Test Note

The 'Test Note' controls allow you to send a test note to the plugin, by clicking on the 'Send Test Note' button. Changing the 'key' and 'velocity' sliders will change the pitch and velocity of the test note. A key of 60 is generally considered to be 'Middle C'.

Patches Tab

Selecting the 'Patches' tab displays a list of all the patches loaded. Clicking on the name of a patch causes that patch to be selected.

The sort order of the patch list may be changed by clicking on the list headers, 'ProgNo' (program number), 'Category', and 'Name'. The sort order is somewhat "sticky": if you want to sort by category, and then sub-sort by name, click on the 'Name' header and then the 'Category' header; the list will remember that you were sorting by name before, and use that for the sub-sort. Similarly, if you want to sort by category, and then sub-sort by patch number, click on the 'ProgNo' header and then the 'Category' header.

Configuration Tab

Tuning

Sets the tuning of this instance of the plugin, as Hz for A-above-middle-C.

Polyphony

Sets the maximum polyphony for this instance of the plugin. If you attempt to play more notes than this setting, already-playing notes will be killed so that newer notes can be played. If you are getting xruns, try reducing this setting.

Monophonic Mode

'Off'

polyphonic operation.

'On'

monophonic operation, where the envelopes are retriggered upon each incoming note on event.

'Once'

monophonic operation, where the envelopes are triggered only on the first note on of a legato phrase -- that is, if you hold one note while playing a second, the envelopes will not be retriggered for the second note.

'Both'

monophonic operation, where the envelopes are retriggered at each note on, and upon note off when other keys are still held.

Glide Mode

'Legato Only'

portamento (a 'slide' in pitch between two notes) is only used when a new note is played while another is held.

'Non-legato Only'

portamento is only used for single (staccato) notes, or the first note of a legato phrase.

'Always'

portamento is always used.

'Leftover'

like 'Always', but ... more difficult to predict.

'Off'

disables portamento.

Cancel Notes On Program Change

This controls whether WhySynth will stop any playing notes before it performs a program change, which can prevent nasty surprises if the previous and new patches are not compatible. Defaults to 'On'.

File Menu

You may load additional patches by selecting 'Load Patch Bank...' from the GUI 'File' menu, and pointing the file chooser dialog to a WhySynth patch bank file. Near the bottom of this dialog is a spin button which allows you to specify the program number at which to begin loading the new patches. This allows you to overwrite the existing patches, or to add the new patches at the end. WhySynth will let you keep loading patches until you run out of memory, but the most you can really use via MIDI would be 16384 patches (128 programs times 128 banks).

Selecting 'Save Patch Bank...' from the 'File' menu will allow you to save your patch bank to a file. A file chooser dialog will appear, which you may use to specify a file name, as well as the range of patches to be saved. You can also choose the patch file format to be used: the 'Current (version 1)' format can only be read by WhySynth 20170701 and later, while the 'Backward-compatible (version 0)' format can be used by earlier versions.

The 'Import Xsynth-DSSI Patches' menu option allows you to import patches from WhySynth's predecessor, Xsynth-DSSI. This conversion is fairly accurate, but often needs a little hand tweaking, especially where multiple modulators are used on the same destination. Like 'Load Patch Bank...', this import will ask for a file name, then a program number at which to begin import patches. You also have the option of importing the patches in 'dual' mode: each set of oscillator parameters in the Xsynth-DSSI patch is applied to two WhySynth oscillators (VCO1 to Osc1 and Osc3, VCO2 to Osc2 and Osc4), and the Xsynth-DSSI filter settings are applied to both WhySynth filters, with the busing and mixdown set to make creation of stereo patches easy. Note that the import routine won't do the stereo-ification for you -- you'll need to detune the oscillators, or apply different modulation settings, in order to get a stereo image.

The '(Mis)Interpret K4 Patches...' menu option will do a similar import of Kawai K4 patches (from 15123-byte 'All Patch Data Dump' system exclusive format). Unfortunately, I don't own a K4, so I have no way of making this function anything more than a wild guess. Still, the results are sometimes interesting and useable. Patches which use PCM (non-single-cycle) samples or more than 4 unique sets of envelope parameters will be skipped. A 'dual' option is also available for doubling up 'single' mode patches ('twin' and 'double' modes need all four oscillators.) The default patch bank contains a number of these interpreted K4 patches, and another 454 are available in the included file extra/more_K4_interpretations.WhySynth.

