Surge XT is a digital synth and makes no bones about it.
If you have used it in the past, it will be like welcoming an old friend back into your life. If you are new to Surge XT, welcome to the party. Come on in, the water is fine.
SYNTH SPECIFICATIONSGENERAL
Synthesis method: Subtractive hybrid
• Each patch contain two scenes which are separate instances of the entire synthesis engine (except effects) that can be used to create layered or split patches.
• Quick category-based patch browser with textual search and favorites
• Runs on a variety of operating systems, plugin formats, and architectures
FACTORY SOUNDS
• 2779 patches
• 614 wavetables
OSCILLATORS• 3 oscillators per scene, with 12 versatile oscillator algorithms: Classic, Modern, Wavetable, Window, Sine, FM2, FM3, String, Twist, Alias, S&H Noise and Audio Input.
• Classic oscillator is a morphable pulse/saw/dual saw oscillator with a sub-oscillator and hard sync.
• Modern oscillator is a mixable saw/pulse/triangle oscillator with an optional sub-oscillator mode for triangle (which can also change to sine or square) and hard sync.
• FM2/FM3 oscillators consist of a carrier and 2 or 3 modulators and various options.
• String oscillator uses two filtered waveguides to emulate plucked or bowed string sounds.
• Twist oscillator is based on a very famous Eurorack macro oscillator, and it offers a myriad of synthesis options in a very simple and quick way.
• Most algorithms (except FM2, FM3, Twist and Audio Input) offer up to 16-voice unison at the oscillator level.
• Oscillator FM in 3 different configurations and ring modulation between oscillators 1-2 and 2-3.
• Most oscillator algorithms (except FM2, FM3, Sine and Alias) are strictly band-limited, yet still cover the entire audible spectrum, delivering a clear, punchy and clean sound.
• Noise generator with variable spectrum (available directly in the oscillator mixer).
FILTER BLOCK• Two filter units in 8 different configurations.
• Feedback loop available in 7 of those configurations.
• Available filter algorithms: Lowpass (12 and 24 dB/oct, each with 3 variations), Legacy Ladder Lowpass (6-24 dB/oct), Vintage Ladder Lowpass (2 variations, each with and without gain compensation), Highpass (12 and 24 dB/oct, each with 3 variations), Bandpass (12 and 24 dB/oct, each with 3 variations), Notch (12 and 24 dB/oct, each with 2 variations), Allpass (3 variations), Comb (positive and negative), S&H.
• Open-source additions to our filter algorithms include: K35 and Diode Ladder filter types from Odin 2 synthesizer, 12 and 24 dB/oct multimode filters from OB-Xd, and weird but fascinating Cutoff Warp, Resonance Warp and Tri-Pole filters by Jatin Chowdhury!
• Filters can self-oscillate (with excitation) and respond amazingly fast to cutoff frequency changes.
• Waveshaper (43 shapes).
MODULATION• 12 LFO units available, 6 are per voice and 6 are global for the whole scene.
• DAHDSR envelope generators on every LFO.
• LFO shapes consist of 7 deformable LFO waveforms, step sequencer, a fully-fledged multi-segment envelope generator (MSEG) with various curves and up to 128 nodes, and last but not the least – a formula modulator which utilizes Lua scripting language to provide completely custom modulator output.
• Voice LFOs allow envelope retriggering in step sequencer mode.
• Extremely fast and flexible modulation routing. Almost every continuous parameter can be modulated!
EFFECTS• 16 effect units arranged as 4 inserts per scene, 4 sends and 4 master effects.
• 27 effect algorithms:
FILTERING:
• 3-band fully parametric EQ
• 11-band graphic EQ
• Exciter
• Resonator
DISTORTION:
• CHOW
• Distortion
• Neuron
• Tape (based on ChowTapeModel!)
• Waveshaper
MANGLING:
• Combulator
• Frequency Shifter
• Nimbus
• Ring Modulator
• Treemonster
• Vocoder
MODULATION:
• Chorus
• Ensemble
• Flanger
• Phaser
• Rotary Speaker
TIME & SPACE:
• Delay
• Reverb 1
• Reverb 2
• Spring Reverb
MULTIEFFECTS:
• Airwindows (itself containing 56 effects!)
• Conditioner
• Mid-Side Tool
We released Surge XT 1.1.1 on August 25, with a collection of small changes and improvements which we found either late in the 1.1.0 cycle or after release. We recommend all users upgrade to 1.1.1.
