So there was a little private patch trading going on earlier today...
Had some thoughts about the User Patch area and related:
Randy, somewhere you mentioned that it would be cool to be able to share and search for patches online from within the software. Please add my vote for this.
It would be nice to have some level of organization on the User Patch page, which is already becoming a trackpad workout. Sort of like the Reaktor user library? Patches organized by contibutor, according to keyed or sequenced, number of voices, pad/lead/perc/bass etc, upload date, perhaps a rating/favoriting system.
Did someone mention a textual/non-graphical patch generator? Also gets my vote.
Humble feature suggestions: choice to "save" or "save as" for presets. Prev/next preset is low on my list but would be cool I guess. An "A/B compare" function would be much higher on my request list. (While I'm at it, howbout undo/redo?) Just some conveniences.
Somehow embed comments into the patches? Sort of like ACE where the contributor can leave the user hints about playing that particular patch (ride the mod wheel, etc).
I know these areas could use some work, and these are good ideas. The website will get an update one of these days to address usability. It's going to be not a major overhaul but a feature here and a feature there, so keep in touch.
Aalto will get a significant update to the preset code with the 2.0 version. That won't happen anytime soon. ;-)
I already added the prev / next arrows to 1.2 by popular demand. I guess they can make A/Bing a little easier if you use them to save a modified patch next to the old one.
I set up this site a few years ago, playing with the idea of a general patch upload area for EVERYTHING. Creating a site for just one synthesizer would be much easier to categorize properly instead of relying on tags alone as I did.
Never promoted it and really just left it alone - just a few of my patches up there right now.
It's done in Drupal 5 iirc.
Just a little example of what can be done in a day or two of CMS config :) I've been wanting to see what WordPress could do in this area so maybe I'll play around a bit and see what it can do. Drupal is such a pain to maintain and upgrade.
I have plans to upgrade the existing site that we've done using Rails. But any additional forums are always welcome!
One day, I'd like to enable some kind of patch sharing from within the synth itself. One day...
Worked a bit on this today. Any feedback on the upload form would be appreciated. Platform field needed?
Still a bit to do with the navigation here.
Added a few more bits to this..
Patches organized by contibutor,
check!
according to keyed or sequenced,
check
number of voices,
hmmm - didn't think about this. Will add if you think it would be useful.
pad/lead/perc/bass etc,
check
upload date,
check
perhaps a rating/favoriting system.
will add this
Thinking that something like this would be a CC license. Users could delete if they desired though.
just test it, nice and clear interface !
Wow Sam - looks pretty good! It reminds me of the Divine Machine look (do they still exist?) except better honestly! My only critique right now is that maybe each entry could take more space horizontally than vertically - to be able to see more entries on the screen.
My only trip with listing number of voices was mostly to prevent CPU surprises for the user. And the number of voices in a way can sometimes give a clue to the complexity of the patch texture.
Pretty cool!
@tikitpok
Thanks for trying it out - appreciate you help.
@monkey
I'll add that in - that's what I was thinking - cpu mostly, since this thing is a bit of a beast.
The look can be swapped out easily - I need to browse a bit more and see what is out there.
Well Sam I tried the PatchDump finally - pretty cool but I made a mess of your descriptor tags - sorry I am basically an idiot. Commas between tags. Commas between tags.
I like the audio preview, and that Finn patch. :_)
Great site! i uploaded a few patches this morning. I'll keep em' coming.
Awesome patches guys! Pleasantly surprised to see some new stuff up there :)
@technomonkey
I would rather there be spaces inbetween tags, oh well.
re:finnAle
Thanks! Added a bit to the Finn factory preset.
Randy,
Is there a difference between Windows and OS X patches?
.mlpreset files should be the same on both platforms. It's just XML.
On the Mac there's also an .aupreset format for full AU compatibility.
@Sam -
Man, really enjoying the patch dump! :) Thanks for doing that! I know you're probably still evolving it but I think it's cool already. It was pretty much all over when Fiocz uploaded the Dodecanol patch. Yesssss
@technomonkey - No problem - happy to have a little project to work on. My wife slapped a little design on it yesterday. Added a soundcloud embed field, but it's not displaying the nice big soundcloud player. Either way, progress. If you have any ideas on promoting feel free to do so. 41 visitors yesterday, so that's pretty cool :)
I posted on gearslutz in the Aalto thread and went to the monome boards, but someone beat me to it.
Ha! 41 visitors but only 5 contributors...? I smell some patch hoarding going on.... :)
Is there a word for when a patch has every last possible target being modulated by something? If such a term doesn't already exist we should invent it: "spaghetti mess"? "all mods on"? something like that
Alrighty - added and shaped this badboy up, I think it's looking pretty good now and has a couple cool things in there. Comments can now have a soundcloud embed, as well as the patches (subscribes are also working on the comments). Let me know if you guys have any other ideas. Got an article on CDM and got a fair amount of traffic and sign ups, looks like the ball is a-rolling.
Also, does the audio player crash safari for anyone? Running 5.0.5 version here and get crashes every time. I'd love to get a better audio player in there - this one isn't very attractive, but works and took zero coding.