July 17, 2005
No Comment

I've closed comments, since 95% of them were spam. Feel free to email tinygod@estarcion.com with anything you have to say.

Posted by russell at 08:30 AM
March 17, 2005
Tiny FX

I've been working on a suite of small effect modules which will have control-rate 'subchannels' to modulate one another with. The cross-modulation isn't ready for prime time yet, but four of the individual modules are usable at this point.

Tiny Distort:
Distortion and bitcrusher unit. Sample decimation adjustable down to 40:1, sample quantization from 24 bit to 1 bit, several different forms of waveshaping distortion, variable-hardness clipping, and a gain knob that goes to 11.

Tiny Splitter:
Splits the incoming signal into three frequency bands. First out pair is lowpass, second out pair is bandpass, third out pair is highpass. Bandpass covers the range between the lowpass and highpass cutoff frequencies even if low and high cross over.

Tiny Chorus:
Simple chorus unit. Can be very subtle or completely wack; the vibrato rate goes well into audible frequencies for a metallic FM sound, and in the current version, the feedback control can turn it into a pulsing throbbing mess very easily.

Tiny Gate:
16-step tempo-synced gate sequencer with delay and feedback. Mutation control randomly tweaks gate states as it cycles.

>>> Download Tiny FX <<<

Stay tuned for more...

Posted by russell at 08:43 PM | Comments (1)
February 07, 2005
Meridian 1.0 Released!

Meridian has arrived! Everyone who was holding off because it was beta, go get it!

--- Here's Meridian ---

Monophonic SSE and non-SSE versions available for free. 32-voice polyphonic version is US$35. Take advantage of that strong Euro, guys!

Meridian's hand-coded, lovingly optimized synthesis engine features:

• High-quality high-performance antialiased oscillators with 9 unique waveforms and continuous brightness/fullness controls!
• Static and dynamic detune for warm, fat, moving sounds -- it's the John Candy of soft synths!
• Modulations include LFO vibrato, LFO filter modulation, four-point filter envelope, dual 16-step gates with adjustable attack and release times modulating gain, filter, and panning, and more!
• Integral waveshaping distortion capable of gently limiting the sound or shrieking like a teenage girl!
• 4-tap tempo-syncable feedback delay!
• Multi-mode filter with 12- and 24-dB/octave lowpass, bandpass, and highpass configurations, unique filter 'afterburn' variations, capable of self-oscillating resonance!
• Mutation feature to quickly explore the entire range of sounds Meridian is capable of!
• 64 presets generated with the very latest in random number technology, almost 35% of them usable!
• and MUCH MUCH MORE!

Posted by russell at 10:30 PM
January 29, 2005
Meridian beta v0.92 v0.93 v0.94

Here's Beta v0.94 of Meridian.

Meridian is also listed on the Products page now.

Posted by russell at 03:33 PM | Comments (1)
January 28, 2005
Meridian beta 0.91

Here's Beta v0.91 of Meridian

Baby's gonna need its own product page real damn soon.

Here's one note played on Meridian.

Here's Meridian screaming. (3x Meridian, 1x fxpansion dr-005 (drums), some effects)

Posted by russell at 09:46 AM
January 23, 2005
Meridian beta 0.89 0.90

This sucker is almost done.

Here's Beta v0.90

(Send me some email after you play with it, dammit!)

Version 0.90 changes:
• Presets are named and arranged by type (Keys, Bass, Lead, Pad, Weird) and suck less.
• Documentation is coherent and sucks less.

Version 0.89 changes:
• Filter code now uses SSE. SSE version is 25%-30% faster overall than non-SSE.
• 24dB/octave bandpass and highpass filters added.
• Gate 1 can control panning.
• MIDI controllers smoothed.
• 14-bit MIDI controllers supported (untested).
• Mono mode remembers and retriggers held notes.
• Waveset timbres changed, 3 more added.

Version .88 changes:
• Checks CPU for SSE support and pops up helpful dialog boxes if you're using the wrong version.
• Shuts down gracefully if trying to run SSE version on non-SSE CPU.
• Presets have default MIDI controller mappings (in particular, CC7 volume is mapped to volume, and CC1 mod wheel is mapped to filter sustain level cutoff, but many others are mapped as well).
• MIDI learn works better.
• Increased filter cutoff range - previously you had to do tricks with the gates to get the filter below 75Hz or above 4KHz.

Version .87 changes:
• SSE and non-SSE versions provided for compatibility with older CPUs.

