timsueberkrueb / geonkick

A free software percussion synthesizer for GNU/Linux (This project is no more developed and no more maintained. If you find it useful you can fork it. Thank you for all contributions!)

29.10.2020: This project is no more developed and no more maintained. If you find it useful you can fork it. Thank you for all contributions!

Geonkick

Geonkick - a free software percussion synthesizer.

Geonkick is a synthesizer that can synthesize elements of percussion. The most basic examples are: kicks, snares, hit-hats, shakers, claps.

"Geon" in the name "Geonkick" refers to a hypothetical particle called "geon".

License: GPLv3

Version: 2.5.0

If you have an idea about a feature or found an issue, please, submit it:

• on GitLab
• on GitHub

If you want your created presets to be added in the list of Geonkick presets , please, create a merge request with the preset archive on GitLab or GitHub. See the folder "presets" how to create a preset archive.

Download

Source code repository:

https://gitlab.com/iurie-sw/geonkick

Latest releases can be found on tags.

Features

• Kit
  • Supports up to 16 instruments.
  • Save / Load kit in JSON format
• Multitibral
  • 16 midi key range
  • user configurable key mapping
• Multichannel
  • 16 stereo audio output channels for plugin (1 stereo for standalone)
  • user configurable mapping of kit instrument to output channels
• 3 layers
• Layers Mixer
• 2 oscillators per layer
  • sine, square, triangle, saw-tooth, sample (wav, ogg, flac)
  • initial phase control
  • amplitude, frequency and sample pitch shift envelope
  • low, band and high pass filter, cutoff envelope
• FM synthesis
  • OSC1->OSC2
• One noise generator per layer
  • white & brownian
  • random seed
  • amplitude envelope
  • low, band and high pass filter, cutoff envelope
• General
  • amplitude envelope & kick length
  • low & high pass filter, cutoff envelope
  • limiter
  • compression
  • distortion
  • distortion drive envelope
  • distortion volume envelope
  • tune percussion option (relative to key A4)
• Key velocity sensitive for instrument total output amplitude
• Jack support
• Export
  • mono, stereo
  • WAV: 16, 24, 32 bit
  • FLAC: 16, 24 bit
  • Ogg
• Open & Save presets in JSON format
• Preset browser
• Standalone
• Pitch to note
• LV2 Plugin
  • "Single" version that supports one instrument and one stereo channel per instance.
  • The default version that supports kits of 16 instruments and 16 output stereo channels per instance.
• Platforms:
  • GNU/Linux
• Manually scale the UI by factor of 2 (useful for HiDPI cases)

Technical limitations

• Supports only GNU/Linux and LV2 plugin format.
• Can run properly only at 48000 sample rate. It will run also at other sample rates but the sound will seem pitch shift up / down.
• Doesn't support velocity expression for synthesizer parameters (nor for layers), only for total instrument amplitude.
• The default plugin version (that supports kits) will take per instance about 35 MB from the heap. The "Single" version of the plugin will take about 2 MB per plugin instance. If only one instrument per track is used, it is recommended to use the "Single" version of the plugin.
• Doesn't support automation of synthesizer parameters.
• Doesn't support Bézier curves for envelopes.
• It is not polyphonic
• UI can be scaled, but it will be blurred
• Filters become unstable for some extremal combination of cutoff and resonance parameter.

Requirements

In order Geonkick to run and operate correctly there is a need:

for standalone:

• GNU/Linux operating system
• Jack server running at 48000 sample rate

for plugin:

• GNU/Linux operating system.
• A host that supports LV2 plugin format running at 48000 sample rate.

Install

Install dependencies

In order to build Geonkick there is a need to install the following development packages:

• Redkite GUI toolkit (it is recommented to use release version).
• libsndfile
• RapidJSON (version >= 1.1)
• JACK Audio Connection Kit (optional if building only for plugin)
• LV2 development library

On Debian, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Studio install:

build and install first Redkite, than:
apt-get install build-essential
apt-get install cmake
apt-get install qjackctl libjack-dev libsndfile-dev
apt-get install rapidjson-dev
apt-get install lv2-dev

Build & install Geonkick

Clone the Geonkick code repository, compile and install.

Note: It is recommended to use the release version (see repository tags).

    git clone https://gitlab.com/iurie-sw/geonkick.git
    mkdir geonkick/build
    cd geonkick/build
    cmake ../
    make
    make install

Packages

Geonkick can be found in the repository of ArchLinux, OpenSUSE, Fedora , Manjaro, FreeBSD, KXStudio and Ubuntu Studio.

Packaging

Please, use only the release versions for packaging, and build against only the release version of Redkite. If Redkite GUI toolkit is installed in a different location than the standard ones there is a need to set GKICK_REDKITE_SDK_PATH to point to the needed location.

Documentation

doc/Documentation.md