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Clinkster by Loonies [web]
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screenshot added by Blueberry on 2013-07-19 23:26:17
platform :
type :
release date : july 2013
  • 42
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popularity : 68%
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  • 0.84
alltime top: #1844
added on the 2013-07-19 23:26:17 by Blueberry Blueberry

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Welcome to Clinkster!

I hope you like it and want to use it for your own productions. My main motivation for releasing it is to give people yet another choice for making music for their 4k intros. It is somewhat different from most 4k synths out there. It is a monolithic (i.e. non-modular) synth, and it doesn't have any filters. :)

The current version of the VST is quite CPU hungry. Optimizations are planned. ;)

Questions, comments and contributions are more than welcome.

Enjoy!
added on the 2013-07-19 23:27:21 by Blueberry Blueberry
I've enjoyed using this synth both in early and later stages, and I certainly look forward to using it some more! :)
rulez added on the 2013-07-19 23:35:43 by booster booster
great!!
rulez added on the 2013-07-19 23:58:31 by wullon wullon
High quality/bit ratio.
rulez added on the 2013-07-20 00:18:28 by revival revival
I concur with bstrr's comment. It's been an absolute pleasure using the synth throughout various stages. I really hope groups will welcome this as an alternative to 4klang. Each has their own benefits and strenghts and variation is always nice :)
rulez added on the 2013-07-20 02:15:01 by Punqtured Punqtured
Thank you!
rulez added on the 2013-07-20 02:16:40 by novel novel
Thanks! Very useful.
rulez added on the 2013-07-20 02:40:16 by Alopex Alopex
This deserves a try.
In the meanwhile, here is my thumb up!
rulez added on the 2013-07-20 02:46:51 by ham ham
this is the kind of release that shows the demoscene is alive and kicking in my book, awesome tool, thanks
rulez added on the 2013-07-20 02:51:17 by Weyland Yutani Weyland Yutani
bamf
rulez added on the 2013-07-20 07:32:14 by ferris ferris
Thanks to your synth article (Zine #14) I was able to make my own "Fm synth" last year, and it ended sounding ok. Too bad due to lack of motivation I didn't do anything with it.
rulez added on the 2013-07-20 14:45:40 by rbz rbz
Cool stuff! :)
rulez added on the 2013-07-20 15:26:51 by Saga Musix Saga Musix
Ok - honest answer, everyone. How many of you ended up with Piiiooouuuww-sounds the first couple of times? :D
added on the 2013-07-20 18:24:53 by Punqtured Punqtured
Works quite good here.
rulez added on the 2013-07-20 18:34:35 by CHEF-KOCH CHEF-KOCH
Sweet thing!

Quote:
Ok - honest answer, everyone. How many of you ended up with Piiiooouuuww-sounds the first couple of times? :D

Well I had to figure out what those sliders do exactly! Who reads documentation (right away) anyway?
rulez added on the 2013-07-20 19:11:06 by noby noby
I was jew harping away from the getgo
Quote:
I was jew harping away from the getgo
can this be my new slogan for everything forever? :D
added on the 2013-07-20 21:31:52 by ferris ferris
Could someone give links to prods using clinkster?
added on the 2013-07-20 23:19:06 by baah baah
baah: I think this is the full chronological list: (yeah we've been quite 4k-active since v1 :)
Nevada
Lumniagia
Sult
Solskool
temp teaser preview
Ikadalawampu
Terminal Fuckup
Trask
Wishful Twinkling
Michigan
Traskogen
Wishful Seedling
Ikanim Megamix 2012
added on the 2013-07-21 00:01:08 by Psycho Psycho
I can only approve that it runs (in some incarnation at least) on Amiga as well :D
rulez added on the 2013-07-21 00:06:07 by Preacher Preacher
rulez added on the 2013-07-21 02:40:15 by ulrick ulrick
I'll never use it, but this is for the sake of love, so it deserves a motherfunky thumb.
rulez added on the 2013-07-21 07:33:43 by iks iks
:D
Slowly getting into it.
One thing i can say for sure by now is that pure musicians and/or newcomers to SoftSynths won´t have hard times as with 4klang.
To me as a coder the 4klang-approach makes a lot of sense and its easy usable, but i´ll give your Synth a shot, as i wanted to try it for some longer anyway! (almost already gave up on hoping you´d release it to the public... )
Too bad i am such a bad musician...the potential is there, i feel it...in the synth that is, not in me unfortunately!
rulez added on the 2013-07-22 09:05:50 by ɧ4ɾɗվ. ɧ4ɾɗվ.
@psycho: thanks, and here's the well deserved thumb up for Clinkster!
added on the 2013-07-22 14:42:13 by baah baah
Err, here, i mean!
rulez added on the 2013-07-22 14:42:53 by baah baah
ah ... havent seen this one since our little synth exchange talk at breakpoint 08 or 09 :)
great that it is finally beeing released now.
rulez added on the 2013-07-22 14:49:08 by gopher gopher
Will you be at Evoke, Gopher? I'd really, really like to see 64klang in it's current state. Virgill's exe-entry from Nordlicht didn't exactly dampen my curiosity :)
added on the 2013-07-22 16:00:52 by Punqtured Punqtured
In addition to the Loonies intros Psycho mentions, the synth is also used in three Kvasigen intros:

