HyperFrame

A JUCE VST3 chiptune synth built around a drawable stepped wavetable oscillator — inspired by the Game Boy wave channel, LSDJ-style wave-table performance, classic drawn-wave editing, editable reference-cycle waves, and raw source streams.

Download

Get the latest VST3 from the Releases page.

Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Engine Modes
3. Features
4. Build
5. Project Notes
6. License
7. Release Checklist

Overview

HyperFrame is a DAW-oriented chip instrument. The repository contains the product/design notes and a small framework-neutral DSP core prototype. The first implementation target is a VST3 instrument, but the engine is intentionally kept independent from any plug-in SDK.

Engine Modes

HyperFrame has six source modes. Raw and Draw are the free-source family; Wave recreates the LSDJ/Game Boy WAV channel; WS, PCE, and SCC are hardware-inspired wave-bank profiles that reuse the same motion/editing surface without adding knobs.

Mode	Inspiration	Wave Length	Bit Depth	Gate	Pitch Grid
Raw	PCM / bytebeat	Full source stream	Non-destructive signed output quantization	Gated or full-source	Free
Draw	Drawn-wave editing	8-512 points	4-bit default, up to 16-bit	ADSR	Free
Wave	LSDJ / Game Boy WAV	16 frames × fixed 32 samples	4-bit	Instant	GB CH3 period grid
WS	WonderSwan	32-sample	Unsigned	Instant	Source-specific divider
PCE	PC Engine	32-sample	Unsigned	Instant	Source-specific divider
SCC	Konami SCC	32-sample	Signed 8-bit	Instant	Source-specific divider

Raw

Raw mode keeps long PCM or bytebeat streams intact. It reuses existing ADSR, gain, mono/poly, and motion pitch/level controls instead of adding source-length knobs. Raw playback can either follow the key gate or ignore note-off and continue until the source ends. Raw streams can start note playback from a user-selected source sample without changing the loop range. The shared Bits control applies non-destructive signed output quantization to Raw without rewriting the loaded stream.

A loaded raw stream can be copied exactly into Draw when the active loop (or the whole stream when no loop is present) is 8-512 samples; longer material stays in Raw mode or uses the analyzed wavetable conversion.

Draw

Draw mode is the free editable wavetable source. Drawn-waveform length is controllable from 8 to 512 points. Amplitude depth is quantized, with 4-bit as the default character setting and up to 16-bit for cleaner reference-cycle material. Optional interpolation is available.

Short optimized cycles live in Draw when they can be reduced cleanly, so they remain visible and editable instead of becoming a hidden sample-player layer.

Wave (LSDJ / Game Boy)

Wave mode is the LSDJ/Game Boy WAV-channel source: 16 frames, fixed 32-sample/4-bit playback, nearest output, frame motion steps, 4-step WAV volume, fixed note velocity, instant note gating, and shared mono/poly control. LSDJ-style phase shaping offers Normal, Resync, and Resyn2 behavior. Wave pitch is quantized to the Game Boy CH3 period grid, with VST-friendly headroom when polyphonic Wave playback is enabled.

WS / PCE / SCC

WS, PCE, and SCC modes are hardware-inspired 32-sample wave-bank profiles that clamp length, bit depth, interpolation, velocity, gate, mono defaults, and pitch divider grids to source-specific values while avoiding fault-level emulation. WS and PCE use unsigned-style wave quantization; SCC uses signed 8-bit wave quantization.

Features

Audio Import

Audio import starts with an options dialog. Implemented targets can extract a single Draw wavetable cycle, explicitly pack a region into 16 GB-style wave frames, or keep the source as a raw stream. Only the frame-oriented target writes 16-frame motion. Audio import reads the selected region up to the file/selection maximum in chunks, so long raw streams are not squeezed through the wavetable Length control.

Envelopes & Glide

• ADSR — Draw and Raw modes use an ADSR envelope. Hardware wave modes use an instant note gate; amplitude shaping belongs to frame/volume motion steps. Preset envelope convention: hardware wave modes use instant gates; Draw defaults use a tiny attack and short release for click control, with longer releases reserved for intentionally sustained keys, pads, phrases, or tails.
• Slide — exposed as a single shared performance control. It gives legato mono glide between notes in Raw, Draw, and hardware wave modes without restarting phase, envelope, or Wave table motion. Turning Slide above Off makes the voice path monophonic for glide even when the shared Mono switch is off. When Motion Clock is set to BPM, the same Slide control snaps to host-tempo note divisions instead of adding a separate sync knob. Frame start plus Wave step bend, vibrato-rate, and loop-start controls live behind compact source-menu dialogs so they remain available without expanding the main surface.

Motion & Phase

A shared phase and motion-table layer underpins all modes. Draw can use the same 16-frame, pitch, phase, and level motion performance model without inheriting GB wave-channel limits; Wave applies the strict LSDJ/GB WAV-channel limits; WS/PCE/SCC apply fixed 32-sample hardware-inspired wave-bank profiles. Motion timing can run as an LSDJ-style Hz tick rate or snap to host-BPM note divisions for DAW arrangement work, while the UI keeps the same numeric notation across both clock modes.

Presets

Current-state preset import/export uses .hyperframe files. The file stores parameter state, all wave frames, motion steps, and raw stream data when a raw source is loaded; the format may still change before a 1.0 release.

Bank Imports

• SF2 — converts only SoundFont presets with a valid 8-512 sample loop or short whole sample into HyperFrame Draw presets. The importer scores all convertible instrument/sample zones for each preset, preferring loop cycles, central key/root ranges, and simple meaningful names from the SoundFont preset, instrument, or sample metadata. Imported bank entries keep the small converted cycle in memory, then copy it sample-for-sample into signed 16-bit Draw data when selected. SoundFont volume-envelope ADSR is used when present. Duplicate converted cycle data is shown only once, keeping the best-scored entry. Full multisample/keyzone playback is intentionally out of scope.
• LSDJ — reads user-provided .lsdsng, .sav, and .snt files and converts WAV synth frame data into Wave-mode preset banks. ROMs and kits are not bundled or required.

Waveform Generation & Editing

• Square/noise wave generation as editable oscillator sources.
• Normalize and smooth operations.

Build

Core smoke test:

.\scripts\build_core.ps1

VST3 wrapper:

.\scripts\build_vst3.ps1

Optional vendor metadata can be set at configure time:

cmake -S . -B build-juce -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64 -DBUILD_JUCE_PLUGIN=ON -DHYPERFRAME_COMPANY_NAME="Your Vendor"

The first VST3 wrapper uses JUCE and is enabled through BUILD_JUCE_PLUGIN. The DSP core remains independent from JUCE so other wrappers can be added later.

Release package:

.\scripts\package_release.ps1

Project Notes

Internal planning documents live in docs/internal.

License

HyperFrame is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only (AGPL-3.0-only). See LICENSE.

The VST3 wrapper uses JUCE 8.0.12 under JUCE's AGPLv3 option. Third-party notices are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Release Checklist

• Confirm the release is distributed under AGPL-3.0-only.
• Confirm release metadata: PROJECT_VERSION is currently 0.1.0, and HYPERFRAME_COMPANY_NAME defaults to HyperFrame unless overridden at configure time.
• Include LICENSE and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md with binary packages.
• Run a DAW smoke test: scan VST3, play MIDI, change presets, import an SF2 Draw bank, import an LSDJ Wave bank, export/import .hyperframe, save the project, and reopen it.