Version .86 changes:
• Oscillators optimized using SSE instructions.
• Warm and friendly distortion unit.
• More oscillator waveshapes available.
• Bug fixes

Posted by russell at 09:25 AM
January 17, 2005
Meridian beta v0.86

Feel free to grab Meridian beta v0.86 and have a go. Lots more changed. Distortion, new waveforms, bug fixes galore, a little sumpin-sumpin, etc.

Posted by russell at 05:00 PM
January 15, 2005
Meridian beta v0.85

Feel free to grab Meridian beta v0.85 and have a go. UI layout redesigned, lots changed, a little bit of documentation. Cheers.

Posted by russell at 05:30 PM
December 24, 2004
Meridian beta 0.8 - Windows VSTi

Not quite ready for its own products page, but I'm working on a synth called Meridian. Feel free to download the beta version and play with it and tell me what you think. Cool? Sucks? Needs a funny hat?

Posted by russell at 03:25 PM | Comments (2)
September 10, 2004
MIDITab link reinstated

On the Products page, you can now find links to old stuff like MIDITab, my experimental Wacom-tablet-to-MIDI interface. Enjoy.

Also, I killed some of the comment spam. Yay!

Posted by russell at 10:36 AM | Comments (3)
August 08, 2004
Murmur Pro available

Murmur Pro has been released. See the Murmur product page for the details and screenshots.

Posted by russell at 04:21 PM
July 16, 2004
we call it 'marketing'

So in a perfect world, I'd have Murmur Pro available for sale by now. If you find yourself strangely wanting to buy stuff from me, you can go hit the Tiny God cafepress shop in the meantime. I don't actually make much money on that stuff (I set the markups fairly low), but it would amuse me to know that someone, somewhere, is wearing or drinking out of or mousing over my logo.

You can't possibly own enough T-shirts yet, can you?

Posted by russell at 04:43 PM
June 19, 2004
test a synth?

I'm working on a little virtual-analog-ish synth called Ignition. (Yeah, I have a short attention span. Sue me.) Anyone interested in playing with it and writing up any problems they encounter and making helpful suggestions? Read up on how to report a bug and then mail me.

Posted by russell at 11:50 AM
June 06, 2004
more infrastructure updates

I changed the download links over to the new site as well. Let me know if you have any trouble with anything.

The Failure Mode and old plugins pages from the old site are in limbo, but will get linked from here eventually. If you really need MIDITab or something, just holler.

UPDATE: MIDITab is linked off the products page now, under "Older Stuff."

Posted by russell at 10:53 PM | Comments (3)
May 29, 2004
www.tinygod.com open for business

Previously, www.tinygod.com redirected to another domain under which the tiny god stuff was hosted. Now the www.tinygod.com domain points directly to this site on a new host. Shouldn't affect much of anything on the outside world...

Posted by russell at 06:22 PM
April 10, 2004
Murmur Pro Teaser

Now how much would you pay?

Posted by russell at 11:27 AM
April 08, 2004
but now it is gone

Some diligent soul sent me mail today describing the results from tests of all my plugins in some host or another (Logic maybe?) and I accidentally deleted it before I had a chance to reply.

So if that was you, thanks for taking the time to try them all out and send me the report. Pegger and Reggep aren't really sensible in environments which don't offer full modular routing of all inputs and outputs (try them in Audiomulch or Plogue Bidule and you'll see what I mean), so it's not surprising that one didn't work and the other didn't do anything useful in your host.

Posted by russell at 09:47 PM
March 31, 2004
Murmur v0.66

New version of Murmur up. I have a known bug with Sonar 3 PE (and possibly anything else that uses the FXpansion DXi/VST wrapper), but you should be able to at least use it with the internal clocking option.

• Per-step amplifier gain control for stutter/pulse effects.
• Global frequency and resonance bias knobs let you modify all filters at once.
• Gate control for filters and for amplifier holds settings for part of the beat, with correspondingly faster transitions between beats.
• Swing (shuffle) control offsets every other beat in time.
• As an alternative to host tempo, there's an internal clock to sync to.

You can get it here.

Posted by russell at 12:26 PM
March 27, 2004
Murmur v0.54

Howdy, kids. I'm beginning to make time for Tiny God work again, and to give myself a break from an ongoing soft synth project called Plark, I knocked out a quick filter sequencer plugin similar to Breather but without the randomness. It's called Murmur, and you can get it here.

Enjoy!

Posted by russell at 04:17 PM | Comments (2)
February 15, 2004
Pegger III v0.502

A new version of Pegger III/Reggep III is now available for download.

v0.501 caused a crash under Plogue Bidule; this version fixes the crash and will report input connections correctly in future versions of Bidule.

