Topic: Preview: Zynewave Nucleum

This topic has 163 replies, 23 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 3 months ago by H-man.

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February 29, 2008 at 03:22 #1547

Zynewave
Keymaster

This past week I’ve taken a break from Podium development, and have enjoyed myself with creating a VSTi synth. It’s created with the SynthMaker tool (http://www.synthmaker.com), which is a great tool for quickly building basic plugins.

The reason I started this was to have a simple synth that I could bundle with the Podium installer, so that example projects can play without the user having to download additional freeware plugins. It turned out to be so much fun doing this, that the plugin evolved to something more than I originally intended.

It’s based on FM-synthesis, but with a somewhat different layout than the typical FM synths. Note that there are blank spaces on the UI where I still need to put some controls. I’ll probably need another week to get the inner routings, modulation etc. completed. I’ll release an alpha version in the VIP forum when it’s ready.

Meanwhile, any comments on the colors and UI? Any parts of the UI that doesn’t make sense?

Edit: The screenshot below has been updated regularly, so some of the comments in this topic refers to an earlier version of the UI.

February 29, 2008 at 04:25 #11835

UncleAge
Participant

The colors are nice and the layout is clean. Its not your “run of the mill” layout, and that’s a good thing. Can’t really comment on the whole deal yet though. I’ll keep an eye for it in the VIP lounge and get you more feedback then. Meanwhile, it looks nice 8)

February 29, 2008 at 07:53 #11838

Technophobia
Participant

Looks good to me Frits.

This should help to get across, to the detractors, that Podium is a serious alternative to other DAW’s.
I look forward to trying it in another week or so… 😀

February 29, 2008 at 08:42 #11839

rinxai
Participant

Good one! Looking forward to hearing this. I’ve just been playing around with Hexter FM synth which does an excellent emulation of the DX engine.

Usually with FM synthesis, one can define some kind of algorithmic relationship between operators such as A+B+C or A*B+C etc, providing for more possibilities in sound shaping (Hexter has choice of 32 algos). Perhaps something like this is already in Nucleum? Just a thought.

8)

February 29, 2008 at 10:23 #11845

Conquistador
Participant

Lovely idea. This will provide a very significant incentive for new users to try out Podium!

@Zynewave wrote:

Meanwhile, any comments on the colors and UI? Any parts of the UI that doesn’t make sense?

It actually looks very well laid out. Text is easy to read and the focus appears to be on user friendliness not design only. I agree with Uncle age in that it is definitely a different layout than normal and yes it is a good thing.

I would make an early FR though…well two FR’s heh… 😛

1. Some sort of facility for sample import
2. An Arp

People love toys (FX and VSTi’s) without a doubt they really help sell hosts. Adding this synth to Podium gives it more clout to compete with other hosts in it’s price range. More built in FX (compressor, filter, limiter, delay, chorus, phaser, e.t.c) at some point to go with this VSTi will really help raise Podiums profile even more.

The UI

I really like the curves and the green colour is fine. I think the grey part at the top and the darker colour at the bottom part of the UI work very well as they contrast nicely with the white text. Perhaps a slightly darker top area might be worth considering.

Nice work! 🙂

February 29, 2008 at 14:25 #11848

sam c
Participant

it sure looks nice Frits!

February 29, 2008 at 14:45 #11849

Zynewave
Keymaster

@rinxai wrote:

Usually with FM synthesis, one can define some kind of algorithmic relationship between operators such as A+B+C or A*B+C etc, providing for more possibilities in sound shaping (Hexter has choice of 32 algos). Perhaps something like this is already in Nucleum?

No such algorithm selector in Nucleum. My design goal was to keep the synthesis parameters to a minimum, and to try to avoid “type selector” parameters.

In Nucleum you have three operators/oscillators which produce sine waves. That’s what you set up in the left side of the operator section. The middle orbs tries to visualize how each operator feeds its output signal back as a phase modulation, either as self-modulation or to the neighboring operators. The volume knobs on the right side sets how much each operator is routed to the two filters. It’s a simple setup. Only you can get very nasty sounds if you overdo the phase modulation feedback.

February 29, 2008 at 15:04 #11850

Podianer
Participant

Looks very sweet!

I would like to see a random button that randomly creates a sound..

February 29, 2008 at 15:04 #11851

Zynewave
Keymaster

@Conquistador wrote:

I would make an early FR though…well two FR’s heh… 😛

1. Some sort of facility for sample import
2. An Arp

Sample import in an FM-synthesis synth?

I prefer to keep the plugin concept simple. Implementing multiple synthesis techniques in one plugin would complicate the UI considerably. I would prefer to create individual plugins with focus on different synthesis techniques. The next Synthmaker project I’m considering is a drummachine based on sample playback.

February 29, 2008 at 15:06 #11852

Zynewave
Keymaster

@Podianer wrote:

I would like to see a random button that randomly creates a sound..

I hope to add such a button in the center of the feedback orbs 😉

I have yet to figure out how to do this in Synthmaker.

February 29, 2008 at 16:38 #11853

Conquistador
Participant

@Zynewave wrote:

Sample import in an FM-synthesis synth?

He He…I was thinking of some of the Logic synths that have an input option (likely sidechain which is possible in Podium) but any how…

I prefer to keep the plugin concept simple. Implementing multiple synthesis techniques in one plugin would complicate the UI considerably. I would prefer to create individual plugins with focus on different synthesis techniques.

That’s fine, seems like a good approach.

The next Synthmaker project I’m considering is a drummachine based on sample playback

😯 😯 😯 ❗

February 29, 2008 at 16:43 #11854

Zynewave
Keymaster

@Zynewave wrote:

The next Synthmaker project I’m considering is a drummachine based on sample playback.

Maybe I should rephrase that. I don’t intend to make a drummachine emulation with builtin sequencer. I imagine it to be a simplistic drumkit sampleplayer, that can replace the need for the Drumatic plugin in the current example project.

February 29, 2008 at 16:45 #11855

jpleong
Participant

At first glance, I like the concept but I guess I’ll be the first detractor.

It doesn’t look “Zynewaveish” enough! There’s a charm to gain/pan knobs you designed for Podium and I would much prefer those to the “brushed aluminum” look you have here.

And is there a way you can make the hierarchic theme carry over to this synth to give it more Zynewave vibe?

JP

February 29, 2008 at 16:48 #11856

Podianer
Participant

@Zynewave wrote:

@Zynewave wrote:

The next Synthmaker project I’m considering is a drummachine based on sample playback.

Maybe I should rephrase that. I don’t intend to make a drummachine emulation with builtin sequencer. I imagine it to be a simplistic drumkit sampleplayer, that can replace the need for the Drumatic plugin in the current example project.

It would be perfect if this sampler could use the sfz format. Since it is open source, you might consider implementing it..

February 29, 2008 at 16:50 #11857

Zynewave
Keymaster

@jpleong wrote:

It doesn’t look “Zynewaveish” enough! There’s a charm to gain/pan knobs you designed for Podium and I would much prefer those to the “brushed aluminum” look you have here.

The knobs I’m using so far in Nucleum are the default knobs that comes with Synthmaker. I could spend some time trying to customize these, but I don’t want this project to steal away too much time from Podium development. I can always refine the knobs later on.