Note that selecting 'Quit' from the 'File' menu just quits the WhySynth GUI -- the host and plugin should continue to run.

Edit Menu

Selecting a patch in the 'Patches' tab, then selecting 'Edit Patch...' from the 'Edit' menu, opens the Patch Edit window....

Oscillators

Each of the four oscillators may be operated in one of ten modes, or turned off. All of the modes have eight common controls:

• 'Pitch' and 'Detune' control the fundamental pitch of the oscillator, relative to the MIDI key. The former is in semitones, the latter in cents.

• 'Bus A Send Level' and 'Bus B Send Level' control the amount of the oscillator's output sent to each bus.

• 'Pitch Mod[ulator] Source', 'Pitch Mod Amount', 'Amp[litude] Mod Source', and 'Amp Mod Amount' allow selection of a modulation source and amount for the oscillator pitch and output level.

All of the modes also have a 'Waveform' control, whose meaning depends upon the mode, plus zero to four additional mode-dependent controls. For many of the modes, the 'Waveform' control selects one of some 168 different single-cycle 'wavecycle' waveforms. See the enclosed file doc/wavetable_guide for more information on these waveforms.

The ten oscillator modes and their controls are:

1. Asynchronous Granular - In this mode, the oscillator output is generated from many small bursts, or 'grains' of sound. The 'Waveform' control selects the wavecycle waveform used as the grain source. The additional controls in this mode are:

   • 'Grain Lz' controls the average number of grains being summed to create the sound at any one moment. The higher this setting, the more complex the resulting sound, but also the more CPU resources used!

   • 'Grain Spread' controls the amount of random deviation in the start times of each grain.

   • 'Grain Envelope' controls the length and shape of each grain. 'Gaussian' is the typical bell curve, 'Rectangular' is just that, and (Curtis) 'Roadsian' smoothly splices gaussian ends on a rectangular middle.

   • 'Grain Freq Dist[ribution]' controls the random deviation in the frequency of each grain.

2. 'FM Wave->Sine' Phase Modulation - The classic 'FM' synthesis technique invented by John Chowning and popularized by the Yamaha DX-7, with a twist. Here, one of the wavecycle waveforms is used to modulate a sine wave. Additional controls are:

   • 'Mod Freq Ratio' sets the ratio of the modulator and carrier frequencies from 0.5 to 1 when fully counter-clockwise, in integer steps up to 16 to 1 when fully clockwise.

   • 'Mod Freq Detune' offers (very) fine tuning of the frequency ratio.

   • 'Mod Index Source' and 'Mod Index Amount' control the depth of the phase modulation.

3. 'FM Sine->Wave' Phase Modulation - As above, but here a sine wave is used to modulate one of the wavecycle waveforms.

4. 'FM Wave->LF Sine' Phase Modulation - One of the wavecycle waveforms is used to modulate a very-low-frequency sine wave, yielding an effect somewhat like a rotating speaker cabinet. The additional controls for this mode are:

   • 'Low Frequency' sets the frequency of the carrier sine wave, from 1/8Hz to 2Hz.

   • 'Mod Index Bias' sets a constant depth of modulation, to which is added the variable modulation depth determined by the 'Mod Index Source' and 'Mod Index Amount' controls.

5. minBLEP - This mode uses the minBLEP technique for generating classic-analog waveforms with very little aliasing. The available waveforms are:

   0. Sawtooth+

   1. Sawtooth-

   2. Rectangular

   3. Triangular

   4. Clipped Saw

   5. Sample/Hold Noise (think '80s video game)

   minBLEP oscillators may be 'hard synced' to the previous (lower-numbered) oscillator by setting the 'Sync' control fully to 1. See the discussion of synchronization below for more information.

   The Rectangular and S/H Noise waveforms also feature pulsewidth and pulsewidth modulation settings, the Triangular waveform has slope and slope modulation controls, and the Clipped Saw waveform has tooth width and tooth width modulation controls. Beware of overmodulating a Triangular wave's slope; it can produce a loud 'pop' which I haven't yet found a fast way of avoiding.

6. Noise - This mode comes in four flavors:

   0. White noise

   1. Pink noise

   2. Low-pass filtered white noise

   3. Band-pass filtered white noise

   For the last two, additional controls are provided for the filter cutoff/center frequency, and resonance.

7. PADsynth - An implementation of Nasca O. Paul's 'PADsynth' bandwidth-enhanced additive synthesis algorithm. This mode takes the spectral profile of the source wavecycle waveform, spreads each partial over a range of frequencies, then resynthesizes the waveform to create very harmonically rich sound.

