Mimic this filter with Supercollider

Hi, Most of my experience with filters has been in DAWs using native or VST EQs. And I’m trying to transpose that experience within SC. I find it hard to match the controls I have in my VST to the ones in SC.

For example:
filter

How can I translate (roughly) this into SC UGens ?

For now I’m using a BHiPass (despite it being a -12db slope while my initial filter is a -4.4db slope):
sig = BHiPass.ar(sig,freq,\freqboost.kr(13).dbamp/freq);

Actually, I don’t understand :

  • how to compute the rq field from “Resonance(db)”
  • how to get the desired filter slope

I listed many of the existing filters in SC, and, none seems to match the one of my VST…

This might be obvious for most of me but it remains a bit cryptic for me…

This doesn’t answer the filter design question, but… have you tried VSTPlugin?

Something like this:

(
SynthDef(\vstfx, { |out = 0|
	var sig = In.ar(out, 2);  // EDIT: treat as inline effect
	sig = VSTPlugin.ar(sig, numOut: 2);
	ReplaceOut.ar(out, sig);
}).add;
)

s.boot;
VSTPlugin.search;

a = Synth(\vstfx);
c = VSTPluginController(a);
c.open("NeatoFilterWhoseNameIsHiddenInTheImage.vst3");  // or .vst
c.editor;

// set the controls in the interface

c.writeProgram("... where do I want to save my filter preset? ...");

c.close;
a.free;


// then, next time
a = Synth(\vstfx);
c = VSTPluginController(a);

(
c.open("NeatoFilterWhoseNameIsHiddenInTheImage.vst3", action: { |vstctl, success|
	if(success) {
		c.readProgram("... preset path...");
	} {
		Error("VST plugin loading failed").throw;
	}
});
)

VSTPluginController has interfaces for setting parameters from SC, too.

hjh

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I can second @jamshark70’s recommendation :wink:

Use the right tool for the job! Of course, it is possible to implement good EQs (or Compressors, or Limiters, etc.) in SuperCollider, but why bother? If you already have a nice EQ plugin, by all means use it! Then you have more time to focus on the important (and novel!) parts of your project.

If you want to replicate the EQ plugin for learning purposes, that’s a different story, of course!

I’ve already used VST for other projects. And it is so easy.
My purpose is here mostly to learn to use the EQs in SC. How to translate my (limited) knowledge of EQ to the concepts of SC.

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Match as in ‘null when the phase is flipped’?
There is no guarantee that it will.
There is no standard way to implement a filter, instead, there are many different varieties, and even then, the plugin author may have decided to add non-standard parts (perhaps some subtle saturation).

That being said…

rq is the reciprocal of q, which is the bandwidth/cutoffFreq. Is resonance the some thing as q… maybe? It depends on what the plugin designer did. Perhaps the number for the setting shown in the picture would be 1/13.3, but its impossible to tell.

The Slope is even more complex as they have a knob for increasing slope. The built in filters do not support this. Instead, in super collider, you can double the slope by duplicating the filter in series. BHiPass4 does this for you. This is called the order of the filter - BHiPass is a 2nd order filter and gives 12db/oct, BiHiPass4 is a 4th order and gives 24db/oct. Therefore each order is 6db/oct. I think - hopefully some one will correct me if I’m wrong - that you can add another filter in series, and blend it with the previous signal to get factional amounts? I have no idea if this will create odd phasing issues having not dived into filter design too much.

The frequency is generally agreed to be some fixed reduction point, I imagine this will line up with all the supercollide ugens, but again, no guarantee.

I’m not too sure what the overlapping circles mean, is that bar: left, mid, stereo, side, right? Not too sure what thats about.

