Spectral oscillator?

[SA2K]

I actually have a spectral/additive oscillator in the making. There are a few things I still have to sort out, but the bulk of the work is done and I'm quite happy with it so far.

To give you a little sneak'n'peak on the features:

• up to 512 partials (very high CPU usage)
• all partials can be automated/remote controlled in amplitude and phase
• basic waveforms included (sine, square, saw, ramp, triangle)
• load audio files (up to 1024 samples)
• AM, PM, FM
• "oddification"
• damping

I plan to finish it by next month, though this highly depends on the workload I'll have on my full-time job.

Just got an email notification of your reply. Pretty cool! Maybe you can make it in polyphonic + mono as a final extra addition. I hope. I also hope it sounds like the Nords spectral osc in some settings. Maybe it will.

[honki-bobo]

Just got an email notification of your reply. Pretty cool! Maybe you can make it in polyphonic + mono as a final extra addition. I hope. I also hope it sounds like the Nords spectral osc in some settings. Maybe it will.

Well, although the module is highly optimized in terms of computational effort (at least as far as Java allows it), making it polyphonic would result in audio drop-outs even with very high buffer sizes. The module computes up to 512 sine values with all the modulation shenanigans per sample and it would have to do that per voice. Maybe I could do something like a "double the voices - half the partials" kind of thing, but this would be on the list for future releases or maybe a dedicated polyphonic version of the module.

Do you have any sound examples of the spectral oscillators? I did a quick search on youtube and could only find demos of the G1 and G2 as a whole.

[SA2K]

Just got an email notification of your reply. Pretty cool! Maybe you can make it in polyphonic + mono as a final extra addition. I hope. I also hope it sounds like the Nords spectral osc in some settings. Maybe it will.

Well, although the module is highly optimized in terms of computational effort (at least as far as Java allows it), making it polyphonic would result in audio drop-outs even with very high buffer sizes. The module computes up to 512 sine values with all the modulation shenanigans per sample and it would have to do that per voice. Maybe I could do something like a "double the voices - half the partials" kind of thing, but this would be on the list for future releases or maybe a dedicated polyphonic version of the module.

Do you have any sound examples of the spectral oscillators? I did a quick search on youtube and could only find demos of the G1 and G2 as a whole.

My computer and a lot of modern computers can really handle a polyphonic version of your module. It turns out the youtube demo's used classic Nord Modular G2 oscillators not spectral oscillators but aside from that I still would love to try the spectral oscillator oscillator you're finishing and buy it.

[poetix]

Chebysynth may also be of interest here - a polyphonic MIDI synth with envelope-controlled modulation of 9 partials:

chebysynth.png (53.67 KiB) Viewed 9596 times

[SA2K]

Chebysynth may also be of interest here - a polyphonic MIDI synth with envelope-controlled modulation of 9 partials:


chebysynth.png

I'm doing a night life night up and day sleep cycle again this morning and I must say Chebyshev is my most exciting oscillator module because VCV Rack has one seemingly similar that is an emulation of the Verbos Harmonic Oscillator that this one seems to be very similar to. VCV Rack had a patch designed for it called "Overtone-System-3-63ed723d6aed4.vcv" from patchstorage.com that is very meditative and wonderful to let play in the background for awhile doing tasks. If the staff allow it I wouldn't mind sharing the original VCV patch but I figure they might not allow it. Can I attach the VCV patch I mentioned? All the modules in the patch I want to attach from VCV are free but I'm not sure if you need VCV 2 Pro to use them or if the demo can work for the patch. Most of the modules are either made by Eurorack modular style fanatics or some giant AI brain or something. The reason I want to share the patch is to see if someone can cross compare the module routings and sound output and make a duplicate patch better than I can in Voltage. Could you confirm that the Chebyshev module can function like the Verbos Harmonic Oscillator somehow? It's not time to buy it yet for me or demo yet. I have a big itinerary with decision processes for my creative ideas and Cherry products are high on the list to design with.

[poetix]

Chebysynth is a polyphonic synth rather than a single harmonic oscillator, and might not fit the bill; however there is also Chebz, which took inspiration directly from Squinky Labs's excellent Chebyshev module for VCV, and which can also be demoed for free:

chebz.png (78.18 KiB) Viewed 9589 times

I don't have experience with the Verbos Harmonic Oscillator, so can't give you an informed comparison. Probably worth bearing in mind is that both Chebz and Chebysynth generate partials using Chebyshev polynomials applied to a sine wave fundamental (the same approach as the Squinky Labs module); they don't operate on other kinds of wave form, as it looks like the Verbos module can.

[poetix]

A side note on CPU usage - generating partials using Chebyshev polynomials is somewhat cheaper than generating independent sine waves for each partial (plus I cheat a bit on the sine wave, using a good-enough approximation function) which enables Chebysynth to pump out 1280 simultaneous sine waves (fundamental plus 9 partials for 8 oscillator voices for each of 16 polyphonic notes) without overtaxing the processor. The downside is that you're limited to strict harmonics of the fundamental, and can't modify their pitch individually. But you can, as Chebysynth does, generate a span of fundamentals clustered around the pitch you want, then sum the partials generated from each, which gets you some fairly epic sounds.

[SA2K]

The audio sample demo's for Cherry's things are a turn off for the classic synth fanatic but the determining factor for buyers should be demoing the actual Core package of Voltage in my opinion. I didn't like the Audio demo for Chebz but Chebysynth's audio sample demo is of higher standards. Let me outline the features of Verbos Harmonic Oscillator.

Here's a google list

Waveform Outputs: Triangle, Square, Sawtooth, and Harmonic Sine.
Harmonic Sine with 8 Harmonics as Sine Waves.
Sliders and CV input for level of each harmonic.
Harmonic Scan Width Control.
Harmonic Scan Center Control.
Spectral Tilt Control.
Linear FM CV Input with Attenuator.

Let me think a minute. Pretty similar, guy. Good stuff! Some of your modules are great for meditative dronal synthesis perfect for deep ambient.