Fathom Synth Development Thread

[FathomSynth]

For years during Fathom's development I struggled with finding the exact technical reason why a very select handful of soft synths sound so much more hardware like than anything else on the market. These would include Omnisphere, Lennar Digital Sylenth and uHe Diva. This trick can not be found anywhere in the DSP literature because the companies that know this secret are understandably reluctant to share it. However, after working on the project for over eight years now I believe I have discovered it. Only recently it occurred to me. I can't discuss it in detail but it is related to the most rudamentary mathematics of how the sound is generated. So a short time ago I began a redesign of Fathom's entire sound engine using this technology and will be releasing this sometime in 2024. This will also include analog emulation down to the individual partial level for a true hardware sound. This will mean that a Seaweed Audio synth will not only have more features and parameters than most (if not all) soft synths on the market but the best analog sound or at least equal to the leaders mentioned.

[Korg Supporter]

For years during Fathom's development I struggled with finding the exact technical reason why a very select handful of soft synths sound so much more hardware like than anything else on the market. These would include Omnisphere, Lennar Digital Sylenth and uHe Diva. This trick can not be found anywhere in the DSP literature because the companies that know this secret are understandably reluctant to share it. However, after working on the project for over eight years now I believe I have discovered it. Only recently it occurred to me. I can't discuss it in detail but it is related to the most rudamentary mathematics of how the sound is generated. So a short time ago I began a redesign of Fathom's entire sound engine using this technology and will be releasing this sometime in 2024. This will also include analog emulation down to the individual partial level for a true hardware sound. This will mean that a Seaweed Audio synth will not only have more features and parameters than most (if not all) soft synths on the market but the best analog sound or at least equal to the leaders mentioned.

Does this include filters? Will the price remain the same? I also wonder if that means there will be inharmonic additive synthesis.

[glokraw]

That's great news. Congrats on perseverance in pursuit of excellence !

[FathomSynth]

Filters are filters so not much will change there since most digital filter algorithms are independent of the way that the oscillators generate the sound going into them. Algorithmic filters can work directly on the partials themselves and Fathom already has one of those built into all the oscillators along with modulation on all the partial filter parameters.

Fathom already has inharmonic additive synthesis on the metamorphic oscillator as it supports modulation of two variable partial zones which modulate the individual partials in real time. And this feature already supports vertical partial modulation on individual relative partial amplitude and horizontally in the frequency domain. Keep in mind that Fathom already supports a full featured envelope on these partials in the frequency domain with unlimited segments. That is already there. The difference will be that this envelope will be fully modulate-able.

These partial additive synthesis feature will be added to drastically with unlimited partial zones or even individual partials which can be modulated with any modulator in both the amplitude and frequency domain. This is particularly useful for adding sub-root note bass frequency content in the frequency domain and to modulate it randomly or in even multiples of the root frequency which can give a soft synth that hardware sound.

Once a sound engine oscillator is producing sound using the individual partials in real time there is virtually no limit to what you can do with the partials in terms of modulation. And I also will be taking feature requests regarding how people would like to be able to modulate the partials such as other modulators, envelopes, random number generators and various analog emulation algorithms.

Another big change will be an "easy" page with basic controls so that people can get started on the synth without having to deep dive into the hundreds of parameters already available and still get great sounds quickly. That is one feature which held Fathom back from being more popular.

The biggest difference will be analog circuit emulation and basic changes in the sound engine itself to make hardware emulation possible with zero aliasing. The basic sound engine will no longer be table driven but mathematically driven to produce a truly analog acoustic sound alias free, however the old sound engine will also be selectable if desired.

[Korg Supporter]

Great to hear, thanks! Is Fathom already Serum wavetables?

[] Peter:H []

The Update will be an insta buy

[FathomSynth]

Thanks. I have not checked recently but I'm pretty sure Fathom can export its wave tables to Serum format. I did that because Serum has a much more advanced wave table editor and modulation features and users had asked for that for a long time. I hazard a guess most Fathom users also have Serum and if they don't they should.

[RPH]

For bass music a good distortion module and multiband compressor/expander would be great to add to Fathom.
Last I remember you were still thinking about how to get the best distortion without (or almost) any aliasing.
The current distortion module in Fathom can't distort really far.

Good to read the development still continues.

If you need funding, maybe do some kind of pre-order?

[audiojunkie]

For years during Fathom's development I struggled with finding the exact technical reason why a very select handful of soft synths sound so much more hardware like than anything else on the market. These would include Omnisphere, Lennar Digital Sylenth and uHe Diva. This trick can not be found anywhere in the DSP literature because the companies that know this secret are understandably reluctant to share it. However, after working on the project for over eight years now I believe I have discovered it. Only recently it occurred to me. I can't discuss it in detail but it is related to the most rudamentary mathematics of how the sound is generated. So a short time ago I began a redesign of Fathom's entire sound engine using this technology and will be releasing this sometime in 2024. This will also include analog emulation down to the individual partial level for a true hardware sound. This will mean that a Seaweed Audio synth will not only have more features and parameters than most (if not all) soft synths on the market but the best analog sound or at least equal to the leaders mentioned.

This sounds wonderful! Please release a Linux version as well! I would love to get back into this synth!

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

You sound a bit excited Everett. This is a great thing.

[rtoip]

This sounds wonderful! Please release a Linux version as well! I would love to get back into this synth!

I support the idea - a Linux version is needed.

[cdbaksu]

Also a native apple silicon AU version!