Buttersynth. New Hybrid Synth from the makers of Cream Mobile

dendy

in my experience most people hold plethora of synths (both SW or HW) because they use mainly presets with minimal tweaking .. that's not bad thing, just sayin' .. synths are basically for them as containers for presets so it absolutely makes sense to hold all of them on device / in studio - even when they overlap or one can fully replace other and more ..

Samu

I'll be honest I'll likely end up getting da butter at some point but...

Do the 'regular' ADSR envelopes have any curve-control (log/exponential) at all?
Is all modulation (Envelope and LFO output etc) done at 'audio-rate' and/or can this be adjusted for stepped modulation?

Is there any 'input velocity response curve' to work-around the direct velocity to level mapping?
(Not a biggie, I can set my controller to use fixed velocity or route the midi via a AUv3 MidiFX like Mela but still).

Do each of the operators in the 4OP FM oscillator have their set envelopes or do they 'share' the global envelopes?

What kind of 'y-snap grid' options do the curve envelopes and step-sequencers have? (a user definable grid?).

Do the LFOs have control over the start-phase?
What about LFO re-trig options, any legato options here? (Ie. do not re-trigger LFO or Envelopes when playing legato).

For me this is a pretty essential feature being a total slowly swept PWM junkie.
(Not many synths get this right but there's one in the works that fulfills 99.9999% of my PWM needs with superb playability and it's NOT Drambo LOL).

Cheers!

dendy

@Samu

Do the 'regular' ADSR envelopes have any curve-control (log/exponential) at all?

Every modulation in mod matrix can be set to liner, log, inverted log, exponential, inverted exponential in mod matrix .. so not just basic ENV but also curve envelopes, lfos, whatever mod source you use

Is all modulation (Envelope and LFO output etc) done at 'audio-rate'

To my knowledge modulation is not processed at audio rate, that would be absolute overkill on CPU .. but not stepped of course, it's smoothed

In case i'm correctly informed modulation source is applied on target once per BUFFER and plus it is smoothed (small inerita) to avoid clicks 'n pops.. (but don't quote me here, i'm not completely sure with this)

Is there any 'input velocity response curve' to work-around the direct velocity to level mapping?

no at the moment, it's on todo list

Do each of the operators in the 4OP FM oscillator have their set envelopes or do they 'share' the global envelopes?

Operators by default doesn't have set any envelope (or on in other words FM oscillator doesn't have own dedicated envelopes) so it's up to you configure modulation throug mod matrix - all operator controls (ratio, amount, feedback) can be freely modulad by any mod source ...

Only main volume of whole oscillator (after operators are mixed together) is controlled by one of main 4 envelopes (1 by default like all other oscillators)

What kind of 'y-snap grid' options do the curve envelopes and step-sequencers have? (

no y-snap, just x, it's on todo list

Do the LFOs have control over the start-phase?

only when they should be retriggered (global, new note, etc..). LFOs are rather simple (just tempo synced, no free run) - curve envelopes are mentioned to be used as advanced LFOs (amongst other things)

For me this is a pretty essential feature being a total slowly swept PWM junkie.

So you're like Nick Batt :-D Yeah slow PWM sweeps are nice and i personally didn't noticed any stepping or other negative artefacts .. Also nice is, you can PWM literally any wave not just square ..

Samu

@dendy said:

@Samu

Do the 'regular' ADSR envelopes have any curve-control (log/exponential) at all?

Every modulation in mod matrix can be set to liner, log, inverted log, exponential, inverted exponential in mod matrix .. so not just basic ENV but also curve envelopes, lfos, whatever mod source you use

That I get...
...I was more thinking about the 'ramp' on attack, decay and release phases.

To my knowledge modulation is not processed at audio rate, that would be absolute overkill on CPU .. but not stepped of course, it's smoothed

Good to know...

