What? Shortcircuit is open source? Well yes, but there are big big caveats. Right now there are no downloadable assets you can get to play music, and there is no runnable open source Shortcircuit plugin. We estimate this will be the case for much of 2021, and maybe indefinitely. You may never be able to run an open source Shortcircuit. Might just be too much work. But if you are dev you can help!
What was Shortcurcuit?
Shortcircuit was created as a reaction against the ongoing trend where software samplers are being designed with the primary intent of library playback.
It is intended for people who, like us, consider a sampler to be a musical instrument in its own right, and not just a way to emulate other instruments. It has been a very high priority to make sure that adding and editing individual samples is as fast and logical as possible.
The sample hierarchy in shortcircuit allow you to place samples directly at the highest level of the multi, without having to deal with instrument hierarchies and patches. Want to add a sample to your song? Just drag & drop the sample into shortcircuit and you’re ready to go. Samples can be put in groups for multi-sampling and kit-building, but the complexity is only there when you need it
Sound quality is of highest concern, and shortcircuit uses very high-quality interpolation to ensure that your samples sound as good as the source material, regardless of the pitch you play them at. All filters & effects are calculated at the precision required for them to sound the way intended and oversampling are used when required to prevent aliasing.
Shortcircuit was designed to sound great, all other concerns have been secondary. But don’t take our word for it, download ’shortcircuit free‘ and find out for yourself.
Each voice in shortcircuit features two filter-slots, and the selection isn’t limited to the traditional pick. In addition to the regular lowpass/highpass/bandpass/notch & peak-filters and variations thereof there is an array of filter algorithms (not strictly filters in the traditional sense, but called so because of their location in the audio path) including distortion, parametric/graphic/morphing equalizers,bit-reduction/decimation, gating, limiting, slew-rate distortion, ring-modulation, frequency shifting and phase-modulation (better known as FM). The selection even includes analog-style oscillators that you can mix with the sample.
