

This just needs the Registration Serial Generator, and the Text Entry4 module to display the generated password.
All you need here is the Rego Name – this is ideally the clients email address, and the Random Seed Number.
Important: The Random Seed number must not be shared. The Registration Serial Generator must never be shared or left in the final VST.

User Setting – Text module.

Passes the relevant information to the Registration checker for validation.

Plugs:
Left Hand Side:
-> Product:- (Text) The Product name i.e. the name of your VST. This must match in both the User and Serial modules!
-> Key:- (Text) The Key value of User Name, or Serial Number. Leave as Default when programming.
-> Default:- (Text) Leave as Default when Programming.

Right Hand Side:
<- Value:- (Text) User Name or Serial number input from a Text Entry4 module by the end user.
<- Value:- (Text) User Name or Serial number sent to the Registration Checker module.

Registration Check: Module.

There are two versions of these GUI and DSP. They both check the combination of User Name, Seed, and Serial Number to ensure they are a valid match.

Plugs:
Left Hand Side:
-> Rego Name:- (Text) Input of the User name. Put a default value in the properties during programming.
-> Serial:- (Text) Input of the Serial Number. Put a default (false obviously!) value in the properties during programming.

Right Hand Side:
<- Is Valid:- (Boolean) Returns a value of “True” if all the conditions match.

Properties:
♦ Seed:- (Integer) This is your random Seed Number for your VST module to identify it. This MUST be a unique number entered into the modules properties during programming of your VST. It must never be made public.

LED2 without PatchMem

17/11/2024 / Stephen / 0 Comments

By using a third party module it is possible to avoid using a PatchMemory Float Out3 module in the LED2 control. It can be replaced with a QTN_Float2GUIFloat, to convert from DSP Floating Point to GUI Floating Point.
By setting Input 2 to a value of 10 V the LED will “Illuminate” at 5 V on the Signal In plug.
Note: If you set the Input 2 plug to 0 the LED will always be “On” (You cannot divide by zero, so the module will not provide a valid output.
Note: If you want to provide a quick and easy “Clipping detection” LED, then Set Input 2 to 1V, and change the Response plug on the Volts to Float module to “Clip Detect”. This will provide a fast method of clipping detection.

By adding another Divide module connected to Input 2 of the original Divide module, and setting this new module with an Input2 value of 2V we can then provide a second input with which to set the voltage at which the LED “Illuminates”.

Colour changing LED.

We can also add another similar input chain to give control over the LED colour. If the Input2 of the divide is set to 10 this will allow an input voltage of 0 V to 10 V to control the colour of the LED. If you want to colour change in response to a variable voltage I would suggest setting the Response of the Volts to Float to at least 20 Hz to avoid the colour change looking “stepped”. You can see this in action by connecting up a slow running oscillator, but don’t forget that this will give a -5 V to +5 V voltage swing, so you’ll need to ad a 5 V offset to the colour plug to get the correct range.

Trigger to MIDI

08/11/2024 / Stephen / 0 Comments

Sends a MIDI note-on message, and appropriate MIDI values whenever the gate input goes over 0 Volts. The voltage at the pitch input determines the MIDI note number, and the voltage on the Velocity plug sets the MIDI velocity number.

Plugs and properties:
Left Hand Side:
->Gate:- (Voltage) Triggers the Note on message
->Pitch:- (Voltage) Sets the note pitch. For details see signal level conversions.
->Velocity:- (Voltage) Sets the note velocity. 0 – 10V maps to MIDI Velocity from 0 to 1. he default level is 0.5
->Channel:- (List) MIDI Channel number (or “All”) to output on
Outputs:
<-MIDI Out:- (MIDI) Standard MIDI 2 Output
Properties:
**Freq Scale:- Select from: 1V/Octave or 1V/kHz.
**Channel:- Select the MIDI channel number or “All”

The display format.
Sound ON = Sound engine is running.
2C1 shows that you are using MIDI Channel 1 as the output channel.
Note on shows that the module has received a gate signal. Turning the gate off will result in a Note off output.

2C16 Note On (111, 0. 84):
Channel 16: Gate is on, 111 is the MIDI note value, 0.84 is the velocity.

