Emulation:
-mini - moog mini
-explorer - moog voyager
-voyager - moog voyager electric blue
-memory - moog memory
-sonic6 - moog sonic 6
-mg1 - moog/realistic mg-1 concertmate
-hammond - hammond module (deprecated, use -b3)
-b3 - hammond B3 (default)
-prophet - sequential circuits prophet-5
-pro52 - sequential circuits prophet-5/fx
-pro10 - sequential circuits prophet-10
-pro1 - sequential circuits pro-one
-rhodes - fender rhodes mark-I stage 73
-rhodesbass - fender rhodes bass piano
-roadrunner - crumar roadrunner electric piano
-bitone - crumar bit 01
-bit99 - crumar bit 99
-bit100 - crumar bit + mods
-stratus - crumar stratus synth/organ combo
-trilogy - crumar trilogy synth/organ/string combo
-obx - oberheim OB-X
-obxa - oberheim OB-Xa
-axxe - arp axxe
-odyssey - arp odyssey
-arp2600 - arp 2600
-solina - arp/solina string ensemble
-polysix - korg polysix
-poly800 - korg poly-800
-monopoly - korg mono/poly
-ms20 - korg ms20 (unfinished: -libtest only)
-vox - vox continental
-voxM2 - vox continental super/300/II
-juno - roland juno-60
-jupiter - roland jupiter-8
-bme700 - baumann bme-700
-bm - bristol bassmaker sequencer
-dx - yamaha dx-7
-cs80 - yamaha cs-80 (unfinished)
-sidney - commodore-64 SID chip synth
-melbourne - commodore-64 SID polysynth (unfinished)
-granular - granular synthesiser (unfinished)
-aks - ems synthi-a (unfinished)
-mixer - 16 track mixer (unfinished: -libtest only)
Synthesiser:
-voices <n>
The selected emulator will start with this number of voices. The engine will always create 32
voices but only allocate this subset to the emulator. If the selected value is greater than 32
then the greater number of voices is allocated.
-mono Run the emulator in monophonic mode. This is not really an alias for '-voices 1' as it
additionally configures parameters such as '-retrig -lvel -wwf -hnp'. These additional options
can be overridden if desired.
-lnp Select low note precedence logic. This only applies to monophonic synthesisers and all of the note
precedence affect the legato playing style.
-hnp Select high note precedence logic. This only applies to monophonic synthesisers.
-nnp Select no note precedence, this is the default and operates as a last note precedence selection.
-retrig
Request a trigger event for each note that is played AND notes that are released. The trigger will
cause the envelopes to cycle. They will not return to zero by default however some of the
emulations have that as a GUI control. Without this flag triggers are only sent for the first
pressed note of a sequence.
-lvel Configure velocity inheritance for all legato notes - the first note of a sequence will have a
velocity value that is applied to all subsequent notes. This option is a toggle: applying twice
will disable the feature. This is important with regards to the emulators as many of the mono
synths with set lvel per default. The following options may not work as expected:
startBristol -mini -lvel
The issue is that -mini enables legato velocity so the -lvel switch will toggle it off again. The
same applies to -retrig.
-channel <c>
Start the emulator to respond on this MIDI channel, default 1.
-lowkey <n>
Configure the lowest note for which the emulator should respond. This defaults to '0' but can be
used to define key splits and ranges for different synths.
-highkey <n>
Configure the highest note for which the emulator should respond. This defaults to '127' but can
be used to define key splits and ranges for different synths.
-detune <%>
Request the emulator run with a level of temperature sensitivity. The default value is defined by
the emulator, typically 100 or 200. The detune is applied to a voice at note on only and is a
random value within the range defined here.
-gain <gn>
Output signal gain level for the emulator. These can be used to normalise the signal levels from
different synths when played together. The default value is defined by the synth itself, this is
an override.
-pwd <s>
Pitch wheel depth in semitones, default 2.
-velocity <v>
Velocity curve for the emulator. Default is 520, an exponential curve for a hard playing style.
Value '0' is flat (no touch sensitivity). Values up to 100 are linear scaled maps. The velocity
map is table of points that is interpolated linearly: you may only have to define the inflexion
points, however if you want smooth curves you will have to define each of the 128 velocity values
that are used in noteon/noteoff events. The emulation only has a single table of gain levels for
each key.velocity index, the engine by contrast has two tables, one for each on/off event however
that is an integer map, not a gain map.