Regressions from 1.0.1 and Breaking Changes
• Restore the correct operation of the Airwindows AD Clip effect
• Waveshaper effect incorrectly scaled the input level, which means that the simple test of sine -> voice level waveshaper had a different response than sine -> waveshaper effect. Remediated this by correcting the input scale on Waveshaper effect. This may result in increased output level of patches which use the Waveshaper effectPerformance and DSP
• Added a JUCE patch which allows sample-accurate MIDI CC and pitch bend messages in VST3 plugin (especially important with long block sizes)
• Set the velocity of reused voices correctly in monophonic play modes
• When “Continue from current level” envelope retrigger option is used with Mono FP play mode, portamento would not reset when a gap between two played notes occured (non-legato)
• Revert a set of integer modulation changes which were nascent in 1.1.0, but which have also caused pops, clicks and incorrect unison settings when changing filter, voice, and oscillator types while there were active voices playingAccessibility
• The name of the accessible overlay for the FX slots contains the effect type name, as well as the slot name
• Correctly labelled Previous and Next wavetable jog buttons (they were backwards)
• Deactivated additional accessibility announcements (oscillator name, patch name, etc…) by default, since an unknown bug makes them speak for Windows users, even with accessibility features of Windows turned off
• Correctly named the “Arm/Disarm” buttons on the modulator buttons when states change
• Step sequencer announces when the value of a step is on an exact 1/12th for pitch-based sequencing
• The wavetable info (available in wavetable display’s context menu) is now accessible on Mac
• Changing the LFO type will now send an accessible notification to update the screen reader state
• Effects routing grid now properly handles key presses (Shift+F10), andUI/UX
• Filter 2 Offset mode, when copied via “Copy scene” command, now properly sets up the target’s Filter 2 cutoff
• The Filter overlay now correctly uses Filter 2 Offset and Resonance Link options when drawing the frequency response curve
• Any keystrokes pressed while the Patch Browser is scanning content are now handled by the browser itself, avoiding accidental forwarding of keystrokes to the DAW
• Added a new option to the Patch Browser context menu: “Reveal in Finder / Show in Explorer”, for quick drag and drop sharing!
• We will now correctly set default zoom to 100% when no default zoom is set
• Mousewheel on all the various previous/next jog buttons will now scroll through the relevant data (regression from Surge 1.9)
• Since we now have action history (undo/redo), we will not prompt the user by default when loading a patch while the current patch is dirty
• Right mouse click on the Wavetable menu will now wavetalbes for just the currently selected folder
• When loading a patch, Surge will try to locate the loaded wavetables in the wavetable menu, enabling previous/next jogging, correct checkmark display, etc.
• Virtual keyboard velocity now always spans 1 … 127 when clicked via mouse
• Added a new keyboard shortcut (default Alt/Opt+A) to arm and unarm modulators, which also deprecates the Workflow > Tab Key Arms Mmodulators option (so we won’t be showing it anymore)
• Renamed legacy filter subtypes more logically to Standard/Driven/Clean (instead of Clean/Driven/Smooth)
• Paste with Modulation option is now undoableCLAP Support
• CMake install rules for Linux will now install CLAP flavors, even if you don’t use .deb or RPM
• Mac installer will now have CLAP selected by default; also, all options are now alphabetized
• paramsFlush() implementation for CLAP is now safe to call when processing is happening, even though this probably shouldn’t happenInfrastructure and Miscellaneous
• Moved build infrastructure to Ubuntu 20 LTS, since Azure is deprecating Ubuntu 18
• Replaced static const auto one = _mm_set1_ps(1.0) with just const auto one = to avoid a static lock (thanks to The Audio Programmer Discord community for catching this!)
• Moved HalfRateFilter to sst-filters library; it is shared between Shortcircuit and Surge
• Spupress mousewheel gestures during mouse drags to avoid nested begin/end edits with Mac trackpads
• Changed Mac signing in order to allow Formula modulator to work in standalone on macOS 10.14
• Mac installer won’t allow installing to a non-system drive now
• Fixed a crash when closing the plugin window in REAPER while the Patch Browser menu was open
• Reviewed various other timers and delayed objects in order to avoid crashes similar to the above one
• Correctly read XDG defaults so that XDG data for DOCUMENTS_HOME correctly follows the specification on Linux
• Fixed a problem where Surge would enter an infinite loop when the stored key mappings would advertise a keymapping for an unknown functionContent
• New wavetables from Philippe Favre
• Updated Formula tutorial “09 Example – Crossfading Oscillators”
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