Issue 38: Dec 2003
Features
- | Foreword
- | Tip of the day
- | Euro JagFest
- | JagFest Micro
- | Atari USA Meets Atari Netherlands
- | Atari Goes VST!
- | Adrian Mole's "Secret Diary" Is Dead Good
- | Wonderful CCChristmas Time
- | Visit The Christmas Market
- | Best Electronics Is Awesome!
M@ilbox
| Atari Goes VST! When browsing through the Atari MIDI forum, a member posted about a unique VST plug-in capable of emulating the YM2149 sound chip in an Atari computer. Being the Atari man I am, this was an exciting find. I have many Ataris which I use for MIDI work and never got into the demo scene, but this VSTi may change my mind! The facts ymVST was created by Atari chip music freak, Gareth Morris (also known as gwEm). It was inspired by Music Mon 2. It was created using SynthEdit, a modular soft-synth development application for PC. From what I can pull from the interface, ymVST has these features: Oscillator with four waveforms. SID oscillator function. Noise generator. Portamento. Bend parameters for pitch and noise. 4-note arpeggiator with note and speed variation control, synchronized to host. LFO with depth and speed parameter synchronized to host. Amplitude waveform creator grid for making rhythms. Playing ymVST Loading it up in EnergyXT, I was able to get some very nice sounds right away.You really need a delay plug-in to bring out the sounds. In the above screen-shot I am using Big Ticks Dual delay freeware plugin (see below link) In playing ymVST, you can click on the SID button and get some cool flanging sounds. Theres all sorts of waveforms to click on, with and a portamento switch as well as funky arpegio effects. The pitch bending function allows you to get envelope sweeping effects as well pitch sliding sounds.There is also the amplitude waveform grid for creating rhythms. There is a speed function for this as well. The lead sounds are very good and would fit well in a mix. No filters here, but raw beautiful electric sound. With portamento and delay, it could easily stand up to the commercial VSTs out there. Some of the lead sounds give me an impression of the old Genisis sound, with Tony Bank's melodic synthesizer material. It says on the FAQ (on the ymVST home page site) to have three instances for authentic Atari chip music. Setting each instance to a different MIDI channel and creating patterns for each would be the way to go. I actually created a bank of 30 sounds which you can download below. They are in FXP format (preset) which means you must load one preset at a time, but it's workable. If you do not have a VST host in which to try this out, I would suggest downloading the demo of EnergyXT, which is a real fantastic tool. Then you can also download Big Ticks Dual delay, and have the same set-up as above. User comments from the KvR forum After finding out about this plug-in, I posted about it on the KvR forum, a gathering place for computer musicians. Here are some of their comments: Cool... I really enjoyed toying around with this... revived some old fond memories too. I was one of those anti-Atari Commodore fanboys myself, but this synth is a hell of a lot of fun to just randomize and see what surprises it has in store. Great find! Excellent find Tim! I love the Atari lo-fi sound as well. Oh hell yeah! Yep, just tried it out. Excellent! Maybe not an Elektron SidStation, but I can't complain about the price and availability of ymVST! Exactly what I need. I was very glad to see an Atari type venture as a VST plugin which will get some use in a modern day world of high tech computer music. Thanks goes to Gareth for his SynthEdit creation. Long live Atari and music! tim@myatari.net
Files
ymVST YMVST.ZIP Tim's 30 sounds for ymVST SOUNDS.ZIP
Useful links
Tim's Atari MIDI World http://tamw.atari-users.net ymVST home page (be sure to read the FAQ section) http://preromanbritain.com/ymvst/ energyXT - excellent VST host http://webmassiva.com/energyXT/ Big Ticks Dual Delay http://bigtick.pastnotecut.org/index.php (I have created four banks for Big Ticks Rhino which is a fantastic synth. Check it out here as well as my MP3 demos of the sounds) SynthEdit home page http://synthedit.com/
[ Top of page ] | MyAtari magazine - Feature #6, December 2003
Copyright 2003 MyAtari magazine