Posted by russell at 10:03 AM | Comments (1)
February 13, 2004
Pegger III v0.501

Long time no VST.

A new version of Pegger III/Reggep III is now available for download.

This version corrects the problem with recent versions of Audiomulch telling Pegger that all inputs are connected. The fix involves a quotation from the film True Romance.

Posted by russell at 08:06 PM | Comments (1)
April 27, 2003
Heartburn v1.20

Heartburn v1.20 is now available.

• Noise as a waveform choice on all 3 oscs
• Option to continue loop-envelope mode during release on filter, formant, and vibrato

I still owe registered users an updated Ben Crosland soundset. I'll keep you advised.

Posted by russell at 05:23 PM
April 24, 2003
Four-Way Zone v0.55

Four-Way Zone now has per-stage enable/bypass toggles. That means that the pan mode control is completely redundant now, and there's a redundant bypass setting on the VCF mode knob. I desperately need to think of something to do with the pan mode knob. There will be a v0.6 release when I think of it.

Yes, I am a symmetry whore.

Posted by russell at 10:25 PM
April 20, 2003
Four-Way Zone v0.5

Fans of Throbber will want to download the initial release of Four-Way Zone.

Unlike Throbber, which had a single LFO driving either a VCF, VCA, or flanger, Four-Way Zone has four independent tempo-syncable LFOs driving an autopanner, VCF, VCA, and flanger in series. CPU usage is only a little more than twice that of one Throbber unit, so this is substantially more efficient if you want that much sound abuse.

Enjoy!

Posted by russell at 12:56 PM
April 06, 2003
Throbber v0.6

Throbber grew a flanger. It's available on the Products page.

Posted by russell at 09:13 PM
March 27, 2003
Breather v0.8

Breather got some important performance-related bug fixes, plus a new feature.

• Sweep speed control added.
• Denormalization bug fixed, eliminating CPU usage jump when processing silence. On a P3-800, usage could go over 50% per live filter.
• Performance improvements in core loop. On a P3-800, went from 8% usage to 2% usage per live filter.

Breather is available on the Products page.

Posted by russell at 09:00 AM
March 23, 2003
Heartburn v1.13

See, I told you I'd still update the stuff.

Heartburn v1.13 is now available.

• Envelopes can now be toggled between linear and exponential curves. In exponential mode, releases in particular will sound much more natural. I'll let you know if and when the Ben Crosland soundset gets updated to use the new curves.

Posted by russell at 02:22 PM
March 12, 2003
Tiny God At Work

Just thought I'd let y'all know that I'm now employed in a non-Tiny-God-related job. This will likely slow down my development of Tiny God projects. I will continue to reply to email (albeit with increased latency) and will remain responsive to problem reports.

Posted by russell at 09:08 PM | Comments (1)
March 06, 2003
Pegger III v0.5

The latest incarnation of Pegger/Reggep is now available for download.

Pegger is an "arpeggiating mixer" -- it selects pulses of audio from each of its 8 input channels. This only works in "fully modular" VST hosts (such as Plogue Bidule or Audiomulch) which support plugins with arbitrary numbers of inputs and outputs. If you don't use one of those hosts and this paragraph doesn't immediately make sense to you, you probably don't need Pegger.

Compared with the Pegger 2 series, this version includes:
• Attractive, easy-to-use GUI
• VST Host clocking option
• Pulse divisor setting reduces the need to do tempo math
• Manual control of input channel selection, making it more useful in hosts such as Bidule which lie to the plugin about input connections
• Improvements to the filter stage including 24dB/octave lowpass option and control of filter resonance
• Waveshaping distortion stage after the filter stage
• Cleaner "tails" on short-release pulses yielding less popping and clicking

Posted by russell at 04:38 PM
Heartburn v1.12

Heartburn v1.12 is now available.

• Heartburn can now load patch banks when running in Orion (and probably some other hosts).
• Morphing should now be smoother in Logic (and probably some other hosts), though screen update during morphing will be slower.
• The Ben Crosland soundset for registered users has had some bug fixes (some oscillators were out of tune when loaded in some hosts; should be better now).

As always, please let me know how Heartburn works for you.

Posted by russell at 08:30 AM
March 05, 2003
Breather v0.71 and Throbber v0.52

Quick tweaks to both Breather and Throbber here. Both effects now cooperate with hosts in doing mono-stereo bridging. In Orion (and hopefully in Logic) this means they can be used as insert effects in mono channels. Both effects are available on the Products page.