Big Bouncing Balls
Bigger Bouncier Balls
4kfjols
added on the 2013-07-27 14:39:09 by Blueberry Blueberry
hArDy.:
Quote:
One thing i can say for sure by now is that pure musicians and/or newcomers to SoftSynths won´t have hard times as with 4klang.
Quote:
Too bad i am such a bad musician...the potential is there, i feel it...in the synth that is, not in me unfortunately!

You are almost saying it yourself: Get someone else to make the music for you!
The synth is made for musicians who are bad coders, rather than coders who are bad musicians. ;)

gopher:
Quote:
great that it is finally beeing released now.

Yes, I have wanted to do that for some time. Now I finally found the time and priority to polish it up for the occasion. :-D
added on the 2013-07-28 17:48:08 by Blueberry Blueberry
Punqtured, yes ill be at evoke :)
added on the 2013-08-11 18:45:49 by gopher gopher
I have updated the Clinkster archive with some fixes:
- Fixed a few bugs in the converter which could produce bad data.
- Player no longer crashes if sine wave is not used. :)
- More examples instruments!
added on the 2013-08-15 20:47:27 by Blueberry Blueberry
The archive now contains the music from Wishful Twisting among the examples.
added on the 2013-08-18 21:18:05 by Blueberry Blueberry
Really enjoying working with this! I'm not good at this but its one of the easiest packages for an average musician to get an exe out. Nice work!
rulez added on the 2013-08-24 00:43:04 by m0d m0d
Sounds like a great approach to a new synth. Unfortunately it seems to be a bit too cpu hungry for my poor i5 laptop. :(
rulez added on the 2013-09-28 21:53:22 by freezedream freezedream
Thanks!
rulez added on the 2013-10-21 18:16:56 by Xyl2k Xyl2k
How can a 2-op PM synth sound this awesome in these few bytes?? Bring on those optimizations! And maybe some limited support for parameter automation please!
rulez added on the 2014-01-11 09:33:12 by arvo arvo
Quote:
How can a 2-op PM synth sound this awesome in these few bytes??

Thank you for your kind words. :-D

The combination of layering and detuning is a big part of it. Also, the random stereo variation gives some kind of voluminous feeling in very few bytes. And don't forget the oversampling. ;)

Quote:
Bring on those optimizations!

Right... ehm... some day. :)

Quote:
And maybe some limited support for parameter automation please!

The way the player works makes automation impossible, unfortunately. The computation of the sound for each track starts out by computing the sound for each tone/length/velocity combination that the instrument is played with in the track and then mixes these together, reusing the sounds when possible.

To support automation, it would need to compute the sound every time, since the parameters could be different. It would probably blow up the computation time tremendously. Probably better to rethink the approach and reuse some of the ideas.
added on the 2014-01-13 21:32:29 by Blueberry Blueberry
Clinkster ain´t 4klang.
Those two SoftSynths aren´t comparable!
Maybe just due to Clinkster being invented/coded way earlier than 4klang was, but most likely thanks to gopher (maker of 4klang) having had lots of input from the makers of Clinkster while developing it. He went with a completely different approach, an approach of a coder trying to achieve sth that is variable in every state. Ending up in sth that only people can use that have some coders-background or are very unselfishness, being able to drown emselves into sth that is very hard to master! ;)
Anyway, i tried to get into Clinkster, long before it got a name or a release myself as many others, i tried and to me the reult of my first and only try is what it is, a coders approach to try to make music with Clinkster:
hArDy - FirstTryOnClinkster