For typical chip-tune 'parameter abuse' the parameters are updated at least every 20ms (50Hz PAL) down down to 2.5ms (Play routine updates the parameters 8 times per frame (That's about the max for a 'fastish' play-routine on a ~1Mhz C64)

In case i'm correctly informed modulation source is applied on target once per BUFFER and plus it is smoothed (small inerita) to avoid clicks 'n pops.. (but don't quote me here, i'm not completely sure with this)

Ok, I guess the internal buffer is NOT the same as the 'Audio Buffer' (I recall BM3 used a 32 sample buffer internally).

Is there any 'input velocity response curve' to work-around the direct velocity to level mapping?

no at the moment, it's on todo list

Goodie, this is very handy for taking the playability of a preset.

What kind of 'y-snap grid' options do the curve envelopes and step-sequencers have? (

no y-snap, just x, it's on todo list

Goodie, looking forward to +/-12 Y-grid (Say hello to chip-arpeggios).

So you're like Nick Batt :-D Yeah slow PWM sweeps are nice and i personally didn't noticed any stepping or other negative artefacts .. Also nice is, you can PWM literally any wave not just square ..

Yes, wave-tables can be 'squashed' and mangled

...here's a quick 75BPM noodle with my new favorite PWM synth (it will be MacOS (Intel/Mx), iOS & iPadOS).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/au5r9qbop76b727/MChip.wav?dl=0

3 instances with same preset and minor 'performance' tweaks, no processing addition effects and Logic's drummer for drums...
...it's totally un-quantized and all parts are played live.

Cheers!

drewinnit

@dendy said:

@Samu

LFOs are rather simple (just tempo synced, no free run)

(all good, I'll assign Drambo mods when needed )

@Samu lovely sounds and melodies in that track!

[Deleted User]

@drewinnit said:

@dendy said:

@Samu

LFOs are rather simple (just tempo synced, no free run)

(all good, I'll assign Drambo mods when needed )

@Samu lovely sounds and melodies in that track!

…external/Drambo modulation on auv3 parameters is cpu hungry

tahiche

@dendy said:

@tk32 said:

@craftycurate said:
One little tweak would be to have the option to remove the "Do you want to save this patch?" dialog when you've tweaked a patch.

Trust me, you wouldn't want it the other way. So many lovely beta presets lost due to a momentary mis-press...

Honestly i am little bit annoyed too, when it appears on FACTORY patches .. on my own patches it's highly useable but on factory patches don't think so .. just never mentioned it cause i thought it's just me

+1 you’re not alone!. I also find it quite annoying. It scares me.

dendy

attakk

@dendy said:

Yes!! 👏👏👏

gregsmith

@attakk said:

@dendy said:

Yes!! 👏👏👏

Oh fuck yes!! This was hugely unexpected. Made my day 😊😊😊

gregsmith

Presumably the preorder is a discounted price?

https://twitter.com/kirnuarp/status/1649520115426242560

NeuM

@gregsmith said:
Presumably the preorder is a discounted price?

No one knows. I think it might be safe to assume the price could change later.

gregsmith

@NeuM said:

@gregsmith said:
Presumably the preorder is a discounted price?

No one knows. I think it might be safe to assume the price could change later.

Preordered… was definitely buying it now iphone support has been added anyway

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

dendy

@gregsmith said:
@attakk said:

@dendy said:

Yes!! 👏👏👏

Oh fuck yes!! This was hugely unexpected. Made my day 😊😊😊

taking small credit for this 🤣, it was my initiative, convinced dev that UI is good enought to be used even on smaller screen :-)

attakk

@dendy said:

@gregsmith said:
@attakk said:

@dendy said:

Yes!! 👏👏👏

Oh fuck yes!! This was hugely unexpected. Made my day 😊😊😊

taking small credit for this, it was my initiative, conviced dev that UI is good enought to be used even on smaller screen :-)

Thank you 🙏😊👍

gregsmith

@dendy said:

@gregsmith said:
@attakk said:

@dendy said:

Yes!! 👏👏👏

Oh fuck yes!! This was hugely unexpected. Made my day 😊😊😊

taking small credit for this, it was my initiative, conviced dev that UI is good enought to be used even on smaller screen :-)

You’re the man! It was the first thing I thought too when I joined the beta, as the ui is organised in nice neat rows 😉

eross

so when is butter synth out? is it this week?

gregsmith

@eross said:
so when is butter synth out? is it this week?

