Hey Randy,
First of all, congratulations for this beautiful instrument!
It sounds just marvelous and is tons of fun to tweak.
I encountered some oddities with the Windows 32 version:
Hold pedal is not recognized (via Mbox midi. All my other VSTs do recognize)
Strange behavior of mousewheel control in the mod-matrix (value gets adjusted first. then jumps to full value and has to be clicked to adjust further)
In Reaper: When pinned on top, the preset- and microscale popup is hidden behind the GUI
The sequencers behavior was odd in the demo. After tweaking a while it would stop to put out values. It would work when changing presets. But not when going back to a blank patch and trying to modulate. I had to re-load Aalto, then it worked.
(I will try to reproduce in the full version.)
There are a couple other things i thought would be good to discuss:
Is it possible to lock the option of showing animation&numbers when changing the presets? (Or make them global options..?)
Have you thought about making the GUI scalable? Or give it two different sizes (just like Zebra & ACE) The synth is a "tweaker".
And sometimes just want to lean back and twiddle knobs rather than sitting and leaning to the monitor to see everything.The GUI itself is beautiful. I must say though that i would prefer a bit more contrast and a slightly different font. Its really kinda hard to read from a bit greater distance.
(Sean Costello wrote interesting stuff on his blog about Valhallas GUI approach. Especially the parts about the font recommended by NASA for readability and the contrast stuff.)Parameter locks for "all" parameters and/or the patches would make a great addition for a 2.0 version. Just like with the original buchla you could leave the patches in place and try different sounds.
The microscale menu would be even cooler with arrows for selcting next/previous as well. (Just like the presets)
All in all i can say that this is a wonderful project and i´m looking forward to see further development from Madrona Labs. You guys really have something going!
Cheers.
Brian.
To add: pitch bend has strange results (windows version in Live)
Getting some similar behaviors as Brian. And other initial findings:
popup menus are hidden behind the GUI in Plogue Bidule.
getting occasional non-cooperation from the sequencer as well... won't accept host transport/clock maybe two percent of the time. or audio "knocked out" - all meters showing activity except final output stage. re-instantiating Aalto fixes this.
When Aalto 1.2 has focus, the key-commands that control ReNoise no longer work - you now have to click on a main ReNoise window to get space bar->start/stop, etc etc. :(. Will test in other hosts. If it matters, I am now using the vst32 instead of the AU.
New Good Things and Thoughts:
I love the dial action improvements, especially that the smaller Modulation Amount dials no longer "jump" to the clicked value (where in contrast this is exactly the perfect behavior for the main control dials).
I like the new incremental control for the waveguide and pitch modulator! Much easier to tune now.
For my own setup which is a 2009 MPB c2d, in ReNoise/Audiomulch/Bidule/Logic, saw about a 5-10% CPU load decrease overall from 1.1 - can squeeze in a couple more voices now.
The Preset Converter was an unexpected gift. Thanks.
Does it sound better now or something?
Supple, eager, flowing lines indeed. But did Aalto gain a little weight, or did she just get taller? Bad joke.
Thanks for the new improved instrument! Love it. Hope the weekend went OK, though I'm guessing you feel like you got hit by a bus.
Hi guys, thanks for paying close attention and for all the comments. I have a million emails to reply to so I'm not going to respond to each point, but know that they are appreciated.
The sequencer bug is a real problem and I've no idea how it happened so late in the game. I'll have to push out an update soon.
GUI problems across hosts are part of the nightmare that is writing plugins, I'll see what I can do but frankly have to focus on the most popular hosts because I just don't have the resources to do otherwise.
@seppe, Thanks but I have no idea what you mean "pitch bend has strange results". It seems to work fine. You will have to be more specific.
was goin to post about the seq problem too but its already mentioned here. so i can just add that the seq stops responding here when click-dragging any of the 16 sliders. try it on the 'seq chord' preset; clicks when moving, then nothing.
this is on os-x 10.6.7, 32bit vst inside live 8.2.2
i don't envy you at the moment randy! you must be getting bombarded. its a fkn amazing synth. been messing with the AU for months now but been waiting for the vst. will be snapping it up when i get paid.
cheers
I was going to make a soundfile for the pitch bend problem I had, but it seems I can't reproduce it in the new version :-)
Thanks for all your work,
Seppe