randy's Recent Posts
I can confirm the problem and have it fixed for the 1.6 update. I'm working hard to release it soon.
Hi Richard,
Thanks for your patience, I know it's been a long time. I had a new run of Soundplanes in the shop, and those were taking up most of my work hours the past few months. Now that the Soundplanes are done, all my time will be going towards Aalto 1.6.
The main way to load a preset is through the big menu at the top of the plugin. If Kaivo (either AU or VST) is installed using the .dmg installer, all the presets should be in place, and viewable through this menu.
Hi Kurt,
Sorry this is frustrating you. I hope I can help.
First of all let me clear up the aupreset issue. Logic Express (or any DAW) will be able to read Aalto / Kaivo presets in the new format just fine! Otherwise it wouldn't be much good to me and the many users of my AU. Both the AU and VST will use mlpreset files going forward.
In general, it looks like your biggest complaint is that there has to be a DAW in the chain. I guess the main thing that would help you is a standalone version of Kaivo. You're not alone in wanting this so I'll plan to make standalone versions available for v.2. Either that or my own dead simple VST host.
Meanwhile, I think the channel mapping you want can happen in the Soundplane client, so you just need a simple VST host.
I use Apple's free AU Lab all the time for testing. I assume this is what you have. Just start it, select "Add Audio Unit Instrument" and start playing. The Soundplane will talk to the AU over OSC, so there will be no MIDI setup required. This ought to be easy.
There is also Apple's GarageBand which probably came with your Mac. Just type "Audio Units" into GarageBand help and it shows you how to start an AU synth. I just tried it out with Kaivo and it worked fine.
Thanks for sharing this info.
Very cool! I'm glad you're using the OSC capabilities from somewhere other than Soundplane---that is a huge deal. Keep the feedback coming and I'll do what I can to support.
Or you can use the VST format for now. The update should be very soon.
The 1.6 update fixes the preset converter issue but is not out yet.
I'm going to make OSC "channels" too so I'll work this in somehow.
Currently I make a run of 30 more Soundplanes when it seems that there is enough demand. Interest seems to be increasing so this could be as early as Spring or even this Winter, but I'm not sure exactly when it will happen.
Please stay tuned via the Madrona Labs mailing list here: http://eepurl.com/hsZjQ
or my Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/madronalabs
Hey, I am working a ton of bug fixes into this release and it is taking some time. I hear your frustration and I empathize but I can't just release Aalto 1.6 tomorrow, there are many changes I need to wind down and test. I'm working on automating my release process better so I can turn around updates more frequently in the future.
Since its release, some savvy users have been enjoying Aalto inside of Max/MSP from Cycling74. Max is an infinitely flexible environment for composition and synthesis, but learning to make your own great sounds is difficult. Aalto provides a more limited field of possibilities, but lets you make great sounds right away. The two together can be a great combination.
Interested? This quick tutorial from our friend Mack Fisher shows how to proceed.
Hi Yorke, sorry for the delay,
This is not currently possible but it's a reasonable thing to want to do so I'll try to figure out a solution ASAP.
I've finally received all the raw walnut surfaces for this run of instruments. I've attached the images below for your perusal. Some have an intense oval grain pattern while others are symmetrical (bookmatched), and some are more asymmetrical and ambiguous.
If you have ordered a Soundplane, please take a look at the surfaces
HERE.
If you have a particular preference, please post below and I'll try to accommodate it. Just reply below with the number of the surface that you prefer.
Picking your surface is an experiment by which I hope to increase everyone’s satisfaction and connection to the project. Late last night my wife pointed out, “but won't this make some people more disappointed if they don't get the one they want?” I think that's a really good point, but my guess is that some of you won't have a strong preference and so overall, people will be happier.
Note that these keyboards are in their raw states, fresh off the laser cutter with some burn marks, and no sanding or finishing. When they are finished they will look very rich and glossy.
Excellent, I think this is going to work out just fine. :-)
Here’s a new run 3 Soundplane on the bench, with the little boxes of parts and some of the tools I need to put it together:
The little boxes are a low-tech solution that has evolved over a few generations. The weighted bases let me grab parts out of them quickly without tipping them over very often. Sometimes it's the little things.
Here’s the grain on our new friend, up close. It’s performing wonderfully. My pictures never do justice to the shell inlays, which in real life are iridescent.
Thanks for CCing me on the note to VEP. I'm very interested in what they come up with.
My parameter code is still mostly based on the JUCE framework. If you want to try another JUCE-based plugin like one of the Valhalla reverbs, it might be interesting to see if it has the same problem. (I'm not suggesting you ought to do my work for me here, but I have other things on my plate for the rest of the week, so thought I'd pass the idea along)
will look into this ASAP, thanks for the report.
I use an envelope for attack + direct pressure in a lot of situations. The envelope can have amplitude and attack time modulated with touch-on velocity.
When in t3d mode I believe the "x vel" setting on the envelope uses a "touch-on" velocity value calculated from the initial z.
In the collision of a finger with the Soundplane, or I'm guessing with the Eigenharp keys, there is not too much energy above 1kHz. So used as an envelope directly there's no way to get super sharp attacks.
I think of it this way: imagine tapping a metal bell with a drum stick. You get a nice sharp tap. Now try to reproduce that with a finger tap. We know from experience there's no way to get a sharp attack in that situation. What changed? Only the striking object. So we know that the finger's softness is dulling the sound, and therefore we can't expect to get sharper sounds out of a fingertip in any situation.