2C16 Note off (111, 0.5)
Channel 16: Gate is off, 111 is still the MIDI note value, and the velocity has returned to it’s default of 0.5

2C16 Note On (116, 0.84)
Channel 16: Gate is on, the MIDI note is now 116, and the velocity is still 0.84.

Note: If you connect a MIDI-CV2 module to this module it will still produce the usual Trigger pulse as the Gate button is pressed.

A dB scaled Level control with readout.

06/11/2024 / Stephen / 0 Comments

The idea is that a normal control knob (Using Vector, SVG or a regular image) can be connected up to the standard Level Adj module, but the control will behave like a regular dB volume control, and will show the equivalent dB gain in a text entry module.

The GUI value conversion.

The neatest and simplest way to do this uses third party modules. Elena Novaretti has a dB to Volts converter in her module pack, which do the job very nicely.
All we need to do is set the Patch Memory Float3’s Min and Max values to some useful levels such as -40 to + 3, which then gives you a gain range between -40 and +3 dB. I have also used the Name plug set to “dB Gain” to use for the control’s title display module
The only GUI conversion needed is the float to text module for the readout. This is already scaled for our needs.

Adding a PWM type effect to a non square wave.

01/11/2024 / Stephen / 0 Comments

Most VCO’s have a PWM function on the square wave audio output, but it is possible with some use of comparators, and by using Level Adjustment modules as “audio gates” we can achieve a similar function on sine, saw, ramp and triangle waves. The example prefab is here

Keeping the PW input under control.

Due to the way the gating works, we need to keep the range of the CV input under control. Rather than leaving things so that each CV you might use to control the prefab would have to be range limited I have done this in the prefab itself. We just need to limit the output range really, this needs to be from +5 volts, to +9.9 V.
Going outside this range won’t cause the prefab to crash, or do anything bad to the VST, it just won’t work as expected. However I have limited the input range from 0 to 10 V. Negative CV’s won’t work at all.

Setting the width of the output waveform.

This is done by controlling the point at which the Level Adjusters used as audio gates switch on, and whether they turn on on the positive or negative cycles of the input waveform.
Here I’m feeding in a +/- 5V peak to peak sine wave from an Oscillator, and the PW input as at 0 volts, by using the Scope3 we can see what’s going on.

By the time we get to 5 V on the PW input you can see how the gate pulses have changed, and with that, the output is no longer a sine wave. It’s not clipped but the shape has changed.

And at 9 V on the PW input the change is quite drastic.

And the effect of the prefab on a Sawtooth-

This module will work on all waveshapes except a square wave (Square wave is just an on/off signal, so changing the module doesn’t work at all on a square wave).
Feeding noise through the modulator will give an output ranging from full noise, to more of “static” type noise.

Adding an ADSR Time readout to a Knob in Synthedit.

25/10/2024 / Stephen / 0 Comments

This is a question I have seen asked on the Synthedit group, and the Forum, so I thought it would be a useful sub-control & conversion prefab post to save others the hassle of re-inventing the wheel as it were. Whilst it’s a definite advantage in SE, not everyone is a mathematics wizard (including me!)

Converting voltage to time for the ADSR2 module.

The heart of the process of adding a time readout for the Knob is using this small prefab Volts2-ADSR-Time. The conversion takes place in the Waveshaper2B module using the formula (10^(x * 0.4-3))*10 – (note the order of the brackets).
This method is not 100% accurate, but is close enough for our purposes.
once the input Voltage has been converted to the correct curve it’s then converted to a GUI float value, and from there to on converted to a text string, and displayed in the ED Text Entry box. By connecting the second text box to the PatchMemory Float3 module and changing its name to the appropriate Attack/Decay/Sustain label we have a convenient way of adding a control name to the Knob.

You don’t have to use one of the Vector knobs, you can just as easily use the standard sub control Image2 as a control knob.

I have made the prefab available as a download here but as you can see from the screenshots you will need some third party modules, and the vector control is only for V1.5.

Making a (very) basic Synthesizer in SynthEdit.

