August 2, 2023 • 71 mins
Buckle up and join us as we embark on an electrifying journey into the world of sound with Artemiy Pavlov! Artemiy, a highly sought-after sound designer and the genius behind the innovative music software company, Sinevibes, takes us through his remarkable progression from a synth enthusiast to providing his expertise to industry-leading brands like Spectrasonics, KORG, Native Instruments, and Roland, and finally creating music software. We dive deep into the world of audio plugins, exploring both simple and complex software, as well as KORG's unique hardware hosting platform.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joe Hanley (00:08):
Welcome to the Audible Genius podcast, where we
take a behind the scenes lookat being a musician.
I'm Joe Hanley and today I'mtalking to Artemy Pavlov, an
accomplished sound designer andthe man behind the innovative
music software company,SignVibes.
We're going to walk through hisjourney from a lover of synths
(00:29):
to a sound designer forwell-known audio brands, to a
music software coder and creator.
Let's get started so.
You do sound design andconsultancy for other companies
and you have your own plug-incompany With your sound design
and consultant work.
You've worked with some bigcompanies like Spectra, Sonics,
Korg, Native Instruments andalso Roland, where you did some
(00:51):
work on some of their big synthsand keyboards, like V-Synth,
Phantom G, Jupiter, Haiti.
What stuff did you do for thosekeyboards?
Artemiy Pavlov (01:00):
Well, yeah, roland was.
The collaboration with thiscompany was pretty much the
first thing that I ever did inthis whole field.
So my sound design careerpretty much started with Roland
Instruments back in 2003 or 2004, I believe.
(01:20):
So, yeah, I've done a lot ofstuff basically for the Phantom
X, juno G, phantom G, I've donepresets, and for the V-Synth,
for instance, I've also doneboth the presets I mean the
(01:41):
patches and the factory samplecontent.
And of course, I did presetsfor the Jupiter Haiti, for
A-S-H-O-1, a few other machines.
I mean, I keep forgettingalready.
So, yeah, yeah, yes, that'spretty much.
Joe Hanley (02:01):
Oh, that's pretty cool.
Your first opportunity was witha major company like Roland.
How did you come across thatopportunity?
Artemiy Pavlov (02:07):
It was a very like a multi-step I don't know.
It happened in several steps.
All of them were kind ofinteresting.
I was a huge fan of RolandX-P80 workstation, which I had
for a few years back in thosedays and I really loved.
(02:31):
You know pretty much everythingabout it.
And a few years after I got it,roland released the Phantom and
then they released the PhantomS, which included sampling, and
I was so excited about itbecause I've been dreaming about
, you know, having a workstationwith great synthesis
(02:52):
capabilities as well as samplingand effects in one box, and I
got so excited about it thatI've decided to start like a
mini-community online.
And that was very early days ofthe internet.
Still there were no socialnetworks and everything was
happening on forums, if youremember those glorious days.
(03:14):
So anything you would want toshare with anyone that will have
to be on some forum.
So that was actually a forumcalled Harmony Central I'm not
sure if it's still there andthere was like a hangout zone
for Roland fans and I was very,very loud over there.
I was I think I was like 22 atthat moment and I was still a
(03:40):
student and I had no money.
Basically, I just had the X-P80, and I had some savings over
there and I still couldn'tafford the Phantom S, but I was
so pumped about it there was nosuch word back in those days
though.
Anyway, I was really so excitedabout this instrument that I
(04:06):
was like thinking about it, youknow, each and every day, and I
started a website calledPhantomized, which I probably
was Phantomized by theinstrument, so it was like a fan
website, basically, with a fewpages like linking to various
resources pictures, youtubevideos and stuff like that, and
(04:33):
you know, all of the stuff thatI was gathering on that website
really caught, you know,interest of many users forum
users at Harmony Central.
They said, hey, why don't youstart a forum?
So I actually opened a forum onthis website, and it got like
(04:55):
1,000 users in just a few months.
It got very, very popular, andI think, like at some point you
know, there were so many peoplethere there were I was actually
giving them advice on the forumregarding the instrument, and
(05:17):
because I had a chance toreceive the user manual of it,
one of the users scanned it forme.
He couldn't download it back inthe day, roland would not allow
this, so one of the guys overthere scanned the user manual
for me, which I read.
I don't know, that was a maniac.
So and now I knew theinstrument better than most
(05:38):
people who had it and I stilldidn't have it.
So, long story short, whenpeople found out that I still
don't have the instrumentbecause I lacked cash to buy it,
they actually started like afundraiser.
So they gathered some money soI could sell my XB80, add the
(05:59):
money and buy the Phantom S.
So that's how I got it,basically thanks to that
community.
That was pretty amazing back inthe day and so I started doing
like a ton of stuff with itcustom presets, doing like
little productions, demos,playing with effects and
resampling and everything.
(06:19):
And that website, like I said,it was very popular and it
caught attention of Roland andeventually one of their sound
designers, stefan Pijen fromBelgium, who is a very dear
friend of mine now of almost 20years.
So he said, hey, why don't youdo like a test project for us?
(06:43):
Because the stuff that you dosounds very interesting, the
sounds and everything.
So the first project that theygave me was the Roland Phantom
XA, which was like a simplifiedversion of the Phantom X, and I
did one of the factory demos forit and a few months after that
(07:06):
they said like you got acceptedfor something like that and I
got two projects to work on.
That was the V-Synth 2.0 andV-Synth.
I believe that was.
Yes, that was the V-Synth 2.0and V-Synth XT.
So there was like a freshfactory bang for it that we
(07:30):
worked on so from my side, whichit included both samples and
patches, and there was a PhantomX 2.0 update for which I also
did presets.
So that was kind of the start.
Joe Hanley (07:46):
So you didn't actually have the Phantom X or
the user manual when you startedtalking on the forums a lot and
starting the website about it.
Artemiy Pavlov (07:56):
Yeah, I was quite a fanatic of reading
manuals.
For some reason, it was thesame thing with the XB80.
That was the Phantom S, themodel that preceded the X, but
they were pretty simple.
Joe Hanley (08:12):
And how did you become such sort of like an
expert in it before you even hadit?
Like where were you gettingyour knowledge at the time?
Artemiy Pavlov (08:20):
I just don't think I had anything else to do.
That was that exciting to me.
I don't know.
I was just I don't know.
I was chasing the dream andit's like, let's say, you dream
of some car or you dream of somelocation you want to go to.
You would just spend days andweeks and months studying
everything about it, like youjust can't wait to get there,
(08:43):
you know to get that thing, andso on, and so on and so on.
And that was the case with theXB80 as well.
Before I could persuade my dadto buy it for me, I knew
everything about it.
I didn't have the manual, but Ihad the list of waveforms
effector waveforms that I knewwhich waveforms I would use when
(09:09):
I would have it and switch iton.
So that was pretty ridiculous,I don't know.
Joe Hanley (09:14):
That's great.
Artemiy Pavlov (09:14):
So I actually I still remember I would even go
to a print shop because I haveno, I don't know.
I actually had no computer,like in the late nineties, and I
would have to go with a floppydisk with the list of preset
waveforms.
I would go to a print shop, Iwould, you know, have them print
(09:39):
those for me and I had themliterally like on my bedside
table so I could check them outif I want to, which is like I
don't know.
And I was looking at the namesof the waveforms and I was
imagining how they could sound,which was pretty crazy.
None of them really sounded theway I imagined.
At the end, but that's what Idid, I think back in those days,
(10:04):
because we had so little infocoming upon us, I could say it's
no computer, no internet.
I mean I had internet in mylike what we called like an
interned room in my university.
That's where you could goonline, you know, in one of the
(10:26):
shared computers.
So anyway, pretty mucheverything was in our heads,
like if you had no photo camera,you would memorize, you know
the event, you would keep it inyour head.
So I think imagination was muchmore, I mean memory, and
imagination was much moreimportant.
It was a much bigger part ofyou in the 90s, not because of
(10:55):
the 90s themselves, but becausewe didn't have all of this tech
you know, in our pocket, on ourtable, in our bag, everywhere.
Right now it's pretty much likeaugmented for us.
You know what I'm saying.
We have like our visualmemories augmented by the photos
(11:16):
on the phone and so on and soon, all of the things we kind of
delegated part of our brainactivities to computers.
So I guess back in those days,that's how I think I developed,
(11:37):
you know everything.
It was just stuff happening inmy head which was almost fitting
on itself.
It's like you fit it a littlebit and it would then start
creating what it wanted tocreate because it had nothing
else to do.
You couldn't go online andwatch someone else do something.
(11:59):
You would have to do ityourself for yourself.
Joe Hanley (12:03):
That is very cool.
Artemiy Pavlov (12:04):
I couldn't go and watch someone jam with a
synthesizer online.
I had to go and jam with my ownsynthesizer.
So it was kind of you would bespending time being creative,
being imaginative, no matterwhat, because that was the only
thing you could do actually.
Joe Hanley (12:24):
Now, of course, nowadays there are so many
resources to learn synthesis andsound design and, for our
listeners, if you're interestedin learning how to design your
own sounds with a synth, Ihighly recommend Centorial, a
super effective course that wehere at Audible Genius created.
It'll take you by the hand andstart from the very beginning,
(12:44):
showing you how to program asynthesizer, and it comes with a
built-in soft synth that you'llmake hundreds of sounds on as
you progress through the course.
By the end, you'll be makingyour own sounds intuitively and
completely by ear.
And for our loyal podcastlisteners, you can get 20% off
Centorial this month with couponcode DSP.
(13:04):
Check it out at Centorialcom.
And were you playing in bandsor anything like that with your
synth, or is it more just?
like at home kind ofexperimenting and things like
that?
Artemiy Pavlov (13:15):
No, no, I was.
I did a few performances like apaired with a DJ in a few clubs
, but it was a bit difficultbecause I was just a student
that didn't have a car andpaying for a taxi wasn't really
an option either, so I wouldhave to literally just ask my
(13:39):
dad or ask somebody who had acar to help me to support the
instrument to the club.
So I didn't do it that much.
But I was mostly producing.
So I was doing sound design andproduction and basically the
timeline was, you know, as yearspassed, I was using more and
(14:03):
more of my own sounds in themusic.
So, you know, I started doinglike 50-50,.
Then I switched to only synthsounds and sample drums and
later on I would start designingmy own drums and using all
those.
So it's not like I've everreleased anything, I'm just
(14:24):
saying I was trying to, you know, make myself do everything.
You know, every aspect of theproduction had to be in my
control.
That's how I ended up doing DSP, because I was like oh, it's
like you know, in the anecdotewith the drums, if you know it,
(14:48):
I ended up.
You know, let's say I'velearned the synthesis engine.
Now I know everything about it.
I've learned all of the effects.
Now what to do next?
I thought I should create myown.
Then, if what you have is notenough, why don't you go and do
(15:11):
something in that field?
Joe Hanley (15:15):
That curiosity about exactly how these effects are
being made, how the synthengines are being made.
That's what led you to startmaking your own plugins.
Artemiy Pavlov (15:24):
Yeah, exactly, I'm now tracing it back to those
stands.
When I was using those Rolandinstruments.
The effects back in the daywere so incredible All of the
filters and distortion choruses,reverbs and everything.
I liked them so much and therewere a huge mystery for me.
(15:48):
I was like, how do they dothose?
I was imagining the authors ofthese algorithms, who are super
humans to me, who can createthose.
It was like a miracle for meNow that there is the Dreadbox
(16:10):
Typhon which has my effects onit.
Only a few years after we didthat one, I realized wait a sec.
20 years ago I was marveling atthe effects built into a synth.
Now there's a synth with myeffects on it.
(16:31):
I didn't even realize it that.
Oh wow, so it actually happened.
I'm now one of these superhumans, I guess.
So it was pretty amazing.
I didn't think about it.
It was never a goal.
I just traced it back to thosedays when I was stunned by these
(16:55):
instruments and suddenly Irealized, oh, I'm actually doing
this kind of stuff myself now.
Joe Hanley (17:03):
So when you decided that you wanted to start
learning DSP which for ourlisteners is basically like
coding audio, the specific stuffthat actually makes the effects
and the synths to the sound,that part of the code how did
you go about learning that?
Artemiy Pavlov (17:21):
Initially it was just a lot of experimentation,
because I was still a studentback when I started playing with
doing audio processing.
