Robin Schmidt’s Music Engineering Tools has released version 1.0 of Straightliner, a straight-lined subtractive synthesizer in a modern guise.

Straightliner key features

• 4 alias free Oscillators, each of which may load a stereo or mono single cycle wave file (.wav or .flac).
• Full stereo signal path for wide and enveloping sounds right from the start even without any effects.
• Multimode filter with 15 modes, among them a sophisticated Moog model.
• 2 flexible modulation generators, with an arbitrary number of breakpoints and 9 options for the shape in between any pair of breakpoints.
• Support of microtuning via import of .tun files.
• Hierarchical preset management to let you load and save presets not only for the synth as a whole but also separately for each relevant building block to easily hybridize your patches.
• Intuitive WYSIWYG user interface to let you comprehend patches at a glance - optimized for use with screen and mouse rather than mimicking hardware.

Straightliner is available as a VST plug-in for Windows PC and costs €89 EUR. A demo version can be downloaded from the product page.

Visit Robin Schmidt’s Music Engineering Tools for more information.

rs-met has released version 0.9 of Straightliner, a subtractive synthesizer plug-in for Windows PC.

Changes in Straightliner v0.9

• Bug fix: opening GUI while receiving MIDI-automation was not correct.
• Envelope depth-by-key and depth-by-vel are now bipolar.
• Moog Filter has additional pre-allpass filter to pre-shape the input.
• Moog Filter make-up by low-shelf removed (because it was not really useful and required CPU).
• DC blocker (first order highpass at 10 Hz) for the overall output signal.
• Custom color schemes can be defined.
• Several cosmetic changes in the GUI.

This beta version has demo restrictions: after 20 minutes of use, the output is muted & total recall (state saving/restoring) by the host is disabled (the internal preset management is fully functional).

Visit rs-met for more information.

rs-met has released version 0.7 of Straightliner, a subtractive synthesizer plug-in for Windows PC.

Changes in Straightliner v0.7

• Sustain now works correctly.
• Info-field at the bottom replaces popup help.
• Detuning in Hz per oscillator.
• More filter types implemented.
• Some efficiency optimizations in the DSP and GUI code.
• Support of microtuning (this implementation is preliminary as it supports only a proprietary XML based tuning file format, .tun support is scheduled for the final version).
• More presets, more waveforms (which are now released under the terms of the creative commons license).
• XML patch format changed.

Note: the change in the patch format will break preset compatibility to earlier versions. To make the preset (or a state recalled by the host) sound as before, you will need to manually adjust the MakeUp-Gain parameter - otherwise, the old preset will usually sound weaker/thinner than before.

This beta version has demo restrictions: after 20 minutes of use, the output is muted & total recall (state saving/restoring) by the host is disabled (the internal preset management is fully functional).

Visit rs-met for more information.

rs-met has released Pitch Shifter, a freeware VST plug-in for Windows PC.

This shifter is based on a delayline with two crossfaded read pointers (as a metaphor from the analog world, think of a loop of tape with one recording head and two play heads mounted on a rotating head drum). Such an architecture allows for feedback - and feedback gives the potential to rather drastic, weird special effects like monster-voices, flanger-like effects and more.

Pitch Shifter features

• Pitch shift coarsely in semitones, finetune in cents.
• Output of the pitch shifter is a delayed copy of a segment of the input signal, played back
  at a different speed (so it is delayed, and pitch shifted).
• Dry/Wet control.
• Grain Length: control the size of the grains.
• Grain-adapt: adjust the grain-length in units of multiples of the pitch period rather than in milliseconds.
• Anti-Alias low-pass filtering.

Visit rs-met for more information and a link to download Pitch Shifter.