Surge XT 2.2 - Want to help Beta Test?

FiroLFO · December 1, 2023, 4:37pm

Isn’t it enough to have two dots only?

The ‘default next color’ and the ‘previously used color’?

(Just asking. I don’t see myself using this feature.)

Edit: eh, sorry. Probably I had to ask it from @DaveVenom

baconpaul · December 1, 2023, 4:46pm

This will be in the next nightly, in about 45 minutes

VirtualModular · December 2, 2023, 3:06pm

Aha, I wondered what the granular Eurorack module was and of course it’s Clouds! I’ve installed the beta but haven’t had a chance to test it yet. Would it be possible to have a longer buffer? I always felt that Clouds needed a longer delay time, obviously that was a limitation with the hardware when it was released but surely that doesn’t apply to virtual clones? My other feature request would be to enable polyphonic processing on the delay, if that’s possible. I think I asked for this before and there was a reason the answer was no, but hey poly delay is awesome.

baconpaul · December 2, 2023, 8:52pm

You mean the surge delay?

Funnily I realize that our clouds port is accidentally polyphonic since all our fx except the delay are. We have been reluctant to change the underlying mutable code thought.

The delay is “just” memory. I could be careful with allocation and it would work but that codes not super easy and if I am not careful it will be a hog - but I will open an issue. A few folks have asked for some other feature tweaks so maybe will do a 23 shortly after 22

Squinky · December 2, 2023, 8:57pm

why would it be a hog? does it pre-allocate some maximal delay memory?

baconpaul · December 2, 2023, 8:58pm

Yes

Squinky · December 2, 2023, 9:04pm

oof, yeah, that does sound like non-zero work to change that! Sleazy new “squinkrontix” would just allocate that mem on the process call - quality conscious “squinky labs” would allocate it in a worker thread… Either way, yeah, modifying their code doesn’t sound like a great thing to do ;-(

baconpaul · December 2, 2023, 9:08pm

We also have some optimization tricks because we know our delay buffer is power of two plus fir width, and that’s a template argument

Basically what you would do is have a bundle of unique pointers of various sizes and if you needed a size longer than currentt, freeze fade professing, on a worker thread allocate longer and copy , swap current, and resume

The problem with that strategy is that modulation can cause clicks the first time you modulate past a length

Etc

Anyway you and I both know the pros and cons and the code and so on. It’s “just code” but it’s “just code” that is easy to get wrong

VirtualModular · December 2, 2023, 11:59pm

Yep, the surge delay - no problem if it can’t be poly. I’ll take a poly Clouds instead, that presents significant opportunities for sonic mayhem I did wonder if there was a technical reason why none of the clones have a longer buffer, so if it’s not easily done I’ll take polyphony instead. Thanks!

pachde · December 3, 2023, 1:44am

Clones are very often a direct port of the hardware firmware, so often carry over the limits of the hardware, including buffer budgets driven by available memory on the PCB.

FiroLFO · December 3, 2023, 10:16am

Alternatively you can experiment with Grayscale Supercell. It comes with some alternative firmware including the magical Spectral clouds

VirtualModular · December 3, 2023, 12:05pm

I’ve never got on with Supercell, it seems to have a noisy lo-fi quality which I don’t like. Maybe I should look it again.

A better alternative for scrubbing through the buffer with in freeze mode is Prince of Perception, which has a 20 second delay and 60 seconds of buffer.

However, apart from Instant Delay there isn’t a free granular model with polyphonic capability so the Surge version of Clouds should be great.

By the way, for anyone who hasn’t tried this, poly fx are a slight obsession of mine, mainly for guitar. What I do is copy a mono signal onto 16 channels and modulate parameters with poly mod signals too, so it’s effectively 16 discrete copies of the effect, without having to patch 16x the modules. Not generally that useful but really interesting for sound design!

auxmux · December 3, 2023, 8:02pm

@baconpaul Will you consider adding new Plaits modes to Twist VCO / Surge VST? That would be awesome if possible esp dx7 sysex import

baconpaul · December 3, 2023, 11:18pm

We have it as an issue we are tracking but haven’t put any effort into it yet. I’m not sure. Some of the modes don’t make that much sense in surge vst either

So “maybe but not strong maybe and nothing active” is kinda where I am on that one

But we’re an open contribution project and welcome devs!

auxmux · December 3, 2023, 11:58pm

Got it. The work that @Tobi did a couple of months was great, so was thinking about this again. FM operators in layered with Surge modules or even better stacked in Surge XT VST would be fantastic.

It opens up a lot of sound design possibilities, so hoping you’ll all add one day.

baconpaul · December 4, 2023, 1:32am

I have occasionally thought about taking the dexed voice model and making a rack module out of it. But the 160+ params pose a design challenge. I agree that robust fm sources are useful though

VirtualModular · December 4, 2023, 11:01am

That sounds like a lot of work…

I’ve only tested Nimbus so far, and it’s amazing! Setting the pitch in semitones is really useful, the 4-octave range is a bit much but it’s good to have the option. It’s also nice to have dedicated knobs for mix/reverb etc. like Supercell. I noticed there’s a very small click when toggling freeze mode, but I think the Audible Instruments version does that too.

I can also confirm the ‘accidental polyphony’ sounds exactly as I hoped! The freeze works per channel too, and 16x Clouds is making some fairly epic granular textures.

I don’t want to ask for too many feature requests seeing as I can’t code for toffee and appreciate how much work it is, but @FiroLFO just reminded me the alternative firmware modes would be a great addition at some point. No problem if that can’t be done.

Thanks!

baconpaul · December 4, 2023, 12:45pm

do either you or @FiroLFO know where the dsp code for these alternate firmware modes is? It is not here: https://github.com/pichenettes/eurorack/blob/08460a69a7e1f7a81c5a2abcc7189c9a6b7208d4/clouds/dsp/granular_processor.h#L51

if we have the code I can look for a future release and open an issue sure! Clouds modes make a bit more sense than twist modes ergonomically in surge,

Edit: Ahh now I see, 2 of them are here https://github.com/mqtthiqs/parasites/blob/master/clouds/dsp/granular_processor.h

and 2 more are here

github.com

jkammerl/eurorack/blob/master/clouds/dsp/granular_processor.h

// Copyright 2014 Olivier Gillet.
//
// Author: Olivier Gillet (ol.gillet@gmail.com)
//
// Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
// of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
// in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
// to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
// copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
// furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
// 
// The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
// all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
// 
// THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
// IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
// FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
// AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
// LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
// OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN

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and its all merged together here

github.com

patrickdowling/superparasites/blob/master/supercell/dsp/granular_processor.h

// Copyright 2014 Olivier Gillet.
//
// Author: Olivier Gillet (ol.gillet@gmail.com)
//
// Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
// of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
// in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
// to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
// copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
// furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
// 
// The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
// all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
// 
// THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
// IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
// FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
// AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
// LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
// OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN

This file has been truncated. show original

baconpaul · December 4, 2023, 12:47pm

Looking at the code I’m a tad surprised this works. or more accurately: freeze is a monophonic input and not per channel right now. I should fix this (so if freeze has channel 1 then it applies to all instances otherwise it is poly). I’ll open an issue

baconpaul · December 4, 2023, 7:29pm

The next nightly will have the nimbus freeze input in poly mode act as follows

if it is monophonic it freezes all the instances
if it is polyphonic, it freezes instances individually

have fun!