12/10/2024 / Stephen / 0 Comments

I’m covering this as (as when I first started out in SynthEdit there are a few little “gotchas” that can leave you scratching your head.

I’m getting no audio out, what’s “broken”?

It’s tempting to jump straight and in leave out the VCA and ADSR… if you do you may well not get any audio out of it, just a low frequency buzzing. Synthedit expects the VCA to be there, and to be connected to the Trigger and Gate plugs.

The ADSR isn’t triggering properly when I play quickly.

You must have both the Trigger, and the Gate connected for the ADSR to work correctly, these two signals work as follows;
Trigger: This is a short pulse received every time a key on the keyboard is depressed. This initiates the ADSR cycle.
Gate: This is necessary for the sustain portion of the ADSR envelope to be present. If it’s not connected then at best you’ll just get the Attack and Decay cycle, or it will just fail to work correctly .

The Tuner (AKA Detuner).

I recommend connecting this module up, and having a look at what goes on inside it, as it will give you an insight into how the 1 volt/Octave pitch to voltage works in SynthEdit. The octaves are just steps of one volt, and the fine tune knob is set with a maximum value of 0.083 V so that you can fine tune against other instruments, or if you have two oscillators you can vary the pitch of one to get a (very) basic chorus effect.
I have added a Level Adjust module on the output and fed this to the Pitch plug on the VCF, that gives us the classic “Moog” filter sweep sound especially with the Resonance or “Q” turned up to about 8 Volts.

I’m getting a pronounced click at the start of the note, why?

This often occurs when you have a very short (or zero) attack time set, it’s unavoidable, just set the attack time so the click disappears.

Measuring Pitch voltage.

I tried to measure the voltage on the Pitch plug on the MIDI-CV2 module and the readings don’t match what I would expect. Why is this?
Because of the way SynthEdit works you’ll just keep getting voltages coming and going as keys are depressed your Synth will work out what’s going on, but the voltmeter can’t make sense of it.
Likewise if you hook up the ‘scope to the VCO while you’re playing you will see multiple signals instead of one composite audio signal. This is normal, and is due to the way SynthEdit handles Polyphonic operation. You’ll only see a single signal if you force the Synth to operate as “Monophonic” i.e. one note at a time.

Making a Saturator.

27/09/2024 / Stephen / 1 Comment

A Saturator is a good way of adding a bit of colour and “oomph” to a bass or lead synth line, but how can we make one in SynthEdit?
What we want to do is not to introduce hard clipping to the signal, that would be too noticeable we are after something more subtle that just adds a few more harmonics to the signal.

Creating a basic saturator.

The core part of this module is the waveshaper, and for saturation we use the formula 5*tanh(x). The idea is not to clip the peaks of the waveform, but to try and emulate the sound of a slightly overloaded (or saturated) valve pre-amplifier which tanh(x) does quite well.
This formula applies tanh to the input signal, and then multiplying the result of the tanh(x) calculation by 5 restores the output to the normalized +/- 5 Volts peak to peak. The VCA on the input of the waveshaper controls the level of signal passing through the waveshaper, and being applied to the output mixer.
The inverter and divider are used to keep the output level as constant as I could, this works by inverting the slider voltage from the waveshaper VCA’s volume control and applying it to the Volume control. The adjusted negative voltage then reduces the gain of the output VCA as the Waveshaper signal is increased in level . The optimum division value seems to be 2.3 Volts (but may need “tweaking” slightly). The input VCA has its response set to Exponential, and the output VCA is set for a linear response, I found this gave the best results with signal levels.
The input level control is set to have a range of 0 to 20 so that we have plenty of gain. This is the only non-standard min-max range on the controls.

A basic stereo saturator structure.

The output with no saturation applied:
The signal is passed directly to the output VCA and is a pure sine wave with no added harmonics.

The output with maximum saturation applied:
Here you can see that once we pass the signal through the waveshaper the sine wave peaks have been reduced smoothly which increases the level of harmonics without introducing too much harshness into the output. The higher the level of signal passed through the waveshaper the more harmonics we generate.

