Parhelion 1.1.0

Parhelion 1.1.0

The first public release: a generator of trance -- whole tracks and DJ sets, composed from a seed and synthesised
while they play. Standalone and VST3 for Windows, a command-line renderer, and a native app for Meta Quest.
Everything is synthesised; there are no samples.

Downloads

• Parhelion-1.1.0-Setup.exe -- installs the standalone, the VST3, the renderer and the manual. The runtime is
  linked in; nothing else has to be installed.
• Parhelion-1.1.0-portable.zip -- the same, in one archive, nothing to install.
• ParhelionQuest-1.1.0.apk -- the native Meta Quest build (adb install -r ParhelionQuest-1.1.0.apk, developer
  mode). Built and signed, not yet run on a headset.
• Parhelion-Manual.pdf -- every page of the panel as a picture, every parameter.
• SHA256SUMS.txt -- the checksums of all of them.

What is in it

• The composer. Five styles -- Uplifting, Progressive, Dream House, Acid, Deep -- calibrated against 30 measured
  reference tracks. A planner writes the form and the layer matrix (the breakdown with its tease and peak, the build,
  the empty beat before the drop), the harmony, the drums, the bass, the pad and the melody; the effects and the
  automation follow, and a leveler sets the drop's loudness and the breakdown's distance to it.
• A motif of its own. The lead's motif is drawn from statistics of royalty-free MIDI packs under the rules as hard
  constraints, in its versions from the tease to the main drop, and checked bar by bar against 144250 two-bar windows
  of transcriptions of famous tracks (kept only as hashes) so that no known motif comes out.
• DJ sets of any length. Five dramaturgies (Warm-up, Peak, Closing, Sunrise, Journey), harmonic mixing round the
  Camelot wheel, blends over the DJ intros and outros with one bass swap, the next track's hook teased on a third deck.
• The sound. Kick, sub, mid-bass and a 303; a twelve-lane kit; six polyphonic voices on the JP-8000's supersaw, VA,
  FM or wavetable through ten circuit-modelled filters, with the trance gate; a physical piano after Pianoteq's
  principle; an orchestra of bowed modal strings, a choir from the glottal source and formants, brass from lips on a
  bore and timpani; effects and a granular cloud; the pump of the ghost kick on every bus; room, plate and hall.
  Eighteen factory banks of 1024 presets, each with its modulation; a mod envelope, four LFOs and an eight-slot matrix
  on every melodic voice.
• Playing. The host's transport and tempo; a Perform page with mutes, master filter, echo throw, mod wheel, and
  "Breakdown now" and "Drop now", which rewrite the playing track from its next 8-bar line. New in 1.1.0: play it
  yourself -- a MIDI keyboard plays a voice (the kit, the bass, the 303, the six polyphonic voices, the piano, the
  strings, the choir, the brass, or by channel) with the sound its page has; Replace, Layer, and the composer switch
  that leaves every generated note out.
• Export. WAV with a cue marker at every section, the cues as JSON and as a rekordbox collection, DJ loops, MIDI
  with the program changes, stems that sum to the mix.
• The family's panel (new in 1.1.0), shared with Phosphene, Ephemeris and Totality: the same header, tabs, keys
  and right click on every control, Undo and Redo of every change, Help (F1) by topic, settings, a live ring round
  every knob the composer moves, the mixer as a console, no page that scrolls; a track or a DJ mix chosen in the top
  bar, and an arrangement that zooms down to four bars.

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, a processor with AVX2 (Intel from Haswell, 2013; AMD from Ryzen).
• For the plugin: a VST3 host. For the app: Meta Quest 2 or later.

Notes

• Tested: the self tests and vector tests, the VST3 loaded as a host loads it, the documentation check, pluginval at
  strictness 10 -- in the release configuration (Intel oneAPI).
• The installer and the program are not code-signed: Windows' SmartScreen may warn once ("More info", "Run anyway").
• Parhelion asks GitHub once a day whether a newer release is out and shows it in the status row (nothing else is
  sent, nothing is downloaded); the switch "Update check" in the settings turns it off.
• Licence: AGPL-3.0. The source is at https://github.com/reneweller-coding/Parhelion.