autodafe synth - first synth

infuzion · 11 Dec 2005

Wow, your patches sound really clear, crisp, & cutting! (atleast on my laptop speakers).

2 minor conserns: 1) I'm not sure what effect is what... better if you label each one somehow. 2) Some patches (eg Squitt) are very loud, to the point of clipping I think. This is common with adding sounds together. Be best to store a lower volume with these troublesome patches. A view meter right before the StereoClip will help you find extreame peaks.

autodafe · 11 Dec 2005

infuzion wrote: Wow, your patches sound really clear, crisp, & cutting! (atleast on my laptop speakers).

2 minor conserns: 1) I'm not sure what effect is what... better if you label each one somehow.

yeah, the synth is not finished yet. However, good point

infuzion wrote: 2) Some patches (eg Squitt) are very loud, to the point of clipping I think. This is common with adding sounds together. Be best to store a lower volume with these troublesome patches. A view meter right before the StereoClip will help you find extreame peaks.

I noticed it too... I think I will store a fixed volume for the OSCs. is it better to reduce voluem BEFORe mixing them , right? and also, is there something like a mono clipper or limiter or something ???

another question: how to reduce CPU usage a bit ??

Shifrin · 11 Dec 2005

This looks nice, will give it a whirl when I get back on my DAW 😉

Cheers,

Shif.

stefan · 11 Dec 2005

Very nice first creation!

Which parts of the synth are the most cpu hungry ones?

autodafe · 11 Dec 2005

i don't know... the effects i guess ??? ho do i toggle OSC on or OFF??? i'm getting mad with the togle button....

sambean · 11 Dec 2005

Nice work autodafe.. I'll have a shot in a bit..

To switch osc's on and off it's best to use a selector and a toggle switch, that way when the osc is switched off its cpu will stop calculating for it..

Cheers

Sam

dasdeck · 11 Dec 2005

hey sam, thans for the switch tip, i did not know how to save cpu, now i do.

nice synth so far Autodafe.

D3CK

autodafe · 25 Jan 2006

the synth has been updated a bit. I still can't find a way to reduce CPU usage... however, it's almost finished, 2 LFos added, graphic finished, some more presets...

enjoy

autodafe · 27 Jan 2006

I havereleased a Beta VSTi version of my synth on KVR.

see http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=120695

or my page: http://www.autodafe.net/VSTi.asp

rl · 27 Jan 2006

I had a quick look at your schematic (thank you for sharing). Since you are using three filters in parallel maybe there is some room for CPU-improvement regarding the filter code.

Cutoff and resonance are handled at sample rate. You could try doing the calculations (rez, min/max, polynomial) outside the code module using "green data" calculations (this is another plea for a green data code module), thus doing the calculations only on cutoff/resonance change.

The 7th order polynomial taylor approximation could be reduced by using a lower order polynomial or by other techniques.

The initializations can be done within a stage (0) {} block (runs only at note-on)

(a sidenote: your float constants - e.g. multi = 0.33333333333333333333333333333333 are a quite long. This is no problem at all, but beeing declared as floats they will be shortend (e.g. multi will be cut to 0.3333333433)

rl · 28 Jan 2006

Now this sparked my interest, so I did a series of simple test:

Test 1: normal VSTi Test 2: VSTi with bypassed filters Test 3: VSTi with bypassed effects Test 4: VSTi with open end sound processing

all Tests have been done within Orion Platinum

Results: Test 1: idle: 26% CPU, single note: spiking up to 40% Test 2: idle: 26% CPU, single note: up to 33% Test 3: idle: 1% CPU, single note: up to 15% !! Test 4: idle: 1% CPU, single note: (no sound) 1%

This is an surprising result. Seems, the effect section steals more CPU than the filter. Maybe the comb-filters of the reverb can be otimized by using Pack/Unpack modules.

Another surprising results is the high CPU load when no notes are played, and the 1%CPU in the VST with the whole sound processing disconnected.

Seems to be some space left for optimizations of the synthmaker engine.

infuzion · 28 Jan 2006

rl wrote: This is an surprising result. Seems, the effect section steals more CPU than the filter. Maybe the comb-filters of the reverb can be otimized by using Pack/Unpack modules....

Seems to be some space left for optimizations of the synthmaker engine.

Good testing rl! Looking in the StereoChorus module, I think alot of the stream maths done in primitives can be done in the Code.

Also, in each Comb sub-module in Freeverb, I wonder if the Damping Code can be combined with the Denormal's? Also, I wonder if removing those empty routing modules would help things (atleast memory).

Another Q: Could reducing memory usage help out with CPU? It would in my system; since using WinXP with 256MB would force me to hit the HD more. But would smaller schematic automaticly make faster VSTs? (if just the extra flourishes removed, but the actual audio code stayed the same).

infuzion · 28 Jan 2006

rl wrote: all Tests have been done within Orion Platinum

I just noticed today, SM has a CPU meter on the bottom-right corner.

related suggestion: off selection for OSC/filter