Six Sines is a small synthesizer which explores audio rate inter-modulation of signals. Some folks would call it "an FM synth" but it's really a bit more PM/AM, and anyway that's kinda not the point.
If you want to read a manual, go here
If you want to download a release or recent version, go here
The project exists for a few reasons
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At the end of 2024, I was in a bit of a slump dev-wise for a variety of reasons and wanted a small project to sort of jump-start me for 2025. I had watched Newfangled Dan ship obliterate from idea to loved plugin in November, and I thought hey can I do the same in December
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As I wrapped up 2024, I also wanted to take account of how well our project to factor code into libraries went and make a sort of todo-list of why it was hard to build a synth. This includes some insights into the sst- libraries and the clap-wrapper
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Another indie audio dev, who asked to not be named here in case this sucks, which it doesn't I dont think, said to a group of users in a discord in an offhand way something like "the least commercially viable thing is a 6 op full matrix pure FM synth". So my response was 1. implement one, 2. give it away, 3 ???, 4. you know the meme.
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It seemed fun, and I thought some people would download it.
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It had been in my head for a while and I wanted to hear how it sounded
We provide pre-build windows, linux, and macOS binaries at the release page but especially on Linux, you may want to build it yourself, since we use ubuntu 24 machines and linux doesn't really exist.
So to build it, do the standard
git clone https://github.com/baconpaul/six-sines
cd six-sines
git submodule update --init --recursive
cmake -Bignore/build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build ignore/build --config Release --target six-sines_all
various plugins and executables will now be scattered around ignore/build.
So this was really a one month sprint. And its pretty self contained thing. So feature requests are things I may say no to. But open an issue and chat. Or send a PR!
Bugs especially let me know.
But remember, "Programming an FM/PM/RM synth is hard" is not a bug in six-sines!
Well you know. It's not quite up to snuff for a surge project. And its pretty idiosyncratic. I may do a few more side quest projects in 2025. Lets see.
Members of the surge synth team helped with pre-release testing. Large parts of the factory patch library at first release were authored by Jacky Ligon and Kinsey Dulcet, and large parts of the workflow design improvements came from Andreya and EvilDragon. Thanks folks!
We use loads of open source software of course including all the sst libraries, clap and the clap wrapper (which itself includes vst3, ausdk, rtaudio, rtmidi, and more). The definitive list right now comes from the source directory.