Xhip Effects for Linux & MacOS

[aciddose]

Just posting here to note that I'm very near releasing native Linux and MacOS versions of Xhip Synthesizer and Xhip Effects.

I've currently got the ports available on the Xhip alpha page, please read the info there and download/test the plug-ins if interested.

I'll appreciate any feedback about where these versions work and especially if they don't load in certain hosts or crash for any reason. This type of feedback will help me to get any bugs worked out before I make an official release and post news about it.

compressor2.0.png

At the moment the native Linux version of Xhip Effects is running well without any issues I'm aware of and has a fully functioning GUI. The MacOS version doesn't have a GUI but otherwise seems to be working fine.

This version of Xhip Effects includes some configuration and skinning capability. You can check this thread for info/discussion on that stuff.

[glokraw]

18 knobs and 3 switches on a free reverb?

The plugins all work in linux reaper, super easy to use,
with good color selections. The filter is fun and
easy to use, with great range, (well, I'm no filter
expert, just my impression) someone good with
ringmod and phaser should be able to play
a pretty mean sitar

The quantizer starts with loud noise
even with input volume off, but
I'm Sergeant Schulz at the quantize gate.
I made a nice strummer with the mdelay, once I did a lap or two.
Thanks for sharing this fine collection!

[Everglide]

Thanks!

[aciddose]

18 knobs and 3 switches on a free reverb?

Well, a lot of people might complain but I find it useful so I'm glad others do too.

I'm of the opinion that where a "weird fantastic impossible reverb as an effect" isn't needed, an impulse response / convolution is probably almost always a better solution. So tweak-ability is definitely a good thing to take it way outside the range of "normal" reverb effects.

The quantizer starts with loud noise even with input volume off,

Yes I've been meaning to look at the quantizer thump issue, it generates an offset depending upon the bits setting. For the thump on init, that's just a related initialization issue because the signal level jumps from zero. For the constant offset most likely the best solution for that is to use a high-pass filter before/after the quantizer to ensure the input/output offset is zero. Unfortunately as you change the "bits" parameter the offset will change too.

You could use +/- zero mode (one's complement) rather than 2sc (two's complement) because where you have only a single bit of resolution the output is either -1 or +1 and can't be zero, so of course an input of zero gets quantized to either -1 or +1 which looks like an offset on the output. With one's complement two bits are always present even with bits = 1, the sign bit (+ or -) and the magnitude bit (0 or 1) so the output is -1, -0, +0 or +1.

The only real practical solution is to use a high-pass filter and just accept the offset generated by 2sc mode since it is a natural consequence of bit reduction and can't be "fixed".

As far as thumps on init with lower bit depth the solution would be to apply a high-pass filter inside the effect and initialize it to the "zero" value depending upon the number of bits. That way when the plug-in starts up the signal will always be exactly zero while there is zero input. When I last looked at this issue I decided against including a filter, although I've been reconsidering my position on this since the initial click has been bothering me quite a lot recently.

edit: Since I edited the post to improve the wording already I should also mention that technically the issue could be "fixed"; the method used generally is to set the value of +1 to = 0 on output. In other words the range of numbers is from -(N+1) to +N because one of the positive numbers is used to represent zero. So you can always be one "extra" step in the negative direction.

This isn't a great solution with only very few bits because the "square" generated is then -1 and 0 rather than -1 and +1, so there is still a DC offset on the output, just only when a signal is being passed rather than with silence. So in that case a high-pass filter is still needed and although the initialization issue is skipped it doesn't really help anything because the filter is the expensive part.

[glokraw]

I put your RC Filter in front of the Quantizer, and settled on these
settings as the ballpark for testing guitar and keyboard sounds:

RC Filter

Frequency
152 Hz
Mode H24

Quantize S & H

Rate 3oclock
Jitter 9oclock
Bits 3:20
Dither off
Zero -either position

Thanks for the detailed explanation/hints
Cheers

[Everglide]

I do not see the Mac effects alpha download

[aciddose]

Yep, I still need to test and release those. That shouldn't be too difficult since it's just copying the project file and editing a few settings (project name, source files) while I've already compiled the effects in other formats (they're included in the synthesizer.)

So it's just a matter of me spending a few hours to get it done.

For Xhip Effects version 7

Linux and OSX alpha versions
Attempts have been made to create native Linux and OSX versions.
So far a fully functional version of the effects are working for Linux including the GUI.
The MacOS version remains without a GUI and has not yet been compiled and tested on the platform. This simply requires the investment of time/effort as there is no reason to expect any issues with the MacOS version.

[glokraw]

I put your RC Filter in front of the Quantizer, and settled on these
settings as the ballpark for testing guitar and keyboard sounds:

RC Filter

Frequency
152 Hz
Mode H24

Quantize S & H

Rate 3oclock
Jitter 9oclock
Bits 3:20
Dither off
Zero -either position
--------------------------------------
Added Rectifier and MDelay after the
RC Filter/Quantizer, to get a nice punchy
rythm guitar tone:

Rectifier 10:30 oclock
Polarity/Oversample either position

MDelay

left/right 9oclock
Mix 3 oclock
feedback 9 oclock
Mode center

Tone centered or off etc

Modulation

Rate 3 oclock
Depth 9 oclock
Width max
Shape centered

[aciddose]

I've just uploaded the MacOS version of the effects, you can get it from the alpha page.

[Everglide]

You keep telling me to walk into a round room and sit in a corner.

No Mac downloads

[aciddose]

You probably need to refresh the page since it is marked to cache for 7 days.

Many browsers don't actually refresh when you hit refresh, so try hitting ctrl + f5 or shift + refresh.

The file is there, it's xfx_macos_alpha_r1037.zip

This is a good issue to consider though, I'll reduce the cache length on the page to 1 hour. 7 days is actually super stupid for dynamic sites like xhip.net, I believe I set it to eliminate complaints from various tools (google, etc.)

[Everglide]

These are very handy effects and I'm enjoying using them without a GUI. There are some gems in this collection. Thank you for porting the Mac effects. My offer still stands to do some interface design Acidose.

[aciddose]

Well, with the skinning capabilities I'm working on that may or may not be of some use. Just not on MacOS since the GUI isn't ported.

The skinning functionality is still very limited and only I'd guess about 20% of the work is finished so far toward making it "fully skinnable."

It already supports customizing most aspects of the layout including spacing, widgets, fonts, backgrounds and so on but there is no support for layouts, effect-specific customization or selectable skin files. Those features are likely to be years in the future.