   Two important differences between this mode and the previous modes are that the resynthesis is not done in 'real time', and the resulting sound samples use a significant amount of memory. When you select a PADsynth patch, or make changes to one, it can take up to several seconds before the resynthesized sound is available (until which time WhySynth will substitute a simple sine wave.) Depending on the number of multisamples the wavecycle has, the resulting sound can take up to 3.5 megabytes of memory per oscillator. PADsynth multisamples rendered with the same parameters are shared between oscillators and WhySynth instances, but if the parameters are different, it's easy to have WhySynth eat up quite a bit of memory.

   The controls for this mode are:

   • 'Partial Width' sets the degree to which the energy of each partial in the source wavecycle is spread over a range of frequencies in the resulting sound. Higher widths result in a thicker or more chorused sound.

   • 'Partial Stretch' controls the amount by which the frequency center of each source partial is adjusted up or down. Pianos and other sound sources with stiff vibrating elements have a slight positive stretch to their sound. Very high or very low stretch values will result in metallic, clangorous, or ring-modulated sounds. Until you get a feel for what the PADsynth controls do, always start with this control near zero (straight up).

   • 'Width Scale / Mode' combines the partial width scaling parameter with the stereo/mono mode parameter. Even numbered settings are stereo, which means that the sounds written to Bus A and Bus B form a stereo image if appropriately panned. The partial width scaling controls the degree to which the partial width is increased for higher partials. Many natural sound sources scale at around 100% -- that is, partial eight will have eight times the spread of the fundamental. Lower scaling settings produce more synthetic timbres, while at higher settings the upper harmonics merge, creating 'noisy' or 'breathy' sounds.

   • 'Damping' controls the reduction in strength of higher source partials (sort of like a low pass filter). Low settings result in a brighter sound.

8. Phase Distortion - This mode implements phase distortion synthesis similar to the Casio CZ-series synthesizers. Various functions are used to speed or slow the phase progression of a sine oscillator, adding harmonics to the signal and producing a sound which is distinctly digital, yet often similar to classic analog sounds.

   • The 'Waveform' control selects the resulting waveform when bias or modulation is applied -- with zero bias and modulation, a sine wave is always produced. The waveform may be either a single shape, such as 'Sawtooth' or 'Pulse', or dual shapes which alternate in successive cycles, such as 'Saw & Pulse'. The alternation of the two shapes causes the oscillator to sound an octave below normal.

   The additional controls in this mode are:

   • 'Mod Balance' is only available when using dual waveforms, when it controls the relative amount of distortion applied during each waveform's respective cycle. For example, if the waveform selected is 'Saw & Pulse', and this control is one fourth of the way from '1st' to '2nd', then during the first, sawtooth cycle the oscillator will be twice as responsive to bias and modulation as during the second, pulse cycle.

   • 'Bias' sets the minimum level of phase distortion.

   • 'Mod Amt Source' and 'Mod Amt Amount' allow selection of a modulation source and amount to control, together with the 'Bias' amount, the total depth of phase distortion.

9. Wavecycle - In this mode, the oscillator produces one of the 168 or so different single-cycle waveforms. See the enclosed file doc/wavetable_guide for more information on the waveforms.

   Wavecycle oscillators may also be 'hard synced' to the previous oscillator, but the minBLEP anti-aliasing used only compensates for amplitude changes, not slope changes, at the phase reset, and so they will alias more at higher frequencies than a minBLEP oscillator would. The exception to this is waveform 0 'Sine 1', which does have slope delta compensation.

   Many of the waveforms are multi-sampled (for band limiting and/or formant preservation), and there is a 'Wave Sel[ect] Bias' control which may be used to bias the wavetable selection toward the higher key ranges, for lower harmonic content.

10. Wavecycle Chorus - This mode is similar to the previous 'Wavecycle' mode, except that five copies of the waveform are generated simultaneously. The additional controls for this mode are:

    • 'Tuning Spread' sets the degree to which the pitch of each copy differs from the others.

    • 'Chorus Depth' determines the extent to which the additional copies are mixed into the oscillator's output. At fully counter-clockwise, only a single copy is mixed in, while when fully clockwise, all five copies are included.