I think it was like basicallyaround those same years, like
2004, 2005, something like that,I probably.
(17:45):
I think that was just after Igraduated.
So, and since my major was inphysics, I had a pretty serious
background in all of these.
You know waveforms and waves,electromagnetism and these
(18:07):
things.
So.
But I still I was mainlyeducated in radio waves, not in
audio, although my dad used tobe an audio engineer but just
the background in math andgeneral understanding of how
(18:29):
things, how waves, propagate,what happens when they reflect,
when they sum, when there'sdistortion, like nonlinearities,
when they propagate.
These things.
I understood them like it waslike an alphabet for me.
I could you know, it was secondnature.
So once I started, once I saw,I think back in those days, I
(18:56):
started yeah, that is right, Iactually started playing with
Linux back in those days and ithad a very basic plugin format.
I think that's how it startedfor me.
I started playing with the likeinitial project, which was
(19:17):
super, super basic, and once Isaw how audio is being fed into
the plugin and out of it and hey, that's the bit where, you know
, the bit in between is whathappens to the sound.
So I started you know theobvious things, you know
(19:37):
creating my own like amplifier.
That's what everybody does inthe beginning, just to gain
control.
And then I started thinkingabout, I was somehow obsessed
with sine waves that's where thecompany name came from sine
vibes, because the sine wave wasalways the basis of all of the
(19:58):
formulas that we've had inphysics.
I, you know, I knew that thatwas like the origin of
everything.
So to me, working with sinesmeant that you're working with
the most fundamental part ofsound, whether that be, you know
(20:19):
, harmonic series or just asingle sine oscillator, or you
would use.
I thought it would be cool touse the sine wave to shape
another sine wave.
So that's how I came up with mywave shapers.
In the beginning I wasessentially playing with them,
(20:45):
you know, playing with sines asboth the source of sound and the
distortion algorithm, and so onand so on.
So that's basically how Istarted.
I think, once again, a lot ofit was just my imagination.
I was just dreaming things up,so to speak, and that's how we
(21:07):
started.
Joe Hanley (21:08):
And so you're making plugins for yourself, but at
some point you decided to startsine vibes, which is the company
you run, which you make andsell plugins.
What point did you decide?
You know I'm going to turn thisinto a company, into a
livelihood.
Artemiy Pavlov (21:25):
Well, sine vibes started.
You know, I had like four orfive different brands that I
used to sell my own sound packsfirst, and those were pretty
successful.
Then, you know, I switched tosine vibes as the final name for
those sound packs and for, Ibelieve, like for four or five
(21:46):
years, that was the only type ofproduct that I sold.
But again, like, I firststarted with presets for
hardware instruments and then Istarted doing presets for
software instruments and thenagain, as I was using those, I
(22:08):
was like, hey, I'm kind of boredwith the stuff that everybody's
doing.
I should do something I thinkis worth doing and is absent on
the market.
So I started playing with aplugin template on the Mac that
I had, you know, at that moment,and if you you know, I think
(22:33):
the first thing that I did was Itook those wave shapers that I
experimented with back in theLinux days and I basically took
that idea a little further,added modulation and that was
the first plugin to release.
It was like a wave shaper whichyou could modulate.
The curvature of the effectwould be kind of dynamic and it
(23:02):
was modulated by a couple offellow foes.
So that was the first pluginthat I did.
But again I don't know.
It's not like I don't really.
I didn't come from thestandpoint of how to make money,
(23:23):
rather like oh, I have thisidea, what if somebody likes it?
It actually pays for it.
But it's usually like I have tobuild it first without knowing
whether it's going to succeed ornot.
I have to try.
So it's never like oh, what'strending now?
(23:45):
Oh, what do producers needthese days?
The most?
It's mostly like oh, I havethis idea, let's try to make a
product out of it.
So in many ways I would say thestuff that I'm doing now is
(24:07):
kind of up with the times,because I'm always listening to
modern music and I'm kind ofhearing how they say it now,
vibing with it.
So I'm getting inspired bydifferent character of sound,
different types of differentways people manipulate sound.
(24:30):
So I don't try to copy what'sbeing done, but I get in the
same, I would say, stylisticmood as these tracks are made
and it kind of shapes my overallfeeling of what needs to be
where a certain algorithm needsto be sonically.
Joe Hanley (24:55):
So then, rather than follow trends or make plugs
that you think are going to bepopular, it's more about what's
inspiring you at the moment,what you think would be really
interesting and musicallyinteresting.
Artemiy Pavlov (25:05):
Yeah, yeah, usually it's actually half of
the time actually really enough.
The plugins that I think arejust a little too simple.
They just become way morepopular than the ones that I
would be sweating myselfcalibrating and stuff Like this
(25:29):
year.
For instance, the plugin thatI've released calls SKU, which
is a reverser, which is like.
There are many reversers outthere, but mine had a very
simple way to bend the playbackcurve so you could have various
(25:52):
interesting scratch effects andpitch bend effects, just like
with a single knob action, andthat one sold like crazy
compared to other plugins whichtook maybe like five times more
effort to develop.
So it's never yeah, that'sinteresting.
(26:13):
You never know until you try.
So you never know until yourelease something.
Joe Hanley (26:17):
Yeah, I was looking at SKU and that is really
interesting.
It plays the audio back liveand it even had like a rhythmic
component to it where you cansort of change the rhythm of how
, or like the time signature ofhow it plays it back.
Artemiy Pavlov (26:30):
Yeah, yeah, the thing is like traditionally
people think of reversers asreversing just your standard,
like quarter note, eighth note,health bar, full bar, two bars,
which is most people will go forthat.
But since I was doing it, I waslike I always get these
(26:51):
requests by people oh, pleasemake it go 7, 9th or 5, 13th.
I'm like why would you wantthat?
But I thought who I am todecide what rhythm people want
to play?
It's just like just a UIelement.
Why would I not include that?
(27:14):
If you deliberately have tolimit the plug-in to certain
numbers, I've decided not to.
So it goes from 1, 16th to 16bars and you can pick any value
of the fraction that you want.
It's as simple as that and itkeeps it synced to the DAW steel
.
But it lets you do these veryinteresting kind of glitchy
(27:38):
things.
And when you apply the playbackcurve onto the reverse chunk
and if you mix it with theoriginal, it kind of makes like
a chorus effect as well, andthat chorus is going to be,
let's say, is going to be pretty.
You kind of lock to the rhythm,which is also quite interesting
(28:01):
.
So a lot of hybrid effects arepossible when you just push it a
little further from what usersexpect.
Joe Hanley (28:10):
Yeah, that's one thing I noticed about your
plugins is that even a typicalplug-in like, say, a reverb like
everyone called Albedo, it'snot a typical reverb, Like I was
listening to some of theexamples and it's really cool.
It's like this almostintentionally artificial sort of
strange or interesting,beautiful sounding reverb.
Is that kind of one of yourintentions with each one to do
some element that isn't typical?
Artemiy Pavlov (28:32):
Oh, definitely, yeah, there are definitely
things.
It's not like I, um, they justcome as ideas.
That's how I can tell you.
It's not like I.
It's like, like I have a Idon't know Wide board and, like
(28:54):
you know, bullet point numberfive, make it original, like
come up with the parameter thatnobody else has.
So that's never reallysomething that I that I have to
like make myself do, but rather,you know, anytime I do
something I come up withsomething with an idea that does
(29:16):
just pushes it a little furtherthan then.
You know it has been pushedbefore.
If there was a this type ofeffect, for instance, one of the
things which, which is pretty,it's so basic, it's, it's so
simple that you know, speakingabout it is like what is in it,
(29:36):
like okay.
But for instance, in the hollowReverb, what I did is Usually
in in in reverb you have a pre,pre delay parameter.
So we delays the delay tail, oh, sorry, it delays the reverb
tail, so that it happens aLittle further in time after the
(30:01):
sound starts.
That's how you can kind ofseparate it from from the sound
a bit and not make the mix tomuddy, especially with with big
sounding reverbs.
It's a very important feature,because otherwise you know Every
note you play is gonna be mixedwith the verb instantly.
So the pre delay kind ofBasically shifts the whole audio
(30:24):
timeline of the wet signal, andand then I thought, why don't
we have a sort of like aNegative pre delay?
That would mean we're delaying,we're not delaying the reverb
signal, we're delaying the drysignal.
What happens is that the reverbsound sounds starts sounding
(30:45):
first and it kind of fades intothe original sound.
So it almost sounds like both areversed and Usual reverb.
Especially when you have adiffusion stage on, it's almost
like you are adding a separateattack portion to the note and
(31:07):
then there is a reverb afterthat.
So it's kind of like and soit's it's.
It's almost silly talking aboutit because it's such a basic
idea Yet like I haven't seen itanywhere else.
Joe Hanley (31:22):
Now people.
Yeah, I've heard of a negativepre-tall.
It's like super, super basic sodo you ever get a sense from
the people that are using itwhether they're using Specific
features like that or not?
Do you have any idea, like howpopular certain aspects of your
plugins are?
Artemiy Pavlov (31:36):
Well, I've only heard comments like oh, it's
such a small thing, but itchanges.
You know everything.
So, because usually you wouldhave to, you could do it before
that manually.
You would have to have thereverb on the send track, for
instance, or, like you know, doa duplicate track and you would
(32:01):
Leave this and send Sorry, thereturn signal as it is, and then
you would delay the original,and I believe many productions
did that.
Now, that's how the truereversed reverb is done.
Okay, you, you, you reverse theaudio, send it to a reverb,
reversed again, that's how theverb sounds before the signal.
(32:23):
But you have to do it manually.
So in this one it's not areversed reverb, but it's the
attack portion of the reverbthat can precede dry sound.
So it still sounds a bitdifferent.
But once again, I mean, it's so, so basic.
So in in any plugin that I, youknow, I've designed, there's
(32:46):
always this, this, somethingthat's oh, it's taking things
further a little bit.
So, not at all of them, I don'tthink so.
But Again, I'm not reallytrying to Push myself into doing
that, but it just, it's just anature for me to.
(33:06):
Sometimes you come up withsomething.
You say, oh, I'm a genius.
But then you discover somebodydid it like 10 years ago.
Like, oh, I should.
I should have read the internetmore so, but you're kind of
proud that you came up with theidea, but it's useless because
it's been done.
Joe Hanley (33:25):
So do you so it sounds like you're able to
really tap into like the themore a creative musical side of
your brain.
We're developing these plugins.
Even though you know coding, itcan be a very analytical
process.
Do you ever find it's kind oftough to Use both those sides of
your brain at the same time, oris it kind of a fluid process
for you?
Artemiy Pavlov (33:44):
I Think it's always a mix of things.
I wouldn't.
You know, I'm not really adeveloper in the sense that I
can concentrate in coding for avery long time.
Usually it's.
It's a lot of Imagination,trying to imagine how things
would work in my head, thendoing a prototype, and the
(34:09):
prototype would always beRehearsed.
So because I'm doing thesethings mostly alone, I mean, I
have a co-developer, steven, whois doing Things, but you know,
he's done a few DSP beads backin a day, but that was his task
(34:29):
he was.
He was doing it alone with noinput from myself.
Same thing with me.
He, same thing with me.
I would, since I'm the, the onewho, let's say, gives the
verdict to how, how the codesounds.
(34:50):
I do it Like in real time.
So I kind of lead the algorithmin a way.
I think it should go so andI've always, I always.
I don't try, I don't just Dolike basic tests like within,
let's say, with some Basicwaveforms and stuff I actually
(35:13):
have recordings of like drums,since Electric guitar that I
keep fitting into the algorithmall the time.
So I would, I would do somechanges and feed these different
Audio types of audio sourcesand see what it does, and I kind
of try to balance everything onthe way, so it's not like I
(35:36):
would spend an hour doingsomething and I would.
I would then have to show theoutput audio to somebody who
would Say, oh, it sounds goodand and tell me where to go next
.
It's always because it's allwithin me.
I Just I just sit like this forhours and I just I just go
(35:59):
somewhere, so and and thebasically, yeah, this the sounds
that I use as the sources theykind of lead me to to.
Joe Hanley (36:07):
You know that destination, you know yeah, that
kind of I can relate to that.
Having that sort of just thatautomatic connection between
Listening to and just hearingwhat it does musically and also
being the person who's coding it, like those two things to be
Fully informed of each otherbecause they're in one brain, is
incredibly valuable.
