Ideas for updating SilverbirdLive?

D. Vyd

Hi everyone,

I've been enjoying playing with SilverbirdLive. I notice that it uses less than 8% of my CPU when running all effects on all channels. Sometimes though, the sound seems muddy. This may be caused by the combination of samples and effects I happen to be using creating overlapping frequencies. But, I was wondering if there are any modules I can add or upgrade that might be new to Reaktor or were too CPU intensive on computers 10 years ago. For example, I was thinking of (a) looking for places where oversampling might be helpful or (b) turning all SilverbirdLive's effects off and routing the channels through specialized effects ensembles or DAW effects instead. Would using 96khz 24bit samples help with sound clarity while pitch shifting and filtering? What do people here recommend?

-d.vyd

colB

Not sure if 'updating' something like this would ever be as simple as just replacing some modules with more modern modules with similar functionality...

e.g. you could replace the saturators with ILO saturators, that would remove some aliasing... but that might not always sound better. For some snapshots, it might remove aliasing noise and provide more clarity... but for others, that aliasing noise might be part of the character of the snap.

Similarly for the filters, you could swap them out for more modern ZDF filters, but then you might need to spend time 'tuning' parts of the structure that were originally tuned to get the most out of those old Primary filters. And you would likely need to remove, or tweak some of the bundled snapshots.

It would maybe make more sense to approach it as a rebuild/reboot project? so keep the bare bones - UI, sequencing, and basic topology, but scrap all the existing sound generation and manipulation stuff and build it back from scratch, using the original version as a map.

Then there's the issue of creating or sourcing HQ samples... :)

D. Vyd

Thanks @colB . I don't see anything specifically labelled ILO saturator or ZDF filter in the Reaktor build search menu. Are you referring to UL items like ZDF Butterworth LPF | Entry | Reaktor User Library (native-instruments.com) ? From this question you can probably tell that a full rebuild/reboot will not be coming from me unfortunately...

colB

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/51471#Comment_51471

ILO is not something that's in the factory library, although there are various examples here and there. ZDF filters are. All the current core based filters are ZDF mostly built with the 'ZDF framework'

From this question you can probably tell that a full rebuild/reboot will not be coming from me unfortunately...

It's not really worth the massive effort anyway. The thing is good as it is. The amount of effort required to change it and make it better rather than just different or worse would be equivalent to building something new - so why bother?

Studiowaves

Usually muddy sounds have too much bass from damped reverb. Nothing worse than bass buildup to muddy up your mix. Bass cluttering is another problem. It typically happens when bass drums resonate too long and it's pitch is out of tune with another bass instrument. Excess bass volume can really throw off the clarity of the upper tones. zdf filters do sound good but there are a lot of reasons for a muddy sound.