discoDSP News

Discovery Pro 9.3, Schroeder 3.0 released

Discovery Pro 9.3 and Schroeder 3.0 are out. Discovery Pro gains per-voice LFOs with key tracking and envelope links, an arpeggiator latch, a Retro oscillator engine and musical tempo sync divisions. Schroeder is rewritten with seven reverb spaces, four variations and surround support.

Discovery Pro 9.3

Discovery Pro is a virtual analog synthesizer and sampler with 4 layers, 12 oscillators, 16 filter types including Nord Lead 2, Moog Ladder and Oberheim SEM models, SFZ/WAV/SoundFont support, PADsynth re-synthesis and Nord Lead 2 SysEx import/export.

Version 9.3 adds LFO key tracking, Mod Env to LFO rate links, an arpeggiator latch, a Retro oscillator engine and status pills that show what each LFO is doing. Synced rates now step through a grid of musical divisions.

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What's New

LFO Key Tracking: In the LFO 1 or LFO 2 Edit menu set Key Tracking to Off, Half, Full, Double, Invert or a custom percent from -200 to 200. The LFO rate follows the note you play, relative to C3. With tracking on, every voice gets its own LFO with its own phase and its own Poly AT or MPE pressure, so chords shimmer instead of moving as one block. Off keeps the shared per-layer LFO, so older patches sound the same. Ignored while the LFO is synced to the host clock.
Mod Env to LFO Rate Links: In the Mod Env Edit menu pick Link to LFO 1 Rate or Link to LFO 2 Rate, with a positive or negative amount up to 100 or a custom value. The envelope sweeps that LFO's rate on every note. The LFO runs per voice while a link is active, and links stack with key tracking. The Mod Env header shows the active links.
Arpeggiator Latch: Turn on Latch and the arp keeps running after you let go of the keys. Play a new chord to replace it, play the same chord again to stop it. Shift-click the ARP button to switch the arp and Latch together.
Retro Oscillator Engine: A third oscillator mode next to High Quality and Classic, modelled on the Nord Lead 2X hardware synth and its saw, triangle, sine and pulse shapes, for a coarser, more digital character. Parabolic and Super 7 are rendered by the same engine.
LFO Status Pills: The LFO 1 and LFO 2 headers show what is active at a glance: LATCH, KEY with its tracking value, the linked envelope (AMP, FILTER, MOD) and the layers the LFO is sent to or received from.
MPE and POLYAT Badge: Shown above the play mode LEDs, so the active expression mode is visible on the panel. MPE and Poly Aftertouch switch from one to the other in a single click, and both are in the play mode right-click menu.
Musical Tempo Sync Divisions: With Sync on, the LFO 1, LFO 2 and Pan Mod rate knobs step through 23 fixed divisions from 1/64 to 8 bars, with dotted and triplet values from 1/32 to 1/1. With LFO 2 in arpeggiator mode this sets the step length. The LCD shows the division name and the rate knob right-click menu lists them all, next to a Tempo Sync on/off entry. Delay Left and Right Time knobs get the same menu, with divisions from 1/32 to 1/1 when synced and times from 10 ms to 1 s when free. In free mode a Tempo Divisions submenu lists each division converted at the current host tempo. Presets saved with the old sync curve keep their exact rate.
Import Wave: One Import Wave... entry accepts wav, sfz, sf2, dwb, zbp and zbb, takes several files at once and remembers the last folder.
Delay and Chorus Tails: With Panic on Play/Stop off, stopping the transport only ends the voices and the echoes decay on their own. Delay tails also no longer stop the moment the last note ends.
Gate Floor: Gate Level is now called Gate Floor and reads in dB, from -inf dB (Full) to 0.0 dB (Off). The parameter, its CC and saved presets are unchanged.
Amp Limiter Cycle: A Cycle submenu in the limiter right-click menu and the Amp preset menu sets which states clicking walks through: Off / Classic / Enhanced, Off / Classic or Off / Enhanced. The choice is global and saved.
Performance: The main menu opens faster, since wave banks are scanned once. Voices of a layer sharing the same cutoff reuse the same filter maths. Filter distortion at 8x and 16x playback quality skips its redundant extra oversampling and costs about a tenth of what it did. Chorus, panning and delay no longer run 2 to 8 times over with oversampling on, and the chorus sounds the same at every setting and sample rate.
Bug Fixes: The gate and mod playheads keep moving while the arpeggiator is latched. Bypassing the Mod Env lifts its Env Link scaling on the LFOs. Correct cutoff readout in Hz for the Ladder Low Pass 12 dB and 24 dB filters. Synced delay times are no longer clamped at 4x and 8x oversampling. Per-layer outputs on the extra buses no longer alias with oversampling on. Synced LFO, Pan Mod and delay readouts show the true division. Tube warmth distortion has the same tone at every playback quality. Filter distortion no longer carries a trace of the previous note into a reused voice.