Do you?
Do you ever send out earlystuff before it's released to
(36:29):
some musicians or people thattry it out just to see another
perspective?
Artemiy Pavlov (36:34):
very rarely, honestly speaking.
Yeah, mostly because you knowall of the guys that that are
like in my vicinity, my friends.
They are very busy people.
So there are extremely likehigh-level professionals, the
ones that I would love to hearfrom mostly not like you know,
(36:54):
just Some, some people that wassigned up for you beta testing
lists, I would say, I would sayit like that, but they're so
busy that, yeah, I almost neverhear anything from them.
So pretty much nobody gets tohear the plugin before it's
(37:15):
released.
So I mean, I would send demosTo you know, and I would
actually publish teaser audio onour social media and, basically
, I kind of gauge the excitementof the users To see, you know,
(37:37):
if, to see like, oh, am I doingsomething interesting?
Or people find it a littleboring, so, and it's not like I
really analyze it, it doesn'treally shape the final product,
but, let's say, most of the timepeople are actually excited and
(37:57):
it helps me, like you know,drive, help helps drive my you
know development process toactually finalize the products
and, you know, focus on on theprocess.
Joe Hanley (38:11):
Which plugins the most popular one or gotten the
biggest response.
Artemiy Pavlov (38:17):
In terms of this number of sales sure yeah it's
cute, okay, oh, it's like yeah.
So I'm just saying it's.
It sold In nine months.
It sold as many copies asElbido did in two years.
So it's like it's selling Icould almost three times the
(38:38):
rate, which is, I mean, it's nota shame Because it's my product
, right, but it kind of is ashame because Elbido took way
more time to develop in.
You know, conceptually it's amuch more complicated product,
but I'm just saying not, noteveryone wants as a physical
product, somebody just want tohave some fun.
Yeah, that's what skew is.
(39:01):
It's like it's stupid fun.
Yeah, I've actually I did.
I have done quite a few demosIn the past few weeks and we
actually released an update forit with more curves and yeah,
it's been received so well again.
And I kept doing this demosbecause I couldn't stop anything
(39:23):
I throw into it.
It's just like a.
I don't know it's like that.
I know he just makes it.
It's just fun, I don't know.
Joe Hanley (39:32):
I can see that it's more like apparently fun.
It gets obvious how enjoyablethis plugin would be, what it's
gonna do.
Artemiy Pavlov (39:38):
Yeah, it's like a reverb, like I know where I
need a reverb, but maybe I won'treally enjoy until I'm using
Honestly speaking, yeah, I, Ideveloped the reverse algorithm
to have it as part of our DSPcollection for licensing and I
wasn't intending to release areversal like at all, because
(39:59):
everybody has it.
You know why would we have thereversal?
You know it makes no, you knowno sense.
But at some point I was likelooking at the playhead, the
math, and I was like what if wecurve it?
What if we bend it?
What if the time was non-linear?
So and I and I and I maps it tolike an exponential curve, and
(40:24):
I was like that's a product, soin a.
Then I started like coming upwith other different curves and
Is just developing.
It was was immense fun.
So as well, so so you never know, you know now your plugins can
also be.
Joe Hanley (40:45):
You know, people buy them, load them in their DAWs,
like we do all plugins, but youcan also load them into certain
corg since, like the mini log Xd, for example, which I have
right behind me, oh and.
I I guess I wasn't fully awareof just how much stuff you can
like plug into it.
I didn't.
I wasn't really where therewere these plug-in architectures
that corg lets you put into.
(41:05):
Some of their sense is ismaking your plug-in Compatible
with that significantly morework, or is it a whole separate
thing?
I?
Artemiy Pavlov (41:15):
Would say it is a whole separate thing, because
you can't really like work, theplug-in to this architecture,
for two reasons.
First of all, there's verylimited resources on this
platform.
I'm talking about like memoryand processing capabilities and
(41:36):
the second thing is obviouslythe format is where Is is way
more basic, so you don't have asmany parameters.
Okay, so you kind of have to beI would say you have to be more
inventive to come up withsomething that's, let's say,
radically different from yourstandard.
Delays in the courses andfilters and and I I like this
(41:59):
platform for these exact reasonsthat you have to you really
have to push yourselves to comeup with something that's
Significantly more interestingthan the standard stuff.
At the same time, it actuallyis able to run on this platform.
Platform, did I say play form?
Joe Hanley (42:21):
I think so.
Artemiy Pavlov (42:23):
It is a play form because you're playing with
it.
So, and honestly speaking, it'sa.
I tried to spend like one monthfocusing on the desktop, on a
desk new desktop plug-in and thenext month I would focus on a
new cork plug-in, because Eacheach of these kind of draws me
(42:47):
in and if I make cork plug-insfor too long I can actually
forget that the desktop plug-insexist.
Joe Hanley (42:54):
Okay.
Artemiy Pavlov (42:54):
It's just so rewarding to, I mean.
I mean it's kind of thetick-tility that we were hoping
to get from plugins with touchscreens, but it's, it's a huge
difference still, because youhave you have the these
components in hardwareinstrument with no notification
(43:16):
center, with no Safari and Noneof that stuff.
So and it's pretty incrediblethat the this platform actually
got developed and and it's just,it's just super fun, do you
find so yeah, so you have towork within limitations there,
(43:36):
like you were talking about.
Joe Hanley (43:37):
Do you find that's Kind of relieving in a sense,
where you know when you'remaking a plug-in for a desktop,
it's unlimited what you can doessentially, but then when
you're suddenly forced to workwith limitations, it's Kind of a
relief in a sense?
Artemiy Pavlov (43:49):
Yes, yes, in a sense it is.
I mean you, you, if you have alist of a hundred things you can
do, what exactly do you do?
I mean, if you, if 90% of thosecannot be done, like period,
it's too much.
Then you have 10, which is likewow, you can actually start
doing something because You'vecrossed out, you know everything
(44:13):
else you can focus on on one ofthese things.
So it's exactly that.
So, and it's actually you knowof the funny thing that there
are plugins which allow you toembed samples in them, with very
low quality, obviously, becausethere is a, there's a limit to,
(44:35):
you know, there's there's thesize limit of the plug-in itself
, which can be only, like a, Ifeel like a couple dozen
kilobytes.
So how much sample Data can youembed it into that?
And I've, I've played with theidea of embedding some samples
(44:58):
just for fun, but then I thought, because the code, you can
actually have way more soundgenerating code in there.
Why don't I try to Do somethingelse?
Because I want to somethinglike a, like a drum synth, and I
thought, okay, well, why don'tI use that memory where the
(45:22):
samples could be actually as thememory to hold the presets?
So I created the, a synthengine which is like a, which is
able to kind of reconfigureitself in real time Depending on
which key you press.
It would load up preset fromthat memory.
(45:43):
It would kind of configureitself in real time and play
that preset.
So and each preset is somethinglike 35 parameters.
Some of them are like it'sactually a bit more, because
some of the parameters arebipolar and, for instance, if
it's positive, if it's onefilter, type slow pass filter,
(46:06):
if it's negative, it's a highpass filter, so that you're
using like each bit of memory,wow, to, to to max out what you
can do.
So that's how I made groove,which is a essentially like a
multi-temporal bass and drumsynth.
So instead of you knowembedding, you know a bunch of
(46:26):
low-fi samples, I'm actuallyI've actually embedded a preset
bank with Almost a hundred bass,drum and percussion sounds.
So that was quite anachievement on that platform,
because it's it's pretty muchlike what you would do in late
80s, I believe, with with thatkind of limited RAM and CPU
(46:47):
power.
So and that is, I mean, is sorewarding to have to have this
kind of stuff, because there isso much trickery you need to to
Come up with for that stuff tomake work, so that it's a
completely different type ofenjoyment for for the developer.
I Mean compared to the desktop,where you can be pretty much
(47:12):
like lavish with the resources.
Ah yeah, we can run a hundredoscillators Nothing gonna happen
.
Joe Hanley (47:18):
That's fascinating.
So it's one synth engine.
But you've you've programmed abunch of different drum sounds
with the synth engine and itjust switches between those
sounds depending on which keyyou play.
Artemiy Pavlov (47:29):
Yeah, exactly, that's right.
So so because I mean you havethe node information coming in
so you can logically split thekeyboard into zones, and then
your parameters.
The parameters of the plug-inare not the parameters of the
synth engine, they just keepsaying, oh, preset number one or
(47:50):
number seven, whatever.
So, and that bank of presets,each of them, is holding the
parameters for the synth engine.
So you've picked your soundsand then you know, depending on
the key press, it decides whatto do.
So some of the zones arechromatic, some of them are not,
so it's kind of like a, like alittle groove box in in the in
(48:12):
the synth.
So that was brought.
That was pretty much the Iwould say, the biggest technical
achievement for me on thatplatform, because it took it to
to that kind of level.
Yeah, that's, I also go ahead.
No, no, no.
Joe Hanley (48:31):
I also as soon as you have another one for FM
synthesis and that one, that onereally kind of blew my mind
because you know I bought thismini log XD.
You know, okay, this is asubtractive synth.
It's got a wavetable thing, butfor most part it's a
subtractive sin.
That's what this synth is.
And then suddenly I'm lookingat your plug is I'm like wait a
minute, I can actually turn thisinto an FM synth, like that
(48:51):
idea is crazy in a hardwaresynth.
Artemiy Pavlov (48:54):
Yeah, yeah, that one was also, yeah, very nicely
received by the public and Ibelieve it's actually the second
best-selling plug-in After skew, really, so it's, it's sold
better than the none of theother desktop ones.
So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
(49:16):
No, it was like people couldnot believe what, what they,
what they got, because it'sessentially now it's a plug-in.
Initially, like Korg was saying, oh, you could have an
oscillator model In in a, in aplug-in, you know.
And I was like, oh, that's,that's great, like you can have
like a super saw, you could havelike a some noise, the custom
(49:38):
noise generator.
But then I was like, why doeshave to be like just a waveform?
I mean, if, if I started likelayering oscillators, trying to
run one more and more, it wasable to run more.
So I was like, oh, it was likeit can be a complete, you know,
self-contained synth engine.
So that's how pretty mucheverything was, was was, you
(50:03):
know, developed.
It was the thinking was not todo it as a, as a, just just like
a bunch of different waveforms,but a complete Synthesis method
.
That's really like a, you know,that's a Synth engine on its
(50:27):
own.
And now the other, and now itwas.
I almost like I've neverthought I would do it but I give
it a go and I was like I justhave to do it now because it had
to be done.
I'm like people need this, likehow?
(50:48):
Because I'm myself not reallyinto FM that much.
But I was like I think peoplewill be like amazed about what
this can be within thisinstrument.
So that drove me Like I wannasee what people think of it so
(51:10):
and I started obviously it's notlike I wasn't developing it in
the same way I did the othersLike I had to like the sound of
it and it had to be designed.
I had to pick which parametersto have there, how to configure
them for the user.
But yeah, the end result wasquite, quite good.
Joe Hanley (51:32):
Yeah, because FM synthesis is such a distinctly
different sound than subtractivesynthesis.
So to think that you can changeyour hardware synth in such a
profound way is, I guess, nowI'm not surprised that it was so
popular.
So I know it's hard to predictthat stuff ahead of time.
Artemiy Pavlov (51:48):
Yeah, yeah, it's not like, oh yeah, fm is
trending, I have to do thisthing now.
So, although it was trending atthat time, but to me it was
like a bunch of check boxes.
I was like I wanna have as manyengines, as many different
engines, on this platform aspossible.
(52:10):
So we have wave shaping, wehave physical modeling, we have
FM, we have this kind of likepercussion slash, drum slash,
drum slash, bass machine.
And then a year ago we releasedodds, which was completely.
(52:31):
I mean, the concept of theplugin came from a different
type of thinking.
It wasn't coming from.
Oh, what type of synthesisengine do we do?
It's like how do we control it?
How can we control this enginein a way that others are not
(52:57):
doing?
So I'm not sure if you've triedit or read about it.
Odds actually has a bunch ofdifferent engines, like it has
virtual analog, it has FM, ithas a lot of other stuff going
on.
But the way you control it is abit different.
I mean you have 80 differentengine configurations which you
(53:22):
can pick.
