Update: 2023-12-02
CubicPadSynth is a wavetable synthesizer which uses PADsynth algorithm to generate oscillator tables. Cubic interpolation is used to get smooth sound even at inaudible low frequency range. LFO waveform can be directly drawn.
full
- VST 3 (github.com) macOS
- VST 3 (github.com) CubicPadSynth requires AVX or later SIMD instructions on x86_64 environment.
full
package contains following builds.
Linux build is built on Ubuntu 22.04. If you are using distribution other than Ubuntu 22.04, plugin will not likely to run. In this case, please take a look at build instruction.
macOS
package is recommended for macOS user. I can’t
purchase Apple Developer Program, therefore installation requires a
workaround to bypass Gatekeeper. Details of workaround are written in
Installation -> macOS Specific
section.
Feel free to contact me on GitHub
repository or ryukau@gmail.com.
You can fund the development through paypal.me/ryukau. Current goal is to purchase M1 mac for better macOS support. 💸💻
Move *.vst3
directory to:
/Program Files/Common Files/VST3/
for Windows.$HOME/.vst3/
for Linux./Users/$USERNAME/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST3/
for
macOS.DAW may provides additional VST3 directory. For more information, please refer to the manual of the DAW.
Notice: Some plugins don’t have presets provided by Uhhyou Plugins.
Presets are included in the plugin package linked at the top of this page. To install presets, follow the steps below.
presets
directory placed in extracted
package.Uhhyou
directory into an OS specific preset
directory (see below).Below is a list of preset directories for each OS.
/Users/$USERNAME/Documents/VST3 Presets
$HOME/.vst3/presets
/Users/$USERNAME/Library/Audio/Presets
Preset directory name must be the same as the plugin. If preset directory does not exist, create it.
If DAW doesn’t recognize the plugin, try installing C++
redistributable (vc_redist.x64.exe
). Installer can be found
in the link below.
On Ubuntu 22.04, those packages are required.
sudo apt install libxcb-cursor0 libxkbcommon-x11-0
If DAW doesn’t recognize the plugin, take a look at
Package Requirements
section of the link below and make
sure all the VST3 related package is installed.
REAPER on Linux may not recognize the plugin. A workaround is to
delete a file ~/.config/REAPER/reaper-vstplugins64.ini
and
restart REAPER.
Important: full
package is not
confirmed working. When using full
, try removing following
files.
Contents/Resources/Documentation
Contents/x86_64-linux
Contents/x86_64-win
macOS
package doesn’t contain above files. Also, all
packages are in “ad-hoc signing” state set by codesign
command.
When trying to run plugin first time, following message may appear on macOS.
<PluginName>.vst3 is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Trash.
In this case, open terminal and try running one or both of following
command to unzipped .vst3
directory. Replace
/path/to/PluginName.vst3
according to your install
location.
xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /path/to/PluginName.vst3
xattr -rc /path/to/PluginName.vst3
Plugin may be considered as unsigned/un-notarized application. In this case, open System Preferences, go to Security & Privacy → General, then click the Open Anyway button. The offcial Apple help page linked below has screenshots for the procedure. See “If you want to open an app that hasn’t been notarized or is from an unidentified developer” section.
If the plugin is still not working, try changing install location to
/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST3/
or
/Users/$USERNAME/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST3/
whichever
still haven’t tried.
If all the above methods do not work, try following the steps below.
sudo spctl --master-disable
.Beware that steps above degrades security of your system. To revert the settings, follow the steps below.
sudo spctl --master-enable
.codesign
Note This section may not relevant to
macOS
packages. However it’s not verified. (GitHub
issue)
To use full
package, following command might be
used.
sudo codesign --force --deep -s - /path/to/PluginName.vst3
codesign
might not be available without installing Xcode.
At first time, create color config file to:
/Users/USERNAME/AppData/Roaming/UhhyouPlugins/style/style.json
on Windows.$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/UhhyouPlugins/style/style.json
on
Linux.
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME
is empty, make
$HOME/.config/UhhyouPlugins/style/style.json
./Users/$USERNAME/Library/Preferences/UhhyouPlugins/style/style.json
on macOS.style.json
will be loaded for each time a plugin window
opens.
Several color themes are available on the link below.
Below is a example of style.json
.
