search

pantherb / setBfree

DSP tonewheel organ
http://setbfree.org
GNU General Public License v2.0
194 stars 36 forks source link

readme

setBfree

A DSP Tonewheel Organ emulator.

setBfree is a MIDI-controlled, software synthesizer designed to imitate the sound and properties of the electromechanical organs and sound modification devices that brought world-wide fame to the names and products of Laurens Hammond and Don Leslie.

Download

Binaries for GNU/Linux, OSX and Windows are available from

setBfree is also available on most Linux distributions.

Quick-start

Screenshots

screenshot

Demo Video

Usage

setBfree is available as 3 different variants:

Run setBfree -h for a quick overview. setBfree --help will output a lengthy list of available options and properties than can be modified.

setBfree is the synthesizer engine. It responds to MIDI messages (JACK-MIDI or ALSA-sequencer) and outputs audio to JACK. The engine does not have any graphical user interface (GUI). It is usually started from the commandline.

The GUI setBfreeUI is a standalone application that wraps the synth engine. It provides both visual feedback about the current synth state as well as allows to reconfigure and control numerous aspects of the organ.

The complete organ (incl. GUI), as well as individual parts (leslie, reverb, overdrive) are also available as LV2 plugins.

Examples:

setBfree jack.out.left="system:playback_7" jack.out.right="system:playback_8"
setBfreeUI
jalv.gtk http://gareus.org/oss/lv2/b_synth # LV2 in jalv-host

Getting started - standalone app

You'll want reliable, low-latency, real-time audio. Therefore you want JACK. On GNU/Linux we recommend qjackctl to start the jack-audio-server, on OSX jack comes with a GUI called JACK-pilot. On Windows use the Jack Control GUI.

An excellent tutorial to get started with JACK can be found on the libremusicproduction website.

Detailed documentation

For a detailed documentation, run:

setBfree -H

Internal Signal Flow

     +--------+    /-----------\    /--------\
     |        |    |           |    |        |
MIDI | Synth- |    |  Preamp/  |    |        |
--=->|        +--->|           +--->| Reverb +--\
     | Engine |    | Overdrive |    |        |  |
     |        |    |           |    |        |  |
     +--------+    \-----------/    \--------/  |
                                                |
  /---------------------------------------------/
  |
  |  /--------\ Horn L/R  /-----------\
  |  |        +---------->|  Cabinet  +-----*--> Audio-Out Left
  |  |        +---------->| Emulation +--\  |
  \->| Leslie |           \-----------/  |  |
     |        +--------------------------|--/
     |        +--------------------------*-----> Audio-Out Right
     \--------/ Drum L/R

Render diagram with http://ditaa.sourceforge.net/ A pre-rendered image is available in the doc/ folder.

Each of the stages - except the synth-engine itself - can be bypassed. The effects are available as standalone LV2 plugins which provides for creating custom effect chains and use 3rd party effects.

The preamp/overdrive is disabled by default, reverb is set to 30% (unless overridden with reverb.mix, reverb.dry or reverb.wet). Note that a stopped leslie will still modify the sound (horn-speaker characteristics, angle-dependent reflections). Bypassing the leslie (whirl.bypass=1) will mute the drum-output signals and simply copy the incoming audio-signal to the horn L/R outputs. The cabinet-emulation is an experimental convolution engine and bypassed by default.

The LV2-synth includes the first three effects until and including the Leslie. The effects can be triggered via MIDI just as with the standalone JACK application. The cabinet-emulation is not included in the LV2-synth because it depends on impulse-response files which are not shipped with the plugin.

The Vibrato and Chorus effects are built into the synth-engine itself, as are key-click and percussion modes. These features are linked to the tone generation itself and can not be broken-out to standalone effects.

Summary of Changes since Beatrix

see the ChangeLog and git log for details.

Compile

Install the dependencies and simply call make followed by sudo make install.

Since version 0.8, alsa-sequencer support is deprecated and no longer enabled by default (even if libasound is found), It is still available via ENABLE_ALSA=yes.

The Makefile understands PREFIX and DESTDIR variables: e.g.

make clean
make PREFIX=/usr ENABLE_ALSA=yes
make install ENABLE_ALSA=yes PREFIX=/usr DESTDIR=mypackage/setbfree/

Packagers: see debian/rules in the git-repository. LDFLAGS can be passed as is, CFLAGS should be specified by overriding the OPTIMIZATIONS variable. The packaging also includes a desktop-file to launch setBfree from the application-menu which is not included in the release.

Thanks

Many thanks to all who contributed ideas, bug-reports, patches and feedback. In Particular (in alphabetical order): Dominique Michel, Fons Adriaensen, Jean-Luc Nest, Jeremy Jongepier, Julien Claasen and Ken Restivo.