Friday I think

Gavinski

@dendy - relative to your very interesting comments above re ‘what makes a synth sound good’ and the importance of testing with filter sweeps. I’m wondering if you have a preferred AUv3 filter app that you like to use to compare against the inbuilt filters in iOS synths when sweeping? This Q is also open to anyone else who has thoughts on this of course!

gregsmith

@Gavinski said:
@dendy - relative to your very interesting comments above re ‘what makes a synth sound good’ and the importance of testing with filter sweeps. I’m wondering if you have a preferred AUv3 filter app that you like to use to compare against the inbuilt filters in iOS synths when sweeping? This Q is also open to anyone else who has thoughts on this of course!

I’d like to know this too. I always reach for bleass filter as I love the interface and built in lfo, but don’t know enough about filters to know if it’s any good or not. Need to try the tests you mentioned @dendy

The only filter that’s ever blown me away on ios is the LP one in sunrizer. There’s a sweet spot on the envelope amount knob that just sounds awesome to my naive ears.

Gavinski

@gregsmith said:

@Gavinski said:
@dendy - relative to your very interesting comments above re ‘what makes a synth sound good’ and the importance of testing with filter sweeps. I’m wondering if you have a preferred AUv3 filter app that you like to use to compare against the inbuilt filters in iOS synths when sweeping? This Q is also open to anyone else who has thoughts on this of course!

I’d like to know this too. I always reach for bleass filter as I love the interface and built in lfo, but don’t know enough about filters to know if it’s any good or not. Need to try the tests you mentioned @dendy

The only filter that’s ever blown me away on ios is the LP one in sunrizer. There’s a sweet spot on the envelope amount knob that just sounds awesome to my naive ears.

I do like using Volcano for this

gregsmith

@Gavinski said:

@gregsmith said:

@Gavinski said:
@dendy - relative to your very interesting comments above re ‘what makes a synth sound good’ and the importance of testing with filter sweeps. I’m wondering if you have a preferred AUv3 filter app that you like to use to compare against the inbuilt filters in iOS synths when sweeping? This Q is also open to anyone else who has thoughts on this of course!

I’d like to know this too. I always reach for bleass filter as I love the interface and built in lfo, but don’t know enough about filters to know if it’s any good or not. Need to try the tests you mentioned @dendy

The only filter that’s ever blown me away on ios is the LP one in sunrizer. There’s a sweet spot on the envelope amount knob that just sounds awesome to my naive ears.

I do like using Volcano for this

If only it was universal I would buy it.

Although I do have TB dual vcf. Not sure I’ve ever even opened it 😳

frosttrance_7

@dendy said:

@tahiche
What makes a synth sound good?.

Very good question… there are many things, few most important:

1/ Oversampling for oscillators, filters, overdrive

All processes where is risk of digital aliasing/nonharmonic distortion .. this costs CPU and many devs do not use it to save CPU but then it results to nasty alising noise (try put resonance to max in Model D and then sweep cutoff - you will hear nasty noise sound on high cutoff value)

Bad example where leads lack of oversampling on oscillators is Bleass Omega - example i posted above. Also Megalit is suffering by this problem - try play square wave on high octaves in Megalit - you hear nasty alising (that digital noise you hear on background of played sound - i can record example if you want).

One would say this is just example of extreme situation - but those are exactly problems, which when solved properly, have profound impact on overall “good” sound of synth.