{
"fontFamily": "Tinos",
"fontBold": true,
"fontItalic": true,
"foreground": "#000000",
"foregroundButtonOn": "#000000",
"foregroundInactive": "#8a8a8a",
"background": "#ffffff",
"boxBackground": "#ffffff",
"border": "#000000",
"borderCheckbox": "#000000",
"borderLabel": "#000000",
"unfocused": "#dddddd",
"highlightMain": "#0ba4f1",
"highlightAccent": "#13c136",
"highlightButton": "#fcc04f",
"highlightWarning": "#fc8080",
"overlay": "#00000088",
"overlayHighlight": "#00ff0033"
}
Following is a list of font options.
fontFamily
: Font family name.fontBold
: Enable bold style when
true
, disable when false
.fontItalic
: Enable italic style when
true
, disable when false
.To use custom font, place *.ttf
file into custom font
path: *.vst3/Contents/Resources/Fonts
.
Notice: If the combination of
fontFamily
, fontBold
, fontItalic
is not exists in custom font path, default font of VSTGUI is used.
If fontFamily
is set to empty string ""
,
then "Tinos"
is used as fallback. If the length is greater than 1 and the font family
name doesn’t exists, default font of VSTGUI is used.
Styles other than bold, italic or bold-italic are not supported by VSTGUI. For example, “Thin”, “Light”, “Medium”, and “Black” weights cannot be used.
Hex color codes are used.
First letter #
is conventional. Plugins ignore the first
letter of color code, thus ?102938
, \n11335577
are valid.
Do not use characters outside of 0-9a-f
for color
value.
Following is a list of color options. If an option is missing, default color will be used.
foreground
: Text color.foregroundButtonOn
: Text color of active toggle button.
Recommend to use the same value of foreground
or
boxBackground
.foregroundInactive
: Text color of inactive components.
Currently, only used for TabView.background
: Background color.boxBackground
: Background color of inside of box shaped
components (Barbox, Button, Checkbox, OptionMenu, TextKnob,
VSlider).border
: Border color of box shaped components.borderCheckbox
: Border color of CheckBox.borderLabel
: Line color of parameter section
label.unfocused
: Color to fill unfocused components.
Currently, only used for knobs.highlightMain
: Color to indicate focus is on a
component. Highlight colors are also used for value of slider components
(BarBox and VSlider).highlightAccent
: Same as highlightMain
.
Used for cosmetics.highlightButton
: Color to indicate focus is on a
button.highlightWarning
: Same as highlightMain
,
but only used for parameters which requires extra caution.overlay
: Overlay color. Used to overlay texts and
indicators.overlayHighlight
: Overlay color to highlight current
focus.Right Click on the controls pops up a context menu provided by DAW.
Knob and slider provides following controls:
dB
) parameters,
floor is applied after the value is converted to amplitude.Control with many blue vertical bars (BarBox) have some keyboard
shortcuts. LFO Wave
on Main tab and Gain
,
Width
, Pitch
, Phase
on Wavetable
tab are using BarBox. Shortcuts are enabled after left clicking BarBox
and mouse cursor is on the inside of BarBox. Cheat sheet is available on
Infomation tab.
Input | Control |
---|---|
Left Drag | Change Value |
Shift + Left Drag | Change Value (Snapped) |
Ctrl + Left Drag | Reset to Default |
Ctrl + Shift + Left Drag | Change Value (Skip Between Frames) |
Middle Drag | Draw Line |
Shift + Middle Drag | Edit One Bar |
Ctrl + Middle Drag | Reset to Default |
Ctrl + Shift + Middle Drag | Toggle Lock |
a | Alternate Sign |
d | Reset Everything to Default |
D | Toggle Min/Mid/Max |
e | Emphasize Low |
E | Emphasize High |
f | Low-pass Filter |
F | High-pass Filter |
i | Invert Value (Preserve minimum) |
I | Invert Value (Minimum to 0) |
l | Toggle Lock under Mouse Cursor |
L | Toggle Lock for All |
n | Normalize (Preserve minimum) |
N | Normalize (Minimum to 0) |
p | Permute |
r | Randomize |
R | Sparse Randomize |
s | Sort Descending Order |
S | Sort Ascending Order |
t | Subtle Randomize (Random walk) |
T | Subtle Randomize (Converge to 0) |
z | Undo |
Z | Redo |
, (Comma) | Rotate Back |
. (Period) | Rotate Forward |
1 | Decrease |
2-4 | Decrease 2n-4n |
5-9 | Decimate by holding 2n-5n |
Snapping is not available for all BarBox. If you’d like to have snapping for certain BarBox, feel free to open issue to GitHub repository.