So let's say, oh, it's a subwayform with a square wave form
going into a low pass filter.
That's your configurationnumber.
I don't know five you have tolook up that stuff I don't
remember so and then you have acouple of parameters which
control, like the envelope time,the cutoff frequency,
(53:43):
oscillator, detune, things likethat, and then it kind of sounds
basic, right, but then there isa level of control over there
that lets you adjust the triggerprobability of the sound.
It lets you randomize thetransposition by octaves and
(54:08):
fifth or just octaves or justfifth, and also allows you to
randomize the parameters of theengine, such as envelope time,
lfo, speed filter, cutofffrequency, fm, modulation depth,
like it all depends on whattype of engine you've picked.
So in the end you have somethingthat makes a different sound
(54:34):
with every key press.
It's gonna be different.
So and if you can imagine, likeplaying an arpeggio, for
instance, with just three notesactually an arpeggio, you know,
just manually, you would playthree notes, so and you have 50%
chance of the note sounding andthen the key is being
(54:54):
transposed by plus or minus anoctave, sometimes not for every
press.
So and you start getting this.
It's almost like a generativepattern.
You know the way, you know itfrom modular sequences, but it's
built on the sound engine levelhere, not on the sequencer and
(55:17):
modulation level.
So in the end you get like a Idon't know.
I've heard so many amazingpieces of music made with it.
It's ridiculous.
It's like people just push achord and just listen for a
minute.
They just and that's kind ofthat's all that.
(55:37):
You know that it takes to, youknow make music with it.
Joe Hanley (55:43):
So they pick a synth engine, whether it's like a
thumb or subtractive orwavetable, and then with each
key press it essentiallyrandomizes the patch in a synth.
Artemiy Pavlov (55:52):
Yeah, yeah.
But you control everything,like there is a table of
settings that you can pick, andyou pick exactly which
parameters you want to randomize.
Okay, oh, wow, yeah, yeah.
And you adjust the triggerprobability with the knob Okay,
yeah, yeah so, so, like youcould say and then you pick the
(56:15):
transpose pattern, you alsochoose it.
Is it octaves, is it fifth, isit both?
And how many octaves exactly,plus or minus?
So there is a, there are ATengine configurations in there
and about 20, 25 ways you canuse the transposition and
(56:47):
randomization of the parameters.
Joe Hanley (56:48):
Wow, so it's like a really For each.
Artemiy Pavlov (56:51):
So, like, if you multiply those, it's like a I
don't know thousands of waysthis thing can be played, wow.
Joe Hanley (56:58):
I love that probability thing where you can
say pick one parameter and sayjust how much you want it to
randomly change, if at all, ifyou want to like a wide range of
change or a narrow range ofchange.
Artemiy Pavlov (57:08):
Yeah, yeah, this feature was actually introduced
with Groove, the Drum and Bassengine, because you can actually
set any of the zones to a 50%chance of being triggered.
Okay, so this means that youcan have a bass pattern going on
, then the kick and snare wouldplay all the time, but then,
like the hi-hats and the shaker,for instance, they have a 50%
(57:31):
chance of being triggered.
So there was it was this ideato overcome the limitation of
the Miniloc DS sequencer, whichis only 16 steps.
You can have longer patterns,but if you put the hi-hat on all
of the steps, for instance allof the 16 steps, and then you
engage, 50% probability thatpattern will loop but will never
(57:54):
repeat.
So it's going to be less boring, basically.
Joe Hanley (57:58):
A quick word for our listeners.
This tool that Artemy hasdesigned is a really cool way to
generate drum patterns.
It's useful and fun to have amachine randomly composing drum
patterns for you.
However, you may find that atsome point you want to compose
your own drum patterns.
To learn how to do this, Ihighly recommend another super
effective course of ours calledBuilding Blocks.
(58:20):
It'll take you, step by step,through the process of writing
the building blocks of beats,like drum patterns, but also
bass lines, corporegressions andmelodies, and it all takes
place in an actual online DAWwhere you create music as you go
.
And for our loyal podcastlisteners, you can get 20% off
Building Blocks this month usingcoupon code DSP.
(58:41):
Check it out ataudiblegeniuscom.
Slash Building Blocks so what'snext for you?
Either with the company or withthe work outside the company.
What do you have plans on?
Artemiy Pavlov (58:54):
I plan to work as possible for other companies.
Honestly speaking, in the pastfew years I've been mostly doing
licensing, having done muchconsulting or sound design.
Joe Hanley (59:08):
And real quick.
Licensing is where someoneunder company, under developer,
will pay you to use youralgorithms in their products.
Artemiy Pavlov (59:16):
Yeah, exactly Because you can look.
I won't drop any names, butthere have been many significant
products released in the pastfive, six years that used the
DSP that me and Steven did.
So it's been a very goodexperience, first of all because
(59:43):
I mean because it's an honor tobe part of these big products
On one hand.
On the other hand, it makes thedevelopment.
I mean we need to make the codemore fit.
You know, when you're doing itfor yourself, it can be a bit
messy, not too standardized, butsince we started doing
(01:00:08):
licensing we had like three orfour major iterations of the
code when we would like reviseeverything, maybe once a year,
go through everything okay, whatneeds to be improved, what
needs to be optimized, what kindof coding practices we can
apply that we've learnedrecently and they work really
well, and so on and so on.
(01:00:28):
So it's a way to keep your codehealthy for years and you get
your code in front of high-enddevelopers working for like top
companies.
So if something is wrong youwill know about it very quickly.
So it's a way to have some sortof additional discipline when
(01:00:51):
doing stuff, extra checks beingextra focused.
So it kind of pays back in theform of having extremely stable
code Like.
I will tell you one thing sincewe've launched the new lineup
with Mac and Windows plugins twoyears ago, a little over two
years ago I haven't heard abouta single crash in two plus years
(01:01:17):
, really no, not a single crash.
Joe Hanley (01:01:22):
So, because your code has gotten so clean for the
other developers that arelicensing, your plugins perform
better for the musicians thatare using them as well.
Artemiy Pavlov (01:01:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah , you cannot shame yourself in
front of these big guys.
Yeah, you know, it's not like Iwasn't taking care of the code
before that, but it's just liketaking the extra steps to make
the API more beautiful, morecompatible between different
(01:01:52):
algorithms.
But, you know, I think I'm at apoint where I don't need this
licensing to make me moredisciplined.
I've already trained myselfenough, I would say so.
But I think it's that part oflicensing has been the biggest,
(01:02:19):
has made the biggest influenceon what I do.
Then there's getting the moneyfrom that licensing, so it's
actually collaboration andupping your standards and these
things Very cool.
So, but yeah, I'm very muchfocused on doing new stuff and
(01:02:40):
there are, like I would say,three different directions where
we're going.
So one of them is obviouslythere's so much new stuff.
You know that we would like todo, I mean, all new DSP that
hasn't been released yet.
(01:03:00):
And there's a new plugin thatI'm working on at the moment,
which is pretty interesting.
It's kind of a mixture ofdiffusion and 3D spacing, so
it's like diffusion that canhappen in a kind of like a
binaural way.
So, and it's probably going tobe called like a binaural
(01:03:25):
diffusion plugin.
So it's very interestingbecause I've taken this kind of
pseudo three dimensional stereowith the fact that we've used in
hollow, for instance, and somepeople described it that it's
wider than the wide, so it kindof sounds like a wide effect,
(01:03:49):
but also kind of sounds a littlebit like on the inside.
So it almost like when youlisten to it with headphones it
sounds like the reverb is bothencapsulating your head and it
also kind of sounds like here,like you can almost like feel
(01:04:10):
the thickness of the reverb,like around and in your head.
I don't know it's a weird wayto describe it, but that's how
it feels.
So I applied the same idea ontoa diffusion algorithm, so, and
it spreads the signal in thiskind of, you know, almost three
(01:04:34):
dimensional way.
So, yeah, it's a veryinteresting it sounds, and when,
when, when that effect ismodulated is also quite, quite,
quite interesting, because it'snot a course, it's not a phaser,
it's kind of like you will haveto hear it.
(01:04:54):
So there's some new stuff, butalso there's a lot of like 80%
of my sketches and notes is thenext generation versions of a
lot of plugins that we havediscontinued two years ago, for
instance, like the fractionslicer, multi effects, slicer,
(01:05:17):
sequential multi effects,sequencer, a lot of other more
basic sequencer based plugins.
So I'm take a lot of time torethink those, like, what do I
do to make them really nextlevel?
So there's, there's going to belike more, and I have to keep
(01:05:37):
them simple.
Still, I don't want to likespoil them with double the
features just to warrant oh,that's a new version.
You know just the one sayingthat.
So it has to be somethingthat's a huge advancement for
those, but at the same time, itonly takes like 5% more UI space
.
So the you know I have a lot ofideas.
(01:05:59):
You just have to shape it intointo a product for each and
every one of them.
So, yeah, that's.
You know a lot of users areasking for those, obviously.
So we kind of abruptlydiscontinued.
That line, which was very weirdfor a lot of people to meet,
(01:06:19):
was a way to say we have a freshstart, and it was a way to say
we're not going to sell you theold stuff, we're only going to
sell you the new stuff.
That's like super, super new.
So what?
I want you to pay for pluginsthat are like 10 years old.
It makes no sense to receivemoney for those.
(01:06:39):
We want, you know, your moneyin case of a plugin is like
really new and we will supportit for you know, a lot of time.
It's not like we're notsupporting the older plugins.
We've released new AppleSilicon compatible builds and a
lot of bug fixes as well forthose half a year ago and we
(01:07:03):
will continue doing so.
So it's not like those areforgotten.
It's most like those are inmaintenance mode, not in like
feature update mode.
So, and we actually shippedfive or six plugins as free
updates.
So some of the products whichwe released like six or seven
years ago, we had V2 releasesfor those and they were free
(01:07:27):
updates.
So for those who there will bemore free updates as well for
not for all of the plugins, butsome of the older plugins.
Yeah, some of the owners ofthose old plugins will be very
happy to know about it.
Cool, yeah, so, and the thirdthing, obviously Cork.
(01:07:50):
So there's still a lot of stuffto want to do.
I think most of the effectsthat we did and actually most of
the older, older us lettersthat were released like three or
four years ago, those will beall upgraded.
So we will rethink like how,what is like we've learned a few
(01:08:13):
things in the past, let's say acouple years, where we can take
things a bit further.
So we will be doing that foreach plugin, kind of rethinking.
So where do we exactly run outof CPU power?
We will take the plug in tothat level until it it overloads
(01:08:34):
the system.
Push the limit, then we dialback a little bit and that's the
new release.
So we try to push it like tothe very max.
So sometimes it's a bit toomuch.
You know we have to really dialthings back to get too excited.
But that's because, like wehave, you know, there's a
certain limitation on, let's say, you have your RAM on the chip
(01:08:58):
and there's a limit to how manytimes that RAM can be called for
each sample.
That's how.
That's why you cannot run, forinstance, two reverbs at the
same time, because they use alot of memory access and if
you'd want to, you would not beable to because the RAM can only
be.
You know, it has its bandwidth.
Joe Hanley (01:09:19):
Yeah, so a lot of stuff Well cool.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
It's been fascinating to hear ahow you got into the industry,
but then also how you just sortof maintain this very artistic,
inspired approach to making yourplugins.
I hope you continue down thatroad.
Artemiy Pavlov (01:09:36):
Thank you.
Yeah, I surely will.
There's no other way for me,honestly.
Joe Hanley (01:09:39):
That's great to hear .
Artemiy Pavlov (01:09:41):
So yeah All right.
Joe Hanley (01:09:42):
Thank you so much.
Artemiy Pavlov (01:09:43):
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Joe Hanley (01:09:47):
Thanks for listening to the Audible Genius podcast.
Now, as you listen to thesemusicians stories, you may find
yourself wanting to make yourown music, or maybe you already
can, but you feel the need tobrush up on fundamentals fill in
some gaps.
Well, I've got some supereffective and engaging courses
that help aspiring digitalmusicians find their voice and
create music they love.
And these courses are more thanjust a series of videos.
(01:10:10):
They have interactivechallenges in a music software
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The first course I recommend isbuilding blocks, where you'll
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(01:10:31):
synthesis, where you'll learnhow to create your own sounds
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Check that out at centorialcom,and both of these courses are
designed by yours truly and theteam here at Audible Genius.