Compromise solution for oscillators is to use bandlimited waves - basically limiting spectrum of oscillator’s wavetable with lowpass filter so oscillator doesn’t produce that much high frequency content ( which can lead to alising on higher octaves or with FM midulation or overdrive is applied) - but then oscilkators starts sounfing thin and dull.

2/ Smooth modulation - for example filter - when you do slow sweep with high resonance, you should not hear “stepping” but it should be completely smooth even for very slow sweep. Same can be applied to pitch modulation. But thus is needed to be properly handled also for FAST sweep - there you need to use smart way of interpolating values with some inertia to preserve smoothness but change value fast enough - again horrible examole is Audiokit Synth One - try do filter sweep very fast (just set resonance somewhere around 50% to hear it, then use saw oscillator, without any othwr modultions try quickly close lowpass cutoff from max to zero - you literally hesr how value is changing too slow even after you moved knob to zero value)

3/ High enough modulation rate - mod rate is frequency with which synth engine applies modulation data (envelopes, lfos, ..) to modulated target (filter, pitch, etc). Ideally it should go to audio rate range - but this is really CPU hungry so often it is uses significantly lower frequency. But then things like fast envelopes or fast LFOs doesn’t work good (for example you can’t make proper snappy percussive sounds with that synth), and it also technically limits max frequency of LFO (for example if mod control rate is 100hz, texhnically max possible frequency of LFO is 50hz but even at that freq, when you apply let’s say lfo>pitch mod, it sounds ugly - it sounds like “computer bleeps” - unpleasantly digital - not smooth like on analog synths.

There is lot more things and they are details when analysed just onnit’s own, out of context - but they all add together to overal synth sound. Of course DSP coding is always about compromises - more quality you want to achieve, more CPU it costs.

I also think that harmonic richness of the oscillator and harmonic distribution of the filters make a synth sound good. Also, drift between oscillators and voices makes it sound lively, and oscillator panning makes things sound wide.

dendy

oscilltors drift is relatively easy to emulate using very subtle slow lfo > pitch modulation :-)

brw i think jakob haq mase video on topic “how to make fat sound” highly suggesting to everybody, nicely sumarised most important things

@Gavinski

doesn’t have any parricular “reference” synth on ios .. there are some very good sounding filters in miRack, Zeeon, Arturia iSem is pretty close emulation of HW Sem synth filter .. there is more of them

Gavinski

@dendy said:
oscilltors drift is relatively easy to emulate using very subtle slow lfo > pitch modulation :-)

brw i think jakob haq mase video on topic “how to make fat sound” highly suggesting to everybody, nicely sumarised most important things

@Gavinski

doesn’t have any parricular “reference” synth on ios .. there are some very good sounding filters in miRack, Zeeon, Arturia iSem is pretty close emulation of HW Sem synth filter .. there is more of them

Yes, but I’m talking about an AUv3 filter app to put in the FX slot to compare how good the synth’s inbuilt filters sound. Like Volcano mentioned above. ie. Put a sweep on a synth app using its internal filter, then just play the synth but using an external fx filter sweep to see how well it compares. Do you get my idea Dendy? Like I say, using Volcano, for example, will often sound better than using an internal synth / Rompler’s built-in filter. Of course, using an external filter has disadvantages too, but just to compare the sounds of the inbuilt filters with the best standalone filters we have on iOS.

jamietopol

@dendy said:
in my experience most people hold plethora of synths (both SW or HW) because they use mainly presets with minimal tweaking .. that's not bad thing, just sayin' .. synths are basically for them as containers for presets so it absolutely makes sense to hold all of them on device / in studio - even when they overlap or one can fully replace other and more ..

I think this is very accurate. It takes technical knowledge, creativity, and a good ear to craft the sound you want from a synthesizer. Many people don't have the time, patience, or commitment to develop the skill (including me). This is why Roland has released 65 different sample packs (probably more than 10,000 different patches in total).

