Venom Release Announcements: latest version 2.9.1

Announcements
42

Oh my goodness - that patch is brutal on the CPU! It is the first one I have run across that I cannot run at 48kHz on my M1 MacBook Air. Not on my Windows machine either. Both work at 24 kHz however - not ideal, but better than nothing. Of course the Instruo module is missing in ARM mode on the Mac.

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43

Yes, the patch has become a bit too large. (It was just too much fun to add more and more voices and Benjolin expanders :slight_smile: ) Same problems for me, at some point I had to go down with the sample rate to continue working on the patch. The recording is made with 44.1 kHz, and not listening to the crackling on the audio output while recording. Luckily just the start button click and the fade-out at the end was needed to record.

44

Good to know, thanks.

I have a new Venom update almost ready to go that significantly improves performance of the Benjolin Volts and Gates expanders. But it doesnā€™t really help your patch. Your patch has a large number of Surge XT and other modules that are relatively expensive. No one module is particularly bad, but it collectively adds up.

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45

I love the VCO LAB! Iā€™m always looking for the best goto analog oscillators for me and this one is a really solid choice.

Only gripe I have with it is that itā€™s so big - i think a mini VCO LAB with just one oscillator with morphable waveform would be a very nice addition.

Maybe with just one row of the modulation matrix, without the offset and instead a waveform shape mod input.

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46

Interesting idea - thanks. I too sometimes lament the size.

Iā€™ll have to think on this one. No promises.

Interesting that you call VCO Lab an analog oscillator when it is pure digital with very pure and exact mathematical implementations, without any analog modeling. I wouldnā€™t know where to begin to create a VCO based on analog modeling.

But I do agree it consistently produces welcome tones, regardless what modulation you throw at it.

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47

By analog I just meant non-wavetable basically :slight_smile:

Ideally I would have one oscillator that does everything thatā€™s possible so I never have to make a choice about which module to replace it withā€¦ your oscillator covers everything that would be possible with analog oscillators I think, plus the phasemod, donā€™t know if thatā€™s possible in analog.

Plus the DC filter kind of ā€œanalogizesā€ the waveforms, and together with the shape it covers a lot of range.

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48

VCO Unit is almost complete! I just have to work out the dynamic configuration of the Shape Mode control as the waveform changes.

VCOUnit

Thanks for the suggestion @Schabbes . Soon I wonā€™t feel so ā€œguiltyā€ using a Venom oscillator for simple use cases. This will be in release 2.10. I have some more VCO Lab enhancements, as well as a couple additional new free modules planned for this release. I will start a Venom Development topic soon, with this upcoming release as the opener.

In the mean timeā€¦

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49

Venom 2.9.1 has been submitted to the library with some relatively minor Benjolin Osc and expander enhancements:

2.9.1 (2024-09-08)

Enhancements

  • Benjolin Oscillator

    • Added menu option to configure Rungler DAC to use bits 6,7,8 as Rob Hordijkā€™s original design instead of bits 2,4,7

      My default use of bits 2,4,7 provides for more variability to the available Rungler patterns, but I figured I should make the original design available.

    • Significantly improved CPU usage of Volts and Gates expanders

It still has not hit the library yet, but you can download the binaries yourself at

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50

v2.9.1 just hit the library late last night!

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51

Also like analog in that there is very little aliasing?

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52

Thanks Squinky - that certainly was a goal

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53

Very nice!

I donā€™t know what you mean by ā€œthe dynamic configuration of the Shape Mode control as the waveform changes,ā€ though :slight_smile:

I thought it would be best to continuously morph between the waveshapes, and since the offset doesnā€™t make too much sense with only one oscillator, maybe get rid of it and make this the morphing between the waves instead, so that could be modulated, too.

54

FYI - I have moved development discussions to a Venom Development blog

I think the offset still makes a lot of sense for LFO mode, so I donā€™t want to lose that.

The Wave switch selects the base waveform.

For shaping, Sin, Tri, and Saw will preserve the log/exp, J curve, S curve, rectify, and normalized rectify modes. Square will preserve PW 3%-97% and 0%-100%. This is what I meant by dynamic configuration of the shape mode - square has different options than the others.

I plan to add the following additional shape modes:

So no one waveform will support morphing between all waveforms. But three of them will offer interesting morph transitions to two others. I specifically chose those combinations because I like how the timbres/harmonics morph. Most importantly, the saw morph mode provides access to the even waveform found in the Befaco Even module.

I demonstrate these transformations in my development blog, which is a good place to go if you want to continue the discussion.

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