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Open B3: an open source tonewheel organ and rotary speaker emulator

Summary

1. What is Open B3?

2. How do I use it?

3. Building

4. Current state and road map

5. Can I contribute to this project?

6. Are you crazy?

What is Open B3?

Open B3 is the younger sibling of setBfree, which is

a MIDI-controlled, software synthesizer designed to imitate the sound and properties of the electromechanical organs and sound modification devices that brought world-wide fame to the names and products of Laurens Hammond and Don Leslie.
-- from https://github.com/pantherb/setBfree

Similarly to setBree, Open B3 is powered by the Beatrix synthesis engine.
It comes in two forms:

  1. A C++ JUCE plugin that is based on BeatrixCPP. It can be found in the OpenB3JUCE folder, and this is what most people will be looking for.
  2. A simple C++ wrapper around the Beatrix engine, which is written in C. This is done to make the usage of Beatrix more straightforward. It can be found in the BeatrixCPP folder.

Why do we need Open B3, if there's already setBfree?

I decided to create Open B3 in order to overcome two major limitations of setBfree:

  • the setBfree standalone app relies on JACK
  • the setBfree plugin is available in LV2 format only

People outside the GNU/Linux world rarely venture into installing JACK or using a DAW that supports LV2 plugins (except Reaper). Usually, they have no idea what these two things are. This severely limits the potential user base of setBfree, and it's a shame! With Open B3, I would like to give Beatrix and setBfree the audience they deserve, since a JUCE plugin can be compiled into:

  • all sorts of plugin formats (VST2, VST3, AAX, AU, AUv3, Unity, and in the near future, even LV2)
  • standalone desktop apps that make use of the native audio system of each OS (ALSA, Windows Audio, CoreAudio, ...)
  • and even Android/iOS apps!

How do I use it?

You can download the latest release for your OS from here. Currently, only the standalone apps for Linux x64, Windows x64 and macOS M1 are provided. For the moment, if you want to run Open B3 on other architectures or as a plugin, you have to build it yourself (see building).

Building

To build Open B3, you will need CMake (version 3.15 or above), a C++ compiler (C++17 or above), and the latest version of the JUCE library. Once you clone/download this repository, you need to clone/download a copy of JUCE inside the OpenB3JUCE/ folder. You end up with this directory structure:

OpenB3
├── BeatrixCPP/
├   ├── Source/
├   └── CMakeLists.txt
└── OpenB3JUCE/
    ├── JUCE/
    ├── Source/
    └── CMakeLists.txt
  • Windows/macOS/Linux: if you use a CMake-based IDE like CLion or QtCreator, use it to open CMakeLists.txt and proceed building from there.
  • Windows only: download and install the latest CMake installer, Visual Studio Community IDE, and the Windows SDK. Open CMake, point it to the source folder (OpenPianoJUCE or OpenPianoCore), and generate a VS project to be opened in Visual Studio.
  • macOS only: download and install XCode from the App Store and the CMake installer. Use CMake to generate an XCode project.
  • Linux/macOS and other UNIX/UNIX-based/UNIX-like operating systems: use the command line 😉

Current state and road map

Open B3 works, but the C++ wrapper doesn't expose all Beatrix's functionality yet. Here's a short list of what needs to be done (it may change frequently):

  • Fix sample rate setting - Fixed HERE, but maybe SampleRateD shouldn't be global
  • Expose the essential sound parameters (vibrato, vibrato&chorus, percussion, overdrive, rotary speaker speed, reverb, volume) - Done HERE
  • Design and implement a fully resizable prototype GUI in JUCE - Done HERE
  • Expose all remaining sound parameters (e.g. keyclick, tonewheel model, tuning, rotary speaker speed tuning, ...) and allow their tweaking in the GUI
  • Expose/implement programs and program changes
  • Expose/implement configuration file loading and saving
  • General GUI improvements and cosmetic work

Can I contribute to this project?

Once the project reaches a certain usability level, contributions will be welcome. It would be really nice if improvements upon the sound synthesis engine were also upstreamed into setBfree.

Are you crazy?

Yes