Anyone have an idea if Instruo plans to release the Seashell as a VCV module?
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I doubt it tbh… the main feature of it being a hybrid between analog hardware with dedicated 14bit digital control. But in VCV you can rather easily patch a similar thing with the CsL I believe. Samish (digital) control, no hardware controller.
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I am taking a stab at replicating (most of) the Seashell functionality as a VCV patch with mostly Venom modules + MindMeld PatchMaster. I’m still at the design phase.
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Yep, it’s basically a CsL so we already have it. There’s also some digital effects onboard, which I guess would be fairly simple to port to VST, but not really anything we don’t already have.
Here is my first stab at emulating the Instruo Seashell in VCV Rack. The emulation combines all the features of the Seashell hardware and the Extended mode of the software interface.
I can’t vouch for how well the emulation matches the actual sound of the Instruo Seashell. But all the routings and features are faithfully reproduced, with only a few exceptions:
- The MIDI Gate enable options are replaced by a second Gate/Trigger input and Gate/Trigger enable buttons. Patch the Gate output of MIDI to CV into the second Gate/Trigger input.
- I wasn’t sure what the frequency should be for the fixed rate Animate LFO. So I added a frequency knob to let you choose.
- I wasn’t sure what the range was for the digital LFO, so I added an LFO Octave knob to make available a wide range.
- The digital LFO does not support tap tempo.
- The extended matrix sources and destinations must be patched rather than selecting from a list.
- The Matrix Macro knob always affects all matrix knobs. Use the VCA Mix 4 instead if you want constant attenuation - it supports up to 5 fixed attenuated input/output pairs.
- There are no MIDI matrix sources. Add your own MIDI to CV module to access MIDI sources.
- There are no global pitch related matrix destinations, only Osc 1 and Osc 2 pitch related destinations. If you want global, than patch to both Osc 1 and Osc 2. I am not sure whether I properly implemented all the pitch related destinations - the documentation is rather vague.
- I did not implement any of the Settings options (MIDI Channel, Octave Range, Tap Tempo, Envelope Retrigger, Monitoring Mix Crossfader)
To keep within the spirit of the Instruo Seashell, only manipulate and patch the upper two row portion of the emulation patch (The user interface section). The Matrix source patchbay (and possibly your own MIDI to CV sources) should only be patched to the Matrix inputs (or the VCA MIX 4 inputs). The Matrix destination patch bay should only be patched to the Matrix outputs (or the VCA MIX 4 outputs). Do not manipulate or patch the lower three rows that represent the internals of the emulation.
If the Instruo Ceis envelope generator was polyphonic, then the emulation would be fully polyphonic. But no such luck. In the future I might look for a substitute polyphonic envelope generator, but it would need to support all the Seashell modes.
Seashell.vcv (23.2 KB)
The emulation requires Venom version 12.1 or higher. That has not yet been published to the library, but you can download it from my GitHub.
Here is the emulation user interface and patch bay.
And here are the internals that should never be touched.
I opted to use as much Venom as I could. There are very few modules that do not come from Venom or MindMeld:
- Instruo Ceis (envelope generator)
- VCV VCF (gate slew for the VCA)
- Grande Quant (polyphonic quantizer)
- Grande Merge/Split 4 (I could have used a second quantizer instead)
- Vult Lateralus (filter)
- Valley Plateau (diffusion FX)
- VCV Rnd (for digital LFO random output)
- Count Modula Matrix Mixer
- Stoermelder 8 Face Mark II (For user presets. The top preset is preconfigured for the emulation factory defaults)
Everything else is from Venom or a MindMeld PatchMaster module.
And finally, here is a short crappy demo showing one of the myriad sounds available to the Seashell. I demonstrate usage of the Matrix, and it features timbre changes with varying velocity. I included the irritating high pitches at the end to demonstrate how the Venom oversample capabilities help mitigate digital aliasing. Of particular importance is the oversampling available in the Bernoulli Switch that is used as an audio rate flip flop for the 1/4 rate sync.
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Wow! Nicely done!
Holy crap! This is incredible!
Only on my phone at the moment but I want to try this out on my laptop while we’re on the road home from Berlin.
In answer to the OP question, Seashell itself won’t likely be added to VCV. As Dave has illustrated (in amazing detail) Seashell is a system more so than a module. There were the odd enquiries at Superbooth as to whether Seashell could be racked. But it is a combination of Cš-L at its core with many other bits.
@DaveVenom would you mind if I potentially featured your patch in a video? I think there could be a fun way to show it beside a 
Your Venom range is amazing!
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Hell yes - please do! I would love to see a side by side comparison, and by the maker no less! If you do, please post a link here - no way I want to miss that!
I think my patch could (should?) be tweaked to get the sound a little closer. But I have no reference to do so. Some thoughts:
- Plateau emulation of Diffuse: tweak the max wet, decay, size, mod rate and/or mod depth
- there may be a better VCF to more closely emulate what is in Seashell
- I am not confident in the design of many of the matrix destinations
- The Wave Folder could probably be tweaked.
- If I knew the fixed LFO rate, I would probably remove the rate knob from the UI
- I suspect the depth of exponential/logarithmic applied to Ceis should be reduced. Perhaps the max decay and release should be reduced a tad as well.
- The basic wave shapes might use a bit of shaping. I already applied a bit of skew to the sines based on the oscilloscope reading you overlayed in your video
By the way - I happen to be at the seashore while seeing your post!
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Amazing!! I’ll definitely share here what I find when I explore. The amount of detail you’ve gone into and matched in your patch is really well thought out.
I attempted to draw out the ’s system signal flow in the same way I transcribe patches.
I think it got it looking pretty clean for our documentation. (My hand drawn version ended up on our T-shirts for SB25).
But I didn’t even get to depicting any of the software layer/integration 
Seeing your full patch confirms my suspicion of drawing the signal path being a task I shouldn’t attempt!
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I don’t see any kind of wavefolders in your list. Did you not use any?
The Venom Wave Folder of course!
Ah! Ok.