11. Waveshaper - Classic waveshaping, with the wavecycle waveforms used as the transfer functions. As of 2005/12/31, only one of the waveforms was created specifically for the waveshaper, a (rather boring) Chebychev T5 function, yet many of the other waveforms can yield interesting results. The additional controls in this mode are:

    • 'Phase Bias' adds a constant phase bias into the transfer function, allowing you to shift the 'zero phase' point of the wavecycle.

    • 'Mod Amt Bias' sets the minimum level of the sine wave input into the transfer function.

    • 'Mod Amt Source' and 'Mod Amt Amount' allow selection of a modulation source and amount for the transfer function input level.

Oscillator Synchronization

Oscillators in minBLEP and wavecycle modes have the ability to 'hard sync' to another oscillator, so that the slave oscillator's phase resets whenever the master oscillator completes a cycle. Here are the rules for using sync:

1. The oscillators are run in numeric order, from Osc1 through Osc4, and a lower-numbered master oscillator must provide sync for a higher-numbered slave.

2. FM, minBLEP, phase distortion, wavecycle, wavecycle chorus, and waveshaper oscillators can be masters.

3. Only minBLEP and wavecycle oscillators can be slaves.

4. Async granular, noise, and PADsynth oscillators neither generate nor use sync, and may appear between master and slave.

5. Multiple slaves may sync to one master.

6. Any master overwrites the previous master's sync.

Filters

The two filters each may be operated in one of seven modes, or turned off. Filter 1 can take its input from Bus A or Bus B, and Filter 2 can take its input from either bus, or from the output of Filter 1. All filter modes have cutoff/center frequency, frequency modulation, and resonance/bandwidth controls. The filter modes are:

1. The 2-pole (12dB/octave) low-pass filter from Xsynth.

2. The 4-pole (24dB/octave) low-pass filter from Xsynth.

3. Fons Adriaensen's MVC LPF-3, modeled after the voltage-controlled lowpass filter invented by R. A. Moog. This mode has an additional 'Drive' control which adjusts the level of the signal within the filter, thereby changing the intensity of its non-linear effects.

4. The 4-pole low-pass filter from amSynth.

5. A 4-pole low-pass filter with clipping. This is two, 2-pole filter stages with a hard clipper before each stage. A 'Drive' control adjusts the relative clipping threshold.

6. A 4-pole band-pass filter.

7. The 2-pole, constant-gain, 'resonz' band-pass filter from Csound. In this mode, the 'Bandwidth' control operates backwards, so that it has the same intuitive 'feel' as the 'Resonance' control in other modes: turn it counter-clockwise for wider bandwidths, clockwise for narrower.

8. A 2-pole high-pass filter.

9. A 4-pole high-pass filter.

10. A 4-pole band-reject filter.

Mix

The mix controls allow setting the output level and left/right pan of each of Bus A, Bus B, Filter 1 output, and Filter 2 output. A Master Volume control controls the level of the resulting left and right outputs.

Note that final output level is also 'hard-wired' to the EGO envelope generator.

Effects

Three effects are available: Tim Goetze's Versatile Plate reverb simulation, Sean Costello's Csound reverb, and a Dual Delay. All effects share a 'Mix' control, which sets the blend of wet (effect) and dry (uneffected) signals.

The 'Plate Reverb' has these controls:

• 'Bandwidth' controls the amount of high frequency passed from the input into the reverb simulation.

• 'Tail' controls the length of the reverb tail.

• 'Damping' controls the attenuation of high frequencies within the reverb 'tank'.

The 'Dual Delay' has these controls:

• 'Feedback' controls how much of the delayed signals is fed back into the delay lines.

• 'Feed Across' controls how much of the left signal (including feedback) is fed into the right delay line, and vice versa for right signal into left delay line. With zero Feed Across, the left and right channel delays are completely independent. With full Feed Across, sounds will 'ping-pong' between the two channels.

• 'Left Delay' and 'Right Delay' set the left and right delay times, respectively.

• 'Damping' controls the attenuation of high frequencies going in to the delay lines.

The 'SC Reverb' has these controls:

• Greater 'Feedback' creates a longer reverb 'tail'.

• A higher 'Low Pass Freq' causes less damping of high frequencies.

• 'Pitch Mod' controls the amount of random pitch shift in the delay lines.

MIDI Modulators

1. Mod Wheel - This mod source takes the value of MIDI modulation wheel (control change #1).

2. Pressure - This mod source combines, for each voice, the MIDI channel pressure and key (polyphonic) pressure for the note.

