An 1-bit VSTi beta release - Nautilus
22 06 10 - 01:59Although most of the modern 1-bit music activity happens on ZX Spectrum, it is not limited to the platform. So does this blog, and here is the first non-ZX related post.
First, just listen to a song released in February of this year: The Zipper (alternative link)
The author of the song, µB (Florian Niederhцfer), is known as chiptune composer, and also as developer of a few chiptune-related VSTi plug-ins, such as Kraken, Medusa, and Medusa 2, which were made with SynthEdit. The Zipper song has been created using WIP version of his new 1-bit synthesizer VSTi codenamed Nautilus, with Buzz as host, single instance of the VSTi, and without any other synths or processing. The VSTi was almost completed at the time of the song's release, however then it undergo a complete reworking to add some planned features, which is still in progress, and final version release date is not known yet.
Nevertheless, now you can try it by yourself, because here is the beta version release. You should remember, it is a WIP, it does not have pretty interface or any documentation, there will be no updates for this version, and the final version will be different. However, everything is working. It was tested with Buzz and Psycle, and should work with any other host as well.
Now the feature list of the beta version. The VSTi has 16 channels:
- 8 monophonic tone generators
- 1 noise generator
- 1 super square wave generator
- 1 FM generator
- 1 AM generator
- 4 sample players
Because of lack of any documentation, here is brief overview of the controls. The VSTi currently looks like this:
You can see a lot of the controls, arranged in 16 rows. Every row contains all the parameters for one generator. Every generator is controlled by corresponding MIDI channel.
Eight topmost rows are the controls of the tone generators (MIDI channels 1-8). Don't forget that 1-bit means no volume control, so there are no decay or sustain parameters, or velocity support. The controls, from the left to the right, are:
Length - duration of the sound, from shortest to longest
P.Width - duty cycle, from 50% to almost 0%
Phase - phase shift
Glide - automatic portamento speed, from fastest to slowest
Detune - detune, middle position is no detune
Vib.Speed - vibrato speed, from slowest to fastest
Vib.Depth - vibrato depth, from none to max
Arp.Speed - automatic arpeggio speed, applied when a few notes taken at once on the channel (Glide should be zero), from slowest to fastest
OR/XOR - method of mixing the channel with others
Noise generator (MIDI channel 9) has only three controls, all of them are the same as for tone generators. Noise frequency depends from the note.
Three special synths, super square (MIDI channel 10), FM (11), and AM (12), also has similar set of the parameters. They works together with tone generators, you can select them with 1-8 checkboxes. To control the special synth, including frequency, you have to use MIDI channels of both the special synth and the tone generator(s).
Last four generators are sample players (MIDI channels 13-16). You can load any WAV file into the generator using small button on the right of the Length slider, and it will be automatically converted to 1-bit lo-fi sample. Pitch of the sample is depends from the note.
Now, if you searching download link everythere, here it is: download the Nautilus beta (1.37M)
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