AngryOctopus

TinyMoog

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:51:45 +0000

I was intending to get this done for Robert Moog’s birthday but didn’t quite get it finished in time. I took the basic MiniMoog layout and tried to pare it down as much as possible to get cute/miniature but still useable and recognizably Moog styled synth. This is the first time I have tried modelling a full 3D interface and I didn’t quite nail the look I was after. It’s not quite finished yet as I had to overhaul all my previous GUI code to handle the 3D interface.

Click to play:

WS01 - Yamaha CS01 emulation

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 16:54:36 +0000

I was experimenting with using a mic as a breath controler so decided to try a CS01 emulation. Using the mic as breath controller didn’t really work out so I ditched it, but the synth itself is ok. The breath control responds to both midi expression and breath messages. Click to play:

MiniFM - Basic 4OP FM websynth

admin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:54:46 +0000

I haven’t tried much in the way of FM so decided to have a play with a basic 4 operator DX100esq synth. The GUI is a bit more polished than my previous synths (finally put shadows on the keyboard) but the sound not so much. I have also started a new gaming project at last so haven’t had time to come up with many proper demo patches.

Korg is Awesome

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:31:15 +0000

I was totally amazed today to get an email from none-other than the designer of the Monotron himself. He congratulated me on the implementation and gave me a few hints:

- filter doesn’t sound nearly as aggressive at maximum peak.
- LFO is slower at minimum (about 15s period) and faster at maximum (>1kHz).
- monotron resets the LFO at the moment the ribbon is touched, so it
works like a simple cycling EG at slow LFO rates.
- monotron has fixed intensity keytrack. cutoff tracks ribbon position
by factor of two. only tracks ribbon not pitch knob.

I made the adjustments above and also added keyboard control for the ribbon. New version here:

It doesn’t sound particularly good at extreme modulation, something that is very hard to do digitally and where analogs really shine. I’ll have to come back to this one when I get my hands on a real Monotron and try getting a bit closer to that beautiful analog squelching.

Special thanks to Tatsuya Takahashi and Korg, can’t wait for the real thing!

Webotron

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:47:39 +0000

Checking out the videos from Musikmesse I came across the pretty awesome looking Korg Monotron. I decided to knock up a quick version as I am currently working on MS-20 style filters and thought this would be a nice test platform.

I had to guess pretty much how it works as I don’t have much to go on, not even the vco shape (sounds like a saw to me). Obviously won’t sound nearly as good as the real thing but might give some idea of the kinds of sounds it could produce.

Click to play:

Maybe just one more - SH-101ish.

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:23:43 +0000

I tend to have great difficulty finishing anything as I loose interest after about a week and also underestimate the complexity of my undertakings. I thought I would go for a basic single oscillator mono synth and I could finish it in a week (prior to loosing interest). As always it turned out to be much more complicated than I imagined and so it’s not particularly polished but here it is:

Yet another web synth - Retro6

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:24:50 +0000

Decided to go with a basic (single oscillator) synth to try and get blep synthesis sorted. I am quite impressed by the array of sounds the Korg PolySix / Roland Juno6 can produce so decided to model it around those.

Every one of these I do is getting better, both graphically and audibly. Obviously still a long way to go before I get to the level of some of the commercial synths out there but I’m on my way.

Cleanup

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:39:40 +0000

Did it bit of a long-overdue clean-up. Remove a bunch of dead-end and crappy projects. Created a separate section for music related stuff.

Another WebSynth - DarkSide

admin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:51:22 +0000

An MS-20 / StarWars inspired semi-modular synthesizer. It sounds ok, but still not great. It is really quite hard to get something that is simple and sounds fantastic. I was quite happy with the look and spent quite a while agonizing over a minimalistic set of controls.

More WebGuitar:

admin — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:22:04 +0000

I was quite happy with the idea but the implementation felt a bit unfinished so I spent a bit of time polishing. The sound is now effects laden and half decent. I actually hooked this up to my Wii Guitar Hero controller and had a great time. 5 buttons = 32 combinations (chords) so as long as you are just strumming away you can play a bunch of songs without having to re-assign chords.