You are not logged in. Please login or register.
The 1-Bit Forum → Other Platforms → 1bitstudio - a bundle of VST plugins
Fresh stuff just in time for the new forum opening.
This is a bundle of VST plugins aimed for different kinds of 1-bit sound synthesis and processing. It includes six plugins, two of them for processing, two drum synths, and two tone generators, covering majority of the 1-bit sound types. Comes with source code.
Very cool, testing today, thanks Shiru !!
Hourra, Shiru is back with new stuff!
I've tested it with LMMS, and it's working well.
Now the philosophical / ethical question is: "if I load 2 of those plugins together in my software, will it be 2-bit music then?" 
It will be 32-bit floating point music right off the bat, even with a single plugin, because that's how VST standard works. Yes, this is certainly not a purist thing, it is more of the 'fakebit' kind.
Yes, this is certainly not a purist thing, it is more of the 'fakebit' kind.
ok, then I'll delete it from my hard drive ASAP 
More seriously, I'm sure it's a conveniant tool and it can also raise interest for 1bit music to more people...
Whoa, that was unexpected. Well, I stopped using VSTs many years ago and I don't even have a host installed anymore, but I still think it's a neat idea. Looking forward to hear some sound examples made with it.
Here is a demo track written by theandroidvision. It only uses few plugins of the bundle, and does not have any extra instruments or processing: https://soundcloud.com/theandroidvision … o-vst-demo
The bundle is updated. Minor fixes, two synths optimized, two new synths added - one Earthshaker-like (I love that sound), another with customizeable 1-bit waveform. Download link is the same.
Another update. phasesynth's Detune range changed from +/- whole tone to 0..octave (with fractional numbers), this allows not just to detune it slightly, but to certain number of semitones, giving more flexibility. noisedrums added, these are simple noise-based drums with some PWM.
Another fun addition to the bundle, a 'drum' synth that generates 'loading noise' (ZX Spectrum kind). Inspired by the quite unforgettable psb's Tap Music.
Finally, made my own demo track for the bundle: https://soundcloud.com/shiru8bit/overawire
I love this track! Well done Shiru.
The bundle got an (long awaited by myself) update. Internal preset saving system has been reworked to a more flexible one that allows adding more parameters in the future. Legacy data still supported to (hopefully) avoid breaking older compositions, if any has been made. This allowed to add more features to the synths, such as various mixing modes (basic addition, OR/XOR for polyphonic distortions), optional note cut (to play staccato easily), velocity targeting to various parameters. Also MIDI modulation has been implemented in all synths.
that's great to learn you're still working on this! I've updated my installation. Thank you.
Yeah, I wanted to do some updates for a long time, just having lots of other things to do, and this one always had lower priority until now.
While I'm on it, I did more updates, mostly focused on adding more colors to the sound palette.
'sweepsynth' has been added. It allows to imitate a wide range of 1-bit sounds, including Music Studio, Lyndon Sharp's engine, ZX-10, as well as Octode (in its thin and fat versions) and Huby. It basically just sweeps the pulse width.
'tndrums' got improvements to the tone generation. Now it allows to generate not just square wave, but pulse wave of any duty cycle, or 'pin' wave. This helps to create the very pronounced drums like Music Studio has.
'pulsesynth' got an option to compensate the QChan-like weak low end by varying the pulse width depending on the note, similar to what SpecialFX engine does.
'noisesynth' has been added. It is kind of Phaser1 that uses a pair of customizeable pseudo random generators instead of square tone. This allows to create a range of harsh, metallic, and glitchy sounds, including an FM 'electic guitar' alike. This design can be actually used for an ZX Spectrum engine, I think.
And now something different, but related. I never was able to find a VSTi arpeggiator that would work with any MIDI synth and allow to create true chiptine arpeggios. There are MIDI arpeggiators out there, but they're targeted to trance and such styles, taking an arpeggio pattern designed in the program itself, then playing it relatively slow as a sequence on note on/offs, thus creating major buzz, and sounding nothing like chiptune arpeggios. I also seen that people imitate chiptune arpeggios in MIDI using tons of manual pitch bend automation edits. So I made a chiptune VSTi arpeggiator - ChipArp. It designed to work best with the 1bitstudio synths, because all of them support any reasonable pitch bend ranges, unlike other synths that often limited to two octaves, if properly supports the pitch bendrange RPNs at all. ChipArp just takes normal chords as input, so no learning of quirky editors or messing with 0-4-7 etc numbers is required.
Tested with Reaper only. Should work in any VST host that supports MIDI in/out type of VSTi plugins, i.e. where all 'traditional' VST arpeggiators will work (Psycle does not support them, for example). It may work with other VSTi synths than ones from 1bitstudio, but so far I found only one that actually supports pitch bend in a way that is usable for arpeggios.
Added yet another synth to the 1bitstudio - phatsynth. It is based on the idea of JP8000's SuperSaw, just in 1-bit. Was just an experiment, but the results were quite interesting. It can generate a pack of square/pulse/pin voices, up to 16, detuned around the base frequency, with controllable duty/pulse width, phase reset, etc. The number of voices works kind of resonant filter at times. Velocity can be targeted to many of the parameters besides the volume, it is useful here to create controllable changes in sound.
Interesting technique! How does it work exactly? Do you think it would be viable for a native implementation on Spectrum etc?
Well, basically that's what Mister Beep always doing in his 8-channel songs for bass, to increase its strength - a few voices of slightly detuned copies of the same bassline. Just pushed way further, like all 8-16 channels set up to do this thing automatically. So a basic version can be done on the Octode (narrow pin wave) or Squeaker (square wave) base, but for more interesting results more channels (CPU power) is needed.
Well, generating a huge number of pin pulse channels is not a problem at least, thanks to Jan Deak's buffer method. I wonder though if it's possible to come up with an elegant algorithm that uses only one oscillator and derives the detuned copies from that, like the original SuperSaw supposedly does. For example, a simple 8-bit counter that increments once per loop iteration could already be enough to generate two derivatives (one added to main osc, one subtracted).
The principial issue with a single oscillator that would produce detuned derivatives is the phase sync, I think. For now I see no way to produce detuned copies with their own phase (phases interference is what creates the effect), you'd need an unique counter to store the phase anyway. To me it seems that all possible approaches that adds/subs something constant to the main osc would produce fully synced (constant relation) phase, thus no effect.
Another different, but a bit related thing - VT2i. This is AY-3-8910 emulator combined with Vortex Tracker II instruments system. I.e. you can just load VT2 sample and ornament files and use them with a modern DAW.
I've just tested it on LMMS with Linux, and it works great!
Minor update to the 1bitstudio. All plugins now support Program Change event to switch between presets, also support preset name edits. phasesynth got extra oscillator mode, pin pulse in addition to the square/pulse wave.
In case anyone interested, yet another unrelated but hardcore retro addition to my VSTi's library - Flopster, sample-based plugin that plays floppy disk drive noises to make 'floppy music' without having actual hardware.
The 1-Bit Forum → Other Platforms → 1bitstudio - a bundle of VST plugins
Powered by PunBB, supported by Informer Technologies, Inc.