Now, in the physical world, sampling rates are very high :-) --- so, you could hit the bell with a ring or something to get the sharp attack back. The Soundplane has a 1kHz sampling rate, so that specific trick won't be of help. It's basically designed to convey any gesture you can make with a finger. At the present sampling rate, it's already using a huge amount of raw bandwidth to the sensors, and to up it to 10kHz or something would take a different and more expensive design.
This stuff never came up with MIDI keyboards. It's exciting that we now have controllers that are good enough to start experimenting with some of these issues!
sorry you're having trouble. I'm moving the location of the presets so I'll make sure to test that all this works for the 1.6 version coming very soon and apply any needed fixes.
It could be a problem with the "midi clip pgm change slots" as opposed to sending program change messages from a controller like I was doing. I'll test that case.
yes.
Hi thetechnobear, sorry didn't mean to ignore your post, I just got caught up elsewhere. These are good ideas and I appreciate the feedback from your actual experience using the thing in this way. I see Aalto / Kaivo as limited in complexity on purpose, and I know you're sympathetic. However, adding modulation curves with a right-click on the input knob would not clutter things up. This could be another option like the ( + / * ) switch we were talking about.
Smuff, glad to hear you are another Pico + Aalto player! I'm not sure what you mean by the level module. level of gate module? In my experience Kaivo has a ton of dynamic range, which can be a challenge in making sounds. Maybe try using just a single-cycle wave in the granulator to get more of a "normal" synth setup for starters. Then add resonators and see what they do.
Since resonators are after the gate, maybe it seems like the gate is not having much effect. Use the sustain on the res. in addition to the gate and you will have more control.
hey the captain,
Some would say, if it's not a 303, it's not acid. I don't quite subscribe to this purist view but I have some sympathy with it. The 303 is very simple but the sound of its filter (or a good clone) is really a special thing, and attempts to do 303-like sounds without the particulars of its response fall short, if that's what you are going for.
There's a whole world of sounds I think have similar qualities, though. I think of "acidy" sounds as ones with strong vocal harmonics. Aalto's filter is by design a fairly simple, open one (SEM like). By rocking the timbre dial on the OSC, and playing with comb filtering using short delay times on the waveshaper module, there is a lot of room to explore neo-acid modulations.
I spent a while trying to get something close to the bass sound on Aphex Twin’s "Tha" which has a really wet kind of modulation. It's in the Aalto presets as "Tha bass."
I do have note-per-channel over MIDI working. Lots of other changes. Making a nice list from my logs takes me a while, so I'll do that when the release is out. :-)
I see what you mean about Kaivo + Aalto over OSC. If it takes an hour or two I'll see if I can sneak it into the release.
Yes, assembling Soundplanes next week, never a dull moment :-)
Yes, a different signal goes to each voice via the modulation inputs. This is how a different pitch gets to each oscillator, for example.
Remember each voice has its own independent LFO and sequencer as well. so when these modulations sources are not in sync, they provide different signals to each voice.
And then there's the "voice" output from the KEY module, which just puts out a different constant signal for each voice. This can set the sequencer for each voice to a different rate, or a different offset, or... lots of other possibilities.
I'll try to clear up the manual a bit—thanks for the question.
rubber is almost totally transparent to the RF signals at these low frequencies. So I'm guessing it's just the distance that has caused the difference. you could try a thinner foam. Or, just try experiments with adding thicknesses of paper and measure the amount the signal drops off with distance.
A small caliper for measuring thickness is a handy tool to have.
Please keep me posted!
I keep finding things to add to the 1.6 version, and meanwhile making Soundplanes. Sorry about the wait. I'm on a push to get this out within the next couple of weeks.
Hi Christian,
You can look at the .scl files for more information about the various scales. You can put any .scl file into the scales directory yourself to use it in Aalto and Kaivo. The format is human readable and it's easy to see what ratios are involved.
Here's a scale file for the 43-note Patch tuning.
I don't know of a feature in any DAW that will allow it to "understand" that you are playing in a microtonal scale.
! PARTCH_43.scl
!
Harry Partch's 43-tone pure scale
43
!
81/80
33/32
21/20
16/15
12/11
11/10
10/9
9/8
8/7
7/6
32/27
6/5
11/9
5/4
14/11
9/7
21/16
4/3
27/20
11/8
7/5
10/7
16/11
40/27
3/2
32/21
14/9
11/7
8/5
18/11
5/3
27/16
12/7
7/4
16/9
9/5
20/11
11/6
15/8
40/21
64/33
160/81
2/1
Hey, I'm glad you want to dive into OSC and Aalto. As more people start to do so, I really need to organize the docs better. Now that the t3d stuff is more solid, I will update the manual with that information.
The current build of the Soundplane software, 1.1.2, has support for mapping the surface to different kinds of zones. to do this you have to edit a JSON preset file. So while there's no UI for it in the app yet, it's not too tough. Again apparently documentation is the weak link. There should be two example files that come with the 1.1.2 distribution and from these you can see how to do it.
Thanks for the inspiration o work on the docs and let me know if I can be of any other help.
Right, automation is not delivered via MIDI, the host calls a function call setParameter() via either the AU or VST wrapper, and then I change whatever I have to in response.
I could see adding code to change plugin parameters from OSC. If in OSC mode there's no reason a certain OSC message couldn't set parameters without breaking anything existing. This should be easy to do.
I can see the need for OSC +1, +2 etc. outputs from OSC data. The problem is, I used up the available bits on the Aalto / Kaivo UI for the x, y, dx, dy outputs. I could add some way to configure these... not hard in theory but as usual the UI would be the tricky bit.