randy's Recent Posts
If you created the folder while Aalto was active, it might not have refreshed to show the folder. Closing the Aalto UI and opening it again should fix this.
This is the first I've heard about it. So I have no idea, but I will look into it!
When quantize is on, the closest key center is always chosen. The hysteresis dial selects a boundary size around the current key. When the touch moves outside this boundary, the quantized touch moved to the new closest key center. After quantizing, portamento is applied.
Vibrato is made as follows: the position is high-pass filtered at around 3 Hz, then the result is subtracted from the raw signal to get a vibrato signal. This vibrato signal is scaled by the "vibrato" dial then added to the pitch output. Quantizing does not affect vibrato.
OSC is just a way of sending around messages, like MIDI but more flexible and with more resolution. The Soundplane can control Kyma or Aalto using OSC or MIDI. there's no link over OSC between Kyma and Aalto (that I'm aware of!)
with "OSC parameters directly" I meant the way to go in a future world where I have written that feature. Sorry to disappoint. The feature will be Aalto / Kaivo recognizing parameter changes over OSC directly. I plan to do this in the next version, I can see a lot of uses for it.
The Soundplane part should be working. You can put an OSC controller address into the zone, and it should send out values on that address. But Aalto / Kaivo are not listening for them.
So, you mean using OSC through the mod outputs in the KEY module? That part was not clear.
Currently the KEY module is either listening to MIDI or OSC, but not both. I think a combination is likely to be confusing if not done carefully. I hear what you want to do though, and it's a reasonable thing.
I think the way to go might be using OSC parameters directly (not through the patcher.) this way the KEY module stays simple and you can send a parameter directly to whatever you want, not limited to having only 3. You would need to program the zones in the Soundplane app with the right controller names.
I'll save this for post 1.6 then.
Yes, I'm working hard to keep things current. Thanks for the good words!
Hi Ronni,
There are some problems in 1.5 that affect the sequencer triggering. I could delve into this, but I think the best thing is just to wait for 1.6, which should be out very very soon.
I'm not sure exactly from your description what is going on, but if you flip the "xvel" switch it may help some triggering issues.
Basically, you can only have one Aalto version on your computer at once. If you have your old installer you can install it over the newer version.
If you need something in particular fixed more urgently, please email me at support @ madronalabs.
Thanks for helping, @sequencersampler.
After a normal install of Aalto 1.5 the Aalto AU plugin should be in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components. That's the System Library, not your user Library. The VST plugin goes to /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST . You can check these folders to make sure Aalto is there. I have not heard of any issue with the installer.
Editing the title seems to have removed the pictures. Anyway, the instrument has sold.
I always try to refine the Soundplane design and production process, and I can say that the third run of Soundplanes has turned out to be the best one yet. I allowed for a 10% failure rate of finished main circuit boards, building 30 complete boards and only selling 27. Happily, we had a 0% failure rate and every board has tested OK. So, I have an extra instrument to offer right now and a couple more special builds waiting in the wings.
Here you see Soundplane #0073 (click for closeups). One of the darker-colored cherry instruments from the third run, it is a sharp looker, and of course a smooth player. It's for sale at $1,895—if you would like to order it, just send me an email to randy at madronalabs dot com and I'll send a money request to you via PayPal. I can ship it out immediately. Please see the ordering info at http://madronalabs.com/soundplane, especially if you are outside the USA.
There are also two instruments for sale on the forums. One is in the USA and essentially unused, from this most recent run. There is also an instrument from the previous run for sale by its owner in Europe. For a European buyer it could mean a good savings on the purchase prices as well as duties and postage. [EDIT] updated info
Any movement at all will result in a pitch change if vibrato is > 0. In other words there is no "dead zone." The vibrato amount scales the amount of the pitch change.
I could see this being useful in the future with OSC parameters that I plan to add at some point. Some you could modulate with OSC while plying a MIDI sequence.
Right now OSC just plays notes, yes? So the OSC information would always be fighting with the MIDI and might result in a lot of stuck notes and confusion. What would you be trying to control?
Hi Valery,
This is a totally legitimate rant. Also a very polite one, so thank you for that.
I've heard similar feedback from a few people over the last month or two. I'm going to take it to heart and put some effort into speeding up my release schedule.
I appreciate the reality check from you. One thing I am not good at is project management. One reason bigger companies don't let you talk to developers is that they are always saying stupid shit like "this will be done in a couple of weeks." I have to work on that.
There are a few things getting in the way of more regular release that I can improve. The most fundamental is my own tendency to do more development instead of releasing. As I get more customers of course I'm getting more feature requests and more bug reports than I am used to. I have a hard time wanting to do a release with any known bugs. So as new information comes in from customers, it sends me back to work instead of releasing. While I didn't have as many customers this was not a big problem, but now I'm going to have to improve my project management and postpone some things to come back to later.
One purely technical thing I can do is spend some time making the release process easier here. There are too many steps to release a plugin here and not all of them are automated. Everyone knows this is a bad idea. You should be able to hit one button to build and test and deploy whatever you are working on, so releasing is not a multi-day chore. One thing I'm doing in the next version (1.7) that will help is getting rid of the stamping step I thought was so cool, and moving to a keyfile system. Then I can release more quickly, and also send out licensed betas without going through a long release process.
