24. September 2020 | Developers | Carl
Talk-Zone #75 Interview with Sugar Audio
Welcome Andreas! Nice to meet you here in north-Germany. Let's talk about your software company Sugar Audio. Please tell our readers something what Sugar Audio is doing and how it got started.
Hi Carl, nice to meet you here in the city of Schleswig. Sugar Audio is mainly an one man show, but a few people assist with some smaller additions. It once started with my passion for music, composing on home computers and playing guitar. My profession is software engineer, so I paired my hobby with my profession and it finally became an incredible success.
Your synthesizers are especially concepted for electronic music. Is that reflecting your personal music background / roots too, or how did you came to the idea to develop tools like Filterizor, Sawrizor or Admiralizor?
First it was just an attempt to build audio software. But with several feature additions to
Oscarizor I recognized the potential of creating fascinating tools. With the transmission of
my knowledge to the synthesizer world, things got much more interesting. For me it's the
master class of audio DSP, to create complete sounds synthetically. The creation of my
synthesizers and the intensification of playing keyboard and making electronic music have
gone hand in hand in these exciting times.
Tell us something about your flagship Admiralizor. What can people do with that synth, and for which purposes could they be used? (e.g. for mixing or sounddesign)
This synthesizer is a beast. It took me more than two years to finish it. Sometimes I'm still impressed on myself what it is capable of. The combination of wavetable creation/morphing, unison voices and FM/PM synthesis enriched with a step sequencer, hundreds of possible modulations and a massive FX section opened a whole new world to me. Sound designers have already much fun with it, but also good presets as starting points for beginners and musicians are available.
The wavetable editor is very interesting in Admiralizor. Which sources did you use to create the wavetables?
Some wavetables have been created manually in Admiralizor, some were generated and customized. Most of them are inspired by the well known wavetable history with some additions and improvements. The different morphing types of wavetables are a fantastic possibility to reduce wavetable sizes while keeping the best sound quality intact.
What's the most interesting part in developing new tools and which kind of framework do you use for creating them?
I love technical challenges and Sugar Audio required a steep learning curve in all areas. I use the wonderful Iplug framework with many modifications as basis for my projects. Every plug-in had its own challenges:
Oscarizor interchanges much data between instances and I have implemented my own highly optimized 3D engine. The beautiful spectrum waterfall was always on my own wish list. For me it was important to offer something free. Both editions, free and Pro, are used by many, many people around the world and it's a pleasure to know about it and to get all the positive feedback.
Filterizor required much mathematics and the innovation to centrally change filters on other instances. Zero phase, zero latency and linear phase filters are remarkable features. Very steep filter fall-offs and the different filter designs – also for shelving filters - are very interesting and important parts of Filterizor. For me it's the swiss army knife for filtering in mixing and mastering. I rarely use other filter software for my own projects, especially not where I need transparency or filters with a pinch of character.
Admiralizor had a long development time, it's an universal wavetable synthesizer with many, many additions in all areas. The main challenge was to make a polyphonic high performance synthesizer while offering the best possible sound quality. In every part of Admiralizor I learned so much about DSP and sound design. E.g. with understanding the whole FM/PM section, you have the ultimate possibility to create unique sounds.
Sawrizor is a modern saw synthesizer. The goal was to create a special “one page” synthesizer for beginners. The main scope is the saw waveform, but it's far away from being limited to this. It creates many different sounds with just a few knobs and offers pristine sound quality.
Where do you get your inspiration for new amazing products?
These are all my own ideas when I create music on myself. What do I need at the moment when mixing ? If I can't find some adequate software or it seems to be too limited or too expensive, I create it ony myself.
I like that you're aiming different target groups. Admiralizor for example, is focused to advanced producers and sound designers while Sawrizor is very good for beginners. Which kind of effects or instruments could we expect next – and will they be such complex as Admiralizor?
The synthesizer world has conquered my heart, so I have already some ideas for some new projects. But I also have some blueprints for great tools. Nevertheless, some time will be consumed by software and hardware maintenance & support, considering new frameworks, SDKs and apple hardware.
I‘ve heard that you‘ve initialised a special discount deal exclusively for Noizefield. What can you say about that?
Yes, all the readers of this interview exclusively get a 20% off voucher code for all our products. Simply use the code NOIZEVOU at the checkout page, the code is valid until the end of November 2020.
Now you can tell our readers something that you always wanted to say.
I would like to thank you ! Thanks for all the amazing feedback, your support and the suggestions.
Use the key 'D' or the right mouse button on the bottom right triangle in Oscarizor and Filterizor to hide the controls and panels. This is mentioned in the manual but it seems to be still well unknown to many users. :-)
More info here: Sugar Audio
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