To give a bit more control over the audio I have added a TD Stereo EQ module, that gives us the options of Low Shelf boost/cut, Band boost/cut and High Shelf boost/cut.

The whole structure…

The finished Saturator project with its panel layout and links to the 3rd party modules, prefab and VST3.

I have made the finished project available as a V1.5 .seprefeab file and as a completed VST3 plug-in. However you will need some extra 3rd party modules from TD Modules, Sasha, and Davidson.

Changing the Harmonic structure.

By adding in the (highlighted) inputs to the Waveshaper modules we can offset the equation, causing the addition of odd as well as even harmonics. All it needs is for this offset Plug in the IO Module to be connected to a suitable control then we can control the amount of odd harmonics that are added to the signal by changing the offset voltage. I would suggest that a range of 0 Volts to +4 volts is a suitable range for the offset (negative voltages have the same result).
The High pass filters are added to prevent DC from the offset appearing in the output, and can be set to an appropriate frequency such as 14 Hz to minimize any changes in the output signal.
Here is a link to the Thoracious prefab version V1.5 seprefab file

Below is the spectrum with 0 volts offset.

Compared with an offset of 1 Volt

This was a modification suggested by Thoracious Apotite, https://www.thoracius.com/ in the comments. Many thanks Thoracious! Comments such as this are always welcome.

SVG “Analogue” Knob

01/09/2024 / Stephen / 0 Comments

Customising the look of the Analogue Knob.

@Label: (Text) The text label that appears below the control. (The colour is set by the “Print” ARGB)
@ Value: (Text) This is the value or alternative text that replaces @Label when the mouse hovers over the control. (The colour is set by the “Neon” ARGB)
@Color: (Text) Controls the colour of the “skirt” and main body of the knob.
Cap: (Text) Controls the colour of the cap insert in the centre of the knob.
Neon: (Text) Sets the hover colour for the @Value text.
Pointer: (Text) Sets the colour of the dot on the body of the knob.
Print: (Text) Sets the colour of the scale markings and the @Label text.

Changing the behaviour of the knob.

Shown below are some useful properties settings for the knob:
Offset angle: This offsets the starting position of the knob, by changing this to 90 we add 90 degrees to the starting position of the knob.
Sweep Angle: By changing this to 180 we can limit the range down from the usual 300 degree control knob sweep, to a180 degrees sweep, or any other range that might be required. Note: This will not change the scale markings!
Scale: Adjusts the size of the control knob.
Opacity Normal: By setting this to 0 we obtain the behaviour where the @Label text is swapped for the @Value text as the mouse hovers over the control. If the value is left as 1 then only the @Label text will be seen..
Setting the Min/Max Range: This is the same as any other SynthEdit knob or Slider, and is set in the Patch Memory in the Prefab properties panel.

Changing from a continuously variable control to stepped.
It’s a simple as changing the Patch memory From Float3 to List 3, and connecting up a module with a list plug, then connecting Choice and Item List plugs. Add a List to Text module to feed the choice to @value and it’s done. The Patch Memory sets it all up for you.

What’s New in V1.5? (Stable, but new additions may be made in the future)

Known Issues.

Universal VST 3 plug-ins.

MIDI 2.0

MPE support implementation for various DAW’s:

New program features.

Related posts:

Registration system for VST plugins.

Basic example.

The Registration Checker in use in a VST:

Creating Passwords.

User Setting – Text module.

Registration Check: Module.

Colour changing LED.

Related posts:

Related posts:

The GUI value conversion.

Related posts:

Keeping the PW input under control.

Setting the width of the output waveform.

Converting voltage to time for the ADSR2 module.

Related posts:

I’m getting no audio out, what’s “broken”?

The ADSR isn’t triggering properly when I play quickly.

The Tuner (AKA Detuner).

I’m getting a pronounced click at the start of the note, why?

Measuring Pitch voltage.

Creating a basic saturator.

A basic stereo saturator structure.

The finished Saturator project with its panel layout and links to the 3rd party modules, prefab and VST3.

Changing the Harmonic structure.

Related posts:

Customising the look of the Analogue Knob.

Changing the behaviour of the knob.

Related posts:

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