GrowlSynth β

[ryukau]

GrowlSynth is a synthesizer that imitates animal growls. However, it doesn't sound like animal growl most of the times.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome. However, keep in mind that I won't make any promises, as I'm doing this as a hobby. Source code is available on develop branch.

Download

Plugin format is VST 3.

• Download GrowlSynth v0.0.1 (Google Drive)

Warning:

This plugin is in active development. Breaking changes will be introduced.

• Do not use for production.
• Do not save your project with this plugin.
• Always render or record the result to audio file after using.

Notice:

Sometimes internal feedback blows up and sound stops.

CPU load is high.

Usage Tips

Output amplitude varies a lot. Always insert limiter after GrowlSynth.

Some of noisy texture comes out from time-modulated comb filter. To reduce the noise, lower Comb -> Delay Slew Rate. However, reducing noise also introduces metallic tones when Feedback Gain is close to 1.

Character of sound is quite sensitive to pitches. Following is a list of pitch related parameters:

• The pitch of musical note currently playing.
• Envelope -> AM.
• Breath -> Formant.
• Pulse -> Pitch.
• Pulse -> Bend.
• Pulse -> Formant.
• Comb -> Frequency.

Use Comb -> Follow Note to change frequencies of comb filters by note.

Breath and Pulse are fed into time-modulated comb filter which behaves non-linear to input amplitude. Due to this, Breath -> Gain and Pulse -> Gain affects the character of sound. To change loudness without affecting the character, use Mix -> Output.

Related Links

• A bit more details (blogspot.com)
• WebSynth version (github.io)

Plugin version has one less oscillator, and lacks some parameters compared to WebSynth version.

Removed oscillator was causing noticeable aliasing due to fast frequency modulation. However, current one (BLIT + biquad peaking) isn't that good either. I'm halting development mostly because I couldn't come up with better alternative. It might be better to approach this problem from envelope side, because accumulative AM used for envelope modulation is the cause of unnatural tones.

Removed parameters aren't making significant difference to the sound.

Development Roadmap

• Experiment by exposing internal parameters instead of randomization.
• Improve oscillator.

Change Log

• 0.0.1
  • Fixed parameter scaling of AM Amount.
  • Changed parameter name Jitter to Time Spread.
  • Changed internal for easier vectorization.
    • Unified jittering delay buffer to reduce memory consumption. This improved CPU load.
    • Changed ModComb implementation. This didn't improve CPU load.