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Singing synth in Decker

A topic by D I M A created Jul 05, 2024 Views: 274 Replies: 7
Viewing posts 1 to 3

Hello everyone! I decided to participate in the Decker Fantasy Camp 2024, and when I saw how much you can do in Decker, I thought why not try to make a singing synth! I always wanted to make one but I don't know any coding stuff.. Technically singing synth is just a piano roll, but you select different sounds (syllables) and then it all plays. if utau was made in scratch, then making one here is more than possible. It's my first time working with Decker so I would need some help :_) my discord is 11dimaofficial11

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It is a cool idea! I've had a bit of experience with building synths in decker, and tbh like I don't want to discourage you but for a first time programming task it's got a fair bit of complexity to it, since you'll have to build both the synthesis engine and the interface that drives it. Like it IS absolutely possible, albeit limited by Decker's audio output capabilities. But you'll need to work out first the principles of how to actually generate the waveforms for the notes and implement that in Lil, and then how to string them all together sequencer-style. Absolutely doable if you've got some programming chops but if you've really never programmed before I'd encourage you to start with something a bit easier.

These sorts of sequencers work based on pitching samples of syllables up and down, right? So to start you'd need to get a sound back of syllables and work out how to pitch them up and down. I'm not sure if just adjusting the speed would work or if you'd need to do something time-stretchy so they're all the same length. Either way there'd probably be some somewhat gnarly maths around resampling the audio to different pitches.

Once you can get the notes generating, to be honest the actual tracker side of things may be a bit simpler - the way I did it was just using a table and iterating through that when it plays back.

If you do manage to get something working I'd love to see it! But for a first time programming project it feels like it'd be a bit of a trial by fire. I really don't want to discourage you but I also don't want to see you get discouraged yourself by aiming too high for your first attempt.

oh... well... can weeee... work together then? it looks like youre very good at knowing this synth stuff so...

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Ahh, sorry, but I am already working on a project of my own for the fantasy camp. And it's a much more complicated sort of synth than the one I did, I'd have to learn a lot and do a lot of reading in terms of doing like waveform manipulation necessary for this sort of thing. I don't think I'd have the time for a project like this at the moment haha.

If you are looking for a collaborator, I would ask what do you bring to the table? You mentioned not having programming experience... The project you've got in mind is primarily a programming task, are you looking for someone to teach you to program? Or are you bringing knowledge yourself of how these sorts of synths work under the hood?

yes i would like someone to teach me. there are basically zero tutorials aside from the official guide and im not good with instructions that have a bunch of text..

Ahh, no worries. I'd probably say your best bet is to just try stuff out as best you can and pick apart some of the examples that come with Decker, and post in the forums with a question when you hit a roadblock. There's also a lot of previous jam projects that have unlocked versions you can download and poke at, that could serve as good examples to learn from. In terms of other Decker tutorials, I am not sure if you have checked out The Riddle Of The Temple but when you finish the game itself there's an extensive behind-the-scenes section that goes over a lot of basic "how to do cool things in Decker" type tutorial stuff. It is still text but it's not quite as wall-of-texty as the Decker documentation itself. But yeah, you're right, I don't think anyone has done like video guides or anything like that for Decker or Lil yet.

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okay thanks!!!

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I'm not familiar with synthesizer-making so I can't help with your goal project, but as an example of a much simpler (no math?) version of "user picks a sequence of sounds, program plays sounds in order" you might want to check out the 'cylon' deck in the examples folder that comes with downloadable Decker (If you haven't already). It's not at all a singing synth. It only plays pre-prepared sounds... but the code is fairly simple, and the sounds files can be replaced with other things. It might be a starting point for a smaller jam project that can lead into your bigger goals.