Its about like that: If you are a Coder, go with 4klang (or try to teach your musician about it!) ...if you are a musician, just go with Clinkster!
Both SoftSynths have Advantages and Misses...both rule...a lot! :D

Thanks again for releasing Clinkster! I really loved fooling around with it! I even considered the above track to be the music for my last 4k, but my local Pals decided; I got em to listen to both tracks and they decided on the other one made in 4klang for "Kologne Koder Kolorz" ;)...nothin´to do with the Synth tho, just my non-demoscene-Friends-likings!
I noticed the converter does not work with XRNS files created by Renoise 3, so here are patch and a fixed script for that: http://www.ancientspledge.com/clinkster/ - ah yes, and thanks for clinkster, it's wonderful!
rulez added on the 2014-07-03 10:11:12 by neoman neoman
Thanks for the patch, neoman. It seems it doesn't detect the use of the delay effect correctly, but I will look into why that is and issue an update (probably something changed around Track DSPs and maybe Send Tracks as well).
added on the 2014-07-22 21:55:05 by Blueberry Blueberry
wow
Blueberry: Oh, it supports the delay effect! Forgive my ignorance :)
added on the 2014-07-29 08:39:50 by neoman neoman
Hallo :) The gang trying this one out. Just wondering, is there something "planned" regarding a fix to the currently non-working delay effect?
added on the 2014-11-28 15:44:15 by Gouafhg Gouafhg
Well, there was a "plan" in the form of some converter changes which I have had lying around for some time, just needing some testing and preparation for release. :)

Done. Converter now fully supports Renoise 3. Thanks for the reminder. ;)
added on the 2014-11-30 19:04:21 by Blueberry Blueberry
Thanks!! :)
rulez added on the 2014-11-30 20:30:54 by Gouafhg Gouafhg
Clinkster is amazing, great tooling, great instructions, it's changed my life!
rulez added on the 2015-04-10 22:46:12 by elblanco elblanco
Thanks for this! :)
rulez added on the 2015-04-13 21:10:16 by rage rage
Sorry, I'm an idiot and forgot to thumb it up :-|

Also, I think I might have found a mostly irrelevant bug. In the loop that converts from the MixingBuffer to the C_MusicBuffer, you're using ECX*4 as an offset relative to the start of both buffers; however, ECX is in the 1..TOTAL_SAMPLES range, so the first value is unused and more "importantly" the write to C_MusicBuffer will overwrite what's right after it.

So line 863 should be
Code:mov edi, Clinkster_MusicBuffer - 4

and line 867 should be
Code:fld dword [_MixingBuffer - 4 + ecx*4]
rulez added on the 2015-05-23 22:30:20 by TheT(ourist) TheT(ourist)
tool thumbs
rulez added on the 2015-07-17 16:58:03 by sensenstahl sensenstahl
Can the binary be updated with a 64 bit vsti?
Lovely synth indeed, with non-scary interface!
rulez added on the 2015-10-08 11:01:13 by Fell Fell
Quote:
Also, I think I might have found a mostly irrelevant bug. In the loop that converts from the MixingBuffer to the C_MusicBuffer, you're using ECX*4 as an offset relative to the start of both buffers; however, ECX is in the 1..TOTAL_SAMPLES range, so the first value is unused and more "importantly" the write to C_MusicBuffer will overwrite what's right after it.

Well spotted. Thanks!

However, the fix you suggest will impair the compressed size of the player code, as the otherwise nice (24 bit aligned) label constants will then not be as nice. An alternative fix, starting the counter from TOTAL_SAMPLES-1, would have the same problem.

I think the best fix would be to simply pad the MusicBuffer to avoid overwriting anything important. The one missing sample at the beginning of the music is probably not a big deal, unless you have a REALLY sharp start to your music. :)
added on the 2015-10-31 18:17:47 by Blueberry Blueberry
There is a new version available!

It adds the buffer padding in the player code mentioned in my reply to the comment by TheT.

It also includes a 64-bit build of the VST as suggested by Weyland Yutani. This actually seems to be significantly faster (tested in 32-bit Renoise), so that was an easy win. :)

In addition to this, I have included a multithreaded version of the player source, computing the left and right channels in separate threads. Assuming at least two CPU cores, this computes the music about twice as fast, at the expense of somewhat bigger code. If you can spare the space, use it!