Edit One Bar with Shift + Right Drag holds a bar under the cursor when mouse right button is pressed. Then only changes that one bar while holding down mouse right button.
Toggle Lock with Ctrl + Shift + Right Drag behaves as line edit. When right mouse button (RMB) is pressed, it holds the opposite state of the bar below mouse cursor, then use the state for the rest of bars. For example, if RMB is pressed on a locked bar, dragging unlocks bars while holding down RMB.
Some BarBox has scroll bar to zoom in. Scroll bar has handles on left end and right end. To control zoom, use Left Drag on one of the handle. Scroll bar also has following controls:
Pressing Refresh LFO
or Refresh Table
button stop sound. They also stop all midi notes.
Length of a wavetable is 2^18
samples.
136 band-limited wavetables are generated for each MIDI note. Pitch bending is supported as high as 21100 Hz. 21100 Hz is derived from MIDI note number 136. Frequency of MIDI note number 137 is higher then 22050 Hz. That’s why 136 is selected.
When fundamental frequency of a note is lower than 8.18 Hz, some overtones on high frequency may lost. However, cubic interpolation may cause noise which makes those frequency not to be 0.
noteToFreq(note) := 440 * Math.pow(2, (note - 69) / 12)
noteToFreq(0) = 8.175798915643707
noteToFreq(136) = 21096.16364242367
noteToFreq(137) = 22350.606811712252
Wavetable is represented as 2D array with size of
136 * 2^18
. Bicubic interpolation is used to get the value
from the table. Coordinate on time/band-limit axis is determined by
phase and frequency of oscillator.
The size of wavetable is large for a synthesizer. Xrun may occur if memory is slow. It may also consume more resources for higher notes because access pattern becomes close to random.
CubicPadSynth uses PADsynth algorithm, which is originated from ZynAddSubFX. Yoshimi is also using PADsynth algorithm.
Passing phase randomized spectrum to IDFT (inverse discrete fourier transform) generates a cyclic waveform which is smooth when connecting an end to another end. PADsynth is utilizing this property.
“Profile” function is used to synthesize spectrum. CubicPadSynth uses
normal distribution curve for profile, which is same as original
PADsynth algorithm. Center frequency of profile can be set arbitrary. In
default, CubicPadSynth uses fundamental frequency set by
Base Freq.
and its overtones.
If the image is small, use Ctrl + Mouse Wheel or “View Image” on right click menu to scale.
Diagram only shows overview. It’s not exact implementation.
Changes master pitch.
Milli
is 1/1000 of semitone or 1/10 cent.
Changes tuning.
ET
stands for equal temperament. Note that when
ET
is less than 12, some notes becomes silent due to
frequency becomes too high or too low.
A4 [Hz]
is frequency of note A4.
Gain envelope parameters.
A
: Attack time which is the length from note-on to
reaching peak value.D
: Decay time which is the length from peak value to
reaching sustain level.S
: Sustain level which is the gain after decay.R
: Release time which is the length from note-off to
the gain reaching to 0.Master output gain.
This is a psuedo low-pass filter. It shifts to wavetable which contains less overtone to get low-passed output.
Equation to get cutoff frequency is following.
cut = Cutoff * 128
keyFollowRange = Cutoff * (nTable - pitch)
lowpassPitch = (cut + KeyFollow * (keyFollowRange - cut)) - lowpassEnvelope * Amount;
if (lowpassPitch < 0) lowpassPitch = 0
noteToFreq(note) := 440 * Math.pow(2, (note - 69) / 12)
range = noteToFreq(nTable)
lpFreq = noteToFreq(midiNote + lowpassPitch)
ntFreq = noteToFreq(midiNote)
cutoffFrequency = (1 + (range - lpFreq) / range) * ntFreq
128 used to calculate lpCut
is an arbitrary value which
came from MIDI note number range + 1. nTable
is set to
136.
Changes filter cutoff frequency.
When set to right-most, cutoff frequency is set to make the number of
overtone to be almost same regardless of pitch of note. When set to
left-most, it only use the value of Cutoff
.
Filter envelope parameters. Amount
changes the amount of
modulation to cutoff.
Pitch envelope parameters.
Changes the sign of pitch envelope output.
Number of voices used by unison.
To avoid interruption of release, increase the number of
nVoice
in Misc. section. Note that increasing
nVoice
consumes more resources.
Detune
is the difference of pitch between voices used in
a unison.
