BiCoTa – Episode #6 - Baconpaul

Show Notes

In this sixth episode of BiCoTa the Bitwig Community Talk on Jürgen Mossgraber’s YouTube channel, we [Odo Sendaidokai](http://(https//www.youtube.com/@%20OdoSendaidokai) and Jürgen Mossgraber spoke with Baconpaul alias Paul Walker who is a well known member of the SurgeXT team. But he is also known for a lot of different other projects, like the SixSines FM Synth, Two Filters a highly modulatable Filter plugin, Airwindows Consolidated that packs all plugins from Chris Johnson in one very useful plugin container, he was involved in CLAP (the Clever Audio Plugin) the integration in JUCE and so on and so forth. But you should listen yourself to his podcast.

And if you like to watch us talking, you can also view the Livestream and all the previous livestreams here on this YouTube Playlist “BiCoTa Bitwig Community Talk”

About Baconpaul

Paul Walker, also known as BaconPaul, is a prominent figure in open-source audio development. He serves as a maintainer and one of the largest contributors to the Surge Synth Team, which develops the popular Surge XT synthesizer . His journey into open-source development began in 2018 when he discovered the Surge code had been open-sourced by its original developer, Claes Johanson (a co-founder of Bitwig). Despite initial difficulties compiling the code on his Mac, he persisted and submitted a major pull request that led to his appointment as a project maintainer .

A true polyglot of the audio world, Paul is not only a deeply skilled programmer with a background in physics and enterprise analytics but also an active musician who plays bass in a New York rock band called Leeward . His contributions span software development, technical standards, and community building, making him a key driver in making high-quality music tools accessible to everyone.

Technical Projects

Core Synth Projects

• Surge XT: One of the most popular open-source synthesizers, offering a powerful hybrid architecture with a “maximalist” design. Paul is a lead maintainer and major contributor .
• ShortCircuit XT: A free and open-source sampler plugin that supports multi-sampling and various formats (SFZ, EXS, etc.), currently in active beta development .
• OB-Xf: A revival and enhancement of the open-source OB-Xd synth, with new features and improvements .

Side Projects & Utilities

• Six Sines: A free 6-operator FM synthesizer inspired by the Yamaha TX81Z, featuring flexible modulation and support for CLAP .
• Two Filters: A simple but effective filter plugin developed for testing filter libraries .
• Airwindows Consolidated: A project that packages all of Chris Johnson’s Airwindows plugins into a single, consolidated plugin .
• BaconPlugs: A collection of modules for VCV Rack, covering quantization, clock generation, and synthesis .

Standards Development

• CLAP: A new open plugin standard. Paul is a reviewer, contributor, and key developer who created the initial example plugin, the clap-info tool, and collaborated on the wrapper that projects CLAP into VST3 and AU formats .

Musical Projects

Current Bands & Performance

• Leeward: A New York rock band where Paul plays bass. They are currently recording a new album .

Workspace & Favorite Tools

• DAW: Logic Pro is his primary DAW for music production .
• Go-to Plugins: In addition to Surge, he frequently uses Modartt Pianoteq, Valhalla DSP reverbs and delays, Arturia synths, and various Airwindows plugins .

Other Information

• Open Source Philosophy: Paul is a strong advocate for open-source audio tools. He emphasizes the “return will be our personal karmic pleasure” rather than profit, which allows the team to undertake projects that commercial developers might not.
• Accessibility: A key achievement of the Surge team is making the synth highly accessible for blind musicians, with full screen-reader support and keyboard navigation built-in, a detail he is particularly proud of.
• Community Leadership: Paul highlights the importance of teamwork and building a positive, constructive community, making the Surge Synth Team a notable example of successful, sustainable open-source collaboration.

Infos and other Resources at the bottom 👇

Baconpaul Infos & Links

1. Homepage https://baconpaul.org/
2. Github https://github.com/baconpaul
3. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@baconpaul5772/
4. Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/baconpaul
5. Leeward (Band) https://www.leewardband.com/

More Infos

1. Surge Team Website with Infos and Links to all of their projects https://surge-synth-team.org/
2. Discord: https://discord.gg/aFQDdMV (watch out the Surge Team Website if there are changes!)
3. Chris Johnson “Airwindows” https://www.airwindows.com/
4. Odin 2 Free Synthesizer https://thewavewarden.com/pages/odin-2
5. DAW Bench Radio Show “Episode 40 : The Art of Virtual Synth Design II : Surge XT : Open Source Powerhouse !” https://dawbench.libsyn.com/website/episode-40-the-art-of-virtual-synth-design-ii-surge-xt-open-source-powerhouse
6. Pete Brown (Microsoft) https://devblogs.microsoft.com/windows-music-dev/author/petebrown/
7. Alexandre Bique, Placidus Schelbert (Bitwig) and Urs Heckmann (u-he) in Sonic Podcast talking about CLAP https://www.bitwig.com/de/stories/sonic-talk-special-about-clap-206/
8. Vember Audio https://vemberaudio.se - One of the first announcements of Surge and Shortcircuit in 2005 https://web.archive.org/web/20051125020031/http://www.vemberaudio.se/products.php
9. Claes Johanson Github https://github.com/kurasu and “DAWbench Radio Show Interview with Claes Johanson” https://www.bitwig.com/de/stories/dawbench-radio-show-interview-with-claes-johanson-135/
10. Bitwig first Website https://web.archive.org/web/20090322193830/http://www.bitwig.com/

Timetable

5:03 - Show Intro & Guest Welcome - Hosts Jürgen and Odo welcome Paul Walker (Bacon Paul) to the show. They introduce him as an active contributor to open source projects including Surge XT and Short Circuit.

