Advanced Curve System
Versatile, tight and precise unique curves system. Each curve is built from procedural segments including linear, steps, sinus, hermite or cubic splines, quadratic and true cubic béziers modes...
In professional 3D animation/video hi-end softwares, there is always a powerful « animation editor », linked to the timeline, which defines curves set-up by « key-frames » to drive animated parameters.
Industry standard for those curves is using cubic béziers , because they are the most versatile in terms of precision and possible output shapes.
True cubic beziers offer 2x tangents, that are XY movable, allowing to control both in and out slopes, while preserving (or not.., at will..) a smooth continuity from a segment to the next. Resulting possibilities go way beyond traditional found in audio software « linear » curves, which are in best case usually only « roundable » via a single one dimension parameter at the center.
Psylab was built around the integration of this system at its core.
Main idea was to be able to drive audio events « animations », same way it’s done for parameters in vfx, with sample accurate, ultra tight, hi def bezier curves to contol a wide range of aspects of the sound over time, ie amplitude, frequency, oscillators shapes, filter, distort amount ect.. with ultimate precision. Psylab Curve Editor is large, fast and responsive, can be zoomed and scrolled, with a lot of dedicaced tools for precise editing and manipulating of the 16x curves.
Its also based on a WYSIWYG system, with drawn synced sound waveform under the currently edited curve.
While cubic bezier was most wanted initial goal, psylab also has +15 others different ‘segments modes’ which are lower on cpu (ie simpler quadratic bezier, with only one tangent, linear, steps, splines or sinus modes, depending on what wanna achieve, more traditional basic pow/log ect..), which can be set individually, per segment.
Each curve can be stored as preset / recalled / Init / Copy-Pasted. A wide range of processing options are available like scale, reverse, double size, randomize, shift/roll, ect.. A shape generator easy generates say 32 random steps, perfect beziers sinus ,tri, saws, squares ect… with control points true morphing ability.
This allows design of very complex and precise curves in a way that remains unmatched yet in other traditional or much more expensive hi-end vst synthesizers.
It’s also possible to directly drag n drop procedural shape presets on individual segments for faster workflow.
Build-in Synced Oscilloscope
Easy inspect waves, peaks, phasing, KB overlap areas.. Display current sound or reference file wave under the curves. From 8 bars to sample rez, all with Zoom n' Scroll.
On top of the interface, main oscilloscope shows the result of the output summing, always perfectly in sync with the grid. ie if set on 1/4 it will re-trigger each kick and will display the kbb. Can then zoom and scroll inside the buffer, up to sample rez.
it can be displayed in any context (curve editor, params menu..) or hidden to give more room to parameters or curves editing.
A multi-Layer mode shows individual sounds layered. Useful to perfectly tune / phase align (or not!) elements or samples.
Can display spectrum and spectrogram.
At any time its possible to bounce oscilloscope content via a single click, then direct drag and drop new made .wav file to the daw.
A second mode can display current sound note buffer only. Auto button will scan max peak to auto-fit and use maximum display area, (like a ‘display normalize’).
Current sound note can also be displayed in curve editor background, so can see how the curve tweaks affect the wave real time, with 1:1 timing perfect match and synced zoom n scroll.
An optional reference wav can also be loaded (ie a kick to inspire from) and both current and ref waveforms can be then easily compared, zoomed/scrolled in sync in a very convenient way.
Multi-Engines Generators
Classic, Bezier, Noizes-Paterns, Wavtable, Cycler, Sampler, Additive...
Each one of the 4 parts got 2x versatile generators.
Each generator provides 7 generative modes and is made to receive some more in the future.
Currently included engines:
*Classic: traditional sin, tri, saw, square and several more ‘math’ shapes with various shaping flavors.
*Bezier: custom user curve, with unique beziers control points true morph system from a curve to another.
*Noise – Patterns: various flavors of noises and procedural patterns/sequences like white, pink, brown ,hiss,crakles,MLS,,SH…
*Wavtable: hi quality bi-cubic 2048 samples per cycle / 256 tables, with 2d or 3d overview.
*Sampler: allows to layer one shots vavs, ie add HH or other attacks or custom sounds on top of kicks.
*Cycler: creates one cycle from wavs parts wich can give interesting harmonic rich content ie for buzzy /fm-ish type leads.
—–(Ability to load custom user .wavs for all wavtable, cycler and sampler engines)—-.
*Additive: fourrier engine allowing to edit bins via bezier curve ( will be developped further in future releases.)
A powerful Warp engine allows to remap/distort phase and/or amplitude via +40 different procedural functions.. available both for osc and lfos engines.
Each generator can have a modulator engaged for AM, RM, PM, PWM, FM, phase and amp distortion.
3x extra voices can be set with independent phase, pitch and volume. ie boost cancel some harmonics.