3. Key - These mod is set to the note's key.

4. Velocity - This mod is set to the note's velocity.

LFOs

There are three low-frequency oscillators available for use as modulators: an instrument-wide 'global' LFO (GLFO), a per-voice LFO (VLFO), and another per-voice multi-phase LFO (MLFO), which is actually four LFOs in one.

Each LFO has two outputs, a bipolar (-1 to 1) output, and a unipolar (0 to 1) output. As a rule of thumb, the bipolar outputs tend to be best when modulating oscillator pitch or filter cutoff frequency, and the unipolar outputs tend to be best when modulating amplitude.

Each LFO has a frequency control and a waveform selection control. The LFOs use the same waveforms as the wavecycle oscillators, but the wavetables also contain some non-bandlimited, Gibbs-effect-free waveforms specifically intended for use with the LFOs. These appear in the 'LFO' section of the wavetable pop-up menus.

Each LFO also has amplitude modulation source and amount controls. Since the GLFO is one LFO shared by all voices within an WhySynth instance, it does not have any of the per-voice modulation sources available to it.

The VLFO and MLFO both have 'Delay' controls which set the time from key-on that it takes the LFO to fade up to full strength.

The MLFO is actually four LFOs with a common set of controls. The 'Phase Spread' control sets the initial phase difference, in degrees, between successive MLFO LFOs, so that if this control is set at 90, then MLFO 0 will start with a phase of 0 degrees, MLFO 1 with a phase of 90 degrees, MLFO 2 with 180, and MLFO 3 with 270. If the 'Random Freq' control is zero, the MLFO LFOs will maintain this phase difference over time. Otherwise, 'Random Freq' controls the random deviation in the individual LFOs frequencies, and their phase differences will drift over time.

Envelope Generators

There are five envelope generators per voice, each of which may be run in one of five modes, and EGs EG1 through EG4 may also be turned off.

The Output Envelope Generator EGO is special, in that the final output amplitude of the voice is 'hard-wired' to be controlled by the EGO level, and the voice is terminated when EGO reaches the end of its final segment.

The five EG modes all have four segments, with four 'time' controls setting the length of each segment, and three 'level' controls setting the level of the envelope between each segment. There are also four 'shape' controls, which determine how the envelope level changes within each segment. 'Lead' shapes at first approach the segment's ending value more quickly than 'Linear' and then slow their approach, 'Lag' shapes have slow initial approaches then quickly arrive at the ending value. 'Hold' and 'Jump' are special shapes which hold the segment's initial value for the duration of the segment, and jump immediately to the segment's ending value, respectively. See the enclosed images doc/eg_shapes_*.png for visual representations of the shapes:

The five EG modes are named:

1. ADSR

2. AAASR

3. AASRR

4. ASRRR

5. One-Shot

Modes 2, 3 and 4, run through their first three, two, and one segments, respectively, before pausing until the key is released. The knob labels in the GUI change with the mode to reflect this, so that the level control at which this pause takes place is always labeled 'Sustain Level'. Once the key is released, the EG then continues running through the remaining segments.

Mode 5, 'One-Shot', does not pause for a sustain, but continues through all four segments regardless of the key on status. Mode 1, 'ADSR', is just an AAASR envelope with some of the controls greyed-out to provide the traditional and sometimes convenient 'ADSR' envelope.

Each envelope has five additional controls:

• 'Vel->Level' controls the sensitivity of the envelope levels to the key velocity. At a setting of 0, the envelope always goes to full output. At maximum MIDI velocity (127), the envelope always goes to full output. Otherwise, the lower the velocity and higher the sensitivity, the greater the reduction of the envelope's output.

• The 'Vel->Time', and 'Kbd->Time' control how the note velocity and key influence the envelope times. When these controls are set to positive amounts, the envelope times get shorter with higher velocities and keys; similarly, with negative settings, the times get longer with higher velocities and keys.

• 'Amp Mod Source' and 'Amp Mod Amount' allow the envelope output to be modulated by another modulator.

ModMix

On the 'Miscellaneous' tab, there are five controls for the 'ModMix' modulation source. This source actually takes two other modulation sources, mixes their values together in adjustable amounts, and adds an adjustable bias -- useful for when you need to modulate one parameter with two different modulators.

Other Miscellaneous Controls

Also on the 'Miscellaneous' tab are 'Glide Rate' and 'Bend Range' controls. The pitch from the MIDI key may be lagged by the 'Glide Rate' value, as determined by the glide mode and other keys in play (see above). 'Bend Range' sets the response to MIDI pitch bend, in semitones.