6:29 - Paul’s Background & Open Source Work - Paul shares his involvement with the Surge Synth team, maintaining free and open source synthesizer plugins. He mentions Surge XT has had over 250,000 downloads and discusses his work on the CLAP plugin standard.

8:52 - The History of Surge & Short Circuit - Paul explains the origins: both plugins were originally developed by Claes Johansson (co-founder of Bitwig), who open-sourced them. This gift to the community became the foundation for the Surge Synth team’s work.

11:58 - How the Surge Team Formed - Paul describes how the open source community came together around Surge. He shares his personal story of getting involved, from struggling to build it on Mac to becoming a maintainer. The project now has over 50 code contributors.

17:31 - CLAP Plugin Standard - Paul discusses his involvement with the CLAP project, why it was needed (issues with VST3 licensing), and how it enables features like polyphonic modulation and note expressions that work beautifully with Bitwig.

21:56 - Surge as a Maximalist Synth - Paul talks about Surge’s “kitchen sink” approach with many oscillator types, filter models, and effects. He notes that the open source model allows them to add features without commercial constraints, including accessibility for blind users.

24:07 - Surge in VCV Rack - The discussion covers Surge’s VCV Rack integration, which started as a debugging tool and evolved into exposing individual components (oscillators, filters, effects) as modular modules.

28:15 - Open Source Contribution - Paul encourages non-developers to contribute to open source projects through documentation, design, testing, and bug reporting. He emphasizes the community-driven nature of the project.

31:38 - Paul’s Background - Paul shares his musical and technical journey: programming since 1979, studying physics (PhD), and working in enterprise analytics. He notes his DSP skills are “mid at best” and that timing played a role in his involvement with Surge.

33:50 - OB-XD Project - Paul briefly mentions OB-XD, an open source synth project they’ve revived with new features like skins, voice management improvements, and planned MPE support.

37:14 - Side Projects: Six Sines & Two Filters - Paul discusses his side projects: Six Sines (an FM synth) and Two Filters (a filter effect plugin), which were created to test library code that is shared between Surge, Short Circuit, and other projects.

42:24 - Paul’s Musical Life - Paul talks about his current band (playing bass), his long history as a musician, and his love for exploring new music including psychedelic porn crumpets.

47:12 - Short Circuit Beta Launch - Paul introduces Short Circuit, a free and open source sampler plugin that just entered beta. He explains it’s not a Kontakt replacement but a creative sampler with a focus on easy sample manipulation.

48:37 - Short Circuit Architecture & Demo - Paul demonstrates Short Circuit’s features: zone-based sampling, per-voice processing, mod matrix with LFOs and step sequencers, group and part effects, and support for SF2, SFZ, EXS, and GigaStudio formats.

58:06 - Sample-Free Workflow - Paul shows that Short Circuit can also function as a synth with virtual analog oscillators, filters, and effects-all without any sample loaded.

1:06:40 - Multi-Sample Support - Paul demonstrates loading multi-samples from Logic EXS files and Bitwig content, with plans for SFZ export and support for more formats.

1:08:32 - Beta Status & Future Plans - Paul explains why they called it beta: the plugin is stable, and they’re now gathering user feedback to fix issues and prioritize features. He mentions upcoming improvements like multi-zone editing and sample start modulation.

1:14:49 - Shared Libraries - Paul explains their philosophy of decomposing Surge into libraries that can be reused across projects. The same DSP code (filters, effects) runs in Surge, Short Circuit, and Two Filters.

1:22:39 - Team Effort & Community - Paul emphasizes that the success of these projects is a massive team effort and expresses gratitude for the collaborative, constructive community they’ve built.

1:24:33 - MTS-ESP & Microtonal Tuning - Paul explains MTS-ESP, a global tuning system for DAWs that Surge supports. He discusses MIDI 2.0 and the future of note expression standards.

1:31:00 - Accessibility Features - Paul demonstrates Surge’s accessibility features including screen reader support and keyboard navigation. He discusses the importance of testing with blind users and the collaborative effort to make Surge accessible.

1:39:29 - JUCE & CLAP Integration - Paul discusses JUCE’s upcoming native CLAP support and the work they’ve done to ensure CLAP features are fully accessible through the adapter.

1:43:07 - Bitwig 6.1 Beta & Development - The hosts discuss the ongoing Bitwig 6.1 beta cycle and the thoughtful improvements to workflow and automation.

1:45:59 - The Future of Plugins - Paul offers his perspective on the saturated plugin market: while basic plugins are abundant, there is still room for innovation and creative breakthroughs. He cites examples like James Blake’s use of Auto-Tune and AI stem splitting as unexpected innovations.

1:49:35 - Final Words & Future Plans - Paul shares upcoming plans: Short Circuit development continues, Surge 1.4 will include a convolution reverb, and he has ideas for improving Six Sines. The show wraps with hosts thanking Paul and teasing upcoming episodes.