(This already went out via the mailing list. I'm posting here for people who are just joining us.)
Sumu update.
Hi folks, thanks all of you who have purchased the Early Access release of Sumu or the Studio Bundle! Though I’m still deep in Sumu work, I’m also looking ahead to the updates of the other instruments, and to future projects I want to get started on. I couldn’t even imagine doing some of these future projects without full time to devote to Madrona Labs work. Based on the success of the Sumu launch so far, it looks like I’ll be able to have that time. This is huge for me.
So, the release got out, but not without hiccups. There are a few bugs that I created in my last week of work and as such, evaded beta testing:
- crashes on load on Windows, in DAWs including FL Studio and Cubase
- window too big on launch, preventing easy resize
- distorted sound coming from oscillators mod osc output
I am going to get a release out ASAP to address these—but also take the time to beta test everything properly. I have already fixed two out of three of these issues here, so I think June 3 is a realistic date for the next update. Other fixes will be in it also.
Sumu FAQ.
The scales menu is grayed out. Is it unimplemented?
Yes, everything grayed out is that way on purpose because it is not implemented yet.
I'm not finding the popup menus for patches and partials.
These need a right-click (Windows) or ctrl+click or two-finger click (Mac). This is confusing a lot of folks so I'm going to change it in a future release.
When will the 1.0 release come out?
Given a reasonable pace of three or four betas, I’m shooting for 8–10 weeks from now.
I’m trying to import my own partials but it’s not working.
The documentation is not complete but please look at this topic on our forums: https://madronalabs.com/topics/9253-sumo-preset-and-partials-maps-menu-selection
See also this Vutu quickstart, which is a little behind the current Vutu but a good intro:
https://youtu.be/crvpsnbLtt0
I can’t find the global settings […] menu described in the manual.
The manual has it wrong—I removed that one after telling George it would be there, because it wasn’t done yet. Please look forward to more menus in the future.
Is the Vutu / Sumu partials format proprietary?
No. Vutu exports partials as editable JSON text files with a .vutu extension. When Sumu imports the .vutu files it does two things: compresses them and moves them into the Sumu/Partials directory where they are saved as .utu.
Feature X is not working, is this a demo restriction?
The only demo restrictions are as follows:
- saving patches is not allowed
- a soft “demo wave” sound plays every two minutes Anything else that seems wrong is either a bug, or a weird synthesizer working properly.
The window size is too big, how can I change it?
To change the window size, you need to drag the triangle in the lower right corner. But this is impossible if it's offscreen! You can work around this in the meantime by setting your display resolution high enough to see the resizer in the lower right, resizing Sumu to a reasonable size, and saving that state in your DAW. On opening the saved patch Sumu should start with the saved size.
Hey there,
Sumu 1.0.0b13 crashes both Cubase 12 and Studio One 6.6.1.99821 on my Windows 10 machine, NVidia graphic card. (Can't play with my new synth at all!)
If I can be of any help resolving that, would be happy to. Can't wait for an update...
--- 8< ---
Studio One Actions.log
[startup][6320]
[crash]C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\Sumu.vst3\Contents\x86_64-win\Sumu.vst3
[dump]C:\Users\Uuu\AppData\Roaming\PreSonus\Studio One_6_6_1_99821_Win x64_20240524_182929571.dmp
[call]C:\WINDOWS\System32\USER32.dll
[call]C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\OPENGL32.dll
[call]C:\WINDOWS\System32\USER32.dll
[startup][18604]
[action][18604:Win32 Thread]ApplicationStartup
--- 8< ---
If I can be of any help resolving that, would be happy to. Can't wait for an update...
Hang in there, I'm working to get an update out ASAP.
Bearing with... Bearing with... Haha!
The 1.0.0b15 release of Sumu, also known as Early Access 2, is now available on the Sumu page. It has the following changes since Early Access 1:
ui: fix bug if Scope was drawn before resize (crash on launch)
ui: fix collectionPicker bug not showing last few files
ui: fix excess drawing of Popup menus (caused slow UI)
ui: fix too-big window on creation
ui: remove mouse reposition on windows pending fix
pulses: allow turning bpm down to 0
demo noise: half as loud and half as often
core: fix recent mod osc sound bug
core: fix AM sound bug
core: fix beta expiration bug
patches: set all to 4 voices
patches: fix inaccurate Fargo quote
Thanks for your good reports that led to some of these fixes. And if you were trying to run Reaper, Cubase or Studio 1 on Windows, thanks for your patience—the problem affecting those DAWs is fixed.
So, I have Sumu 1.0.0.B20 ... One thing I would like to see improved: I would like to have my Vutu Partials and Sumu patches that I create, stored in the cloud (in my case One Drive or Icloud), So I can get to the patch or partial on either my desktop Mac or my Macbook without too much of a fuss. When I do save a Sumu Patch, it shows as a big long ugly Folder path. and if I want to get back to other Sumu folders, I have to back all the way out to get to the Built in folders. Why not just have a stored "User Library" showing with the other Sumu patch collection folders and a settings option where we can define where that User Library is located?
One other curiousity question: your last post was in .... June 1, 2024? has anything happened since? is everything ok?
Hi, thanks for the suggestion about online storage for patches. I'll make a note to try this and make changes if necessary to support it. In general, the 1.0 release is very focused on stability and sound quality. I'll be paying much more attention to workflow improvements and features after the 1.0 release.
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Hi Randy, first of all congratulations to the 1.0 release! From what I experienced so far it's much less heavy in the cpu and maybe it's just my imagination but it also sounds even better.
