I’d like to try and recreate some of my most used Digitone patches in a softsynth for mobile use on my laptop… has anyone else done anything like this?
Any standout VST options that’ll work like the Digitone?
(I’m leaning towards Bleass Omega…)
Edit: I was talking about the FM sound engine, so 4 Op with similar functionality.
For the sequencer part I’d probably use Drambo on the move, or Ableton.
Dexed is a 6 op fm (DX style) with a filter…
If you are an Ableton user, Operator is similar in many ways (though not identical). It includes wave selection, its own flavor of overdrive, multiple LFOs.
It’s doesn’t do xy fading, though.
(I know it’s not a vst, but thought I’d suggest anyway!)
Closest I get to DN features was through a Bitwig grid patch, which allow to recreate the x-y fading, algorythm changes and the weird osc wave shaping. It also allows the interpolation of B1 and B2 pitch.
The sound isnt that close tho.
If you mean FM synthesis, FM8 is still the king for me.
If you mean a tight balance between an excellent sequencer and very good synthesis options, Opal by Fors is the closest thing to the Digitone you’ll find.
I have DN and use Bleass Omega. It’s close enough for me when I’m on the iPad. The Bleass range of iOS software is all good, very well priced and has an interesting and uniform ui.
Fors.fm maybe? I’m sure @Ess took along some of his learnings working on Digitone while making Fors plug-ins.
Fors is awesome. The only catch is that you’re tied to Ableton Live Suite.
And that’s a LOT of money unless it’s already your DAW of choice.
Definitely – but I don’t think any of our products are similar to Digitone actually. I’ve mostly been interested in making smaller subsets of FM that don’t adhere to the multi-operator “algorithm” paradigm. (Some people say Doublet gave them a similar vibe though, which makes sense since it also has some wavetable morphing much like Digitone. 
)
But personally I think Ableton’s Operator comes closest to the Digitone in software. Similar ease of use, sounds quite good.
The Grid in Bitwig should work also!
Digitone reminds me most of Operator as well, FM8 is a bit more involved. I like Nemesis by Tone2 the most, but its not super similar, but the interface clicks more with me
Glanta by fors is only two OP but its similarly both intuitive and deep.
If you are already using Drambo, Digitone has been recreated in it. I think it was created by one of the Elektronauts, but I can’t find now.
Oh wow, brilliant! This is exactly what I was after doing! Of course someone’s done it. 
I haven’t used it myself and have actually forgotten about it. 
Maybe I’ll test it today after work.
I also tried that, recreating the oscillator wave shaping (HARM parameter) was a good exercise in additive synthesis:
If you’re looking at FM8, it’s worth having a go on the Tracktion F’em trial as well. That was done by Wolfram Franke, formerly of Waldorf and to me has a bit more of a Digitone ‘tone’ than FM8.
Interesting, the digitone-patch I made looks nothing like yours ; I simply used two wavetable osc and made a macro to change A and B when I add positive value and C with a negative one.
I agree that it was a really good exercise to handle the Grid 
The patch on the screenshot doesn’t even get to A, B and C: this is all one “oscillator”. I didn’t use wave tables, but generated the wave form from 11 sine waves instead. They are the stack of red rectangles on the right, with ratios 1:1 to 11:1. The part on the left is just math to enable the knob working exactly like on Digitone.
So when the HARM knob is at 0, you only hear the fundamental, 1:1. You start turning it up and the sine wave with ratio 2:1 get mixed in, then 3:1, and so on until 8:1. When the knob reaches past 7, I start to remove the harmonics - first 2:1, then 3:1 and so on. After the knob goes past 14, it gets a bit more complicated, but the same idea - mixing those sine waves in and out.
Sounds like meticulous work ! Well done, and thanks for the idea
