Index Page

ZynAddSubFX user interface and more..

The synthesizer has three types of parameters:

- Master settings/parameters  contains all parameters
- Instrument parameters  contains ADnote/SUBnote parameters for a part
- Scale settings contains the settings of scales(yep. it is microtonal synth) and few other parameters related to tunings


    1) The Main Window

 

- Record - Choose a file for recording to. After you'll choose a file, the "Rec" button will be activated, and you can press it to start recording. Press "Stop" button to stop recording and close the file or "Pause" to stop recording, but without closing the file (this allows you press again "Rec" button, to continue the recording). Please do not switch windows/tasks while recording, because you may ecounter audio dropouts.
- M.Vol - Master Volume
- Master Key Shift - is the keyshift that applies to all parts
- Scales - Scale Settings
- Panic! - stops imediately any sounds, including the effects
- System Effects/ Insertion Effects - Effects settings
 The file recorded will be a 16 bit, unsigned and mono raw file. You can convert the file to wav file with an external program like sox (e.g  ' sox -sw -r 44100 -c 2 recorded.raw recorded.wav').
- Part - show and set current part.
- Enabled - This enable the part. If the Part is disabled it doesn't take the CPU time.
- Volume - Part Volume
- Vel.Sns and Vel. Off. - Velocity Sensing and Offset
- KeyShift - Keyshift of the part.
- Chn.Rcv. - From what Midi channel receives the midi messages
- AllNotesOff - turn all part's notes off
- Note On - if the part receives Note on messages. Please take attention that it is different than Enabled setting, because it takes CPU time, and the unfinished notes continues to play if you'll disable it.
- ADsyn/SUBsyn - activate or deactivate ADsynth/SUBsynth
- ADsyn edit/SUBsyn edit - edit ADsynth/SUBsynth parameters
- To Sys Efx. set how much of the part output is routed to System effects
If you change tha current part, all part's instrument windows will be closed.


    2) The Scale Settings

This controls the microtonal capabilities of the ZynAddSubFX and some other settings related to tunning.

- Enable Microtonal - if you'll disable this the synth will use Equal Temperament 12 notes/octave. Otherwise you can input any scale you desire.
- "A" freq  - set the frequency of the "A" key. The standard is 440.0 Hz
- "A" note - set the midi note number of the "A" key
- Invert keys - If you'll enable this, the keyboard will be turned upside-down. It was to cute ideea to not implement it.
- Center - set the center of inversion of keys. If the center is 60, the note 59 will become 61, 58 will become 62, 61 will become 59 and so on.
- Name - the name of the scale
- Comment - Comments or description of the scale
- Shift - shift the scale. If the scale is tuned to A you can easily tune it to another key.
- Tunning - here you can input your scale by entering all tunnings for one octave.

You can enter the tunnings in two ways:

- as a the number of cents (1200 cents=1 octave) as a float number like "100.0", "123.234"
- as a proportion like "2/1" which represents one octave, "3/2" a perfect fifth, "5734/6561".
"2/1" is equal to "1200.0" cents.
The last entry represents one octave. All other notes are deduced from theese settings.


3) ADsynth/ADnote settings
This is the most complex and most advanced/sophisticated part of the synthesizer.
 

You can edit the parameters that's applies to all voices of ADsynth.

Vol. - is the volume of ADsynth
Pan. - Panning, leftmost is random
V.Sns. - Velocity Sensing
Stereo Enabled - If it turned off all voices will have the panning disabled

CenterFreq. - Filter Center Frequency
Q - is the ressonance or bandwidth. Some filter types ignores this.
V.Sns.A. - the amplitude of the velocity sensing

Detune. - is the detune of all voices
C.detune - is the coarse detune of all voices
Oct. - Octave Shift
Type - you can set how "Detune" and "C.detune" behaivour

Show Voice Parameters - shows the parameters of current voice
Show Voice List - shows a list of some important parameters of all voices
Close - close the window



4) ADsynth voice parameters

 
On - turn voice On/Off
Delay - delay before the voice starts
R. - Enable/Disable the resonance to the voice
Vol - Voice Volume
Minus - if the voice's volume is negative
V.Sns. - Velocity Sensing
Enable - enable LFOs or envelopes

Bypass Global Filter - If the voice signal bypasses the global filter
CenterFreq - filter center frequency
Q - Ressonance or bandwidth

Detune. - is the detune of the voice
C.detune - is the coarse detune of the voice
Oct. - Octave Shift
Type - you can set how "Detune" and "C.detune" behaivour; 0 is for default (used in ADnote Global Parameters)

Phase - Phase of the oscillator
Ext. Oscil. - Uses the oscillator of another voice. -1 is for internal oscillator.  The parameters must be lower than the voice index, you can't use the oscillator from a voice with a bigger index (you can't use the oscillator of voice 8 for voice 4). This is very used because if you'll use many voices with same oscillator settings, you can use only one oscillator and put other voices to use this; if you'll change a parameter of the oscillator, all voices will update this.

Type. - select the type of the modullator (Off, Morph, Ring Modullation, Phase Modullation,etc.)
Ext. Mod - use another voice as modullator instead of internal voice's modullator. You can make a modullation "stack". The voice's modullator is disabled.
F.Damp - how the modullator intensity is lowered according to lower/higher note frequencies.
Ext. - Uses the modulato's oscillator of another voice. It behaves like "Ext. Oscil" except it works on modullator. Please notice the difference between this parameter and Ext. Mod.



5) ADsynth Oscillator Editor

This allow you to make unlimited number of oscillators.

