Audio Phosphor User Manual

Phosphor User’s Guide

Audio Damage, Inc.
Release 1.1

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on
the part of Audio Damage, Inc. The software described by this document is subject to a License Agreement
and may not be copied to other media except as specifically allowed in the License Agreement. No part of this
publication may be copied, reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior
written permission by Audio Damage, Inc.

© 2011 Audio Damage, Inc. All rights reserved.

Credits

Software Design and Construction, Documentation

Chris Randall
Adam Schabtach

Field Testing

Jens Ågren
Steve Hamann
Jeff Laity
Mitchell Sigman

Made Possible By

Elle
Tracie

Fuzzy Logic

Alfred
Chica
Edwin
Garrus
Madeline
Pablo
Tali
Zed

Audio Unit version implemented using Symbiosis from NuEdge Development.

License Agreement

BY INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE, YOU ARE CONSENTING TO BE BOUND BY THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT
AGREE TO ALL OF THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, THEN RETURN THE PRODUCT TO THE PLACE OF
PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND.

Single User License Grant: Audio Damage, Inc. ("Audio Damage") and its suppliers grant to Customer
("Customer") a nonexclusive and nontransferable license to use the Audio Damage software ("Software") in
object code form solely on a single central processing unit owned or leased by Customer.

Customer may make one (1) archival copy of the Software provided Customer affixes to such copy all
copyright, confidentiality, and proprietary notices that appear on the original.

EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZED ABOVE, CUSTOMER SHALL NOT: COPY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART,
SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION; MODIFY THE SOFTWARE; REVERSE COMPILE OR REVERSE ASSEMBLE ALL
OR ANY PORTION OF THE SOFTWARE; OR RENT, LEASE, DISTRIBUTE, SELL, OR CREATE DERIVATIVE WORKS
OF THE SOFTWARE.

Customer agrees that aspects of the licensed materials, including the specific design and structure of
individual programs, constitute trade secrets and/or copyrighted material of Audio Damage. Customer agrees
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from Audio Damage: (i) the media on which the Software is furnished will be free of defects in materials and
workmanship under normal use; and (ii) the Software substantially conforms to its published specifications.
Except for the foregoing, the Software is provided AS IS. This limited warranty extends only to Customer as
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able to operate the Software without problems or interruptions.

This warranty does not apply if the software (a) has been altered, except by Audio Damage, (b) has not been
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been subjected to abnormal physical or electrical stress, misuse, negligence, or accident, or (d) is used in
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demonstration purposes, any temporary software modules or any software for which Audio Damage does not
receive a license fee. All such software products are provided AS IS without any warranty whatsoever.

This License is effective until terminated. Customer may terminate this License at any time by destroying all
copies of Software including any documentation. This License will terminate immediately without notice from
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must destroy all copies of Software.

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This License shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Colorado, United
States of America, as if performed wholly within the state and without giving effect to the principles of conflict
of law. If any portion hereof is found to be void or unenforceable, the remaining provisions of this License
shall remain in full force and effect. This License constitutes the entire License between the parties with
respect to the use of the Software.

Introduction

Phosphor is a polyphonic software synthesizer plug-in modeled on the alphaSyntauri hardware synthesizer.
Introduced in 1979, the alphaSyntauri used an Apple ][ microcomputer as its central processor and user
interface. While quite modest by contemporary standards, the alphaSyntauri can create a surprising wealth of
sounds easily, thanks to its simple but flexible approach to synthesis.

Rather than mimicking the small number of wave shapes available from the oscillators found in analog
synthesizers, the alphaSyntauri’s oscillators used tables of numbers—essentially samples of a single cycle of
an audio wave. The tables are filled with a process known as additive synthesis. The basic idea of additive
synthesis is that any sound wave can be created by adding together a large number of sine waves of different
frequencies. Each sine wave has a pure sound with no harmonics, but if you add a bunch of them together you
can create complex sounds. If you use enough sine waves, and if you control their relative loudness precisely
over the duration of a note, you can recreate just about any sound.1

Since the alphaSyntauri was limited by the computational power available in its day, it took a relatively simple

approach to additive synthesis. Each oscillator’s wave shape was created by adding together 16 sine waves,
which we’ll henceforth refer to as partials. The wave shape could not change over the duration of a note, but
each oscillator’s overall loudness was controlled by a separate envelope generator, and hence the timbre of

the note could be varied by mixing the two oscillators dynamically. Phosphor reproduces this system faithfully
and adds a couple of tricks of its own.

Phosphor harkens back to a time when high-quality digital synthesis was available only to people with huge
budgets or access to academic research facilities, but low-quality digital synthesis was finding its way into the
public ear through quarter-munching video games and 8-bit home computers. We hope you enjoy using it as
much as we enjoyed building it.

If You Don’t Like To Read Manuals

We understand. You just got a shiny new plug-in and you’d really rather play with it than read some dull
exposition about it. Go ahead, then—install it, load it up, flip through the presets, move some of the controls
around. Phosphor comes with a healthy assortment of built-in presets that will provide instant gratification
and keep you amused for quite some time. When you’re ready to dig deeper and create your own sounds, a
quick read of this manual should help you along.

1

For an in-depth explanation of how this works, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additive_synthesis

System Requirements

To use Phosphor, you'll need a Steinberg VST-compatible host application which conforms to the VST 2.0
specifications, and a computer capable of running it. For the Audio Unit version of Phosphor, you’ll need an
application capable of hosting Audio Unit plug-ins, and an Apple computer with an Intel CPU capable of
running it.

We support the use of Phosphor under Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7; and Apple OS X version

10.5 or newer.

Installation

Double-click the Phosphor Installer icon, and follow the instructions. During the installation process the
installer will ask you to enter your registration code. Your registration code uniquely identifies your purchase,
and you will need it if you need to reinstall your plug-in (for example, after upgrading to a new computer).
You can retrieve your code from your account at the Audio Damage website if you misplace it. Please don’t
share your code with your friends. We’re delighted if you like our products so much that you want to share
them, but please ask your friends to buy their own copy so that we can keep making new products.

On OS X, the installer installs both the AudioUnit and VST versions of Phosphor by default. If you click the
Customize button you can choose to not install one of these formats. If you’re running a 64-bit version of
Windows, you can choose to install either a 32- or 64-bit version of Phosphor, or both. On OS X, both the
AudioUnit and VST versions are combination 32/64-bit plug-ins.

To un-install from OS X, simply delete the plug-in from your VST folder, which is usually located at

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/, and your AudioUnits folder, which is located at /Library/Audio/Plug­Ins/Components/. To un-install from Windows, delete the file named Phosphor.dll from your VST folder(s).

Operation

The following screen shot shows Phosphor’s user interface. The controls are described in the following
paragraphs.

1. Wavetable Oscillators

Phosphor’s core is a pair of audio oscillators, referred to as the Primary and Secondary Oscillators. Each

oscillator has its own wave table and hence its own timbre.