This has been true for decades. Yamaha sold more than 200,000 DX7 synths. What % of people who owned a DX7 could actually program a sound on it?

dendy

@Gavinski said:

@dendy said:
oscilltors drift is relatively easy to emulate using very subtle slow lfo > pitch modulation :-)

brw i think jakob haq mase video on topic “how to make fat sound” highly suggesting to everybody, nicely sumarised most important things

@Gavinski

doesn’t have any parricular “reference” synth on ios .. there are some very good sounding filters in miRack, Zeeon, Arturia iSem is pretty close emulation of HW Sem synth filter .. there is more of them

Yes, but I’m talking about an AUv3 filter app to put in the FX slot to compare how good the synth’s inbuilt filters sound. Like Volcano mentioned above. ie. Put a sweep on a synth app using its internal filter, then just play the synth but using an external fx filter sweep to see how well it compares. Do you get my idea Dendy? Like I say, using Volcano, for example, will often sound better than using an internal synth / Rompler’s built-in filter. Of course, using an external filter has disadvantages too, but just to compare the sounds of the inbuilt filters with the best standalone filters we have on iOS.

no idea, volcano is probably good choice, it should be great filter .. in theory also filters in Pro-Q3 should be same level .. other than that don't know, don't use external filter FXs other than build in filter fx in Nanostudio2

MadGav

@Gavinski said:

@dendy said:
oscilltors drift is relatively easy to emulate using very subtle slow lfo > pitch modulation :-)

brw i think jakob haq mase video on topic “how to make fat sound” highly suggesting to everybody, nicely sumarised most important things

@Gavinski

doesn’t have any parricular “reference” synth on ios .. there are some very good sounding filters in miRack, Zeeon, Arturia iSem is pretty close emulation of HW Sem synth filter .. there is more of them

Yes, but I’m talking about an AUv3 filter app to put in the FX slot to compare how good the synth’s inbuilt filters sound. Like Volcano mentioned above. ie. Put a sweep on a synth app using its internal filter, then just play the synth but using an external fx filter sweep to see how well it compares. Do you get my idea Dendy? Like I say, using Volcano, for example, will often sound better than using an internal synth / Rompler’s built-in filter. Of course, using an external filter has disadvantages too, but just to compare the sounds of the inbuilt filters with the best standalone filters we have on iOS.

The idea of a best filter is… difficult. Certainly there is the “does it work right” level but it gets subjective quickly. For instance I currently have 3 filters in my Eurorack - Oberheim SEM-style, Moog-style and Roland-style. There is nothing objectively better about one vs the other, they each sound different in a good and useful way.

Krupa

@MadGav said:

@Gavinski said:

@dendy said:
oscilltors drift is relatively easy to emulate using very subtle slow lfo > pitch modulation :-)

brw i think jakob haq mase video on topic “how to make fat sound” highly suggesting to everybody, nicely sumarised most important things

@Gavinski

doesn’t have any parricular “reference” synth on ios .. there are some very good sounding filters in miRack, Zeeon, Arturia iSem is pretty close emulation of HW Sem synth filter .. there is more of them

Yes, but I’m talking about an AUv3 filter app to put in the FX slot to compare how good the synth’s inbuilt filters sound. Like Volcano mentioned above. ie. Put a sweep on a synth app using its internal filter, then just play the synth but using an external fx filter sweep to see how well it compares. Do you get my idea Dendy? Like I say, using Volcano, for example, will often sound better than using an internal synth / Rompler’s built-in filter. Of course, using an external filter has disadvantages too, but just to compare the sounds of the inbuilt filters with the best standalone filters we have on iOS.

The idea of a best filter is… difficult. Certainly there is the “does it work right” level but it gets subjective quickly. For instance I currently have 3 filters in my Eurorack - Oberheim SEM-style, Moog-style and Roland-style. There is nothing objectively better about one vs the other, they each sound different in a good and useful way.

Radically, I still don’t have a normal dedicated filter in my euro stuff, unless a resonant eq thing counts?