randy's Recent Posts
And apparently the MPE implementation works! Thanks for sharing, Roger.
With Aalto 1.7, aftertouch is implemented in an MPE-compatible way—all of the factory Aalto patches will play expressively with Soundplane, LinnStrument, and other MPE-aware controllers over MIDI. And adding pressure, x or y control to any of your existing Aalto patches is just a virtual patch cable away. I’m excited to see more of the fruits of this cooperation.
Hi, Kaivo 1.3.1 is online now and has the convert presets menu option. In 1.2 it's in the same place, in the main patch menu.
Please note if the presets have been moved to the new location you will need to move them back to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Presets/Madrona Labs/Kaivo to get the preset converter to see them. I have heard one report that the old presets somehow made it to the new location without getting converted. I'm not sure what went on there, so if that happened to you, sorry for the inconvenience.
Thanks for sharing your work! I've got no Ultranova here but it is more tempting now!
@hyperscientist thanks again for jumping back in. I'm glad things are better. You may have seen in the "Retina MBP glitches" thread: I'm getting a MBP 12,1 this week so I expect things will improve more on this machine soon!
oh derp, it looks like something went wrong with the installer—i'll take care of this in the morning.
Fixed, thanks!
I have the "convert presets" option restored in Kaivo 1.3 now and will be releasing it shortly.
The second one is pretty different ! :-)
So... MIDI and MIDI MPE will indeed produce really different signals out of the KEY module, which in turn will make really different sounds. You can see that the mod outputs change their labels, because they turn from mod cc outputs into dedicated x and y outputs for MPE. So now the x and y information is going to the patch and it sounds completely different as a result.
You can consider the MIDI / MPE choice as a fundamental part of the patch that you probably won't change afterwards. Then you can work by either making MPE patches from the ground up, or switching a MIDI patch to MPE and then adding the modulation you want.
The same is true with OSC and the Soundplane inputs by the way. To get all the Soundplane data in the KEY module outputs are repurposed and so in general patches won't be compatible.
Nice playing BTW, I am interested to hear what you do with Linnstrument down the road.
OK, I just ordered a refurbished 13" RMBP Early 2015 from Apple. I can pick it up in a few days and hopefully reproduce this then.
I bet it's just that mod cc # is defaulting to 2. If you change it to 1 it should work. Not sure how a default of 2 got in there so I'll change that.
So i just went to test this and I can't reproduce. Kaivo 1.3.0 ( and 1.3.1 ) are responding to mod wheel OK, both from automation and external controller in Live.
The "mod cc" control in the INPUT module needs to be 1. At that setting you should see the mod light flash in the INPUT module when the modwheel goes from 0 to 127.
Can you think of anything else I should try to reproduce this?
Weird. thanks for the report. One more quick fix to sneak into this update release coming very soon
I can't test it on the affected machines, so I'm not too hopeful. But if my hunch is right, this beta may make things better. http://madronalabs.com/media/aalto/Aalto1.8.1b2.pkg
If you want to play a different voice from each note of the Linnstrument, you want MIDI MPE. This can certainly sound different from using MIDI alone. It's hard for me to guess what you might mean by "completely different" though or whether it is a problem. In general I would advise to focus on MPE with your Linnstrument and I'll be here to help.
There's not much if anything in the manual on MPE yet. Sorry it's lagging behind reality. I'll do what I can to catch up soon.
Happy new year!
OK, thanks for the report. I'll see what I can do to reproduce this.
Virta at 96k is going to be a beast, but I'm going to make it better over time.
HI Roland, good to hear from you! So, probably what happened is you made presets in version 1.1 and then didn't do "convert presets" with version 1.2. I should have made a better effort to let people know this was needed. To fix it:
- make sure your old presets (the ones not working) are in the old location of ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Presets/Madrona Labs/Kaivo
- install Kaivo v. 1.2 (you may have to manually delete 1.3.0 first)
- open up a Kaivo and choose "convert presets" from the main menu
This will copy the presets from the old location to the new location in ~/Music/Madrona Labs while converting them from XML to JSON.
If you have any troubles you can let me know here or by email to (support at madronalabs.com) and I'll be around to help.
Hi, I appreciate the feedback. Can you tell me what CPU you have in your MacBook Pro?
The Soundplane antennas are not available. If you're making one controller it's not too hard to make a copper foil one yourself. you will probably want to cut slits in them so they are a little flexible.
I advise everyone to start with a single-point sensor to test your technology and materials.
sure, just send it some notes with different velocities! Or am I missing your point?
I love self-running patches! Thanks so much for sharing with the greater Aaltosphere. Please keep in touch, I'm interested to hear what finished music comes out of your process.
