Quilcom 4EA+ Synthesiser

[Spogg]

Hi Flowstoners!

Here is my new Quilcom 4EA+ synthesiser:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o25qp5eqrz1cm ... m.zip?dl=0

The VSTi plugin is on http://www.flowstoners.com under Quilcom

The design brief I set myself was to create a synthesiser which used both additive and FM techniques but used as little CPU as I could possibly achieve whilst still having a very wide range of sound design capabilities.

Inspired by noisenerd’s recent synth I have used my experience to eliminate anything not absolutely essential to the results but still generate interesting and good quality presets (I hope!). Consequently the majority of control settings are each able to contribute usefully and significantly to the overall sounds. A by-product of this is ease of programming and I found this to be the most pleasurable of my synths for sound design, so it comes with 65 presets included and, for once, it didn’t seem like a hard slog making them. They cover a wide range of types and hopefully many of them can be easily adapted to edit towards what you may have in mind.

The routing, or “Algorithm” as Yamaha would say, is based on my experience programming my QX7 synth so I feel I have chosen the most flexible and useful signal path and therefore there is no Algorithm selector.

I’ve adopted the philosophy that what you don’t use doesn’t eat CPU cycles and my recent optimisation experiences have been put to good use right from the synth’s inception. I think, and of course hope, that even when everything is running that guys with lower spec PCs (like tulamide) will be able to run this synth smoothly.

Details:

There are 2 sound generators, an “Additive” one with FM and a “Single” basic Operator (oscillator with ADSR) also with FM. Both send to the output module which has a parametric equaliser, a chorus/delay and a Reverb in series. The source is monaural, as is the eq, but the chorus and reverb are stereo.

The Additive section has slider level controls for 16 sine wave partials f1 to f16. The Even and Odd partial numbers are routed to their own ADSRs (not strictly true if you look at the schematic, due to the method used to generate the harmonic series for low cpu). The Odd and Even FM (Phase modulation) inputs can receive feedback inputs each from either the Odd or Even outputs (pre-fader so the sound is easier to programme). In FM terms the harmonic series oscillator is a carrier and there are, in addition, 2 modulator oscillators. Since they are modulators you cannot hear them directly but only when they are affecting the harmonic oscillator. These modulators are sent to their own Odd or Even FM inputs but they can be linked. By linking you can use one modulator for both Odd and Even or make use of both modulators in parallel for more complex sounds.

The “Single” operator has 3 FM input options: Self feedback, and from the Odd and Even modulators –provided they are turned on of course. The FM outputs from the modulators to the Single are pre-fader so their level outputs won’t affect the Single’s FM.

There is just 1 LFO in the system to keep cpu low. This is on the MIDI panel and can be used to modulate the global FM and/or selected by individual ADSRs to modulate amplitude. Note that LFO-based amplitude modulation of modulators will affect the timbre, not the output amplitude.

Hope you like it and maybe use it.

Cheers

Spogg