Overtonium v1.3.0
Overtonium 1.3.0
A 32-partial additive synthesiser laid out like a 32-channel mixer. Every channel is one sine oscillator locked to a harmonic of the played note, and every channel has its own tuning, envelope and modulation.
The per-channel outputs are gone
1.2.0 added an output per channel, so a patch could arrive in the host as 33 tracks. It is removed again, and this release is mostly that removal.
It never worked well enough to keep. Logic offers a fixed menu of multi-output arrangements and cannot complete the larger ones: every sixteen-output arrangement loaded, every twenty-five-output one failed, and the same settings crash Logic outright with other plugins, in a stack that is entirely Logic's own code. Which arrangements work varies with the version of Logic and the processor underneath it. The one shape that would actually suit a 32-partial mixer, 32 mono outputs, was never on the menu at all.
That left a feature that half worked in the one host it had been tried in, offered arrangements that returned an error naming the manufacturer, and could not be relied on across versions. It was a convenience rather than part of the instrument, so it goes.
Nothing else about the sound changes. Patches and presets load exactly as before.
Fixed
Parameters hold the values they are given. Setting a decay or release knob to its default and reading it straight back did not return the default: the two conversions between a knob position and a value were done in single precision, and those two positions fell where the round trip loses a bit. auval reported all 66 of them as parameters that would not keep their default. The conversions work in double now, and every default the plugin ships holds.
Changed
The factory preset code generator is no longer in released builds. "Copy as factory preset code" put C++ on the clipboard for pasting into the source. That is how a factory preset is written, and no use to anyone who is not about to rebuild the plugin, so it is behind a build flag now and the preset menu is shorter for everyone else.
Upgrading from 1.2.0
Patches, presets and sessions load unchanged and sound identical.
If you had a session routing channels to their own tracks, those routings are gone and the plugin is a stereo instrument again. Nothing else in the session is affected.
Installing
The install page has a row per file saying who each one is for. In short: take the installer for your platform, or the zip beside it if you have no administrator rights or keep plugins somewhere of your own.
| Platform | Installer | Formats |
|---|---|---|
| macOS | .pkg, with a chooser |
VST3, Audio Unit, Standalone |
| Windows | .exe |
VST3, Standalone |
| Linux | none, use the zip | VST3, LV2, Standalone |
The macOS build is a universal binary and runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel. Logic and GarageBand only look for new Audio Units when they start, so restart them after installing.
On Linux the zip's contents go in ~/.vst3 and ~/.lv2.
If you installed 1.2.0 or earlier with the package, the installer replaces it. A plugin folder holding two copies of Overtonium is worth tidying: macOS registers one of them and the host uses whichever that is, which need not be the newer.
What has actually been tried
All three platforms are built on every push, run through both test suites, and put through pluginval at strictness 8. The VST3 also goes through Steinberg's own conformance validator. macOS is the only platform where the plugin has been loaded into a real host, where the Audio Unit and the VST3 also pass auval. Nobody has run the Windows or Linux builds in a DAW yet, so treat those as untried and please open an issue with whatever you find.
Windows will warn you
The Windows installer is not signed, so SmartScreen says the publisher is unknown. Choose "More info" and then "Run anyway". If you would rather not, build from source: the readme says how, and it takes one CMake command.
macOS
The installer is signed and notarised, so it opens without a warning. It asks which of the three formats you want and installs only those.
Licence
AGPLv3, which follows from JUCE. The whole source is in this repository.