I don’t normally do public alpha test releases, but for this one you seemed pretty interested and I’d like the feedback. So…
Here is a very early alpha (v0.2) of ‘artyFM’ - the Renoise FM synthesis tool.
Currently implemented features:
Basic GUI with midi mappable controls
Four operators
Helpful envelope diagram
Planned features not in this release
Operator routing selection
Make it faster
Better envelope diagram
Storing / Loading control ‘presets’
Some controls probably make more sense to be logarithmic
Access it from Tools -> artyFM or the Process submenu of the Sample Editor context menu.
Rendered samples will overwrite anything currently in the selected sample slot.
I’ve tried to make it as robust as possible with some quick testing, however I’m sure you’ll find a way to crash the tool. Let me know in this thread so I can fix it for upcoming versions.
All comments, feedback, crash reports, suggestions etc welcomed!
Give us native multiple envelope instrument control already! This tool would be way more powerful if it directly wrote to some sort of xnri instead of just a sample…
But that’s ofcourse something you can’t do at the moment (if you want multiple oscillators to have different env’s in one instrument)…
Yes, it would be nice to have native envelope control.
However, I think that modifying the Renoise instruments so that each sample could modulate the playback frequency of another would require a complete redesign of the instrument implementation. I wouldn’t have thought that would be a main focus of upcoming works.
Maybe a work around would be a ViewBuilder envelope control?
Saving/loading presets is a planed future feature.
Randomize buttons sounds like an interesting idea though! I’ll add it to the todo list.
As a general point, if you are only getting sine sounding sounds please modify the frequency multipliers for the different operators. This should dramatically modify the timbre of the produced sound.
As a quick tip, if the attack level is below the sustain level then the operator will ramp up at this point (i.e long attack, zero attack level, small decay will result in a delay before the envelope operator makes any difference. Quick a cool unintended feature!
Finally had some time to check out this alpha, and while it is in a very basic state right now it is nice to see such a project underway.
Some things to take into consideration:
To have number-boxes beside or underneath the dials for manual input and clarification purposes.
To have a ‘auto-update’ toggle like the custom waveform generator tool, which when it is enabled, automatically updates the waveform when tweaking the parameters. Dunno if this is manageable with the number-crunching in your tool?
Also, something I’ve been lusting for in Renoise is a way to work with microtonal scales, if your tool ever enters the realm of multi sample generation please look into this! Dblue already did some groundwork which can be found here: Snippet: Load Scala .Scl Tuning File
edit:
maybe strange request, but could the current tool be modified so it also runs on current / other samples? So the adsr volume trajectory is applied on whatever is loaded in the instrument, maybe even have the frequency multiplication work as a kind of ring mod?
NBB: @Mods - Can you please split the artyFM discussion from this thread to a seperate thread entitled something along the lines of ‘artyFM development and discussion’