There are several default tables if you do not want to specify your own interpolated curve. Each
table is the gain for the Midi velocity value given in the note event, it has 128 entries. The
following are implmented:
100-199 Convex curves for a soft touch keyboard player
200-499 Concave curves for a hard touch, linear up to quadratic function.
The next set up to 525 are repeats of the above but with less granularity. In the above range the
value of 200 is linear, as is 510 below:
500-509 Convex curves for a soft touch keyboard player
510 linear
511-25 Concave curves for a hard touched player.
Then there are a couple of specific curves
550 logarithmic
560 parabolic
The values up to 100 consists of two digit numbers. The first digit defines how late the line
starts (it is linear) to ramp up, and the second digit is how late it reaches 1.0. The value of 09
is almost the linear mapping above as it starts from 0 and ends almost at the end. A value of 49
would be for a heavy player, it is zero for a large part of the velocity table, and then ramps up
to max gain (1.0) close the end of the table. Note that these table could also have been defined
with velocityMap definitions as they are linear interpolations. A present release will include
curves to smooth things out a little.
Option 520 is a squared powercurve and feels quite natural although that is very subjective.
Perhaps its natural for a hard player and it could be a better default than the linear curve.
The value 1000 will invert the mapping, so:
1510 - linear from 1.0 down to 0.0 as velocity increases
1520 - exponential, from 1.0 down to 0.0 as velocity increases
The engine mapping is applied before the emulation mapping given here. There are reasonable
arguments to make this table logarithmic - you are welcome to do so. There are no limits to the
values here other than negative values are not mapped, so this table can also be used to
compensate for volume levels.
-glide <s>
Duration of nogte glide in seconds, default 5.
-emulate <name>
Search for the named emulator and invoke it, otherwise exit. Invoking an emulation this was is
currently the default, it implies extra parameters for voicecount, gain, glide, pitchwheel depth,
detune, etc. The default is hammondB3. The -emulate option also implies -register to the emulator
name.
-register <name>
Use a specific name when registering with Jack and ALSA. By default the engine will use the name
'bristol' however this can be confusing if multiple engines are being used and this can be used to
override the default.
-lwf Select lightweight filters for the emulator.
-nwf Select normalweight filters, the default. These are about twice as expensive as lightweight
filters.
-wwf Select welterweight filters, this are again about double the CPU load as the normal filters.
-hwf Select heavyweight filters. These are roughly twice the welterweight filter. Whilst their is a
noticable audible difference between -lwf and -nwf, it is debatable whether the difference between
-nwf, -wwf and -hwf is other than visible in the CPU load. The default filter for any -mono synth
is -wwf which can be overridden with something line '-mini -mono -nwf'.
-blo <h>
Number of bandwidth limited harmonics to map. The value of zero will select infintite bandwidth,
default is 31.
-blofraction <f>
The engine uses precomputed tables for all frequencies where the maximum harmonic does not exceed
this fraction of the samplerate. The default, 0.8, is already above nyquist as a tradeoff betweeen
content and distortion. Values tending towards 1.0 are heavily aliased at the higher frequencies
naturally.
-scala <file>
The engine will read the given scala file and map it into its frequency tables.
UserInterface:
-quality <n>
The color cache depth will affect the rendering speed. The lower values start showing loss of
clarity, the higher values start using thousands of colors which is where the performance is
affected, value is bpp, default is 6.
-scale <s>
Each of the emulators has a default window sisze, this size can be scaled up or downwards if
desired.
-width <n>
The pixel width defines the smaller of two sizees that can be configured. It works with the -scale
and -autozoom options for flipping between different sizes on mouse Enter/Leave of the window.
-autozoom
Minimise window on exit, maximise on enter.
-raise Automatically raise the window on Enter.
-lower Automatically lower the window on Leave. It is noted here that the use of autozoom, raise and
lower may have undesirable effects with some window managers.
-rud Constrain the rotary controller tracking to mouse up/down motion, not to actually track the mouse
position. The value will be a fraction of the current window size.
-antialias <%>
For some window sizes there will be pixelation of the rendered imagas unless some antialias is
applied. With large zoom values this is automatically set up. Value is a percentage, default is
30.
-aliastype <pre/texture/all>
There are three antialiasing options, ´pre´ will apply it to the text silkscreens, ´texture´ will
apply it to the surface bitmaps and ´all´ will apply it everywhere including devices rendered. The
default is pre however this parameter is only applied if -antialias has a value other than zero.
-opacity <%>
Brighton uses a transparency layer for some features such as the ARP 2600 patch cables. This is
the default transparency. It can be adjusted later with the ^o/^O/^t control codes in the GUI.
