POST-LAUNCH MACOS HOTFIX 💻⚠️

• Fixed broken/scrambled controls on macOS - Please delete your current library install, then redownload and reinstall SERPENT!🐍

SERPENT BETA 1 // PLUGDATA-FX 0.9.3

SERPENT is a versatile all-in-one sidechain volume ducker, combining sample-accurate volume & low-shelf ducking with intuitive bipolar ringmod sidechaining.

This plugdata patch is the result of Borrasca & Nasko combining their efforts to make their ideal sidechaining tool, which comes as a VST3, LV2, CLAP or AU.

FEATURES ✨

• 3 ducking methods: volume, ring mod, low shelf.

• Real-time visual updates even without playback.

• Audio triggering via a custom transient detection algorithm.

• MIDI triggering option, disabling and overriding transient detection.

• 10ms lookahead pre-fade curve including latency compensation.

• Bipolar ring mod sidechaining including saturation and symmetrical smoothing.

• Easy to use MSEGs for volume & low shelf ducking, custom-made by Nasko.

• gate mode for parallel sidechain ducking, preventing serial latency build-up.

Our low-shelf ducker has more separation than a 6db/oct band split and can be considered a dynamic phase filter, avoiding constant phase shift found in classic Linkwitz-Riley crossover filters. With the dedicated sub envelope, you get more control over the ducking shape than any conventional dynamic EQ.

Ring mod sidechaining, originally discovered by Borrasca, is equipped with extra control for shaping & taming the effect. These include:

• Controls for adjusting RM sidechaining happening above & below the volume envelope.

• a custom smoothing algorithm by Nasko.

• driving the sidechain signal into a soft clipper for a stronger effect

• an envelope that scales the amount of RM sidechain across time

VOLUME DUCKING 🐍

The most basic function is the volume envelope, which you can shape with a 3-point curve editor. 

Adjust its depth from the VOLUME dial below the curve editor.

You can set the sidechain waveform view to unipolar from the waveform icon on the right, which lets you shape the volume curve closely with the shape of the waveform.

The Length dial on the left sets how long the volume curve is, adjusting the waveforms length accordingly.

A 10ms pre-fade curve is automatically applied to the volume curve. Pictured below with Scyllascope by DsgDnb:

SUB DUCKING 🐍

For low frequency ducking, there is a low shelf over at the SUB tab which has it’s own ducking curve.

The depth of the sub envelope can be set either from the SUB slider below the VOLUME dial, or the Depth dial in the SUB tab.

The main Length dial also adjusts the length of the sub envelope.

The ducking will follow the shape of the curve editor accurately, and the 10ms pre-fade is also applied to the sub envelope.

Pictured below is the result of the sub envelope only, applied to a DC offset (0hz) signal:

RM SIDECHAINING 🐍

Downwards RM⬇️

The simplest way to introduce RM sidechaining is adjusting the RM DEPTH dial, or the arrow-down icon below it (downwards RM).

If the volume envelope is in use, the downwards RM will take effect below the volume envelope, which is useful when you want the volume envelope to handle the transient without distortion, but RM to take over for the rest of the signal.

Upwards RM⬆️

The white arrow-up icon adjusts the “upwards RM” amount, which will only take effect above the volume envelope. This way you can fine-tune the RM effect in combination with the volume envelope even further!

Note: If no volume envelope is applied, upwards RM won't do anything.

CTRL + drag on Windows // Control ^ + drag on macOS toggles the main RM DEPTH knob to adjust upwards & downwards RM at the same time.

RM drive & smoothing 🎛️

The bottom left icon from the RM controls pertains to the Drive amount in dB, which drives the RM signal against a soft clipper in order to make the effect more intense.

The bottom right icon adds symmetrical smoothing to the RM signal.

With SERPENTs custom smoothing algorithm, in addition to adding release it also adds attack, without missing any samples like a naive attack would. This way you don’t lose out on headroom when summing the sidechain track with the current track even with smoothing.

RM ENVELOPE 🪥

In case you don’t want the RM sidechain effect to last as long as the sidechain audio itself, you can restrict it with a transient or MIDI triggered envelope.

