Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

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Maister
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Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by Maister »

Hi. This is my first post here. :) Been interested in LV2 softsynth development lately (I only use Linux on my machines), mostly for personal amusement.
It's written in C++11. The FMSynth core itself is fully templated (number of operators and algorithms), so it's trivial to extend. It's not modeled after any particular synth so the implementation is quite straight forward.

Working on a GTKmm UI, running here in jalv. Missing a visual representation of the algorithms, but otherwise it works fairly well atm.
http://i.imgur.com/GAeKmRO.png

Considering releasing the source when it's more finished. Is there any demand for an open-source LV2 FM synth like this?
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by autostatic »

Hello Maister,

Welcome! And yes, more synth plugins are always welcome! Do you have any sound samples? And could you explain a bit more what the synth is capable of?
tatch
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by tatch »

I'm interested! The UI could be more informative though. Personally I find the UI of the operator synth from ableton live to be very intuitive and helpful.
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by sysrqer »

I'm interested and I would definitely echo everything tatch said ^^^
Last edited by sysrqer on Sat Jul 26, 2014 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Maister
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by Maister »

AutoStatic wrote:Hello Maister,

Welcome! And yes, more synth plugins are always welcome! Do you have any sound samples? And could you explain a bit more what the synth is capable of?
Will post some sound samples later. Still experimenting quite a bit, since I don't know much yet about programming FM synths (as in, get the sounds I want), and I can't use ready-made patches obviously :p

It's a pretty basic FM synth I suppose:

- It's an N-operator synth with some pre-selected algorithms you can choose from (kinda like the DX7). Changing number of operators and available algorithms can be done in compile-time.
- Carriers can be stereo-panned.
- There is an envelope for each operator, with rates and target points. R1 is the time it takes to get to level T1, R2 time for T2, etc. R4 is release time (T4 is implied to be 0). It's only linear at the moment though, except for the release stage which is exponential.
- Amplitude and frequency of each operator can be modulated by the LFO with configurable LFO sensitivity. The LFO only supports sine waves currently.
- Keyboard scaling can change amplitude of operators based on which key is pressed (Mid-point and scaling factors for upper and lower part of keyboard), velocity sensitivity (at 100% it's fully dependent on velocity, at 0% it will always have full volume), and mod wheel sensitivity (same scheme as velocity).
- It also supports sustain (must have for me, since I'm a piano guy :P).
Maister
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by Maister »

falkTX wrote:
Maister wrote:Working on a GTKmm UI, running here in jalv. Missing a visual representation of the algorithms, but otherwise it works fairly well atm.
http://i.imgur.com/GAeKmRO.png
As a plugin host developer, I recommend you to stay away from gtkmm.
Please use gtk only, the C stuff.

Also, make sure to NOT use lv2 instance/data access features.

If you do that, hosts will happily load your plugin. :D
I use LV2::GUI from lv2-c++-tools, which actually passes the raw C GtkWidget to the host. Shouldn't be a problem. :) Tested in jalv.gtk and Ardour3 and both work fine. Actually writing the UI in C would be hilariously painful.
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by Maister »

Yes, works in jalv.qt and qtractor. Not sure how they do it if the main loop is Qt, but hey. Haven't heard about lvtk before. Looks easy enough to move to that if lv2-c++-tools is deprecated. EDIT: Updating to lvtk was easy enough. Still works.
Maister
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by Maister »

AutoStatic wrote:Hello Maister,

Welcome! And yes, more synth plugins are always welcome! Do you have any sound samples? And could you explain a bit more what the synth is capable of?
Tried making a sound with 8 operators. On vacation atm, so I don't have my el-piano, but at least I can play a MIDI. Uploaded it here. https://soundcloud.com/zoned-music/fm-synth-experiment. Uses some basic Calf Delay/Reverb/Chorus effects.
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by bluebell »

It would be ultra cool if it could load dx7-patches (like hexter). The additional parms (like operators' pan) could be set to a default value. So users would have plenty of sounds and could pimp them further.

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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by Maister »

Changed from hard-coded FM algorithms to a generic "everything can modulate everything" model. Kinda like FM8 I suppose, but with 8 operators.
http://i.imgur.com/bo5bZCW.png
Can be prettier, but it's a start :p

Made a more interesting sound with this setup. Improvised some random stuff with it. https://soundcloud.com/zoned-music/fm-s ... periment-1
bluebell wrote:It would be ultra cool if it could load dx7-patches (like hexter). The additional parms (like operators' pan) could be set to a default value. So users would have plenty of sounds and could pimp them further.
Dunno how easy it is to just convert patches, but it would be very nice indeed. I'm still looking how to create a good rhodes sound :P Not sure if it's possible without big changes, though. This synth is actual FM (phase integration) and not PM. I don't think feedback works the same way in FM and PM, but maybe the differences can be faked with more operators ...
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by sysrqer »

This is really exciting, I like the idea of the change from being hard-coded.
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by DepreTux »

It'd be interesting to try the hardcoded version. Maybe you need a certain kind of algorithm for some instrument and you need it to be rock-solid, so you configure it and compile...
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by Maister »

Added a playlist on soundcloud with some more samples: https://soundcloud.com/zoned-music/sets/fm-synth
DepreTux wrote:It'd be interesting to try the hardcoded version. Maybe you need a certain kind of algorithm for some instrument and you need it to be rock-solid, so you configure it and compile...
Not sure why you'd need that. Maybe a drop-down menu with some known matrix configurations for convenience?
If it's for speed, the speed hit in using the 8-by-8 modulation matrix is quite small (trivially vectorized in SSE/AVX, unlike the hard-coded algorithms).
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by ssj71 »

Maister wrote: Can be prettier, but it's a start :p
Maybe you could change it to a grid like the ardour patch bay? I think it would be a little cleaner.
http://carlh.net/ardour/manual/html/scr ... anager.png

I think its a great feature to add nonetheless.
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Re: Anyone interested in an LV2 FM synth?

Post by witchspace »

Definetly interested. I like the 'everything can modulate everything' approach. Most of the other FM synths have a fixed setup.
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