So, I’d guess the correct way (without slope) to implement this would be…

BHiPass.ar(sig, \freq.kr, \resonance.kr.reciprocal, \gain.kr(0).dbamp.sanitize )

Now with the slope - and I’m really guessing here…

x = {
	var max_slope = 24;                         // can change this if needed
	var slope_per_filter = 6;                   // fixed by BHiPass
	var num_filters = max_slope / slope_per_filter;
	
	var slope = \slope.kr(0).clip(0, max_slope);
	
	var lerp = (1..num_filters).collect{ |n| 
		(slope_per_filter + slope - (n*slope_per_filter)) / slope_per_filter   // in db not amps, probably wrong
	}.clip(0,1);
	
	var filter_bank = lerp.collect{ |l|    // an array of functions
		{|in| 
			var rq = 1.blend(\resonance.kr(4).clip(0.00001, inf).reciprocal, l);
			var f = BHiPass.ar(in, \freq.kr(220), rq);
			in.blend(f, l)
		}
	};
	
	var sig = WhiteNoise.ar();
	
	filter_bank.inject(sig, {|i, f| f.(i) }) * \gain.kr(0).dbamp.sanitize;
	
}.play

x.set(\slope, 0)
x.set(\freq, 1500)
x.set(\resonance, 36)
x.set(\gain, -10)
1 Like

My recommendation to @lgvr123 is to not fret about perfect transference of parameters and just tune the controls by ear. Nothing wrong with being a connoisseur, though, and the question you’re asking is perfectly legitimate.

Let’s address the yet-unanswered question about the relationship between Q of a two-pole resonant lowpass/highpass filter and gain. Low and highpass filters are identical for the sake of peak gain, and it’s easier to look at a lowpass. (Bandpass filters have multiple conventions for peak gain.) The transfer function of a lowpass with a cutoff of 1 is:

H(s) = 1 / (s^2 + s/Q + 1)

However, the peak frequency and the cutoff frequency are not the same. The peak frequency (if defined) is actually slightly lower, and it gets closer to the cutoff as Q is increased.

Thus, there are two possible meanings for “resonance” in dB. One is simply the gain at the cutoff. This is computed as |H(j)|, which is simply:

|H(j)| = 1 / |j^2 + j/Q + 1| = Q.

It’s possible this is the formula your VST plugin uses.

But, I think it’ll be fun to derive the actual peak gain. To do so, we need to first compute the peak frequency. We define the power P(w) = |H(jw)|^2 and define a local maximum by setting the derivative P'(w) = 0 and finding a real w > 0. A little expansion shows that

P(w) = 1 / ((1 - w^2)^2 + (w / Q)^2)

and calculus gives

P'(w) = - (2(1 - w^2)2w + 2w / Q^2) / ((1 - w^2)^2 + (w / Q)^2)^2

Setting this equal to zero mercifully gets rid of the denominator, and solving for w gives:

w = sqrt(1 - 1 / (2 Q^2))

Note that this peak only exists if Q > 1 / sqrt(2) or about 0.707. If your VST allows the resonance to dip below 0 dB then that’s a hint that they’re probably just using resonance = Q.

To get the peak gain, we plug this back into the transfer function as |H(jw)|:

|H(jw)| = 1 / |((jw)^2 + (jw)/Q + 1|
= 1 / |1 / (2 Q^2) + (j sqrt(1 - 1 / (2 Q^2)))/Q|
gain = Q^2 / sqrt(Q^2 - 1 / 4)

I have checked the correctness of this with numerical computation (compute |H(w)| for many w and find the w that produces a maximum).

To invert and get Q in terms of gain, the quadratic formula along with the requirement that Q > 1 / sqrt(2) gives:

Q = sqrt((gain^2 + sqrt(gain^4 - gain^2)) / 2)

So, for RLPF/RHPF/BHiPass/BLowPass you can use the above formulas to convert between Q and peak gain. Remember to take the reciprocal as they all ask for 1/Q.

I am not sure how the variable slope is implemented. There are fractional order filters out there but nobody seems to use them. Crossfading between different cascaded series filters is a good guess, but I’d have to do some more thinking to determine the outcome of phase cancellation.

4 Likes

Thanks for your answers. Let me some time to digest this, go deeper into transfer functions, complex frequency and above all experiment with this !

If you don’t already know it, I would recommend checking out Dan Worrall’s YT channel - he’s responsible for the FabFilter plugin demos (and I think he’s done some of the Waves promo as well). His channel is full of filter theory, plugin design theory, and it’s presented in a way that could easily be translated to SC. If you’re lucky, he’s already done an analysis of your VST; then you’ll definitely get some insight into what that Resonance knob is doing!

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This is from the filter design book writer. It’s a bit of a chore trying to gather the resources to learn this online, so an actual course might help.

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