Both versions also contain a small addition to the index decay computation which avoids running into denormals if the index decays down to very small values. This also improves the speed considerably in some cases.
added on the 2015-10-31 21:15:38 by Blueberry Blueberry
Appreciating the music from the sidelines :)
rulez added on the 2016-01-15 15:40:43 by cxw cxw
Quote:
There is a new version available!

It adds the buffer padding in the player code mentioned in my reply to the comment by TheT.

It also includes a 64-bit build of the VST as suggested by Weyland Yutani. This actually seems to be significantly faster (tested in 32-bit Renoise), so that was an easy win. :)


So, could you also update the initial download links to prevent confusion? Thanks.
The download link is the same as before. The history.txt file in the archive tells you which version you have.

Or did you mean that the file names ought to be different so you can tell them apart?
added on the 2016-02-03 14:20:35 by Blueberry Blueberry
Quote:
The download link is the same as before. The history.txt file in the archive tells you which version you have.

Or did you mean that the file names ought to be different so you can tell them apart?

Alright, sorry, was confused by "released 2013".
Since no one has mentioned it here before and musicians may not know how to fix this:: on line 792 of clinkster_multithreaded.asm, [stereo] should be [g_stereo]. Otherwise you get an error if your song uses panning.
added on the 2016-03-17 22:01:09 by Seven Seven
Thank you for the report, Seven. I will include that fix in the next release.
added on the 2016-03-22 20:44:18 by Blueberry Blueberry
Thanks Blueberry, but the 64 bit build isn't recognised by Ableton at all, can somebody maybe explain why?
Are you using the 64 bit version of Ableton? I am not sure if Ableton is able to bridge between 32 and 64 bit when using VSTs.
added on the 2016-04-07 12:50:06 by Blueberry Blueberry
Yes, I am using the 64 bit version, it loads other 64 bit vstis just fine except for Clinkster, I made sure I had the right build too
It's an awesome one !
Did the music of Bricked / Rift with it and it was a joy to use.
rulez added on the 2016-04-14 20:19:06 by alkama alkama
Yet another update (download link unchanged):
- Compile error in multithreaded version when using panning fixed (the bug is the one mentioned by Seven, but the fix is different from the suggestion above).
- Added a WAV writer to the easy_exe setup. Thus it can be used in exe music competitions that require a WAV writer (such as Revision).
- Added some checks to the converter to reject music containing effect commands (since they are not supported).
- Added the music from U-Boat to the examples.
added on the 2016-04-15 23:13:12 by Blueberry Blueberry
Thumbs up for the source. Always wanted to work out how sound synthesis works.
rulez added on the 2016-04-16 02:13:15 by mudlord mudlord
First of all, really nice tiny synthesizer, indeed.

Anyway one question according to wave-generators.
Parabola wave - is everything right with it? I notice strong signal between 0-70Hz.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gp78w4fav988kji/Parabola.jpg?dl=0

Best regards,
rulez added on the 2017-03-17 23:26:09 by SuperNoise SuperNoise
The parabola wave is mainly meant to be used as ModWave. It can be used as BaseWave as well (just because, why not), but it results in an off-center signal, since the parabola wave is asymmetric (like all the other waveforms, it ranges between -1 and 1, but its average is -1/3 instead of 0).
added on the 2017-03-18 00:45:33 by Blueberry Blueberry
Late thumb!
rulez added on the 2017-03-18 04:43:56 by rloaderro rloaderro
thumb
rulez added on the 2017-03-18 05:21:32 by psenough psenough
def gotta try
rulez added on the 2017-04-04 11:43:37 by nagz nagz
Missing Thumb!
I simply love the clean, wide and very full sound this synth can produce.
I'm sure it has many more tunes just waiting to be made with it :)
rulez added on the 2017-04-10 23:12:45 by Puryx Puryx
Thanks for boosting 4k tunes, musicians like it :)
Wonder if there will be a converter for non-renoise modules as well :)
rulez added on the 2017-04-28 00:20:31 by T$ T$
Quote:
Wonder if there will be a converter for non-renoise modules as well :)

No plans in that direction from me. But I can describe the internal player format in details, and then maybe somebody else could pick it up.