Default is 50 percent.
-pixmap
Use the X11 pixmap interface rather than the default XImage interface to the server.
-dct <ms>
Double click timeout for button events, etc, 250 ms.
-tracking
Prevent the GUI piano keyboard image from tracking MIDI events, small reduction in CPU overhead.
-keytoggle
The default GUI behaviour for tuning keys on with the mouse is to latch them, this allows for
playing chords on the polyphonics. This option will disable the latch to that keys are played only
whilst held with the mousebutton.
-neutral
Initial the emulator with a null patch, all parameters will have the value of zero to allow for a
patch to be built from the bottom up, completely from scratch. This is equivalent to '-load -1',
negative memory locations will not be saved, ie, you cannot save to the null patch.
-load <m>
Initial memory number to load at startup. Default is 0 for most emulators.
-import <pathname>
Import a memory from a disk file to the active patch at start time. This patch can then be saved
to another location and allows for interexchange of memories.
-mbi <m>
The master bank index allows for access to extra memory ID. This value times 1000 is added to the
memory ID saved/loaded by the GUI so the GUI can access for example 8 banks of 8 memories but
using -mbi you can actually save multiple sets of 64 memories.
-activesense <ms>
The rate at which hello messages are sent from GUI to engine to ensure it is still active. If the
transmission fails then the GUI will exit, if the engine does not receive updates it will also
exit. Zero will disable active sense.
-ast <m>
The engine timeout period on active sense messages.
-mct <m>
The MIDI cycle timeout is a busy waiting GUI timer for MIDI events, used when the GUI takes a MIDI
interface for direct event tracking.
-ar|-aspect
All of the emulators will attempt to maintain an aspect ratio for their windows so that they look
'normal'. This conflicts with some tiling window managers so can be disabled. It may also cause
some excessive remapping of windows when they are resized.
-iconify
Open the window in the iconified state.
-window
Do not map any window.
-cli Enable the text based command line interface to the engine. This can be used in connjuction with
-window however if compiled without support for any windowing system the -window option is
implied.
-libtest
Do not start the engine, nor attempt to connect to it, just post the GUI for testing.
GUIShortcuts:
<Ctrl> 's' - save settings to current memory
<Ctrl> 'l' - (re)load current memory
<Ctrl> 'x' - exchange current with previous memory
<Ctrl> '+' - load next memory
<Ctrl> '-' - load previous memory
<Ctrl> '?' - show emulator help information
<Ctrl> 'h' - show emulator help information
<Ctrl> 'r' - show application readme information
<Ctrl> 'k' - show keyboard shortcuts
<Ctrl> 'p' - screendump to /tmp/<synth>.xpm
<Ctrl> 't' - toggle opacity
<Ctrl> 'o' - decrease opacity of patch layer
<Ctrl> 'O' - increase opacity of patch layer
<Ctrl> 'w' - display warranty
<Ctrl> 'g' - display GPL (copying conditions)
<Shift> '+' - increase window size
<Shift> '-' - decrease window size
<Shift> 'Enter'- toggle window between full screen size
UpArrow - controller motion up (shift key accelerator)
DownArrow - controller motion down (shift key accelerator)
RightArrow - more control motion up (shift accelerator)
LeftArrow - more control motion down (shift accelerator)
Operationaloptions:
General:
-engine
Do not start a new engine. The GUI will attempt to connect to an existing engine on the host and
port configuration (cq). If the connection is built then the engine will operate both emulators
and voice allocations will be shared amongst them. All of the emulator outputs are folded back
onto the same stereo output, excepting where extra Jack control inputs are used.
-gui Do not start the GUI, only the engine. The GUI will attempt to connect to the engine on the
configured host and port values. If it does not respond then the GUI will exit with some rather
terse messaging.
-server
Start the engine as a permanant server that does not exit with the last emulator.
-daemon
Run the engine as a daemon with disconnected controlling terminal. This does not imply the -server
option, nor does it imply the -log option for logging to the file system, nor -syslog which might
also be applicable to a daemon.
-watchdog <s>
Timeout for the audio thread initialisation. If the thread does not activate within this period
then the engine will gracefully exit rather than wait around for connections indefinitely. Default
period is 30 seconds. This is not active in -server or -daemon mode. In normal operation the audio
thread will be launched within a couple of seconds but if the engine and GUI are started
separately then this timeout demands that a GUI be started before the timer expires.
