The Quilcom CYMBALLIC: Make your computer "crash"!

[Spogg]

Hello!

My Quilcom B-2 CYMBALLIC continues my series of synths devoted to percussion instruments, this time… wait for it… cymbals!!!

These instruments are notoriously difficult to simulate with any authenticity, due to the massively complex and time-varying interactions of all the vibrational modes they generate. So the best one can hope for is to create “Cymballic” sounds that bear something of their essence. The advantage of synthesis, as opposed to sampling, is we can make a huge range of variations on the theme which wouldn’t be possible with sampling alone.
Of course, as with all the B-2 series, you can layer real samples and export the whole in wav format.

Here’s the obligatory video of it in action:

https://youtu.be/bfndxbOrdeo

You can download it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kkr12o8tt8le8 ... 2.zip?dl=0

The download includes the schematic (FS 3.06), 32 and 64 bit plugins, 32 and 64 bit stand-alones, User Guide, presets, example acoustic samples with papers and links on the subject.

I hope you find it interesting and have a bit of fun.

Cheers

Spogg

[Phil Thalasso]

Thank you Spogg. You always put a lot of work into your posts plus there is always a lot to learn from your schematics. I sincerely appreciate that.

Best regards
Phil

[trogluddite]

You definitely deserve a gong for the splash you're making with these drum synths, me old china - a tip of my (hi-)hat to you!

I've always had a bit of a fascination for gamelan music from the area around Indonesia, which mostly uses a wide variety of gongs and other metallic ideophones, like much Eastern music; so I was especially looking forward to seeing your take on cymbals. On first-blush Cymballic does a great job of capturing the variety that they cover, including those gongs which are tuned to have slow beat frequencies (traditionally representing breathing and heartbeats, symbolic of life.) It's just a shame I don't have the space/isolation for my electronic drum-kit any more. It has some nice playable kits, but nothing like the versatility of the B-2 plugins - real pads to bash with sticks mapped to a B-2 kit would be an awesome combination!

Like Phil, I really appreciate how you do the whole package, too - user guide, demo video, all the background theory, etc., and I'd recommend your schematics to anyone who wants to learn how to use FlowStone's "developer friendly" features to make their designs easier to understand and work with.

[Spogg]

Thank you so much guys!

I'm onto things you shake now...

NO I don't mean THOSE

Cheers

spogg

[kortezzzz]

spog,

Your whole drum synths line is fantastic! Thanks for the contribution. Just wondered if all those can theoretically be merged in to one SUPER-DRUMS SYNTH (of course, the CPU\RAM still manage our life, so they are always in mind when developing a new toys). This synth (if it can be developed) will be very differ from "Addictive drums" for example thanks to all these micro sound tuners in it. I never saw a drum synth or a sampler that goes that deep with tuning and sound so good. If it's possible, then it should be developed and posted on KVR. It would be definitely a great example for the power of FS.

[Spogg]

Thank you for your nice comments Kortezzzz!

My original Quilcom Beater had that philosophy of being a do-it-all analogue-style drum synth, so this time I decided to focus on specific types of percussion, per synth. These days I warm to the idea of 1 tool per task, and getting that as good as I am able. I think doing that makes each design more straightforward to use, since it’s more task driven you could say. So if you want a synthetic cymbal sound you use a cymbal synth, for a kick you use a kick synth and so on.

My view is that the combined version you suggest would actually put people off using it due to complexity of multiple views and functions. The methods I use have some common ground, but so little that I think it’s better to make them as separate instruments. For example, the next B-2 synth is all about shakers and stuff and here the stochastic part is critical and the synthesis process is quite different, even though I’m re-purposing a lot of the innards. Also, for example, I’m planning on using the pitchbend wheel for an entirely different purpose to the TOMSNARE (which I forgot to show in the video!) so that would mean switching over control methods too.

Cheers

Spogg

[kortezzzz]

In the end it's all about philosophy

Anyway, if you'll ever choose to go for the combo, I can see in my imagination a combo drums tool with big upper image radio menu where you can switch from kick to snare or cymbals and each instrument has its own stereo output to the daw (additional to a master combo output).

Wanted to try giving it a little different designing touch, but unfortunately, my 3.0.6 version started suffering from "out of memory" issue (probably because of the 64bits alfa) and it doesn't let me work regullary. I get "out of memory" after 2-3 minutes of usage

[BobF]

Hi Spogg,

VERY, very cool! I bet some real thought and research went into these drum series synths. Really great work as always.

Keep them coming, BobF.....

[Spogg]

I bet some real thought and research went into these drum series synths. Really great work as always.

Thank you Bob!

Yes I did spend a lot of time researching and experimenting, but for me that's the best bit of development. There are always many ways to achieve something but finding what seems to be the best is also fascinating I find. And it's always great to think up new ways too.

Cheers

Spogg

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

well done Spogg . I will test it out when I can.