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Update: 2024-01-02

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UltrasonicRingMod

UltrasonicRingMod is a ring modulator with 64-fold oversampling. Maximum modulator frequency is 1 MHz. That said, just modulating with ultrasonic frequency doesn’t produce anything audible. Therefore, phase modulation and hard clipping are added to make some noise in audible frequency.

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.

Contact

Feel free to contact me on GitHub repository or ryukau@gmail.com.

You can fund the development through paypal.me/ryukau.

Installation

Plugin

Move *.vst3 directory to:

DAW may provides additional VST3 directory. For more information, please refer to the manual of the DAW.

Presets

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.

  1. Download plugin from a link at the top of this page.
  2. Extract downloaded zip file.
  3. Open presets directory placed in extracted package.
  4. Move Uhhyou directory into an OS specific preset directory (see below).

Below is a list of preset directories for each OS.

Preset directory name must be the same as the plugin. If preset directory does not exist, create it.

Windows Specific

If DAW doesn’t recognize the plugin, try installing C++ redistributable (vc_redist.x64.exe). Installer can be found in the link below.

Linux Specific

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.

macOS Specific

Important: full package is not confirmed working. When using full, try removing following files.

macOS package doesn’t contain above files. Also, all packages are in “ad-hoc signing” state set by codesign command.

Remove Quarantine

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

Bypass Gatekeeper

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.

  1. Open terminal and run sudo spctl --master-disable.
  2. Go to System Preferences → Security and Privacy → General → Allow apps downloaded from, then select “Anywhere”.

Beware that steps above degrades security of your system. To revert the settings, follow the steps below.

  1. Go to System Preferences → Security and Privacy → General → Allow apps downloaded from, then select option to “App Store and identified developers”.
  2. Open terminal and run sudo spctl --master-enable.

Applying 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.

Reference

GUI Style Configuration

At first time, create color config file to:

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"
}

Font Options

Following is a list of font options.

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.

Color Options

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.

Controls

Right Click on the controls pops up a context menu provided by DAW.

Knob and slider provides following controls:

Caution

Amplitude increases by 120 dB maximum when Mod. Scale is turned to right. Recommend to use limiter.

Block Diagram

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.

Parameters

Mix

Mixing ratio of input and modulated signal.

Note that mixing is done before hard clipping. In other words, hard clipping is applied even if Mix is set to leftmost, and Hardclip is not set to leftmost.

UltrasonicRingMod do not bypass multi-rate processing (oversampling). To bypass completely, use mixer on DAW.

Pre Clip

A gain right before Hardclip.

Out

Output gain.

Beware that maximum gain is +60 dB.

Frequency

Modulator frequency.

DC Offset

Amplitude of direct current (DC) added to modulator.

Range of amplitude becomes [-1, 1] at leftmost, and [0, 1] at rightmost.

Feedback

Amount of feedback from ring modulator output to modulator phase.

Mod. Scale

Ratio to make amplitude of modulator proportional to Frequency.

Mod. Wrap

Mixing ratio of raw and wrapped-at-1 modulator signal.

Wrapped-at-1 is same operation as fmod(value, 1.0).

Hardclip

Mixing ratio of raw and hard-clipped ring modulator output.

Smoothing [s]

Parameter smoothing time in second.

Internally, inverse of Smoothing is used as cutoff frequency. Therefore the time is not exact, but a rough estimate.

Note

Modulator frequency can be controled by note-on. To send note events, please refer to the manual of DAW you are using.

Negative, Scale

Scale is a multiplier to note. When Negative is lit, it negates the value of Scale.

Provided note multiplies the value of Frequency. Following is the equation to calculate modulator frequency.

sign = negative ? -1 : 1.
modulatorFrequency = frequency * 2^(sign * scale * (midiNote + offset - 69) / 12).
Offset [st.]

A value added to input note number. Unit is semitone.

Slide Time [s]

Pitch slide time from previous note to current note.

Internally, inverse of Slide Time is used as cutoff frequency. Therefore the time is not exact, but a rough estimate.

Change Log

Old Versions

License

UltrasonicRingMod is licensed under GPLv3. Complete licenses are linked below.

If the link above doesn’t work, please send email to ryukau@gmail.com.

About VST

VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, registered in Europe and other countries.