Is there a crash report or any other information you can send me? What exactly happens when Reaper crashes? Are you trying to do any particular actions beforehand? Thanks.
These betas should fix a few problems that came up with the latest releases:
- Fixed Kaivo patcher to body connection problems
- Fixed missing runtime causing failure on some Windows machines
- Fixed silent Virta delay on Windows
- Fixed a pitch tracking problem on Virta for Windows
http://www.madronalabs.com/media/aalto/Aalto1.8.1b1.pkg
http://www.madronalabs.com/media/kaivo/Kaivo1.3.1b1.pkg
http://www.madronalabs.com/media/virta/Virta1.3.1b1.pkg
http://www.madronalabs.com/media/aalto/AaltoInstaller1.8.1b1.exe.zip
http://www.madronalabs.com/media/kaivo/KaivoInstaller1.3.1b1.exe.zip
http://www.madronalabs.com/media/virta/VirtaInstaller1.3.1b2.exe.zip
As betas, these have not been extensively tested, but they seem to work so far. If you have had troubles with the recent releases, please try these and let me know how it goes.
These betas do work with the new licensing system, as indeed all future ones will. So if you have a license and the plugin is working for you, you may keep using it without any demo restrictions.
I'm very happy to have turned these fixes around quickly thanks to the new build scripts and licensing code in the new versions. In general, you can expect to get fixes from me more rapidly and more often because of this. And I'll have more time to work on other neat stuff too.
I just download Reaper to my Windows 10 machine and it's working here. I added some missing Microsoft runtime files in a 1.8.1 update coming soon. That may fix it for you. Please let me know.
I'm happy to help. There are three steps:
- download the new version
- log in and get your license key from the "My licenses" page
- click to paste the key into the plugin
If something is not working you can reply here or email me at support at madronalabs.com.
Confirmed for both Mac and Windows. will get a fix out ASAP.
OK, Let's focus on Aalto then. the other plugs take a lot of CPU even when they are functioning properly, so the problem will be much more obvious with Aalto. It looks like one voice of Virta is taking up 25% of CPU or something in your example, which is too much. But 10% or so would not be out of line.
For more background on CPU use in the plugins please see http://madronalabs.com/topics/3565-getting-the-most-out-of-kaivo
You may find some tips that help. They are expected to take up significant CPU when no notes are playing, for example.
back to Aalto, here's a question: when you load Aalto does the CPU meter seem to go up gradually?
Thanks for the assistance. if you are willing to hang around and try some of my experiments I'll be happy to give you a coupon in appreciation.
Thanks for the report, I'll take a look at this today.
Hi Randy, i'm having an issue with Virta's vocoder. When i load a project that has an instance of Virta with 'Vocoder 256' set as Formant Mode, there's no output or visual graphing of carrier and program.
I'll look into this ASAP, thanks for the report.
A minor note: please post support issues in the software forum to help me keep track of them.
The updated versions of Aalto, Kaivo and Virta are all online now on the product pages. Enjoy! As previously posted, here is the list of improvements:
- new registration system
- new software PLL host sync
- UTF-8 compatibility for patch and registration names
- fixed an issue where the protocol type (MIDI, MPE, OSC) was not loading if the plugin editor did not exist
- fixed an issue where folder or patch names starting in numbers might not appear
- code signed Mac OS installer for Gatekeeper compatibility
- code signed Windows installer for security and good feels
- fixed a drawing problem with multiple plugin windows
- fixed a problem where the sequencer would restart when its parameters were changed
- fixed a problem where sequencer voices would stop after a program change
Kaivo has some additional fixes to correct problems that version 1.0.2 introduced in certain DAWs.
I've updated the website to replace the previous "My downloads" area with the new "My licenses" link. To replace your old watermarked plugins, simply run the new installers, then log into the website and visit your "My licenses" area. You should find links to your snazzy, new, very pointy license codes there. Just copy them to the system clipboard on either Mac OS or Windows, and click in the upper right of the plugin where it says to. Then you're all set!
Code signing for both Mac OS and Windows, also made possible by getting rid of the watermarking, is something else that should improve life for everyone. No more option-clicking to install, or me explaining to you that you have to do that. And with the plugins protected by a secure chain of certificates, you can be sure that they are genuine. There was a time when I didn't see the need for code signing. But after seeing some of the ransomware floating around these days, I'm convinced it's important.
A long time in coming, the new license system is more like the other plugin registration systems out there, and will hopefully reduce some of the confusion that came up about how to make things go. On my end, it's going to reduce server loads significantly and let me deploy new software versions much more quickly. What previously took several hours (I'm not proud to say) is now accomplished by typing "buildAll" and then, if everything sounds good, "deployAll." This will let me spend more time on making things sound good, and get any needed fixes to you faster and more frequently.
It's going to be a good year.