Intense Tech #05 — LSDj Wave Cruncher Instrument Library (Defense Mechanism)

defense-mechanism (intense-tech) introduces a library of sample-derived wave-synth instruments for lsdj and the liblsdj tool that patches them into a save: the wave synth "as a rudimentary sampler".

Key claims#

• DOTCNT's lsdj-wave-cruncher reduces a sample of a tonal instrument (a steel drum, an FM electric piano) to a series of 4-bit waveforms that fit the 16 wave frames of a WAVE instrument; each of the 16 frames holds one reduced cycle of the sample.
• Compared with kit samples patched into the ROM with LSDPatcher (lsdpatch): kits need one sample per pitch and their manipulations "are not always suitable for tonal monophonic instruments", whereas a crunched wavetable is played at any pitch by the wave channel and lives in the save file, so it travels with a shared .sav/.lsdsng.
• Settings that made the e-piano riff work: PLAY ONCE, LENGTH 3, SPEED 3; tuning sample, cruncher and synth settings can take "a lot of work".
• The results are collected as .snt files in the lsdjsynths repository (github.com/psgcabal/lsdjsynths).
• Patching: put lsdj-wavetable-import, the .snt and the save or .lsdsng in one folder and run lsdj-wavetable-import savefile.sav synth.snt 0 — the third argument is the synth slot. Only the song in a save's working memory is patched; an .lsdsng can be given instead.

Practical takeaways#

Sampled timbres in the wave channel without kits: crunch a single-note sample, patch it to a synth slot, and play it as a normal WAVE instrument with PLAY ONCE and a slow SPEED.

Pages touched#

wavetable-programming · lsdj-wave-cruncher · liblsdj · lsdj · 4ntler · intense-tech · defense-mechanism