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.
- start jackd [http://jackaudio.org] or configure JACK autostart
- run
setBfreeUI - connect JACK Audio/MIDI ports (using qjackctl or you favorite JACK
connection manager -- note: enable JACK-MIDI or use
a2jmididto expose MIDI-devices to JACK, alternatively runsetBfree midi.driver=alsa)
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 LV2 plugin.
The organ itself, as well as broken out parts (leslie, reverv, overdrive) are available as LV2 plugins.
Examples:
setBfree midi.driver="alsa" midi.port="129" jack.connect="jack_rack:in_"
setBfree jack.out.left="system:playback_7" jack.out.left="system:playback_8"
setBfreeUI
jalv.gtk http://gareus.org/oss/lv2/b_synth # LV2 in jalv-host
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.
To be continued..
- http://qjackctl.sf.net/
- http://jackaudio.org/faq
- aim for low-latency (256 frames/period or less) - except if you are church organist, whom we believe are awesome latency-compensation organic systems
- http://home.gna.org/a2jmidid/
To be continued..
+--------+ /-----------\ /--------\
| | | | | |
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.org/ 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.
- native JACK application (JACK Audio, JACK or ALSA MIDI in)
- synth engine: variable sample-rate, floating point (beatrix is 22050 Hz, 16bit only)
- broken-out effects as LV2 plugins; LV2 wrapper around synth-engine
- built-in documentation
see the ChangeLog and git log for details.
Install the dependencies and simply call make followed by sudo make install.
- libjack-dev - required - http://jackaudio.org/ - used for audio I/O
- tcl-dev, tk-dev - optional, recommended - http://tcl.sf.net/ - virtual Keyboard GUI
- libasound2-dev - optional, recommended - ALSA MIDI
- lv2-dev - optional, recommended - build effects as LV2 plugins
- libftgl-dev, libglu1-mesa-dev, ttf-bitstream-vera - optional, recommended for the LV2 GUI
- libzita-convolver-dev - optional - IR leslie cabinet-emulation
- libsndfile1-dev - optional - needed to load IR samples for zita-convolver
- liblo-dev - optional - http://opensoundcontrol.org/ - used only in standalone preamp/overdrive app.
- help2man - optional - re-create the man pages
- doxygen - optional - create source-code annotations
If zita-convolver and libsndfile1-dev are available you can use
make clean
make ENABLE_CONVOLUTION=yes
to enable experimental built-in convolution reverb used for leslie cabinet simulation (at some point down the road this will be enabled the default).
The Makefile understands PREFIX and DESTDIR variables:
make clean
make ENABLE_CONVOLUTION=yes PREFIX=/usr
make install ENABLE_CONVOLUTION=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.
Mac/OSX: The same instructions apply. Tcl/Tk is included with OSX. The JackOSX packages available from jackaudio.org provide neccesary header and development files. The setBfree git-repository includes a script to build universal binary and create a DMG. However this script assumes that universal (PPC, i386, x86-64) versions of the JACK-libraries as well as zita-convolver and libsndfile are available in /usr/local/ on the build-host.
Many thanks to all who contributed ideas, bug-reports, patches and feedback. In Particular (in alphabetical order): Dominique Michel, Fons Adriaensen, Jeremy Jongepier, Julien Claasen and Ken Restivo.