Sonitarium v1.3 VST

Contents: Introduction Features How it works Controls Oscillator Unison Mix MIDI Mapping Installation Version History Thanks Contact Download

Download Sound demo video: One instance of Sonitarium playing, no effects, constantly changing controls.

Introduction

Features

• Aliasing-free DSF oscillators, each generating a quadrature stereo signal.
• Up to 200 oscillators per voice. Unison controls to alter the pitches and phases of the oscillators.
• Freely selectable polyphony with up to 16 voices.
• Text field input for all controls.
• Envelope and key tracking controlled volume. Adjustable pitch bend range. 
• Freely adjustable Attack, Decay, and Release slopes.
• MIDI control of all parameters (CC).
• 92 presets.

How it works

Controls

Oscillator

• Harmonics: This determines how many harmonics each oscillator generates. There is rarely an audible difference between, say, 500 and 1000 used harmonics. If the amount drops below 100, though, the difference is getting more significant.
• FreqRatio: These two knobs determine the distance between two neighbored harmonics, the frequency f_r.While the fundamental frequency f_c is specified by the currently played note and the Pitch settings, f_r is computed as
  f_r  = f_c * left / right, where "left" is the value of the left knob, "right" is the value of the right knob.
  Well, forget the math and try it. For example, a 1:1 ratio generates saw-like sounds, a 2:1 ratio generates square-like sounds.
  With the button next to the knobs you can control whether the values are rounded (which makes the sound more harmonic) or not.
• Pitch: Alters the pitch, measured in octaves. That is, a value of 1 means that the note is played one octave higher. With the button next to the knob, you can control whether the value is rounded.
• Brightness: This is the rate by which the magnitude of the harmonics drops off from the fundamental frequency. Low values make the sound dull, high values make the sound bright.
• Color: If this knob is in its leftmost position, the harmonics will be on the "left" side of the fundamental frequency only, ie. in the lower frequency range. If the knob is in its middle position, harmonics will be on both sides of the fundamental. And if it's in its rightmost position, the harmonics will be on the right side of the fundamental frequency only. Turning the knob to intermediate positions will continuously mix between those states.
  

Unison

• Oscillators: The amount of oscillators used per voice. From 1 to 100.
• Dampen: When there are many oscillators running, the upper frequencies may sound harsh at times. This control dampens that effect. Use Dampen together with Brightness to give the sound the right tone.
• Pitch-Spread: Controls the range within which the pitches of the oscillators are spread. At 0, all oscillators have the same pitch. At 1, there dissonance is at maximum.
• Pitch-Shuffle: Controls how the pitches are spread. At 0, they are spread evenly. Approaching -1 or 1, the pitches are condensed at certain spots.
• Phase-Spread: Controls the initial phases of the oscillators. At 0, all oscillators start with the same phase (when many oscillators are used, this causes a high pitched resonance sound). Approaching 1, the intial  phases are spread more and more (basically, this weakens the resonance sound and makes pads more smooth). 
• Phase-Wind: To understand this control, you best view it as a sort of time-machine that changes the initial phases defined with Phase-Spread. At 0, the initial phases are not changed. Approaching 1, the phases are "winded forward", as if the current note has already been playing for a while. Approaching -1, the phases are rewinded, ie. the initial phases are extrapolated towards the past. This is not a real forward or backward winding effect, though, because it always acts as if Phase-Shuffle was set to 0 (that is, it is real forward or backward winding if and only if Phase-Shuffle is 0). The effect becomes most audible if you have an evolving sound.
• Retrigger: If this is switched on, then the oscillator phases get reinitialized each time a note is played. If this is switched off, then each newly triggered voice inherits the oscillator phases from the last played voice. You may want to use this to make pads extra smooth, or to make a sound that keeps evolving while playing new notes.  

Mix

• Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release: Just the same old volume envelope settings. Below Attack, Decay, and Release, there are additional knobs which can be used to alter the slopes if the respective curve.

• Width: This control works different than the Width control in Tetra.When the knob is at 0, the harmonics are out of phase by 90 degrees (all cosines on the right, all sines on the left). At -1, you get a mono signal (only the left channel). At 1, it's mono as well (only the right channel).
• Angle: Angle by which the stereo image is rotated.
• Incr: The angle by which the stereo image is rotated further every time a note is played. At -90 and 90 degrees, left and right channel will be swapped with every note.
  Notice that Angle and Incr don't have an effect if Retrigger is switched off.

Miscellaneous

• Voices: The maximum amount of voices that can be active at the same time. It can be freely set between 1 and 16.
• Track: Turned to the left, lower notes get emphasized. Turned to the right, higher notes get emphasized.
• Bend: This is the pitch bend range measured in half tones. If you're using a pitch bend wheel, you may have to alter this parameter to get the desired effect.
• Volume: Limits the overall volume.

MIDI Control Mapping

Installation

Version History

• Upgraded to Synthedit1.1.
• New Skin.
• Increased maximum number of oscillators from 100 to 200.
• 10 new presets.

• About 40% less CPU drain (only on systems supporting SSE2 instructions, eg. Pentium4, Athlon64 or later).
• Fixed crackling noise when running multiple synth instances on multi-core systems.
• 22 new presets by runagate.
• Fixed potential pops and sticking notes.
• Limited the maximum generated frequency to 21kHz even at sample rates greater than 44.1kHz to avoid volume change at different sample rates.
• Downward compatible to v1.0/v1.0a.

Thanks

Contact

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