Comb filter for Max4Live + modular dreams

Yesterday I started to learn Max4Live plugin development. For the first trial comes the remake of my simple Comb Filter with feedforward topology. You can see the old VST version here. The M4L version is on maxforlive.com.

I may make some more, depending on time and ideas coming (some ambitious ideas might take a long time to finish). I’m also looking forward to Oscillot modular synthesizer – it’s easier to add own little plugin to already existing library of over 100 devices, than to build fully-blown synth from scratch. Even Oscillot Lite version can sound great. Unfortunatelly, so far it got little attention from customers – much less than it deserves, IMO.

Recently I was also inspired by Eurorack and it’s unusual modules which create random, seemless patterns and envelopes. This is certainly something that classic substractive synthesis is missing. Instead of having complete synth with all features you want, take random oscillator and let it make the music on it’s own, something you wouldn’t imagine. Check these movies, they are very inspiring.

Comb Filter VST updated to 2.0

It doesn’t seem like such simple plugin would need any upgrade, but it had some issues, for which I apologize.

Now all the bugs with mono/stereo channels are gone.

Additionally, Comb Filter will not change it’s frequency with sampling rate. Sampling rates up to 192 KHz are supported in full range, at frequency 1 Hz. However, if you set higher frequency, sampling rate can be rised proportionally – there is no limit that could be reached in practical situation that I know of.

Download link is updated. Get it here.

Two new plugins: Comb Filter and Volume Halver

I made two tiny plugins in the meantime and want to share them with everybody.

Comb Filter

Among hundreds of effect racks, mastering suites and filter banks sometimes it’s hard to find exactly what you are looking for. That thing was comb filter, as simple as possible. What it does is to filter out even or odd harmonics and boost the others – perfect for shaping the noise of percussion, in particular.

Take a look at frequency response from Wikipedia:

Alpha on the graph is represented by “Mix” knob, while “2pi” is your frequency.

Comb filters are also elements of phasers and flangers, so you may want to use them that way.

Features

• Positive or negative ratio
• Minimal CPU usage
• High precision control

Download

Volume Halver

Plugin designed to reduce track volume before mastering without loss of precision.

Halving the volume may sound like trivial operation, but there’s more in it. If you try to lower the volume directly from your DAW, multiplying by real number may result in rounding error. Volume halver fixes that, as it multiplies the signal exactly by half, so no rounding is present. This way the only precision you may ever loose is the least sgnificant bit – but that’s inherent disadvantage of any computer system and not the tools you use.

It doesn’t even have GUI – just drop one on two on your track before mastering, so it does not clip.

Download