So if you've ever had a desireto make your own music, I highly
encourage you to check them out.
Thanks again for listening andI'll see you on the next episode
.
Welcome to the Audible Genius podcast, where we
take a behind the scenes lookat being a musician.
I'm Joe Hanley and today I'mtalking to Artemy Pavlov, an
accomplished sound designer andthe man behind the innovative
music software company,SignVibes.
We're going to walk through hisjourney from a lover of synths
(00:29):
to a sound designer forwell-known audio brands, to a
music software coder and creator.
Let's get started so.
You do sound design andconsultancy for other companies
and you have your own plug-incompany With your sound design
and consultant work.
You've worked with some bigcompanies like Spectra, Sonics,
Korg, Native Instruments andalso Roland, where you did some
(00:51):
work on some of their big synthsand keyboards, like V-Synth,
Phantom G, Jupiter, Haiti.
What stuff did you do for thosekeyboards?
Artemiy Pavlov (01:00):
Well, yeah, roland was.
The collaboration with thiscompany was pretty much the
first thing that I ever did inthis whole field.
So my sound design careerpretty much started with Roland
Instruments back in 2003 or 2004, I believe.
(01:20):
So, yeah, I've done a lot ofstuff basically for the Phantom
X, juno G, phantom G, I've donepresets, and for the V-Synth,
for instance, I've also doneboth the presets I mean the
(01:41):
patches and the factory samplecontent.
And of course, I did presetsfor the Jupiter Haiti, for
A-S-H-O-1, a few other machines.
I mean, I keep forgettingalready.
So, yeah, yeah, yes, that'spretty much.
Joe Hanley (02:01):
Oh, that's pretty cool.
Your first opportunity was witha major company like Roland.
How did you come across thatopportunity?
Artemiy Pavlov (02:07):
It was a very like a multi-step I don't know.
It happened in several steps.
All of them were kind ofinteresting.
I was a huge fan of RolandX-P80 workstation, which I had
for a few years back in thosedays and I really loved.
(02:31):
You know pretty much everythingabout it.
And a few years after I got it,roland released the Phantom and
then they released the PhantomS, which included sampling, and
I was so excited about itbecause I've been dreaming about
, you know, having a workstationwith great synthesis
(02:52):
capabilities as well as samplingand effects in one box, and I
got so excited about it thatI've decided to start like a
mini-community online.
And that was very early days ofthe internet.
Still there were no socialnetworks and everything was
happening on forums, if youremember those glorious days.
(03:14):
So anything you would want toshare with anyone that will have
to be on some forum.
So that was actually a forumcalled Harmony Central I'm not
sure if it's still there andthere was like a hangout zone
for Roland fans and I was very,very loud over there.
I was I think I was like 22 atthat moment and I was still a
(03:40):
student and I had no money.
Basically, I just had the X-P80, and I had some savings over
there and I still couldn'tafford the Phantom S, but I was
so pumped about it there was nosuch word back in those days
though.
Anyway, I was really so excitedabout this instrument that I
(04:06):
was like thinking about it, youknow, each and every day, and I
started a website calledPhantomized, which I probably
was Phantomized by theinstrument, so it was like a fan
website, basically, with a fewpages like linking to various
resources pictures, youtubevideos and stuff like that, and
(04:33):
you know, all of the stuff thatI was gathering on that website
really caught, you know,interest of many users forum
users at Harmony Central.
They said, hey, why don't youstart a forum?
So I actually opened a forum onthis website, and it got like
(04:55):
1,000 users in just a few months.
It got very, very popular, andI think, like at some point you
know, there were so many peoplethere there were I was actually
giving them advice on the forumregarding the instrument, and
(05:17):
because I had a chance toreceive the user manual of it,
one of the users scanned it forme.
He couldn't download it back inthe day, roland would not allow
this, so one of the guys overthere scanned the user manual
for me, which I read.
I don't know, that was a maniac.
So and now I knew theinstrument better than most
(05:38):
people who had it and I stilldidn't have it.
So, long story short, whenpeople found out that I still
don't have the instrumentbecause I lacked cash to buy it,
they actually started like afundraiser.
So they gathered some money soI could sell my XB80, add the
(05:59):
money and buy the Phantom S.
So that's how I got it,basically thanks to that
community.
That was pretty amazing back inthe day and so I started doing
like a ton of stuff with itcustom presets, doing like
little productions, demos,playing with effects and
resampling and everything.
(06:19):
And that website, like I said,it was very popular and it
caught attention of Roland andeventually one of their sound
designers, stefan Pijen fromBelgium, who is a very dear
friend of mine now of almost 20years.
So he said, hey, why don't youdo like a test project for us?
(06:43):
Because the stuff that you dosounds very interesting, the
sounds and everything.
So the first project that theygave me was the Roland Phantom
XA, which was like a simplifiedversion of the Phantom X, and I
did one of the factory demos forit and a few months after that
(07:06):
they said like you got acceptedfor something like that and I
got two projects to work on.
That was the V-Synth 2.0 andV-Synth.
I believe that was.
Yes, that was the V-Synth 2.0and V-Synth XT.
So there was like a freshfactory bang for it that we
(07:30):
worked on so from my side, whichit included both samples and
patches, and there was a PhantomX 2.0 update for which I also
did presets.
So that was kind of the start.
Joe Hanley (07:46):
So you didn't actually have the Phantom X or
the user manual when you startedtalking on the forums a lot and
starting the website about it.
Artemiy Pavlov (07:56):
Yeah, I was quite a fanatic of reading
manuals.
For some reason, it was thesame thing with the XB80.
That was the Phantom S, themodel that preceded the X, but
they were pretty simple.
Joe Hanley (08:12):
And how did you become such sort of like an
expert in it before you even hadit?
Like where were you gettingyour knowledge at the time?
Artemiy Pavlov (08:20):
I just don't think I had anything else to do.
That was that exciting to me.
I don't know.
I was just I don't know.
I was chasing the dream andit's like, let's say, you dream
of some car or you dream of somelocation you want to go to.
You would just spend days andweeks and months studying
everything about it, like youjust can't wait to get there,
(08:43):
you know to get that thing, andso on, and so on and so on.
And that was the case with theXB80 as well.
Before I could persuade my dadto buy it for me, I knew
everything about it.
I didn't have the manual, but Ihad the list of waveforms
effector waveforms that I knewwhich waveforms I would use when
(09:09):
I would have it and switch iton.
So that was pretty ridiculous,I don't know.
Joe Hanley (09:14):
That's great.
Artemiy Pavlov (09:14):
So I actually I still remember I would even go
to a print shop because I haveno, I don't know.
I actually had no computer,like in the late nineties, and I
would have to go with a floppydisk with the list of preset
waveforms.
I would go to a print shop, Iwould, you know, have them print
(09:39):
those for me and I had themliterally like on my bedside
table so I could check them outif I want to, which is like I
don't know.
And I was looking at the namesof the waveforms and I was
imagining how they could sound,which was pretty crazy.
None of them really sounded theway I imagined.
At the end, but that's what Idid, I think back in those days,
(10:04):
because we had so little infocoming upon us, I could say it's
no computer, no internet.
I mean I had internet in mylike what we called like an
interned room in my university.
That's where you could goonline, you know, in one of the
(10:26):
shared computers.
So anyway, pretty mucheverything was in our heads,
like if you had no photo camera,you would memorize, you know
the event, you would keep it inyour head.
So I think imagination was muchmore, I mean memory, and
imagination was much moreimportant.
It was a much bigger part ofyou in the 90s, not because of
(10:55):
the 90s themselves, but becausewe didn't have all of this tech
you know, in our pocket, on ourtable, in our bag, everywhere.
Right now it's pretty much likeaugmented for us.
You know what I'm saying.
We have like our visualmemories augmented by the photos
(11:16):
on the phone and so on and soon, all of the things we kind of
delegated part of our brainactivities to computers.
So I guess back in those days,that's how I think I developed,
(11:37):
you know everything.
It was just stuff happening inmy head which was almost fitting
on itself.
It's like you fit it a littlebit and it would then start
creating what it wanted tocreate because it had nothing
else to do.
You couldn't go online andwatch someone else do something.
(11:59):
You would have to do ityourself for yourself.
Joe Hanley (12:03):
That is very cool.
Artemiy Pavlov (12:04):
I couldn't go and watch someone jam with a
synthesizer online.
I had to go and jam with my ownsynthesizer.
So it was kind of you would bespending time being creative,
being imaginative, no matterwhat, because that was the only
thing you could do actually.
Joe Hanley (12:24):
Now, of course, nowadays there are so many
resources to learn synthesis andsound design and, for our
listeners, if you're interestedin learning how to design your
own sounds with a synth, Ihighly recommend Centorial, a
super effective course that wehere at Audible Genius created.
It'll take you by the hand andstart from the very beginning,
(12:44):
showing you how to program asynthesizer, and it comes with a
built-in soft synth that you'llmake hundreds of sounds on as
you progress through the course.
By the end, you'll be makingyour own sounds intuitively and
completely by ear.
And for our loyal podcastlisteners, you can get 20% off
Centorial this month with couponcode DSP.
(13:04):
Check it out at Centorialcom.
And were you playing in bandsor anything like that with your
synth, or is it more just?
like at home kind ofexperimenting and things like
that?
Artemiy Pavlov (13:15):
No, no, I was.
I did a few performances like apaired with a DJ in a few clubs
, but it was a bit difficultbecause I was just a student
that didn't have a car andpaying for a taxi wasn't really
an option either, so I wouldhave to literally just ask my
(13:39):
dad or ask somebody who had acar to help me to support the
instrument to the club.
So I didn't do it that much.
But I was mostly producing.
So I was doing sound design andproduction and basically the
timeline was, you know, as yearspassed, I was using more and
(14:03):
more of my own sounds in themusic.
So, you know, I started doinglike 50-50,.
Then I switched to only synthsounds and sample drums and
later on I would start designingmy own drums and using all
those.
So it's not like I've everreleased anything, I'm just
(14:24):
saying I was trying to, you know, make myself do everything.
You know, every aspect of theproduction had to be in my
control.
That's how I ended up doing DSP, because I was like oh, it's
like you know, in the anecdotewith the drums, if you know it,
(14:48):
I ended up.
You know, let's say I'velearned the synthesis engine.
Now I know everything about it.
I've learned all of the effects.
Now what to do next?
I thought I should create myown.
Then, if what you have is notenough, why don't you go and do
(15:11):
something in that field?
Joe Hanley (15:15):
That curiosity about exactly how these effects are
being made, how the synthengines are being made.
That's what led you to startmaking your own plugins.
Artemiy Pavlov (15:24):
Yeah, exactly, I'm now tracing it back to those
stands.
When I was using those Rolandinstruments.
The effects back in the daywere so incredible All of the
filters and distortion choruses,reverbs and everything.
I liked them so much and therewere a huge mystery for me.
(15:48):
I was like, how do they dothose?
I was imagining the authors ofthese algorithms, who are super
humans to me, who can createthose.
It was like a miracle for meNow that there is the Dreadbox
(16:10):
Typhon which has my effects onit.
Only a few years after we didthat one, I realized wait a sec.
20 years ago I was marveling atthe effects built into a synth.
Now there's a synth with myeffects on it.
(16:31):
I didn't even realize it that.
Oh wow, so it actually happened.
I'm now one of these superhumans, I guess.
So it was pretty amazing.
I didn't think about it.
It was never a goal.
I just traced it back to thosedays when I was stunned by these
(16:55):
instruments and suddenly Irealized, oh, I'm actually doing
this kind of stuff myself now.
Joe Hanley (17:03):
So when you decided that you wanted to start
learning DSP which for ourlisteners is basically like
coding audio, the specific stuffthat actually makes the effects
and the synths to the sound,that part of the code how did
you go about learning that?
Artemiy Pavlov (17:21):
Initially it was just a lot of experimentation,
because I was still a studentback when I started playing with
doing audio processing.
I think it was like basicallyaround those same years, like
2004, 2005, something like that,I probably.
(17:45):
I think that was just after Igraduated.
So, and since my major was inphysics, I had a pretty serious
background in all of these.
You know waveforms and waves,electromagnetism and these
(18:07):
things.
So.
