For those in the know: Is this morphing?

[Spogg]

[quote="adamszabo"

... The ones with '0' multiplication can be bypassed and they wont use any cpu.[/quote]

I've been thinking about this Adam.

I believe you're proposing that since only 2 waves are using CPU at any time, the CPU hit would not be for 9 sources but only 2. As I understand it, the only way for part of a poly stream to be stopped from using CPU would be to isolate it (deselect it) using a selector prim. These operate in green so would never be able to cope with audio rate switching. Have I missed something here? I do hope so and you can tell me another way of dynamically saving CPU at sample rate. I once tried to do this in DSP but even though the output was nothing it didn't turn off the CPU use for the stuff feeding the DSP module. I only ever found a selector did this. A multplexor didn't either, plus it's still green anyway.

If it can be done fast using ASM that would be wonderful and I'd like a poly gate which actually stopped CPU use from anything on its input side.

If it's not possible in Flowstone and it is possible in C++ then that is a barrier I can never cross and it might explain why many plugins out there seem to use so little CPU.

I'm looking forward to being wrong about this...

Cheers

Spogg

[adamszabo]

Yes, there is a way to bypass but it has to be in full assembly. I have a wavetable reader code in assembler and it will possibly work. Ill post an example in the coming days

[Spogg]

Yes, there is a way to bypass but it has to be in full assembly. I have a wavetable reader code in assembler and it will possibly work. Ill post an example in the coming days

That would be wonderful!

An optimised general wavetable reader in ASM would also be great addition to my toolbox

So your idea, in priciple, is to stay within one block of code, per sample, and determine by the code itself which routines run at any given time?

Cheers

Spogg

[tulamide]

I downloaded and tested the beta demo of Tone2's Icarus. 3D wavetable synthesis. What's meant is that it not only blends between different waveforms, but also morphs - at the same time, with lots of automatable parameters.

The result is very impressive! Although "only" blending between a maximum of 7 waveforms, you have additional 3 slots for morphing (and you can clearly hear all 3 sources) and a total of 3 such oscillators. And it is light enough for me on the cpu, so that I could use it in production. And I love the living sound, even if you drive it just subtle. When all those lfos and envelopes morph and blend, that's like a new sound structure I've not heard before.

https://tone2.com/html/icarus.html

[Spogg]

I just spent an hour with Icarus and WOW!

This is an impressive beast for sure. One could never exhasut the possibilities and the sheer range of sounds beats anything else I've come across. In spite of the power I was able to find my way around the (lovely) interface and quickly picked up the basics so that's a big plus point. It's just SO well done. What also impressed me is that, unlike say FM, it doesn't really have a "signature" sound, especially since the patches can be sample-based. And yes, this does true morphing as well as blending.

Thanks for pointing to this tulamide. How do you get to find out about the new stuff you sometimes recommend?

Cheers

Spogg

[BobF]

Hello gang,

Wow, some of the sounds these new morph synth make are really nice. Very cool indeed. Yes, thanks, tulamide for informing us.

I guess the big question now is, can we come even anywhere close to this in Flowstone. Boy what a challenge, maybe a collaboration. Brain storming time.

Later then, BobF.....

[adamszabo]

Here is a proof of concept. There can be a lot of optimizations still, and it hardly uses any cpu here. If you set the LFO depth to zero, you can use the morph knob instead to blend between the oscs.

[Spogg]

That's really nice Adam, thanks for sharing!

I've been playing around with the idea too. In my latest development stage I'm using 9 of Martin Vicanek's lovely oscillators just as a proof of concept. I've attached the file. I've used DSP modules to control the blending because I don't have any ASM skills but it may be possible for someone to optimise the DSP code. But not me.

On yours with 4 wavetables I get a CPU hit of 1.1% on a 7 note chord. If you take off the 0.1% overhead and multiply by 9/4 you get 2.2%

With the same chord on mine I get 1.6% with 9 oscillators always running. However I'm sure the difference is due to a wavetable osc using more cpu than Martin's oscillators. I need to investigate.

I'm planning on going further with this exploration to see if it's worth making a complete synth. I watched the Nostromo video many times and I'm a bit concerned that it's a kinda one-trick pony; a great effect but very much leading to a well defined signature sound. I think using an envelope, like in my dev, instead of (or as well as) a sweeping LFO may lead to greater possibilities but I don't know yet.

Is it possible you could clarify what the Ramp prim is doing in your FSM?

Cheers

Spogg

[adamszabo]

Every oscillator needs a ramp. Its what counts from 0-1 at the specified frequency. Then from that ramp you generate whatever waveform you want. In the wavetable example, the ramp acts as a counter to read from the wavetable. Now since we will blend the oscillators we are still considering it as 'one' oscillator, so to save cpu its enough if one ramp counts through all of them and blends them so.

[Spogg]

Every oscillator needs a ramp. Its what counts from 0-1 at the specified frequency. Then from that ramp you generate whatever waveform you want. In the wavetable example, the ramp acts as a counter to read from the wavetable. Now since we will blend the oscillators we are still considering it as 'one' oscillator, so to save cpu its enough if one ramp counts through all of them and blends them so.

Thanks for the explanation Adam. I did think that at first ,but I also saw the wavetable readers had a freq input each, so which one actually determines the pitch of the output? Sorry if this is too fundamental a question but I do like to understand stuff. At least where I think there's a chance for me!

Cheers

Spogg