Plogue ChipSynths

FM Nostalgica wanted and have it :smiley: https://plogue.com/products/chipsynth-portafm.html

Also check Cuckoo’s review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1gsLMNFOks

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Personally i like the sound much more than the Digitone. Controlling it with Push 2.

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Oh nice, thanks for the tip, really like the look of this.

Cool. I think the only thing Digitone really needs to get these types of sounds is some sort of algorithm to make the operators more lo-fi. The master overdrive does a good job of emulating old-school DACs to a degree.

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Yeah- this thing is pretty cool. Only $30 bucks- worth the risk, chipsounds is cool.

Hopefully this will guilt me into actually USING chipsounds more

I’m unsure if anyone else has been paying attention but the next in the series of ChipSynths is due to be released at the start of September this time it’s based on the Sega Megadrive (maybe the topic titled could be changed for ongoing discussion of all the ChipSynths???) and I’m pretty excited. PortaFM was pretty ace and this looks to be a pretty comprehensive 4op FM that just so happens to be a great rendition of the Megadrive. Apparently you’ll also be able to use RYMCast to extract any of the instruments from Megadrive’s games and they can be imported too.

Anyway, here is a link to some example sounds - https://soundcloud.com/imlxh/sets/chipsynth-md-patches - I wonder if Rubber Cement is a wee nod to Errorsmith.

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Pretty amusing that a Yamaha PSS VST costs about the same as an actual Yamaha PSS-470. I bought 3 of those synths at auction for under $40 each this past year.

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That’s very exciting news. The Megadrive chipsynth has been the one I’ve been eagerly anticipating since the first announcement of these years ago. Of the video game console synthesis engines of my childhood, the Megadrive’s FM wasn’t always the prettiest, but it was usually the most interesting. I’ve grown to love it more than all the others and I think it has the most potential for modern use outside of video game and typical chiptune contexts. Those example sounds are fantastic!

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takes up a lot less studio space though :wink:

I am excited about the Megadrive one, sounds lovely! especially the sort of formant-y patch…

Totally agree about how nice the demo sounds are. I think pretty much all of Plogue’s stuff works well outside of a chiptune context. I’m absolutely 100% in the perfect age-range to get heavy nostalgia vibes for the sounds of his stuff but it doesn’t push those buttons at all for me. Yeah, I’ve fond memories of those times but it was playing the games rather than the sounds. It was probably the early 00’s when I was first getting into Raster Noton, Mille Plateaux etc and I was really enjoy stark digital tones that I first thought that the character of vintage digital sounds beautiful on it’s own terms and not because it’s attached to some slice of memorabilia.

So, yeah, I’m pretty excited for the MD version to come out.

The ChipSynth MD is out now and here more tech about this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=120&v=VLxTHYGLKY0

Yah, it sounds great! I was running one of its bass patches through the octatrack distortion and sounded sooo good.

Setup an old laptop and audio interface running CSMD as my didicated fm synth:-)

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Another legend the Chipsynth SFC https://cdm.link/2020/09/chipsynth-sfc-super-nes-famicom-as-instrument-plugin/?fbclid=IwAR0_fSugCcbVQ5Tc9TFSXLDxFV_2eDrqFKZZEnCE4rN1b-mqOZqiPDGGckE

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This is fantastic news! I still feel that I’ve not full explored PortaFM and the surface of ChipsynthMD has been barely been scratched. I really love what Plogue are doing here. Thing is, I’ve no real nostalgia for these sounds, as sounds. I always enjoyed the Starlight Zone theme from Sonic for the tune rather than the timbre of the Megadrive. But I just find these synths are so interesting for exploring new textures that are divorced from the original intentions…

Plus, it’s way more interesting than (yet another) Minimoog emulation…

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I really need to nab all their stuff during the next Black Friday sale.

Just picked up Chipsynth SFC last night and am really happy with it. Honestly, one of the greatest features of these VSTs is the ability to download the original source audio files for my favorite old games and play them back with the plugin and see how the track is layered and mixed.

Some of the creative tricks the composers working on these soundtracks did to get the sounds they needed out of the hardware are absolutely bonkers! Had a great time just sitting through the Chrono Trigger and Donkey Kong Country soundtracks last night. Can’t wait to snag some of my favorite patch sounds from SNES :slight_smile:

The library of sample patches is really great as well, and seems to showcase some great techniques for leveraging some of the unique parts of the SNES sound architecture.

If you’re up for it, here’s a 30 min dive into some of the research that went into the development of the VST - I had a blast checking it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3yWXVAZgO0

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Plogue have just released their emulation of the DX7 -

And for the deep (deep!!!) dive into the technical details -

Looks pretty cool but I got to wondering whether I need it seeing as I have the Arturia emulation. The way I see it, there are advantages to each but I think if you’re really wanting it to be as authentic as possible then the Plogue version is the way to go. It also adds in more waveforms for the operators from the TG77 as well as some other features in the Extended mode. Key differences look to be additional noise parameter within each Operator for Plogue, where Arturia still has some additional waveforms (though not as many) and it has a simplet filter in each operator. The other biggest difference is that for the envelopes, Arturia have also added in a DADSR and MSEG in addition to the DX7 style envelopes.

Overall, the differences between the two aren’t too cavernous so it comes down to whether you prioritise accuracy of emulation versus having some more sound design options. I guess that it would only be the real hardcore DX7/FM synthesis fans would need to have both… I might be that kind of person but not decided for sure yet.

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it would appear… he’s finished the no doubt insanely detailed SID chip plug…

premiering currently…

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Wow first Syntakt gets SY - Bits, Rytm gets SY - Chip, now this. Far more SID than I could have dreamed of. Will definitely grab it, OPS7, Chipspeech, MD, and Chipcrusher have all served me well - probably my favorite virtual instruments.

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worth watching the video just to see the R1 prototype chip to work from! mad.

I feel like I may never turn on my actual SID synth again if I buy this though… :wink:

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