-log Redirect logging output to a file. The default file is /var/log/bristol.log and
/var/log/brighton.log and if they are not available then $HOME/.bristol/log directory is used. The
selection of /var/log is to prevent logging to root in the event that the engine is invoked by
this user.
-syslog
Redirect logging output to syslog.
-console
Maintain the controlling terminal as output for logging messages, remove the timestampes for
readability purposes. This can also be configured with the environment variable
BRISTOL_LOG_CONSOLE=true.
-rc Do not load any bristolrc parameter file.
-exec The final process to be requested by the startBristol script will be called as an exec such that
it maintains amongst other things the PID of the parent. This option will override the exec and
leave the script waiting for the processes to exit. There implications of not using this
parameter, some of the cleanup code is part of the wrapping shellscript, per default this is not
called due to the exec request. This flag is default but should only really be required for LADI
compatibility.
-stop Stop all the running bristol engines. This will indirectly result in termination of any GUI due to
active sensing although that can be disabled. The use case is to stop any -server -daemon engines
running in the background. The back end to the option is pkill.
-exit Stop all the running bristol engines and GUI.
-kill <-emulator>
Stop all the running bristol engines and GUI that have been associated with the given emulator. If
bristol was started with '-mini' it can now be killed with -mini so that other emulators are not
terminated. If there are multiple mini running they will naturally die also. If the engine is
running multitimbral GUI then the other associated GUI will also exit in addition to the mini.
-cache <pathname>
The default location for new memories and emulator profiles, the default is ~/.bristol and it will
be searched before the system/factory default directory /usr/local/share/bristol when emulators
are started and memories are loaded. If the pathname does not exist then it is created if
possible.
-memdump <pathname> [-emulate <synth>]
Create the target directory <pathname>/memory/<synth> and copy first the factory default memories
for the synth, then the user private memories. This can be used with session management to make a
copy of all synth memories in a session. If the target directory already exists then no copy
operation takes place but the directory does replace the -cache default to make this the new
location for saved memories for that session. The -emulate option is required, if it is not
provided then the default hammondB3 is taken.
-debug <1-16>
Debug level, values above 12 can be very verbose and only the value 0 is arguably realtime safe as
it avoids printf() in the engine compute thread.
-readme [-<e>]
Display the program readme information. Show the readme for just a single emulator if desired.
-glwf Only allow the use of '-lwf' for all emulators, no overrides.
-host <hostname>
Connect to the engine on the hostname, default is localhost. This is used in conjuction with
-engine to distribute the GUI. The hostname accepts syntax such as hostname:port to fix both the
host and port for a remote connection to the engine. If the host portion is the token 'unix' then
a local named socket is created rather than a TCP connection. In this instance a specific port
number can be given to create the named socket /tmp/br.<port> and if the port is not specified
then a random numeric index is chosen.
-port <p>
Connect to the given TCP port for GUI/engine messaging, default 5028. If the port is alreeady in
use then the startup with fail. For starting multiple bristols with GUI then this option should be
discarded and the script will look for a free port number for each invocation. It is incorrect to
mix this option with -host parameters that take a value host:port or unix:port as the results will
be indeterminate depending on the order the parameters are submitted.
-quiet Redirect debug and diagnostic output to /dev/null.
-gmc Open a MIDI interface in the GUI. Per default the engine will own the only MIDI interface for
bristol and will redistribute events to the GUI. It is possible to disable the forwarding and
attach both GUI and engine to midi devices if necessary.
-forward
Disable MIDI event forwarding globally. Per default the engine opens a MIDI interface and is
connected to the physical keyboards, control surfaces and/or sequencers. It will forward MIDI
events to the GUI for tracking. This option disables the feature. When disabled the GUI will not
reflect the piano keybaord state, nor will it track CC motion unless the options '-gmc' is given
to open a MIDI connection in the GUI and that the user connects the same control surfaces to the
GUI via this alternative channel. This option is logically identical to ´-localforward
-remoteforward´.
-localforward
This will prevent the GUI from forwarding MIDI messages to the engine. This is not to prevent MIDI
message loops as the forwarding only ever occurs from MIDI interfaces to TCP connections between
GUI and engine. This option will prevent messages from any surfaces that are connected to the GUI
from forwarding to the engine.
-remoteforward
This will prevent the engine from forwarding to the GUI but still allow the GUI to forward to the
engine. If the GUI is given a MIDI connection with the -gmc option, and control surfaces are
applied to both processes then the -forward option should be used to globally prevent event
redistribution. Failure to do so will not result in loops, just one-for-one duplication of events.