But I do have a problem I can't be able to solve. When I open Sumu the window only shows the upper left part of the gui and cannot pull it bigger to show the full interface. Am I missing something?
When I open Sumu the window only shows the upper left part of the gui and cannot pull it bigger to show the full interface. Am I missing something?
That is unusual—please send a screen capture of this with your DAW and OS details to support @ madronalabs — I'll check it out!
Hey Randy, I'm demoing Sumu 1.0 and especially in combination with Vutu it is a very intriguing instrument—just a bit more complex than my beloved Aalto. Exploring it is a great adventure. Also, the SPACE visualization is so beautiful, and the grey high-contrast GUI is fantastic.
Here are some observations I’d like to share.
Feature request: I’d love to see FLAC support added to Vutu.
Bug: Mouse scrolling is inverted when navigating through presets—scrolling down moves up the preset/list, and scrolling up moves it down.
Preset browsing: It feels a bit "looser" than in Aalto/Kaivo. The clickable areas for left and right navigation arrows [ ] are very small, making them easy to miss. When that happens, the preset list often opens instead. This never happens in Aalto, where the visual distinction between the arrows < > and the preset name field helps a lot, I think.
Preset volume: Some presets exceed 0 dBFS, even when "clip" is enabled. This happens occasionally, even without playing 3- or 4-note chords.
Performance issues: Sumu has been behaving inconsistently. Initially, in Reaper, it didn’t respond to modwheel or pitchbend, although other synths did. Later, it worked fine. However, I noticed crackles in many presets until I increased my buffer size to 1024 or even 2048. For example, the "inaudible knoll" patch produced significant crackles and was almost unplayable at anything below 2048. This happened in both Reaper and Cubase. Now, back in Cubase with my buffer at 512, everything, including "inaudible knoll," seems to be working fine without me making any noticeable changes (not even restarting my system). I'm running a 10900k, Win 10 Pro. Should I be able to run Sumu smoothly or is my CPU getting too old?
Thanks for the feedback and feature requests. I'm always improving workflow things and Sumu is very new so I'll definitely be fine-tuning these things.
I'm surprised that the volume ever goes above 1.0 with clipping on. It should hard limit everything to 0dB. inter-sample peaks or downstream processing, possibly? If you can give me detailed instructions I'll try to reproduce.
I don't really understand what you are seeing here with performance. It was bad, but mysteriously got better in Cubase? You can try closing the plugin window to see if that affects things—different DAWs handle it very differently. Your computer should be fine, I think.
Congratulations on the release Randy.
On the point made by the previous poster, I don't know whether the mouse scrolling behaviour is intended - when scrolling through the preset and partials menus - but it does feel back to front i.e. it should move down the list when moving the wheel down (towards the user). It's fine on all the other dials where a forward movement increases the value as expected. This is on win10 btw.
Hi Randy,
I looked into my clipping and performance issues.
Clipping/level: I couldn't reproduce any above 0 dBFS peaks with "clip" engaged. However, some presets could use lower level or clip enabled (bassix, nice pluck, rubicon, gliding cowbell, space ghosts, voices bubbles) since they peak above 0 dBFS. Occasionally, I noticed clipping up to a few dB over full scale when switching presets while Sumu is playing.
Performance: Sumu runs better in Cubase 14 than in Reaper. Two presets overtax my CPU: "inaudible knoll" and "no beef," the latter being unplayable even at a 2048 buffer (48 kHz). It appears all or most of the CPU load is concentrated on one core. In Reaper, it’s almost always unplayable. In Cubase, I experienced this once or twice, but reloading Sumu and the preset resolved it. All Cubase tests used a buffer size of 512.
Regarding your question, opening or closing the plugin window has no impact on performance.
I'm going to add an option to change scroll direction because I don't think any one choice works for everyone, considering the different possible input devices.
I'll be doing lots more work on performance, thanks for the info. I'll definitely check out why those two presents might be particularly worse. Is it possible we left the number of voices higher on those? FYI, any preset pretty much should use the same amount of CPU, and uses an amount proportional to the number of voices set in the input module. So if we left one of those presets on 8 voices or something that would explain it.
Thanks for adding a scroll direction option, Randy. What input device(s) are you using where the current setup is preferable?
Interesting that the presets should be similar in CPU load with the same voice setting. I checked both problem presets and they are set to 4 voices.
Unrelated feature idea: What do you think about making the hitbox (not sure that's the correct term) for all outputs like amp, pitch, noise etc. larger? Currently, one has to click exactly on a node to draw a cable. I could imagine extending the area to the sites and the top in an invisible rectangle or something like that to the extent of the text dimensions. Then one could click the node itself or anywhere around it including the text (e.g. "amp") to draw the cable. Could be especially helpful to quickly zip through the interface without pinpoint accuracy when when the GUI is small. This might also help improve accessibility for people with motor or visual impairments.
What input device(s) are you using where the current setup is preferable?
Mouse wheel on Windows and track pad on Mac.
Interesting that the presets should be similar in CPU load with the same voice setting. I checked both problem presets and they are set to 4 voices.
There are only a couple of things that are options that might make patches really different from one another: reverb and filter.
Unrelated feature idea: What do you think about making the hitbox (not sure that's the correct term) for all outputs like amp, pitch, noise etc. larger?
Good idea. We're honestly just at the beginning of using this very new plugin / app framework, and I know there will be lots of usability improvements. Seems like no downside to this one! There's only a downside when the area is so big that a click "nowhere" would seem to have an effect but I agree it's too tight now.