randy's Recent Posts

Yes, these are just momentary buttons that control the sequencer itself and don't have parameters attached. I'll see about automating them in a future update.

I got your email—for reference I'm copying my reply here:

re: the crash, your 2012 machine should be fine to use with the Soundplane. I would try:

  • unplug the Soundplane
  • remove your entire ~/Library/Application Support/Madrona Labs directory
  • launch the Soundplane app
  • plug in the Soundplane to make a brand new calibration

There’s an “Expert” page if you click right in the app to switch pages—on that page there’s a console. It may have some additional info.

ha! thanks for the thought. a drum machine, in the sense of something that was rhythmically-oriented, at least... that i could go for.

Thanks for the feedback!

I may make the beta group bigger before the release—please stay tuned!

This is fixed and I replaced Aalto and Kaivo with version 1.9.4. (Virta has no sequencer)

It does look like seq glide got broken somehow! I'll put out a fix ASAP.

If the graphics issues persist after a restart, please send me all your system info and a video if possible.

If you need the previous installer you can still find it at http://madronalabs.com/media/aalto/Aalto1.9.2.pkg

hmm. beta testers have reported a big improvement. can you please look in the upper right and make sure 1.9.3 really got installed? (no offense meant, but this happens)

and if 1.9.3 is running, please send me more details about your system via email. Thanks for your help.

Hi and welcome.

I haven't seen any spring models in open tools like the STK. One reason might be that it's a lot more art than science at this point. Making spring sounds from a physical model based on the actual geometry and material properties of a metal spring is possible, but requires a lot of computation, too much to do in real time. Very roughly, it's in "devote a whole GPU to it" territory.

Any software spring models running in real time now are black-box models, in the sense that they make a springy sounding signal but are not based on an actual spring's geometry. Rather, a phenomenological approach is taken, where DSP blocks that we can run in real time are combined to produce a system that sounds spring-like. To mimic the way the sound scatters, allpass filters are used. These have the effect of making high frequencies travel faster than low ones (or vice versa) and when lots of them are combined in a feedback loop, the characteristic "dewp" of a spring results. Kind of.

If you look for the sounds people have generated from this kind of model in open research (search "Parametric Spring Reverberation Effect" for one starting point) generally they are not very convincing. Yet some of the spring reverb products, from Universal Audio for example, do sound very good. With this stuff that's more art than science, makers are understandably less motivated to share their work.

To make Kaivo's springs I used a bunch of very short allpass filters in a feedback loop—essentially modifying the string model to make it more like a spring. If you were to take a tunable Karplus-Strong spring, add 20–50 allpass filters in the feedback loop, and tune the parameters for maximum dispersion, you would have a good starting point.

Sorry for the delay—I've been wrestling with issues on the Windows side. Meanwhile you can download the Mac installer at http://madronalabs.com/media/kaivo/Kaivo1.9.3.pkg

I've got an update planned soon. I'll see if I can make this happen.

If you don't remove the instance, just close the window and open it again, it does remember its size, yes? This doesn't change the default size though.

Say you have made two instances of Aalto you are using at different sizes. For me it would be annoying—or at least confusing—for the last size I messed with to automatically become the default.

You're not alone though: have heard from other people who want it to work the same way you do. I plan to add a default size setting somewhere in a future update.

Oh my mistake, ~/Library/Application Support/Madrona Labs/Soundplane. Glad to hear it!

Five years ago, I did a small run of Aalto T-shirts. It was fun making them but with all the printing and shipping and paperwork it took up roughly a couple of weeks of my time so I've never done it again... until now!

aalto shirt

The key was finding a US-based fulfillment company called Printful that prints shirts to order. I made a test shirt using their process and I've been wearing it a lot. The charcoal tri-blend fabric is very soft and has a nicely textured look. This detail photo shows it after being machine washed four times, and the colors haven't faded at all. I like that the digital print is not crackly like plastic process shirt inks are and so far, it seems more durable. These are very nice shirts.

aalto shirt, detail

Another big benefit of using Printful is that they print to order in Europe! This means that my European customers can actually get a shirt for an affordable price. Wherever you are located, I hope it will be a pleasure to purchase through them because I'm very protective of your experience when you do anything Madrona Labs-related. So please keep me posted.

tl;dr: simply click the following button to...

Get that sweet Aalto T-shirt!

A form will pop up to enter your size, then a second page lets you select your shipping and payment options. I've set up shipping for North America and Europe. Shipping rates should be as follows: USA: $5 (first shirt) / $1 (each addl.) Canada: $8 / $1. Mexico: $10 / $1. Europe: $9 / $5. If you can't find your country on the form, give me a shout and I'll see if I can add it. Enjoy!

NOTE: The European shipping rates include the VAT of $4 per shirt.

Hi, it works on my Catalina machine. Can you describe what is not working?

As an all-purpose fix I would recommend to remove the ~/Library/Application Support/Soundplane directory and run the app again to redo the setup process.

I'm not sure what you mean "by folder" would do. Load samples from multiple files at once? I could see this being useful.

Almost there...

Thanks for writing. I am pretty certain I have a fix that will help. I'm wrapping up the Windows build now and some other details.

Thanks for your understanding!

aaaaggh, the week is running out and I'm still stuck on a couple of issues I need to fix. I'm sorry to overpromise—please know this is my top priority.

Thanks for the support. Sumu won't come out for Linux initially as I just have to ship it ASAP. But I would love to add Linux support along with Aalto v.2. Possibly Aaltoverb might make a nice first step into Linux even earlier, since it's simpler.

I've fixed this for the next update this week or next.

Sumu is going to be a while still. I'll be releasing an update to the other instruments first to address this and a few other issues.

I might put out another call but I'm focusing on getting something out to test—please stay tuned.

Thanks for the update.

Dear music makers,

In appreciation for your support, Madrona Labs is having a summer sale this year. Use the code PARTICLES on any of the product pages to get 30% off any Madrona Labs plugin. From now through the end of August.

I haven't used Max on Windows so hopefully someone who uses this combo can chime in. That looks like a good place for the VST but I'm not sure if it's the right one. You might find more info on the Cycling '74 forums and in the vst~ example patch and reference.

Yes it will! Resynthesis with a very modular approach in between analysis and playback, so that the information of "what are all the partial volumes" for example can be patches to other things as well.

I remember that option and it's a promising idea. Thanks for writing.

Thanks for making the video. Of course I see the problem. Unfortunately it's totally baffling right now. I have basically the same setup on Mojave, on a less powerful Macbook Pro, and it works totally smoothly.

Also unfortunately, there's no crash log to look at so I have no obvious point of failure.

A way I often stress-test CPU use is to turn the process buffer size down in the DAW to 16 or so. This usually generates clicks, but even so, the GUI stays smooth when I do it. So I don't think this is overall CPU related.

The only way forward I can see is to make some experimental version of the plugin that tries leaving out or changing parts of the graphics code so we can narrow this down. I'll send you an email when I have something.