It is possible to connect the control surfaces just to the GUI when the -gmc option is used, this
gives the possibility to have a local keyboard and GUI but drive an engine on a remote systems.
Their is admittedly additional latency involved with handling the MIDI messages from the GUI to
the remote engine over TCP.
-oss Configure OSS defaults for audio and MIDI interfaces
-alsa Configure ALSA defaults for audio and MIDI interfaces. The MIDI interface is an ALSA SEQ port.
-jack Configure Jack defaults for audio and MIDI interfaces. At the time of writing this option causes
some issues as it selects Jack MIDI which currently requires a bridging daemon to operate. The
options '-jack -midi seq' would be a more typical configuration.
-jackstats
Do not request audio parameters from the jack server, take the bristol system defaults or the
configured parameters. The bristol defaults will invariably fail however the call to
bristoljackstats is sometimes superfluous and this can speed up the initial startup times. Using
this parameter will typically require that the options -rate and -count are also provided. TP
-jsmuuid <UUID> This is for sole use of the Jack Session Manager
-jsmfile <path>
This is for sole use of the Jack Session Manager
-jsmd <ms>
Jack session manager delay before session events are distributed internally. Event execution is
delayed in the GUI by a default of 5000ms.
-session
Disable all session management including JSM and LADI.
-sleep <n>
Stall the initialisation process for 'n' seconds. This is to work around what appears to be race a
condition when using a session manager to initialise multiple bristol clients as they all vie for
the same TCP port identifier.
-jdo Jack Dual Open: let the audio and midi threads register as independent clients with Jack. Per
default the audio thread will open as a jack client and the MIDI connection is piggypbacked as
another port rather than as another client.
-o <filename>
Generate a raw audio output of the final stage samples to a file. The format will be 16bit stereo
interleaved.
-nrp Enable support for NRP events in both GUI and engine. This is to be used with care as NRP in the
engine can have unexpected results.
-enrp Enable NRP support in the engine only.
-gnrp Enable NRP events in the GUI. This is required to allow the GUI (and hence the engine) to be
driven from some MIDI control surfaces.
-nrpcc <n>
Maximum number of NRP to map. The default is 128, seen as sufficient for any of the current
emulators but the mixer will require more if it is every released.
Audiodriver:
-audio [oss|alsa|jack]
Audio driver overrides. Depending on the order of the switches it is possible to set a group of
global defaults (-jack/oss/alsa) then have specific re-selection of components.
-audiodev <dev>
Audio device name. For Jack, this will be the name registered with the Jack daemon.
-count <samples>
Number of samples/frames in processing period.
-outgain <gn>
Output signal normalisation level, per emulator default 4.
-ingain <gn>
Input signal normalisation level, per emulator default 4.
-preload <periods>
Number of audio buffers to prewrite to the audio output on start. This is not active with the Jack
drivers.
-rate <hz>
Sampling rate, defaults to 44100.
-priority <p>
Realtime priority requested by the engine audio thread, default 75. Zero will disable RT
processing.
-autoconn
Automatically connect the engine input and output to the first Jack IO ports found. This can also
be achieved with the environment variable BRISTOL_AUTOCONN=true
-multi <c>
Multiple IO port requests, only works with Jack and currently only the ARP 2600 gives access to
these ports.
-migc <f>
Input signal normalisation level for the multi IO ports.
-mogc <f>
Output signal normalisation level for the multi IO ports.
Mididriver:
-midi [oss|[raw]alsa|jack]
Audio driver overrides. Depending on the order of the switches it is possible to set a group of
global defaults (-jack/oss/alsa) then have specific re-selection of components such as in ´-jack
-midi seq´. The default MIDI driver is '-midi seq' but that can be overriden with compile time
options such as --enable-jack-default-midi to ./configure.
-mididev <dev>
MIDI device namee to be opened (OSS/ALSA).
-mididbg
Request MIDI level 1 debuging.
-mididbg2
Request MIDI level 2 debuging. Both can be selected for level 3.
-sysid <0xXXXXXXXX>
Configure an alternative SYSEX identifier for the engine. The default is the value 0x534C6162 for
historical reasons, this is not a free development ID but it is not assigned so should not cause
conflict.
LADIdriver(level1compliant):
-ladi brighton
Execute LADI messages in the GUI only
-ladi bristol
Execute LADI messages in the engine only
-ladi <memory>
The LADI state memory for save operations. This should be unique for each LADI session.
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