But I still I was mainlyeducated in radio waves, not in
audio, although my dad used tobe an audio engineer but just
the background in math andgeneral understanding of how
(18:29):
things, how waves, propagate,what happens when they reflect,
when they sum, when there'sdistortion, like nonlinearities,
when they propagate.
These things.
I understood them like it waslike an alphabet for me.
I could you know, it was secondnature.
So once I started, once I saw,I think back in those days, I
(18:56):
started yeah, that is right, Iactually started playing with
Linux back in those days and ithad a very basic plugin format.
I think that's how it startedfor me.
I started playing with the likeinitial project, which was
(19:17):
super, super basic, and once Isaw how audio is being fed into
the plugin and out of it and hey, that's the bit where, you know
, the bit in between is whathappens to the sound.
So I started you know theobvious things, you know
(19:37):
creating my own like amplifier.
That's what everybody does inthe beginning, just to gain
control.
And then I started thinkingabout, I was somehow obsessed
with sine waves that's where thecompany name came from sine
vibes, because the sine wave wasalways the basis of all of the
(19:58):
formulas that we've had inphysics.
I, you know, I knew that thatwas like the origin of
everything.
So to me, working with sinesmeant that you're working with
the most fundamental part ofsound, whether that be, you know
(20:19):
, harmonic series or just asingle sine oscillator, or you
would use.
I thought it would be cool touse the sine wave to shape
another sine wave.
So that's how I came up with mywave shapers.
In the beginning I wasessentially playing with them,
(20:45):
you know, playing with sines asboth the source of sound and the
distortion algorithm, and so onand so on.
So that's basically how Istarted.
I think, once again, a lot ofit was just my imagination.
I was just dreaming things up,so to speak, and that's how we
(21:07):
started.
Joe Hanley (21:08):
And so you're making plugins for yourself, but at
some point you decided to startsine vibes, which is the company
you run, which you make andsell plugins.
What point did you decide?
You know I'm going to turn thisinto a company, into a
livelihood.
Artemiy Pavlov (21:25):
Well, sine vibes started.
You know, I had like four orfive different brands that I
used to sell my own sound packsfirst, and those were pretty
successful.
Then, you know, I switched tosine vibes as the final name for
those sound packs and for, Ibelieve, like for four or five
(21:46):
years, that was the only type ofproduct that I sold.
But again, like, I firststarted with presets for
hardware instruments and then Istarted doing presets for
software instruments and thenagain, as I was using those, I
(22:08):
was like, hey, I'm kind of boredwith the stuff that everybody's
doing.
I should do something I thinkis worth doing and is absent on
the market.
So I started playing with aplugin template on the Mac that
I had, you know, at that moment,and if you you know, I think
(22:33):
the first thing that I did was Itook those wave shapers that I
experimented with back in theLinux days and I basically took
that idea a little further,added modulation and that was
the first plugin to release.
It was like a wave shaper whichyou could modulate.
The curvature of the effectwould be kind of dynamic and it
(23:02):
was modulated by a couple offellow foes.
So that was the first pluginthat I did.
But again I don't know.
It's not like I don't really.
I didn't come from thestandpoint of how to make money,
(23:23):
rather like oh, I have thisidea, what if somebody likes it?
It actually pays for it.
But it's usually like I have tobuild it first without knowing
whether it's going to succeed ornot.
I have to try.
So it's never like oh, what'strending now?
(23:45):
Oh, what do producers needthese days?
The most?
It's mostly like oh, I havethis idea, let's try to make a
product out of it.
So in many ways I would say thestuff that I'm doing now is
(24:07):
kind of up with the times,because I'm always listening to
modern music and I'm kind ofhearing how they say it now,
vibing with it.
So I'm getting inspired bydifferent character of sound,
different types of differentways people manipulate sound.
(24:30):
So I don't try to copy what'sbeing done, but I get in the
same, I would say, stylisticmood as these tracks are made
and it kind of shapes my overallfeeling of what needs to be
where a certain algorithm needsto be sonically.
Joe Hanley (24:55):
So then, rather than follow trends or make plugs
that you think are going to bepopular, it's more about what's
inspiring you at the moment,what you think would be really
interesting and musicallyinteresting.
Artemiy Pavlov (25:05):
Yeah, yeah, usually it's actually half of
the time actually really enough.
The plugins that I think arejust a little too simple.
They just become way morepopular than the ones that I
would be sweating myselfcalibrating and stuff Like this
(25:29):
year.
For instance, the plugin thatI've released calls SKU, which
is a reverser, which is like.
There are many reversers outthere, but mine had a very
simple way to bend the playbackcurve so you could have various
(25:52):
interesting scratch effects andpitch bend effects, just like
with a single knob action, andthat one sold like crazy
compared to other plugins whichtook maybe like five times more
effort to develop.
So it's never yeah, that'sinteresting.
(26:13):
You never know until you try.
So you never know until yourelease something.
Joe Hanley (26:17):
Yeah, I was looking at SKU and that is really
interesting.
It plays the audio back liveand it even had like a rhythmic
component to it where you cansort of change the rhythm of how
, or like the time signature ofhow it plays it back.
Artemiy Pavlov (26:30):
Yeah, yeah, the thing is like traditionally
people think of reversers asreversing just your standard,
like quarter note, eighth note,health bar, full bar, two bars,
which is most people will go forthat.
But since I was doing it, I waslike I always get these
(26:51):
requests by people oh, pleasemake it go 7, 9th or 5, 13th.
I'm like why would you wantthat?
But I thought who I am todecide what rhythm people want
to play?
It's just like just a UIelement.
Why would I not include that?
(27:14):
If you deliberately have tolimit the plug-in to certain
numbers, I've decided not to.
So it goes from 1, 16th to 16bars and you can pick any value
of the fraction that you want.
It's as simple as that and itkeeps it synced to the DAW steel
.
But it lets you do these veryinteresting kind of glitchy
(27:38):
things.
And when you apply the playbackcurve onto the reverse chunk
and if you mix it with theoriginal, it kind of makes like
a chorus effect as well, andthat chorus is going to be,
let's say, is going to be pretty.
You kind of lock to the rhythm,which is also quite interesting
(28:01):
.
So a lot of hybrid effects arepossible when you just push it a
little further from what usersexpect.
Joe Hanley (28:10):
Yeah, that's one thing I noticed about your
plugins is that even a typicalplug-in like, say, a reverb like
everyone called Albedo, it'snot a typical reverb, Like I was
listening to some of theexamples and it's really cool.
It's like this almostintentionally artificial sort of
strange or interesting,beautiful sounding reverb.
Is that kind of one of yourintentions with each one to do
some element that isn't typical?
Artemiy Pavlov (28:32):
Oh, definitely, yeah, there are definitely
things.
It's not like I, um, they justcome as ideas.
That's how I can tell you.
It's not like I.
It's like, like I have a Idon't know Wide board and, like
(28:54):
you know, bullet point numberfive, make it original, like
come up with the parameter thatnobody else has.
So that's never reallysomething that I that I have to
like make myself do, but rather,you know, anytime I do
something I come up withsomething with an idea that does
(29:16):
just pushes it a little furtherthan then.
You know it has been pushedbefore.
If there was a this type ofeffect, for instance, one of the
things which, which is pretty,it's so basic, it's, it's so
simple that you know, speakingabout it is like what is in it,
(29:36):
like okay.
But for instance, in the hollowReverb, what I did is Usually
in in in reverb you have a pre,pre delay parameter.
So we delays the delay tail, oh, sorry, it delays the reverb
tail, so that it happens aLittle further in time after the
(30:01):
sound starts.
That's how you can kind ofseparate it from from the sound
a bit and not make the mix tomuddy, especially with with big
sounding reverbs.
It's a very important feature,because otherwise you know Every
note you play is gonna be mixedwith the verb instantly.
So the pre delay kind ofBasically shifts the whole audio
(30:24):
timeline of the wet signal, andand then I thought, why don't
we have a sort of like aNegative pre delay?
That would mean we're delaying,we're not delaying the reverb
signal, we're delaying the drysignal.
What happens is that the reverbsound sounds starts sounding
(30:45):
first and it kind of fades intothe original sound.
So it almost sounds like both areversed and Usual reverb.
Especially when you have adiffusion stage on, it's almost
like you are adding a separateattack portion to the note and
(31:07):
then there is a reverb afterthat.
So it's kind of like and soit's it's.
It's almost silly talking aboutit because it's such a basic
idea Yet like I haven't seen itanywhere else.
Joe Hanley (31:22):
Now people.
Yeah, I've heard of a negativepre-tall.
It's like super, super basic sodo you ever get a sense from
the people that are using itwhether they're using Specific
features like that or not?
Do you have any idea, like howpopular certain aspects of your
plugins are?
Artemiy Pavlov (31:36):
Well, I've only heard comments like oh, it's
such a small thing, but itchanges.
You know everything.
So, because usually you wouldhave to, you could do it before
that manually.
You would have to have thereverb on the send track, for
instance, or, like you know, doa duplicate track and you would
(32:01):
Leave this and send Sorry, thereturn signal as it is, and then
you would delay the original,and I believe many productions
did that.
Now, that's how the truereversed reverb is done.
Okay, you, you, you reverse theaudio, send it to a reverb,
reversed again, that's how theverb sounds before the signal.
(32:23):
But you have to do it manually.
So in this one it's not areversed reverb, but it's the
attack portion of the reverbthat can precede dry sound.
So it still sounds a bitdifferent.
But once again, I mean, it's so, so basic.
So in in any plugin that I, youknow, I've designed, there's
(32:46):
always this, this, somethingthat's oh, it's taking things
further a little bit.
So, not at all of them, I don'tthink so.
But Again, I'm not reallytrying to Push myself into doing
that, but it just, it's just anature for me to.
(33:06):
Sometimes you come up withsomething.
You say, oh, I'm a genius.
But then you discover somebodydid it like 10 years ago.
Like, oh, I should.
I should have read the internetmore so, but you're kind of
proud that you came up with theidea, but it's useless because
it's been done.
Joe Hanley (33:25):
So do you so it sounds like you're able to
really tap into like the themore a creative musical side of
your brain.
We're developing these plugins.
Even though you know coding, itcan be a very analytical
process.
Do you ever find it's kind oftough to Use both those sides of
your brain at the same time, oris it kind of a fluid process
for you?
Artemiy Pavlov (33:44):
I Think it's always a mix of things.
I wouldn't.
You know, I'm not really adeveloper in the sense that I
can concentrate in coding for avery long time.
Usually it's.
It's a lot of Imagination,trying to imagine how things
would work in my head, thendoing a prototype, and the
(34:09):
prototype would always beRehearsed.
So because I'm doing thesethings mostly alone, I mean, I
have a co-developer, steven, whois doing Things, but you know,
he's done a few DSP beads backin a day, but that was his task
(34:29):
he was.
He was doing it alone with noinput from myself.
Same thing with me.
He, same thing with me.
I would, since I'm the, the onewho, let's say, gives the
verdict to how, how the codesounds.
(34:50):
I do it Like in real time.
So I kind of lead the algorithmin a way.
I think it should go so andI've always, I always.
I don't try, I don't just Dolike basic tests like within,
let's say, with some Basicwaveforms and stuff I actually
(35:13):
have recordings of like drums,since Electric guitar that I
keep fitting into the algorithmall the time.
So I would, I would do somechanges and feed these different
Audio types of audio sourcesand see what it does, and I kind
of try to balance everything onthe way, so it's not like I
(35:36):
would spend an hour doingsomething and I would.
I would then have to show theoutput audio to somebody who
would Say, oh, it sounds goodand and tell me where to go next
.
It's always because it's allwithin me.
I Just I just sit like this forhours and I just I just go
(35:59):
somewhere, so and and thebasically, yeah, this the sounds
that I use as the sources theykind of lead me to to.
Joe Hanley (36:07):
You know that destination, you know yeah, that
kind of I can relate to that.
Having that sort of just thatautomatic connection between
Listening to and just hearingwhat it does musically and also
being the person who's coding it, like those two things to be
Fully informed of each otherbecause they're in one brain, is
incredibly valuable.
Do you?
Do you ever send out earlystuff before it's released to
(36:29):
some musicians or people thattry it out just to see another
perspective?
Artemiy Pavlov (36:34):
very rarely, honestly speaking.
Yeah, mostly because you knowall of the guys that that are
like in my vicinity, my friends.