This update is free for all Discovery Pro 9.x customers. Discovery Pro is available for Windows, macOS and Linux in VST, VST3, AU, AAX and standalone formats.

Vertigo 5.4, Bliss 3.22, Discovery Pro 9.2

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Version 5.4 adds three per-voice LFOs, MPE support and a Keep Section that holds modulation, controller and effects setups across program changes.

What's New

LFOs: Three per-voice LFOs, reached from the LFOS button on the envelope page. Waveforms cover sine, wander, triangle, saw, reverse saw, square and random, plus a custom shape drawn on the envelope canvas. Rate reads in Hz when free running and as a tempo division when synced, with delay, fade in and retrigger per LFO. Nine routing slots each pair a destination with a bipolar amount, covering pitch, fine tune, both filters, morph, stretch, amplitude, pan, the formant filter and the rate or depth of another LFO. A playhead dot rides each waveform preview, and eighteen zone plus eight global factory presets cover vibrato, tremolo, filter motion, panning, morph, sample and hold, formants and stretch.
MPE: A dedicated MPE page, opened from the MPE plate in PLAY SETTINGS. Notes on member channels are routed per channel, so bend, pressure and slide act on one note at a time. Three expression axes (bend, CC 74 and pressure), each with a destination, amount, response curve, range and smoothing time. Per-note bend range with a quick picker, a poly aftertouch mode that feeds the Z axis from a normal keyboard, and MPE Configuration RPN recognition so a controller that announces itself sets the zone and bend range on its own. Six factory presets included.
Keep Section: LFOs, MPE and the effect chain can each be held across program changes, so a modulation setup, a controller setup or an effects chain stays put while browsing sounds.
Automation: New host parameters for each LFO on, rate and depth, and for the three MPE axis ranges, added after the existing ones so current automation lanes are unaffected.
Interface: Page backgrounds, hovers and control drags now repaint only the area that changed, and spectral partial bars are drawn in batches, cutting the paint work of a hovered page by around twenty times. New artwork for the LFOS and MPE controls, and refreshed operator, spectral and formant page graphics.
Presets: Program format extended for the modulation data, with reserved room for future additions. Older presets and saved sessions load as before.

This update is free for all Vertigo 5.x customers.

Discovery Pro 9.1, Bliss 3.21 released

Discovery Pro 9.1

Version 9.1 adds the Smart Preset Generator and ships the factory programs as flat packs.

What's New

Smart Preset Generator: A preset generator that learned from the sounds you already love. Use MENU > Edit > Generate Layer to get a new, playable layer, trained on more than six thousand hand-made layers from the Discovery Pro factory library. The model runs on your machine, inside the plugin and your session, no cloud. Perfect for starting points: a bass you did not have in mind, or a pad that moves in a way you would not have programmed.
Flat Factory Packs: Factory programs now ship as one flat pack per category instead of thousands of loose files, so installs are much faster. Your own presets still live as files next to the packs and take priority over factory presets with the same name. Untouched factory files from earlier versions are moved to Presets > Programs (Ported) on first install.
Multicore Voice Processing: Work is split from measured per-voice cost instead of a load threshold, for steadier CPU use at low polyphony.

This update is free for all 9.x and 8.x customers.