Build-in Sequencer
Sound design is also about time. Easy build/save/recall/test/randomize different patterns within sound patch. Export to midi file with direct drag n drop to daw clips.
Each part can of course receive midi from daw, but also has it own build in pattern sequencer.
This allows to quickly set ie, a 4/4 kick and a bass patern and save it within the preset.
So on reloading a patch have instant overview without messing to re-find what was
midi associated with, or make tailor sound designs for particular set of sequences.
8x playground patterns, that can be ordered with a chainor.
Its also convenient to design in standalone without need of a daw, then later re-use patches in vst version.
Its made as an hybrid step/clip , with handled separately triggers, gate length, velocities and
pianoroll. This allows ie to keep same notes, but randomize triggers or gates only,
or quickly generate random patterns for inspiration (can choose only a set of notes).
Pattern notes can be saved to midi file and directly drag and dropped ie to an ableton midi clip from the plugin interface.
8x lanes can record and remote chosen sound patch parameters movements.
All sequencer data can be stored/recalled to ‘SEQ’ presets. ie quickly test variations of kick bass with already saved presets.
Versatile Filter
40+ Filter types including LP, HP, BP, Band Stop, Allpass, Notch, Lo/Hi shelves, In Biquad, Butterworth, Chebyshev, Elliptic, Bessel, Legendre, Moog , Korg, Oberheim Emus, Formants and other designs… most from 1 to 12 poles, with frequency and phase response overview.
Adjust Filter envelope with ultimate precision/shaping via user bezier curve, or dynamic AHDSR.
Lfos, Sequencer, Velocity and keytrack weights.
Display Frequency response and Phase response.
Affect phase only ie via Allpass mode.
from 1 up to 12 poles for precise custom response.
Flexible routing and Matrix
20+ Fx processor can be chained and ordered as wish. powerfull matrix with +50 sources and +350 destinations parameters
Put distorsion before or after filter, VCA after/before FXs, flexible routing via simple drag and re-order processors chain.
Matrix can pick any of 50 sources (4x macros, 4x lfos, 16x custom curves, 4xAHDSR, randoms, vel, gates, audio..) to +350 parameters destinations.
Features:
* 4x parts multi-timbral monophonic synthesizer.
* 4x separated midi-in & 4x audio outputs if wanna split.
* Full vector resizable Ui, fast and responsive, with lot of visual feedback.
* Ultra fast preset switching / compare system.
* Foldable parameter’s groups. Display only a reduced to ‘only wanted’ set, or have control on everything.
* Built in synced oscilloscope for precise overview (ie Kick bass phasing), with zoom and scroll, from 8 bars up to sample rez.
* Advanced curves system and editor (16x vector user curves with: true cubic beziers, quadratic beziers, cubic splines, hermite splines, steps, linear, sinus, and more … independent segment’s types controlling various sound aspects like amp, freq, osc shapes, phases, filter, morphing ect.. ).
* Ultra tight and stable/consistent sample accurate midi and envelopes timings.
* 2x versatile generators per part with classic, bezier, noizes-paterns, wavtables, sampler, cycler & additive fourrier engines.
* Hi quality bi-cubic wavtable/cycler/sampler engines modes, with custom user .wav load ability.
* Independent modulator per oscillator.
* AM, PM, FM, RM, PWM, SYNC, phase and amplitude distortion, wich can all be cumulated.
* 3x sub oscillators voices per osc with independent phase, vol , pitch controls, ie cancel/boost fundamental.
* 2x versatiles LFOs with wide range of sources modes,
including user beziers.
* 40+ modifiers/warpers types that can be applied on phase and/or amplitude of both osc and lfos.
* 40+ Filters type including LP, HP, BP, BS, Allpass, Lo/Hi shelves,
Incuding Biquad, Butterworth, Chebyshev, Elliptic, Bessel, Legendre, Moog , Korg, Oberheim Emus, Formants…
most from 1 to 12 poles, with frequency and phase response overview.
* Custom curves choice for amplitude / pitch / filter, or dynamic AHDSR envelopes.
* Fx: delay, disto, reverb, flanger, phaser, compressor, ring modulation, soft cliper, bit -rate reducer, karplus strong resonator, limiter, custom user curve based wavshaping, multi-modes drive, eq…
* Load reference wav files with wavform display, automatically extracts pitch and amplitude enveloppes for easy copy / use as starting point ie to clone a kick, easy toggle ref/current.
* Approximate true ref wavform itself with bezier function.
* Instant Midi sidechain with precise custom user bezier curve ducking.
* A-B memory slots for comparing different patch settings.
* Build in bounce sound to wav file with direct drag n drop to daw.
* Build in sequencer with drag and drop Midi patern to daw.
* Build in converter helper (samples to ms, hz, beat, note names, tempo to delay ect.. ).
* Unique bezier morph system for true morph from user osc shape to another.
* Up to 16x oversampling.
..more in cooking for future releases..