amSynth (C) 2001-2003 Nick Dowell http://amsynthe.sourceforge.net/amSynth
Thank you for your interest in amSynth!
amSynth is a real-time analogue modelling synthesizer.
It presents a dual-oscillator subtractive synthesizer with envelopes, filter, modulation and effects. The aim was to keep the synth easy to use, so you can more easily get the sounds you want ;-)
I hope that amSynth works well for you, and you can get the sounds you want to create! Good luck!
- Nick Dowell
Running amSynth
read INSTALL for installation instructions!!
Once youve compiled and installed amSynth, run it with the -h flag to get a list of command-line options.
For more in-depth discussion of using amSynth, please visit the web-forum at http://amsynthe.sourceforge.net/amSynth/forum
Configuration
To save passing command-line options every time, you can set the options in the ~/.amSynthrc file. Also, there are some options which can only be set in this file, so it is recommended to customise it.
Presets
Presets are stored in a bank file, "~/.amSynth.presets" by default You can specify another file using the 'amSynth -b <file>' command line option You can also load other bank files from the application's menu. !! Whenever you exit amSynth, the bank you are using is automatically saved !!
Known problems
I have tested this software on my setup, and for me it seems to work fine..
So far I've used it succesfully with:
+ Cubase (Atari ST) running on another machine
+ seq24 running on the same machine
+ MuSE running on the same machine
+ Rosegarden 4 running on the same machine
+ vkeybd (virtual keyboard program) running on the same machine
Although I've been using this software myself for a while without many problems, I am aware of some issues which have arisen in the past :-
+ Careful with the polyphony! If you play too many notes at once for your CPU,
two things can happen:
+ If you aren't running amSynth SUID root (i.e. with realtime priority) you
will experience (continuous) buffer dropouts, which will sound like horrible
distortion.
+ If you are running SUID root, you will also experience dropout, plus your
system will appear to be locked. This is because amSynth is eating up all
the CPU time, and running at highest priority. Experiment with the "polyphony" setting in .amSynthrc or with the `-p' option on the command line.
You have been warned!
But more importantly, have fun ;-)
!! IMPORTANT !!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you find a bug in amSynth, or just something plain annoying, please give some
feedback, this is the only way the software will improve, and you want that,
don't you? ;-)
Send messages to the mailng list: amsynthe-main@lists.sourceforge.net
or discuss on-line: http://amsynthe.sourceforge.net/amSynth/forum