Another technical thing is working more with branches in my source code control system, so I can fix bugs in the previous release version while working on improvements. This is fairly basic housekeeping stuff, but I've been in the bad habit of just banging everything out in the main branch. For example, my library underlying Aalto and Kaivo has undergone a really major refactoring over the past few months that will be a big improvement for performance. But I should be able to do work like that while keeping maintenance builds of the older, working system happening.
And yeah, I do a lot of different stuff, as you mention. This is OK up to a point but If I'm going to sell software, I owe it to my customers to update it on a more regular basis.
As far as the Aalto update, last week I sent a beta to a handful of people who reported bugs and I'm dealing with one serious bug that only appears on Windows. Release should be very soon. Afterwards I'll take some time to put systems in place that help me release more regularly.
-Randy
I've never seen anything like this.
How many touches are active in the Soundplane software? Does this affect the pattern of weird notes?
In general, when a Max patch is in the mix, there's not much I can suggest without seeing the patch. There are just too many ways Max can be messing up...
It's possible, but I thought it worked. I will be testing the Windows build as I finish up 1.6 over the next few days and I'll make sure to check this out.
Hi all! This winter has seen a flurry of programming here at the labs. Aside from finishing up our new synthesizer, Kaivo, I have done some work fine tuning Aalto and making sure it plays nicely with recent operating systems and hosts.
Aalto 1.5 is out now. As always, you can get the release version by logging in and clicking “My Downloads,” and the demo at the Aalto product page. Version 1.5 has some major compatibility improvements for both Windows and Mac users. Performance should be dramatically improved on some Windows systems. I’ve improved the usability of the Patcher and dial UIs.
On Mac OS, if you have a Retina display, you are in for a treat. As always, you can smoothly scale Aalto to a wide range of sizes, or even zoom it to full screen. This new version has a new OpenGL-assisted renderer so graphics are amazingly sharp, at full Retina resolution, in compatible hosts. It may be “only a graphic thing” but I find this change means that using a tiny little Aalto window is now possible, which can really improve workflow on a laptop screen. (note: unfortunately Ableton Live does not yet support full-resolution rendering.)
Here’s the list of major changes in Aalto 1.5:
- Fixed an issue that was slowing down Aalto dramatically on some Windows systems.
- Fixed an issue requiring a runtime support pack on some Windows systems.
- Improved latency through the patcher when running at large host buffer sizes.
- Aalto now draws at full resolution on Macintosh Retina Display, in compatible hosts.
- Aalto is now compatible with Soundplane version 1.0 and higher.
- Fix mousewheel direction on Mac OS 10.7 and higher.
- Accelerated drawing to the screen on Mac OS with OpenGL.
- Optimized drawing scheduling to avoid glitches, especially in Logic.
- User and factory presets now share the same location.
- Improved ergonomics of patcher with larger handles and smoother graphics.
- Fixed a drawing problem with bipolar dials.
- Improved drag ergonomics for dials.
This is fantastic. Inspiring scene and I'm happy to be a part of it.
You can set the number of voices for any patch with the "voices" dial in the KEY module. I guess that is what you mean by doing it by hand?
There was another person who wanted a certain dial to be a certain way all the time without having to change it. In his case, the "reverb" dial. So, I can see making a "dial lock" feature that would fix a dial to a certain setting. Any modulation would still apply, but in the case of the number of voices that's not an issue.
I'll check out this issue.
I guess there could be a sustain message over t3d?
The presets for Aalto and Kaivo are not designed to work with the Soundplane at all. When receiving OSC, the KEY module has a different set of outputs, and these do not map to most presets.
I have posted some Soundplane presets for Aalto here: http://madronalabs.com/media/soundplane/Aalto%20Soundplane.zip
This is fixed for 1.6, coming very soon.
Hi K, you might try the muffwiggler or monome forums as well! Those places are a bit more well-traveled...
I haven't put much time into that—I guess most people are making their own. Anyone got one to share?
I did do a tweak to the control signals to allow the Soundplane to play the existing Aalto / Kaivo presets more gracefully. this will be in a Aalto / Kaivo update soon.
This is a limitation of the Soundplane software right now. Currently all simultaneous touches have to be more than approximately one inch apart from one another. I can see how the design leads you to apply guitar technique, but really the Soundplane is its own thing — more like a continuous surface that is multi-touch, than a collection of keys played discretely.
The good news is that I think I can do a much better job of distinguishing adjacent touches in the Soundplane software and this work will be happening soon.
Thanks for the feedback. Due to the way the models are constructed and computed, you can't really morph from one to another, unfortunately. Cool idea though.
The values are always on a 1.0/octave system. If they are quantized, they will only fall on the notes of the scale you pick. If not quantized, they can represent any pitch. Either way, the 1.0 / octave system is used.
Think of it this way: 1.0 / octave is the scale of pitch measurement, just like feet or meters are scales of distance measurement. A signal in the patcher has no meaning, it's just a number. Let's say it's 2. Then patching that 2 to a pitch input gives it the meaning A5.
The sequencer's output is quantized inside the sequencer module. So this same quantized signal is the one that is sent to the oscillator pitch, or any other parameter.
All the quantizing is designed around a 1.0 / octave system. This means that a change of 1.0 in the value of the signal will produce a one octave change in the pitch. For example, 0 = A3, 1.0 = A4, 2.0 = A5. The oscillator pitch input is set to 1.0 / octave if the pitch input attenuverter (little dial) is set to its default.
While you can send the quantized signal to other things, quantizing doesn't "make sense" for most parameters in the way it does for pitch.
It's fixed and will be out within a couple of weeks.