The Renoise converter converts one note column at a time, duplicating instruments that are used in multiple columns. Within each column, each note off never comes later than the next note on. Other DAWs might group all notes for each instrument together and thus not have this property. This should still work fine, since the minimum note distance the internal format can represent is zero, and the lengths of notes are stored separately.
added on the 2017-05-01 17:19:57 by Blueberry Blueberry
I'm trying to compile ClinksterPlayer (Visual C++ 2010 Express), but an error occures:

------ Build started: Project: ClinksterPlayer, Configuration: Release Win32 ------
Assembling clinkster.asm
Assembling clinkster_multithreaded.asm
Assembling ftol.asm
C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\BuildCustomizations\vsyasm.targets(45,5): error MSB3721: The command ""D:\Programming\Microsoft_Visual_Studio_10.0\VC\bin\"vsyasm.exe -Xvc -f Win32 -o "Release\\" -rnasm -pnasm clinkster_multithreaded.asm ftol.asm" exited with code 1.
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

There are files: vsyasm.targets, vsyasm.xml, vsyasm.props in the C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\BuildCustomizations dirctory. There ia the vsyasm.exe in the D:\Programming\Microsoft_Visual_Studio_10.0\VC\bin directory.
Yasm 1.3 has a bug where it will not accept "Win32" as the output file format with capital W. Try Yasm 1.2 - it doesn't have that bug.
added on the 2017-06-15 19:02:18 by Blueberry Blueberry
@Blueberry: :Yasm hint helped, but next issue occurs while building the ClinksterPlayer solution in the Release mode. Message is:

LINK : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol Clinkster_GetInstrumentTrigger
Main.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _Clinkster_GetInstrumentTrigger@8
Release\ClinksterPlayer.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 2 unresolved externals
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

I have not changed anything in the code, just unzipped the archive and trying to bulid solution.
In order to use the instrument trigger functions, you must change the define of CLINKSTER_GENERATE_TIMING_DATA in the top of the player you are using to 1.
added on the 2017-06-15 23:14:02 by Blueberry Blueberry
@Blueberry: Thank you, it works:)

Is there available a source code of a 4kb intro which uses clinkster?
@littlejerome1 I'm sure there's plenty more out there, but one of my old ones uses it https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=63556

(god I love how simple clinkster is - trying to learn 4klang and getting nothing good out of it so far lol)
rulez added on the 2017-12-05 11:57:27 by squeakyneb squeakyneb
@Blueberry, have you heard this yet?

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing?id=2709
added on the 2019-01-23 05:52:27 by m0d m0d
Yes, I've heard it, though in a different context. Interesting that it finds its ways outside the demoscene. :)
added on the 2019-01-26 16:11:00 by Blueberry Blueberry
He also made this one.
added on the 2019-01-26 16:22:33 by Blueberry Blueberry
Hi, I've made the exporter and replayer code play nice with ELF sections so it now properly works on Linux etc., and would like to send these fixes back. I couldn't find any kind of git repository, so what would be the best way to do so?

The relevant diffs are here, here, here and here
rulez added on the 2019-05-12 16:28:36 by porocyon porocyon
Thank you for the Linux compatibility patch!

I can't put the code up in a repository unfortunately, since it contains the VST2 SDK, which means it will probably be taken down by Steinberg. :(
added on the 2019-05-26 14:28:55 by Blueberry Blueberry
@Blueberry i have a problem with converting .xrns to .exe using easy_exe tool. i put my music.xrns file and i got this message:

Quote:
C:\Program Files\Renoise 3.1.0\vst\Clinkster\easy_exe>del music.exe
Cannot find C:\Program Files\Renoise 3.1.0\vst\Clinkster\easy_exe\music.e
xe.
and

Quote:
: error LNK: Cannot open 'music.exe' for writing


what should i do?
added on the 2019-07-11 18:24:12 by mch mch
Most likely the tools do not have permission to write to the directory because it is placed within "C:\Program Files". Try placing it somewhere outside "C:\Program Files" and see if it works. It might also help running the script as administrator.
added on the 2019-09-21 22:45:09 by Blueberry Blueberry
Is there any way to get Clinkster.zip ? since the original link (http://crinkler.net/Clinkster.zip) is dead.
Getting clinkster.asm / converter is not a problem as those are scattered 100s of times on github, but the VSTi dll is nowhere to be found :[
added on the 2021-08-24 09:52:30 by mxadd mxadd
NVM - link works again.
added on the 2021-08-29 13:25:17 by mxadd mxadd
The link is HTTP so newer browsers will throw a tizzy if you try to open it. It works fine if you just copy it and open it in a new tab.
added on the 2021-08-29 13:27:28 by Gargaj Gargaj

submit changes

if this prod is a fake, some info is false or the download link is broken,

do not post about it in the comments, it will get lost.

instead, click here !

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