They are very busy people.
So there are extremely likehigh-level professionals, the
ones that I would love to hearfrom mostly not like you know,
(36:54):
just Some, some people that wassigned up for you beta testing
lists, I would say, I would sayit like that, but they're so
busy that, yeah, I almost neverhear anything from them.
So pretty much nobody gets tohear the plugin before it's
(37:15):
released.
So I mean, I would send demosTo you know, and I would
actually publish teaser audio onour social media and, basically
, I kind of gauge the excitementof the users To see, you know,
(37:37):
if, to see like, oh, am I doingsomething interesting?
Or people find it a littleboring, so, and it's not like I
really analyze it, it doesn'treally shape the final product,
but, let's say, most of the timepeople are actually excited and
(37:57):
it helps me, like you know,drive, help helps drive my you
know development process toactually finalize the products
and, you know, focus on on theprocess.
Joe Hanley (38:11):
Which plugins the most popular one or gotten the
biggest response.
Artemiy Pavlov (38:17):
In terms of this number of sales sure yeah it's
cute, okay, oh, it's like yeah.
So I'm just saying it's.
It sold In nine months.
It sold as many copies asElbido did in two years.
So it's like it's selling Icould almost three times the
(38:38):
rate, which is, I mean, it's nota shame Because it's my product
, right, but it kind of is ashame because Elbido took way
more time to develop in.
You know, conceptually it's amuch more complicated product,
but I'm just saying not, noteveryone wants as a physical
product, somebody just want tohave some fun.
Yeah, that's what skew is.
(39:01):
It's like it's stupid fun.
Yeah, I've actually I did.
I have done quite a few demosIn the past few weeks and we
actually released an update forit with more curves and yeah,
it's been received so well again.
And I kept doing this demosbecause I couldn't stop anything
(39:23):
I throw into it.
It's just like a.
I don't know it's like that.
I know he just makes it.
It's just fun, I don't know.
Joe Hanley (39:32):
I can see that it's more like apparently fun.
It gets obvious how enjoyablethis plugin would be, what it's
gonna do.
Artemiy Pavlov (39:38):
Yeah, it's like a reverb, like I know where I
need a reverb, but maybe I won'treally enjoy until I'm using
Honestly speaking, yeah, I, Ideveloped the reverse algorithm
to have it as part of our DSPcollection for licensing and I
wasn't intending to release areversal like at all, because
(39:59):
everybody has it.
You know why would we have thereversal?
You know it makes no, you knowno sense.
But at some point I was likelooking at the playhead, the
math, and I was like what if wecurve it?
What if we bend it?
What if the time was non-linear?
So and I and I and I maps it tolike an exponential curve, and
(40:24):
I was like that's a product, soin a.
Then I started like coming upwith other different curves and
Is just developing.
It was was immense fun.
So as well, so so you never know, you know now your plugins can
also be.
Joe Hanley (40:45):
You know, people buy them, load them in their DAWs,
like we do all plugins, but youcan also load them into certain
corg since, like the mini log Xd, for example, which I have
right behind me, oh and.
I I guess I wasn't fully awareof just how much stuff you can
like plug into it.
I didn't.
I wasn't really where therewere these plug-in architectures
that corg lets you put into.
(41:05):
Some of their sense is ismaking your plug-in Compatible
with that significantly morework, or is it a whole separate
thing?
I?
Artemiy Pavlov (41:15):
Would say it is a whole separate thing, because
you can't really like work, theplug-in to this architecture,
for two reasons.
First of all, there's verylimited resources on this
platform.
I'm talking about like memoryand processing capabilities and
(41:36):
the second thing is obviouslythe format is where Is is way
more basic, so you don't have asmany parameters.
Okay, so you kind of have to beI would say you have to be more
inventive to come up withsomething that's, let's say,
radically different from yourstandard.
Delays in the courses andfilters and and I I like this
(41:59):
platform for these exact reasonsthat you have to you really
have to push yourselves to comeup with something that's
Significantly more interestingthan the standard stuff.
At the same time, it actuallyis able to run on this platform.
Platform, did I say play form?
Joe Hanley (42:21):
I think so.
Artemiy Pavlov (42:23):
It is a play form because you're playing with
it.
So, and honestly speaking, it'sa.
I tried to spend like one monthfocusing on the desktop, on a
desk new desktop plug-in and thenext month I would focus on a
new cork plug-in, because Eacheach of these kind of draws me
(42:47):
in and if I make cork plug-insfor too long I can actually
forget that the desktop plug-insexist.
Joe Hanley (42:54):
Okay.
Artemiy Pavlov (42:54):
It's just so rewarding to, I mean.
I mean it's kind of thetick-tility that we were hoping
to get from plugins with touchscreens, but it's, it's a huge
difference still, because youhave you have the these
components in hardwareinstrument with no notification
(43:16):
center, with no Safari and Noneof that stuff.
So and it's pretty incrediblethat the this platform actually
got developed and and it's just,it's just super fun, do you
find so yeah, so you have towork within limitations there,
(43:36):
like you were talking about.
Joe Hanley (43:37):
Do you find that's Kind of relieving in a sense,
where you know when you'remaking a plug-in for a desktop,
it's unlimited what you can doessentially, but then when
you're suddenly forced to workwith limitations, it's Kind of a
relief in a sense?
Artemiy Pavlov (43:49):
Yes, yes, in a sense it is.
I mean you, you, if you have alist of a hundred things you can
do, what exactly do you do?
I mean, if you, if 90% of thosecannot be done, like period,
it's too much.
Then you have 10, which is likewow, you can actually start
doing something because You'vecrossed out, you know everything
(44:13):
else you can focus on on one ofthese things.
So it's exactly that.
So, and it's actually you knowof the funny thing that there
are plugins which allow you toembed samples in them, with very
low quality, obviously, becausethere is a, there's a limit to,
(44:35):
you know, there's there's thesize limit of the plug-in itself
, which can be only, like a, Ifeel like a couple dozen
kilobytes.
So how much sample Data can youembed it into that?
And I've, I've played with theidea of embedding some samples
(44:58):
just for fun, but then I thought, because the code, you can
actually have way more soundgenerating code in there.
Why don't I try to Do somethingelse?
Because I want to somethinglike a, like a drum synth, and I
thought, okay, well, why don'tI use that memory where the
(45:22):
samples could be actually as thememory to hold the presets?
So I created the, a synthengine which is like a, which is
able to kind of reconfigureitself in real time Depending on
which key you press.
It would load up preset fromthat memory.
(45:43):
It would kind of configureitself in real time and play
that preset.
So and each preset is somethinglike 35 parameters.
Some of them are like it'sactually a bit more, because
some of the parameters arebipolar and, for instance, if
it's positive, if it's onefilter, type slow pass filter,
(46:06):
if it's negative, it's a highpass filter, so that you're
using like each bit of memory,wow, to, to to max out what you
can do.
So that's how I made groove,which is a essentially like a
multi-temporal bass and drumsynth.
So instead of you knowembedding, you know a bunch of
(46:26):
low-fi samples, I'm actuallyI've actually embedded a preset
bank with Almost a hundred bass,drum and percussion sounds.
So that was quite anachievement on that platform,
because it's it's pretty muchlike what you would do in late
80s, I believe, with with thatkind of limited RAM and CPU
(46:47):
power.
So and that is, I mean, is sorewarding to have to have this
kind of stuff, because there isso much trickery you need to to
Come up with for that stuff tomake work, so that it's a
completely different type ofenjoyment for for the developer.
I Mean compared to the desktop,where you can be pretty much
(47:12):
like lavish with the resources.
Ah yeah, we can run a hundredoscillators Nothing gonna happen
.
Joe Hanley (47:18):
That's fascinating.
So it's one synth engine.
But you've you've programmed abunch of different drum sounds
with the synth engine and itjust switches between those
sounds depending on which keyyou play.
Artemiy Pavlov (47:29):
Yeah, exactly, that's right.
So so because I mean you havethe node information coming in
so you can logically split thekeyboard into zones, and then
your parameters.
The parameters of the plug-inare not the parameters of the
synth engine, they just keepsaying, oh, preset number one or
(47:50):
number seven, whatever.
So, and that bank of presets,each of them, is holding the
parameters for the synth engine.
So you've picked your soundsand then you know, depending on
the key press, it decides whatto do.
So some of the zones arechromatic, some of them are not,
so it's kind of like a, like alittle groove box in in the in
(48:12):
the synth.
So that was brought.
That was pretty much the Iwould say, the biggest technical
achievement for me on thatplatform, because it took it to
to that kind of level.
Yeah, that's, I also go ahead.
No, no, no.
Joe Hanley (48:31):
I also as soon as you have another one for FM
synthesis and that one, that onereally kind of blew my mind
because you know I bought thismini log XD.
You know, okay, this is asubtractive synth.
It's got a wavetable thing, butfor most part it's a
subtractive sin.
That's what this synth is.
And then suddenly I'm lookingat your plug is I'm like wait a
minute, I can actually turn thisinto an FM synth, like that
(48:51):
idea is crazy in a hardwaresynth.
Artemiy Pavlov (48:54):
Yeah, yeah, that one was also, yeah, very nicely
received by the public and Ibelieve it's actually the second
best-selling plug-in After skew, really, so it's, it's sold
better than the none of theother desktop ones.
So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
(49:16):
No, it was like people couldnot believe what, what they,
what they got, because it'sessentially now it's a plug-in.
Initially, like Korg was saying, oh, you could have an
oscillator model In in a, in aplug-in, you know.
And I was like, oh, that's,that's great, like you can have
like a super saw, you could havelike a some noise, the custom
(49:38):
noise generator.
But then I was like, why doeshave to be like just a waveform?
I mean, if, if I started likelayering oscillators, trying to
run one more and more, it wasable to run more.
So I was like, oh, it was likeit can be a complete, you know,
self-contained synth engine.
So that's how pretty mucheverything was, was was, you
(50:03):
know, developed.
It was the thinking was not todo it as a, as a, just just like
a bunch of different waveforms,but a complete Synthesis method
.
That's really like a, you know,that's a Synth engine on its
(50:27):
own.
And now the other, and now itwas.
I almost like I've neverthought I would do it but I give
it a go and I was like I justhave to do it now because it had
to be done.
I'm like people need this, likehow?
(50:48):
Because I'm myself not reallyinto FM that much.
But I was like I think peoplewill be like amazed about what
this can be within thisinstrument.
So that drove me Like I wannasee what people think of it so
(51:10):
and I started obviously it's notlike I wasn't developing it in
the same way I did the othersLike I had to like the sound of
it and it had to be designed.
I had to pick which parametersto have there, how to configure
them for the user.
But yeah, the end result wasquite, quite good.
Joe Hanley (51:32):
Yeah, because FM synthesis is such a distinctly
different sound than subtractivesynthesis.
So to think that you can changeyour hardware synth in such a
profound way is, I guess, nowI'm not surprised that it was so
popular.
So I know it's hard to predictthat stuff ahead of time.
Artemiy Pavlov (51:48):
Yeah, yeah, it's not like, oh yeah, fm is
trending, I have to do thisthing now.
So, although it was trending atthat time, but to me it was
like a bunch of check boxes.
I was like I wanna have as manyengines, as many different
engines, on this platform aspossible.
(52:10):
So we have wave shaping, wehave physical modeling, we have
FM, we have this kind of likepercussion slash, drum slash,
drum slash, bass machine.
And then a year ago we releasedodds, which was completely.
(52:31):
I mean, the concept of theplugin came from a different
type of thinking.
It wasn't coming from.
Oh, what type of synthesisengine do we do?
It's like how do we control it?
How can we control this enginein a way that others are not
(52:57):
doing?
So I'm not sure if you've triedit or read about it.
Odds actually has a bunch ofdifferent engines, like it has
virtual analog, it has FM, ithas a lot of other stuff going
on.
But the way you control it is abit different.
I mean you have 80 differentengine configurations which you
(53:22):
can pick.
So let's say, oh, it's a subwayform with a square wave form
going into a low pass filter.
That's your configurationnumber.
I don't know five you have tolook up that stuff I don't
remember so and then you have acouple of parameters which
control, like the envelope time,the cutoff frequency,
(53:43):
oscillator, detune, things likethat, and then it kind of sounds
basic, right, but then there isa level of control over there
that lets you adjust the triggerprobability of the sound.