Mag. Type - set how magnitudes from the user interface behaves (Linear/ -40dB/...)
rnd - Set the randomness of the oscillator output. There are 2 types of randomnesses, first is group randomness(the oscillator starts at random position) is from -64(max) to -1 (min) and each harmonic (the oscillator is phased distosioned) is from 1(min) to 63 (max).  0 is no randomness. You should use this parameter for making warm sounds like analogue synthesizers.
Base function - Set what function use as base function. You can use any of base function as harmonics.
Par. - change the parameter of the base function.
Use as base - convert the oscillator ouput to a base function. If you'll change the Base function or it's parameter, you'll erase the converted base function.
Clr. - clear the settings and make the oscil to be equal to base function. If this is cleared you can pus "Use as base" button to make multiple conversions to base functions.
W.sh. - Wave shaping function that applies to oscillator. It has one parameter that fune tune the waveshaping function.

Below are the hamonics and their phases. You can use them to add to oscillator harmonics that has the waveform of the base function. Increasing the number of harmonics has vitually no effect on CPU usage.
Right click to set a harmonic/phase to a the default value.
Clear - clears the harmonics settings.



6) Voice List

With this you can set most important parameters of the voices.

Vol. - set the Volume of the voice
Pan - Panning
Detune - Fine detune of voices
Vib. Depth - the depth of Frequency LFO. It is very used because with the detune settings you can make very good sounding instruments.
R. - enable/disable the resonance effect to a voice




7) SUBsynth(SUBnote) Parameters


 

Vol. - The volume of SUBsynth
Pan. - Panning
V.Sns. - Velocity Sensing

Band Width - the bandwidth of each harmonic
B.WidthScale - how the bandwidth of each harmonic is increased according to the frequency. The default (0) increase the bandwidth lineary acorrding to the frequency.

Detune. - is the fine detune
C.detune - is the coarse detune
Oct. - Octave Shift
Type - you can set how "Detune" and "C.detune" behaivour

The harmonics settings controls the harmonic intensities/relative bandwidth. Up is to increase the relative bandwidth.
Please notice that if you increase the number of harmonics, the CPU usage increases. Right click to set the parameters to default values.

Stereo - make the instrument stereo. The CPU usage goes up about 2 times.

Filter stages - How many times apply the filter to white noise. This parameter affect the CPU usage.
Mag. Type - What represents the magnitudes settings (Lineat/dBs)
Start - How to start the filters.
Clear - Clear the hermonics settings.



8) Effects
     There are 2 types of effects: system effects and insertions effects. The system effects applies to all parts and allows to set the amount of effect that applies on each parts. The insertion effects applies to one part or to master out. You may use more than one insertion effects for one part or master out. If you'll do so the effect with smaller indexes will apply first(eg. first will be applied the insertion effect no.0, than no.1, ...). If the part selected for insertion effect is "-1" than, the effect will be disabled; if the part will be "-2" the effect will be applied to master out.

Effects parameters:
        - Vol - effect volume
        - D/W - Dry/Wet  mix. "Dry" means unprocessed signal and "wet" means processed signal.
        - Pan - effect panning

Reverb
        - Time - Duration of late reverb
        - I.del - Initial delay
        - I.delfb  - Initial delay feedback (not recomanded to use to low initial delays)
        - LPF, HPF - LowPass and HighPass filters
        - Damp - how high frequencies are damped during the reverberation

Echo
        - Delay - The delay of echo
        - LRdl. - The delay between left/right channels
        - LRc.  - the "crossing" between left/right channels
        - Fb. - feedback
        - Damp - how high frequencies are damped

Chorus
        - Freq. - LFO frequency
        - Rnd. - LFO randomness
        - LFO type - set the LFO shape
        - St.df. - the phase difference between LFO for left/right channels
        - Dpth - LFO depth
        - Delay - delay for chorus, if you'll use low delays and LFO depths, will result a flange effect
        - Fb. - Feedback
        - L/R - how the left/right channels are routed to output, leftmost=left to left and right to right, middle=left+right to mono, and rightmost=left to right, and right to left
        - Substract - the output is inversed

Phaser
        - Freq. - LFO frequency
        - Rnd. - LFO randomness
        - LFO type - set the LFO shape
        - St.df. - the phase difference between LFO for left/right channels
        - Dpth - LFO depth
        - Stages - how many times the phase is shifted
        - Fb. - Feedback
        - L/R - how the left/right channels are routed to output, leftmost=left to left and right to right, middle=left+right to mono, and rightmost=left to right, and right to left
        - Substract - the output is inversed

AlienWah
    AlienWah is a nice effect done by me. It ressembles a bit with vocal morpher or wahwah, but is more strange. That's why I called "alienwah" (btw. I don't belive in aliens or E.T. ;-) ). The effect is a feedback delay with complex numbers.

        - Freq. - LFO frequency
        - Rnd. - LFO randomness
        - LFO type - set the LFO shape
        - St.df. - the phase difference between LFO for left/right channels
        - Dpth - LFO depth
        - Delay - how big is the delay before the feedback.
        - Fb. - Feedback
        - L/R - how the left/right channels are routed to output, leftmost=left to left and right to right, middle=left+right to mono, and rightmost=left to right, and right to left
        - Substract - the output is inversed
        - Phase - the phase of alienwah



9) Resonance

The resonance effect acts as a "ressonance box" or a filter with arbitrary frequency response. This produces very realistic sounds.

Resonance parameters:
    - the graph let you to draw it in "freehand" mode
    - Enable - Turn the Resonance on.
    - Max - How strong is the resonance: lower values has little effect. Use the roller below to set it.
    - C.f - the center frequency of the graph
    - Oct. - How many octaves the graph represents
    - Amplification - how the output signel is amplified
    - Zero - clears the graph
    - Smooth - smooth the graph
    - Close - closes the window

The cursor location is shown below the graph (the frequency - kHz and amplitude - dB).