When Random Detune
is checked, amount of detune changes
for each note-on.
random = RandomDetune ? rand() : 1
detune = pitch * (1 + random * unisonIndex * Detune)
Amount of randomization of gain for voices used in a unison.
Amount of randomization of phase for voices used in a unison.
This parameter makes no effect when Reset
in Phase
section is checked.
Spread
is an amount of stereo spread for a unison.
Spread Type
provides options to assign panpot values
according to voice pitch.
Alternate L-R
: Alternates Ascend L -> R
and Ascend R -> L
.Alternate M-S
: Alternates HighOnMid
and
HighOnSide
.Ascend L -> R
: Ascend pitch from left to right.Ascend R -> L
: Ascend pitch from right to left.HighOnMid
: Ascend pitch from side to mid.HighOnSide
: Ascend pitch from mid to side.Random
: Randomize pan. May be biased.RotateL
: Rotate to left for each note-on.RotateR
: Rotate to right for each note-on.Shuffle
: Randomly assign pan which is evenly
ordered.Refresh LFO wavetable based on current value of
LFO Wave
.
Note that refreshing wavetable stops sound. It also interrupts MIDI notes.
Type of LFO wavetable interpolation.
Sets LFO frequency according to current tempo. Lower numeral represents the length of note. Upper numeral is the number of notes.
Value of Multiply
is multiplied to the frequency
calculated from Tempo
.
// (60 seconds) * (4 beat) = 240
lfoFrequency = Multiply * (BPM / 240) / (TempoUpperNumeral / TempoLowerNumeral)
When checked, resets LFO phase for each note-on.
LFO frequency modulation amount.
Changes cutoff freequency of low-pass filter for LFO.
LFO waveform.
Initial phase of oscillator.
When checked, resets oscillator phase to the value set by
Phase
.
When checked, randomize phase for each note-on. In this case, value
of Phase
becomes range of randomization.
Time length to change some parameter value to current one. Unit is in second.
List of parameters related to Smooth
. *
represents wild card.
S
Gain
Cutoff
KeyFollow
S
Amount
S
Amount
Negative
Tempo
Multiply
Amount
Lowpass
Phase
Maximum polyphony. Lowering the number of this option reduces CPU load.
When checked, most quiet note is released when the number of active voice is close to maximum polyphony. This can be used to reduce pop noise which occurs on note-on.
Gain of profile.
Width of profile.
This value is multiplied to profile center frequency.
Range of randomization for the phase of profile.
Fundamental frequency of wavetable. Note that if this value is small, master pitch becomes out of tune.
Changes profile center frequency.
profileCenterFrequency = mod(
BaseFreq * profileIndex * overtonePitch * Multiply,
440 * pow(2, (Modulo - 69) / 12)
)
When checked, randomize profile center frequency. Ignores values of
Pitch
in overtone control.
Scaling factor to shrink/expand the spectrum along to frequency axis.
Shift spectrum along to frequency axis.
When this value is higher than 1, it changes the shape of profile like a comb. The value specifies interval between peaks.
Changes profile shapes by using the value of Shape
as an
exponent.
shapedProfile = powf(profile, shape);
Invert spectrum to make the maximum of absolute value to 0, and 0 to the max-abs value. Signs are preserved. Phases aren’t considered.
maxRe = max(abs(spectrumRe))
maxIm = max(abs(spectrumIm))
invertedSpectrumRe = spectrumRe - sgn(spectrumRe) * maxRe
invertedSpectrumIm = spectrumIm - sgn(spectrumIm) * maxIm
When checked, phase of a profile becomes an uniform value.
Random seed. This value change random number sequence.
Exponent for Gain
in overtone control.
profileGain = pow(Gain, Gain^)
Multiplier for Width
in overtone control.
profileWidth = Width * (Width*)
Refresh PADsynth wavetable based on current configuration of Wavetable tab.
Note that refreshing wavetable stops sound. It also interrupts MIDI notes.
style.json
crashes
plugin.foregroundInactive
.processContext
is
nullptr
.virtual
to destructor of common components.
This may prevent some cause of crash or memory leak.style.json
.bypass
parameter behavior. This fixes playing all
the notes at the moment of unmute, even if host sends note to plugin
while muting. This bug was only happening on the hosts which respect VST
3 bypass
parameter.Refresh Table
and Refresh LFO
from
VST message to parameter. This enables automation and midi mapping.CubicPadSynth is licensed under GPLv3. Complete licenses are linked below.
If the link above doesn’t work, please send email to
ryukau@gmail.com
.
VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, registered in Europe and other countries.