It lets you randomize thetransposition by octaves and
(54:08):
fifth or just octaves or justfifth, and also allows you to
randomize the parameters of theengine, such as envelope time,
lfo, speed filter, cutofffrequency, fm, modulation depth,
like it all depends on whattype of engine you've picked.
So in the end you have somethingthat makes a different sound
(54:34):
with every key press.
It's gonna be different.
So and if you can imagine, likeplaying an arpeggio, for
instance, with just three notesactually an arpeggio, you know,
just manually, you would playthree notes, so and you have 50%
chance of the note sounding andthen the key is being
(54:54):
transposed by plus or minus anoctave, sometimes not for every
press.
So and you start getting this.
It's almost like a generativepattern.
You know the way, you know itfrom modular sequences, but it's
built on the sound engine levelhere, not on the sequencer and
(55:17):
modulation level.
So in the end you get like a Idon't know.
I've heard so many amazingpieces of music made with it.
It's ridiculous.
It's like people just push achord and just listen for a
minute.
They just and that's kind ofthat's all that.
(55:37):
You know that it takes to, youknow make music with it.
Joe Hanley (55:43):
So they pick a synth engine, whether it's like a
thumb or subtractive orwavetable, and then with each
key press it essentiallyrandomizes the patch in a synth.
Artemiy Pavlov (55:52):
Yeah, yeah.
But you control everything,like there is a table of
settings that you can pick, andyou pick exactly which
parameters you want to randomize.
Okay, oh, wow, yeah, yeah.
And you adjust the triggerprobability with the knob Okay,
yeah, yeah so, so, like youcould say and then you pick the
(56:15):
transpose pattern, you alsochoose it.
Is it octaves, is it fifth, isit both?
And how many octaves exactly,plus or minus?
So there is a, there are ATengine configurations in there
and about 20, 25 ways you canuse the transposition and
(56:47):
randomization of the parameters.
Joe Hanley (56:48):
Wow, so it's like a really For each.
Artemiy Pavlov (56:51):
So, like, if you multiply those, it's like a I
don't know thousands of waysthis thing can be played, wow.
Joe Hanley (56:58):
I love that probability thing where you can
say pick one parameter and sayjust how much you want it to
randomly change, if at all, ifyou want to like a wide range of
change or a narrow range ofchange.
Artemiy Pavlov (57:08):
Yeah, yeah, this feature was actually introduced
with Groove, the Drum and Bassengine, because you can actually
set any of the zones to a 50%chance of being triggered.
Okay, so this means that youcan have a bass pattern going on
, then the kick and snare wouldplay all the time, but then,
like the hi-hats and the shaker,for instance, they have a 50%
(57:31):
chance of being triggered.
So there was it was this ideato overcome the limitation of
the Miniloc DS sequencer, whichis only 16 steps.
You can have longer patterns,but if you put the hi-hat on all
of the steps, for instance allof the 16 steps, and then you
engage, 50% probability thatpattern will loop but will never
(57:54):
repeat.
So it's going to be less boring, basically.
Joe Hanley (57:58):
A quick word for our listeners.
This tool that Artemy hasdesigned is a really cool way to
generate drum patterns.
It's useful and fun to have amachine randomly composing drum
patterns for you.
However, you may find that atsome point you want to compose
your own drum patterns.
To learn how to do this, Ihighly recommend another super
effective course of ours calledBuilding Blocks.
(58:20):
It'll take you, step by step,through the process of writing
the building blocks of beats,like drum patterns, but also
bass lines, corporegressions andmelodies, and it all takes
place in an actual online DAWwhere you create music as you go
.
And for our loyal podcastlisteners, you can get 20% off
Building Blocks this month usingcoupon code DSP.
(58:41):
Check it out ataudiblegeniuscom.
Slash Building Blocks so what'snext for you?
Either with the company or withthe work outside the company.
What do you have plans on?
Artemiy Pavlov (58:54):
I plan to work as possible for other companies.
Honestly speaking, in the pastfew years I've been mostly doing
licensing, having done muchconsulting or sound design.
Joe Hanley (59:08):
And real quick.
Licensing is where someoneunder company, under developer,
will pay you to use youralgorithms in their products.
Artemiy Pavlov (59:16):
Yeah, exactly Because you can look.
I won't drop any names, butthere have been many significant
products released in the pastfive, six years that used the
DSP that me and Steven did.
So it's been a very goodexperience, first of all because
(59:43):
I mean because it's an honor tobe part of these big products
On one hand.
On the other hand, it makes thedevelopment.
I mean we need to make the codemore fit.
You know, when you're doing itfor yourself, it can be a bit
messy, not too standardized, butsince we started doing
(01:00:08):
licensing we had like three orfour major iterations of the
code when we would like reviseeverything, maybe once a year,
go through everything okay, whatneeds to be improved, what
needs to be optimized, what kindof coding practices we can
apply that we've learnedrecently and they work really
well, and so on and so on.
(01:00:28):
So it's a way to keep your codehealthy for years and you get
your code in front of high-enddevelopers working for like top
companies.
So if something is wrong youwill know about it very quickly.
So it's a way to have some sortof additional discipline when
(01:00:51):
doing stuff, extra checks beingextra focused.
So it kind of pays back in theform of having extremely stable
code Like.
I will tell you one thing sincewe've launched the new lineup
with Mac and Windows plugins twoyears ago, a little over two
years ago I haven't heard abouta single crash in two plus years
(01:01:17):
, really no, not a single crash.
Joe Hanley (01:01:22):
So, because your code has gotten so clean for the
other developers that arelicensing, your plugins perform
better for the musicians thatare using them as well.
Artemiy Pavlov (01:01:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah , you cannot shame yourself in
front of these big guys.
Yeah, you know, it's not like Iwasn't taking care of the code
before that, but it's just liketaking the extra steps to make
the API more beautiful, morecompatible between different
(01:01:52):
algorithms.
But, you know, I think I'm at apoint where I don't need this
licensing to make me moredisciplined.
I've already trained myselfenough, I would say so.
But I think it's that part oflicensing has been the biggest,
(01:02:19):
has made the biggest influenceon what I do.
Then there's getting the moneyfrom that licensing, so it's
actually collaboration andupping your standards and these
things Very cool.
So, but yeah, I'm very muchfocused on doing new stuff and
(01:02:40):
there are, like I would say,three different directions where
we're going.
So one of them is obviouslythere's so much new stuff.
You know that we would like todo, I mean, all new DSP that
hasn't been released yet.
(01:03:00):
And there's a new plugin thatI'm working on at the moment,
which is pretty interesting.
It's kind of a mixture ofdiffusion and 3D spacing, so
it's like diffusion that canhappen in a kind of like a
binaural way.
So, and it's probably going tobe called like a binaural
(01:03:25):
diffusion plugin.
So it's very interestingbecause I've taken this kind of
pseudo three dimensional stereowith the fact that we've used in
hollow, for instance, and somepeople described it that it's
wider than the wide, so it kindof sounds like a wide effect,
(01:03:49):
but also kind of sounds a littlebit like on the inside.
So it almost like when youlisten to it with headphones it
sounds like the reverb is bothencapsulating your head and it
also kind of sounds like here,like you can almost like feel
(01:04:10):
the thickness of the reverb,like around and in your head.
I don't know it's a weird wayto describe it, but that's how
it feels.
So I applied the same idea ontoa diffusion algorithm, so, and
it spreads the signal in thiskind of, you know, almost three
(01:04:34):
dimensional way.
So, yeah, it's a veryinteresting it sounds, and when,
when, when that effect ismodulated is also quite, quite,
quite interesting, because it'snot a course, it's not a phaser,
it's kind of like you will haveto hear it.
(01:04:54):
So there's some new stuff, butalso there's a lot of like 80%
of my sketches and notes is thenext generation versions of a
lot of plugins that we havediscontinued two years ago, for
instance, like the fractionslicer, multi effects, slicer,
(01:05:17):
sequential multi effects,sequencer, a lot of other more
basic sequencer based plugins.
So I'm take a lot of time torethink those, like, what do I
do to make them really nextlevel?
So there's, there's going to belike more, and I have to keep
(01:05:37):
them simple.
Still, I don't want to likespoil them with double the
features just to warrant oh,that's a new version.
You know just the one sayingthat.
So it has to be somethingthat's a huge advancement for
those, but at the same time, itonly takes like 5% more UI space
.
So the you know I have a lot ofideas.
(01:05:59):
You just have to shape it intointo a product for each and
every one of them.
So, yeah, that's.
You know a lot of users areasking for those, obviously.
So we kind of abruptlydiscontinued.
That line, which was very weirdfor a lot of people to meet,
(01:06:19):
was a way to say we have a freshstart, and it was a way to say
we're not going to sell you theold stuff, we're only going to
sell you the new stuff.
That's like super, super new.
So what?
I want you to pay for pluginsthat are like 10 years old.
It makes no sense to receivemoney for those.
(01:06:39):
We want, you know, your moneyin case of a plugin is like
really new and we will supportit for you know, a lot of time.
It's not like we're notsupporting the older plugins.
We've released new AppleSilicon compatible builds and a
lot of bug fixes as well forthose half a year ago and we
(01:07:03):
will continue doing so.
So it's not like those areforgotten.
It's most like those are inmaintenance mode, not in like
feature update mode.
So, and we actually shippedfive or six plugins as free
updates.
So some of the products whichwe released like six or seven
years ago, we had V2 releasesfor those and they were free
(01:07:27):
updates.
So for those who there will bemore free updates as well for
not for all of the plugins, butsome of the older plugins.
Yeah, some of the owners ofthose old plugins will be very
happy to know about it.
Cool, yeah, so, and the thirdthing, obviously Cork.
(01:07:50):
So there's still a lot of stuffto want to do.
I think most of the effectsthat we did and actually most of
the older, older us lettersthat were released like three or
four years ago, those will beall upgraded.
So we will rethink like how,what is like we've learned a few
(01:08:13):
things in the past, let's say acouple years, where we can take
things a bit further.
So we will be doing that foreach plugin, kind of rethinking.
So where do we exactly run outof CPU power?
We will take the plug in tothat level until it it overloads
(01:08:34):
the system.
Push the limit, then we dialback a little bit and that's the
new release.
So we try to push it like tothe very max.
So sometimes it's a bit toomuch.
You know we have to really dialthings back to get too excited.
But that's because, like wehave, you know, there's a
certain limitation on, let's say, you have your RAM on the chip
(01:08:58):
and there's a limit to how manytimes that RAM can be called for
each sample.
That's how.
That's why you cannot run, forinstance, two reverbs at the
same time, because they use alot of memory access and if
you'd want to, you would not beable to because the RAM can only
be.
You know, it has its bandwidth.
Joe Hanley (01:09:19):
Yeah, so a lot of stuff Well cool.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
It's been fascinating to hear ahow you got into the industry,
but then also how you just sortof maintain this very artistic,
inspired approach to making yourplugins.
I hope you continue down thatroad.
Artemiy Pavlov (01:09:36):
Thank you.
Yeah, I surely will.
There's no other way for me,honestly.
Joe Hanley (01:09:39):
That's great to hear .
Artemiy Pavlov (01:09:41):
So yeah All right.
Joe Hanley (01:09:42):
Thank you so much.
Artemiy Pavlov (01:09:43):
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Joe Hanley (01:09:47):
Thanks for listening to the Audible Genius podcast.
Now, as you listen to thesemusicians stories, you may find
yourself wanting to make yourown music, or maybe you already
can, but you feel the need tobrush up on fundamentals fill in
some gaps.
Well, I've got some supereffective and engaging courses
that help aspiring digitalmusicians find their voice and
create music they love.
And these courses are more thanjust a series of videos.
(01:10:10):
They have interactivechallenges in a music software
environment where you actuallycreate music as you go and get
real experience.
The first course I recommend isbuilding blocks, where you'll
learn beat composition and musictheory in an online music
studio.
Check it out ataudiblegeniuscom.
We also have Centorial, anaward-winning course on
(01:10:31):
synthesis, where you'll learnhow to create your own sounds
with a synthesizer.
Check that out at centorialcom,and both of these courses are
designed by yours truly and theteam here at Audible Genius.
So if you've ever had a desireto make your own music, I highly
encourage you to check them out.
Thanks again for listening andI'll see you on the next episode
.
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