Adjust the length of the RM envelope from the RM Env slider (below the knob). If set to the maximum or double clicked, the RM envelope is disabled.

Adjusting the shape of the RM envelope changes the relation of the hold & release stage, and is done by adjusting the RM Env knob.

The RM envelope also applies to the upwards RM effect, but by fading it into the volume envelope.

GATE MODE ☯️

On the left edge of the curve editor is a 3-way toggle between ducking, gating, and polarity inverted gating.

The gate mode will simply turn the volume envelope and RM upside down.

The polarity inverted gating does the same, but also inverts the polarity of the current track!

This feature would allow you to also perform ducking by mixing a Serpent instance parallel with the dry signal.

Stacking more instances in parallel would allow you to use different sidechain sources for each instance, for example kick & snare, but without adding up serial plugin latency.

The RM effect will still work with the gate modes, but note that the low shelf ducking will be disabled.

SETTINGS ⚙️

Transient sensitivity 🎯:

You can adjust the transient detection algorithm by adjusting the sensitivity from the Sens dial.

By turning on a sidechain bandpass filter, it will only listen to the frequencies let through by the filter to extract the transients the sidechain signal.

MIDI triggering 🎹:

By turning on the MIDI icon, the transient detection algorithm will be turned off. The volume, sub and RM envelopes will only be triggered from MIDI notes sent to the plugin.

Note that to display the sidechain waveform or to use RM sidechaining, you should still route the sidechain track’s audio to Serpent’s sidechain input.

Delay ⏱️

The Delay dial will delay all triggered envelopes by up to 10ms, including the pre-fade curve.

This might not have a lot of use cases but we figured it would be good to still include it.

ROUTING 🪧

SERPENT can be triggered either by audio (transients) fed into the audio sidechain input, or MIDI notes.

The routing will vary depending on the DAW, but will be done the same way you’d audio- or MIDI trigger any other plugin.

In Ableton Live, you would simply pick the desired sidechain audio track from plugdata-fx’s “Sidechain” menu.

To trigger with MIDI, you can do it in two ways. One is to route the sidechain MIDI track directly to the plugdata-fx instance.

Note that the MIDI button in Serpent needs to be on for MIDI triggering.

Another way is to use the External Instrument device, if you want to send one MIDI track to multiple SERPENT instances:

Words from Borrasca:

The process started from continuing off of where Borrasca Sidechainer left off, but with Nasko bringing his ideas and DSP & UI expertise aboard. Nasko really drove this thing home and was able to work on this full time thanks to his Patreon supporters. Serpent was in the works for over a year before the first beta, partly because I took months of time off due to work-related stress; Nasko was patient and returned to work on this as soon as I felt ready to continue too.

A special shoutout goes to the team behind plugdata and the maintainer Timothy Schoen. Both plugdata and Serpent are free, but we encourage supporting Timothy over at Github

HOW TO INSTALL:

1. INSTALL/UPDATE TO PLUGDATA 0.9.3 ➡️ plugdata - Download

2. DRAG AND DROP THE .PLUGDATA FILE INTO PLUGDATA ✅

DOWNLOAD PLUGDATA 0.9.3 (FREE)

KNOWN ISSUES/BUGS:

• Black dots in Waveforms

• Duplicating an opened instance of SERPENT in Ableton live will freeze the waveform updates of the cloned instance until the user hovers over the ui

• Transient sensitivity and Bandpass filter visualization a bit busy

• Filter and Midi blinking can get stuck in a loop with certain behavior

• First few samples of RM Waveform tends to freak out when rm smoothing is engaged

• Pressing shift while adjusting rm envelope controls can trigger jumps when the mouse hold is released and the cursor happens to hover over the other respective control.

• GUI Lags in Reaper (Confirmed on Windows)

• CTRL dragging RM dial doesn't work in combination with Shift Sens mode yet

• Bypassed RM Env Curve is pure grey instead of tinted

• We may possibly replace the trigger delay for a lookahead curve time adjustment

• White line found in fft spectrum analyzer in settings tab

PLEASE REPORT ANY BUGS OR ISSUES YOU MAY FIND 🔬

Feel free to suggest changes and additions to current systems, as we may be able to take on a few until release! 🛫