It’s the underground sleeper hit, a modular, power instrument-DAW-tracker that runs basically everywhere, for free/donation or (on iOS/Android) just a few bucks. And now it just hit 2.0. There’s a ton of new stuff whether you’ve got an ancient smart device or the latest and greatest. Here’s a look.
Users are already excited about this one – and nerdy program, nerdy users, nerdy details are what get the blood pumping. So think of fine points like LFO sine waveform quality being offered in automatic, low-quality (no-interpolation wavetables), middle (interpolated wavetables), and high (perfect generated sine).
Major congrats to Sasha Zolotev for yet another achievement, capping decades of wonderfully creative coding work, tracker creations, and other fun experiments – see the YouTube channel for more evidence.
Still got iOS 9 or Android 4? No problem – which means this is a great, great way to rescue an old tablet from a landfill and make it into a dedicated SunVox machine. It’ll run on Raspberry Pi, too (via arm64). So, for instance, you could outfit a low-cost music making lab with RasPi machines, Manjaro Linux (as suggested on the SunVox Telegram group), and SunVox, and arguably teach newcomers and young people about way more than (cough) those other big industry DAWs might. Heck, you could build a whole lab for the cost of a couple of license seats from the big dogs.
But let’s get to what’s new:
More iOS support. AUv3 on iOS 11+ now sends MIDI notes and CC to other AU modules. There’s also full USB and Bluetooth keyboard support, so an iOS 13.4+ machine can work the same way a desktop does.
OpenGL acceleration for Windows and Linux.
New FM module. FMX is a 5-operator FM synth.
New FFT frequency transformation module.
Supertracks on the Timeline. See simple examples for more, or this pic:
Expanded Timeline editing features. Vertical mode with shortcut, select patterns and load/save, “detach” clones to normal patterns.
Expanded module visualizers and properties.
Enhanced ADSR. Sustain segment now has “repeat”; ADSR now has a “volume change” option for smooth transitions without smoothing envelope start.
Analog Generator, Delay have new controllers.
Enhanced Delay, Echo. new delay unit options, length up to 60 s, feedback and delay multiplier controllers (Delay), filter and filter frequency and right channel offset controllers (Echo).
Filter Pro has new modes with smoothing plus 6dB slope lowpass and highpass filter additions.
Enhanced MetaModule with new pattern play options, more user-defined controllers, and colors.
Improved algorithms and sound. Sampler has an “increased frequency computation accuracy” option, and FM, SpectraVoice, Kicker, and DrumSynth all have a click removal algorithm.
Vocal Filter expanded with random frequency, random seed, and multiple vowel controllers.
New pattern effects for fine velocity slide, slot sync, project options, track copying, and more. Yeah, you can do some pretty heavy-duty tracker stuff here in addition to the modular things.
New examples both from NightRadio (the dev) and winners of the 2021.02 competition.
All of this in a 25M download that runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Windows CE, or a $6 purchase for iOS or Android.
Full changelog, with a mind-boggling list for 2.0:
https://warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/changelog.txt
So here’s how to get it (and donate via various methods to keep development going!):
https://warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/
And yeah, you’ll want the manual as it’s all a little eye-searing and intimidating at first (though also navigate through the examples for more ideas):
https://warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/manual.php
We’ve been waiting. Here’s another look at the new 5-operator FM synth, as seen back at the end of summer:
And while it’s not about 2.0 specifically, this is a nice demo of what the whole tool is about: