Hi. I’m Bartłomiej, a Poznań based programming, DSP and electronics enthusiast.

Introducing Sonism: A Modern Supersaw Synthesizer Plugin

Sonism Supersaw Synthesizer DAW Plugin

Today, I’m incredibly excited to introduce a project I’ve been pouring a lot of time and passion into: Sonism.

Sonism is a modern Supersaw software synthesizer audio plugin. Whether you are a producer looking for fat synth stacks or a developer curious about audio programming, I built this to be a versatile and powerful tool. It is currently in its Alpha version and is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

What Can It Do?

To ensure it fits seamlessly into almost any modern digital audio workstation (DAW), Sonism supports Standalone, AU, VST3, AUv3, and CLAP plugin formats.

The core of Sonism is built around generating massive, wide sounds. Here is a look at the features packed into the current engine:

  • 7-Oscillator Engine: A robust foundation featuring 7 independent oscillators.
  • Flexible Waveforms: Each oscillator can be set to one of 5 waveform types, including Sine, Triangle, Square, Sawtooth, and Pulse.
  • Precision Control: You get a per-oscillator linear mix slider and stereo panning controls to blend each wave into the final output exactly how you want it. I also included a Unison Detune and Stereo Spread for quickly tweaking all oscillators at once.
  • Fat Supersaws: Oscillators 2-7 feature up to 100 cents of independent pitch offset.
  • Modulation & Envelopes: The synth includes a standard Amplitude Envelope (ADSR) and two independent LFOs with tweakable controls for Wave Type, Amount, Rate, and Phase.
  • State-Variable Filter: Shape your sound with a low-pass filter featuring a cutoff range from 20 Hz to 20 kHz and a resonance (Q) factor of 0.1 to 5.0.

Visualizing the Sound

I wanted to make sure you can see what you are designing. Sonism features a real-time oscilloscope that displays the summed stereo output of the active oscillator right in the UI. Additionally, there is an FFT-based Output Spectrum Analyzer that gives you a frequency display of the final stereo mix.

Under the Hood (For the Devs)

If you are interested in the code, Sonism is written entirely in C++ using the fantastic JUCE framework.

  • Architecture: It leverages modern C++20 and uses CMake (3.25+) as its build system.
  • DSP processing: I utilized JUCE’s native DSP modules for the heavy lifting, including FFT, Windowing, and the StateVariableTPTFilter.
  • Polyphony & Testing: It currently features 6-voice polyphony (which is configurable in the source), and I use Catch2 for unit testing and benchmarking to keep things stable.

Try It Out!

Sonism is completely open-source. You can grab the latest release binaries or dive into the repository to build it yourself over on my GitHub.

Current To-Do List (Note To Self)

  • Preset/Patch functionality
  • Effects such as a compressor, delay, reverb

I’d love to hear feedback! If you end up making some cool patches or just want to chat about DSP and C++, write to me at bartlomiej.bil@bilusgarage.com.

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