Posted by russell at 11:56 AM | Comments (1)
February 27, 2003
Heartburn v1.1

Heartburn v1.10 is now available. No major changes on the surface, but some internal changes that might break it in some VST hosts (so go live dangerously and send me some email, dammit, if it doesn't work for you), and the patch format has changed, so all your PRECIOUS WORK is ruined.

Current registered users as well as new purchasers who download the latest version of Heartburn will also get Ben Crosland's professional-quality sound set for the synth, 64 patches of twisted sonic goodness. Reach for your wallets, kids.

Oh yeah, one more thing. If you're gonna use the comment link, why don't you make sure you have something interesting to say?

Posted by russell at 09:37 PM | Comments (2)
February 18, 2003
Breather v0.7

Breather has been updated to v0.7. This version supports VST host clocking - it can now synchronize to your sequencer and "breathe on the beat." Other internal improvements have been made in addition. Go get it!

Posted by russell at 11:05 AM
January 31, 2003
Tiny God Nominal Fourier Synthesis updated

This is of interest to, well, probably no one. You may have noticed that some of the Tiny God software uses funny waveform names like "Boondoggle". Those names are used in a scheme I call "Nominal Fourier Synthesis", where an arbitrary name is mapped onto a unique waveform. For a long time the NFS doc referred to a long-obsolete version of the NFS algorithm. It is now up to date, for those of you who want to synthesize your own Hellacious Boondoggles. It might even be accurate, but I doubt it.

Posted by russell at 05:01 PM
January 27, 2003
Heartburn v1.09

Heartburn v1.09 is now available. Fixes and improvements include:

• A bug in chord triggering fixed (One or more simultaneously triggered notes would be dropped).
• Voice allocation system improved.
• Per-patch monophonic, mono-portamento, or polyphonic voicing option (polyphonic only works in full version).
• Note-on velocity sensitivity implemented with per-patch sensitivity range.
• Channel/master volume control now visible on GUI and saved with patch.
• A-FM-B bug fixed (Oscillator B wasn't using correct waveform when A-FM-B was enabled).
This is the cool part! 8 "teaser" presets from sound designer Ben Crosland. Ben is developing a complete bank of 64 professional-quality patches which will be available in February to registered Heartburn users only.

Once again I thank Ben Crosland for his bug reports and helpful suggestions; without his input Heartburn would be a chunk of technology rather than a musical instrument.

Posted by russell at 08:41 PM | Comments (1)
January 13, 2003
Heartburn v1.05

Heartburn v1.05 is now available. Fixes include:

• Support for 48KHz VST host configurations (tested in Logic, should work in any host).
• Presets 1-32 improved.
• Button-lights and text displays now display and update correctly in any preset.

Note that the names of some of the DLLs have changed; the confusion this may cause is just part of the fun.

Big thanks to Ben Crosland for the beta-testing work on this one.

Posted by russell at 09:55 AM
January 08, 2003
Welcome, KvR users!

Since announcing Heartburn 1.0 on KvR the other day, we've had several hundred visitors. Most of you found your way to the Heartburn page. About half of you downloaded the demo package. Almost no one actually bought the software. That's okay and all, I'm just curious why you didn't. Was it because you didn't think it was worth the money? Or was it because you can't afford to buy software currently? Or do you only use free software? Or are you still considering it? Or was the demo version just too good?

Posted by russell at 02:11 PM | Comments (3)
January 01, 2003
Happy New Year! Happy New Site!

Site redesigned and relaunched. Coincidentally, googlism says:

tiny god is born
tiny god is up and running
tiny god is here and it is totally more fantastic than you and your children combined

Oh, and by the way, Heartburn full GUI commercial version is now available.

Posted by russell at 02:07 PM
November 25, 2002
GUI Version of Breather Up

I accidentally uploaded the wrong version of the Breather filter plugin; the GUI version is now up.

Posted by russell at 02:06 PM | Comments (1)
November 18, 2002
Heartburn Filter Bug Fixed

The filters in versions v0.85 and v0.86 of Heartburn were broken. They are working correctly in v0.87.

Posted by russell at 02:05 PM
November 16, 2002
Heartburn, Throbber, Breather Fixes

Heartburn, Throbber, and Breather were all having problems in certain VST hosts including Tracktion, Psycle, and Cubase. The currently available versions of these three plugins should work better. Other Tiny God plugins may also have these problems; we are working to fix them, but any reports of success or failure in any VST host, as always, are useful and appreciated.

Posted by russell at 02:05 PM