randy's Recent Posts
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.
Thanks for sharing the jam and the feature ideas.
I second the recommendation on using Numerology for sequencing. I'm not going to go too deep into saving sequences within my plugins, because that's what hosts are good at... in theory anyway.
I have a few features saved up to add to the sequencer. It's too bad that the VST / AU formats are so limiting when it comes to saving sequences. The only way to automate the sequencer was with a parameter for each value, which is kind of ridiculous.
When Aalto gets t3d messages over OSC, it goes into OSC mode and stops listening to MIDI entirely. If you want to combine both OSC and MIDI I wold recommend converting the MIDI information to OSC somehow.
Noted!
Hello,
The presets for Mac are in a separate installer. It is on the page http://www.madronalabs.com/products/kaivo . Did you install these?
Hi Mark, and thanks for writing and sharing your music. I look forward to listening. I saw you had a credit on Gino Soccio’s Dancer? That's amazing. He is one of my favorite producers.
I will definitely have some kind of holiday sale.
Hi Max,
I think you got it. Even if all the settings are they same the LFOs can drift independently of each other. You can use sequencer as an LFO is you need all the voices in sync. People have asked for a way to sync the LFO as well, so I am likely to add that feature.
I am with you—I'm still trying to think of a good way to do this without cluttering the UI. Thanks for the input.
I have wanted to do this for a while. Thanks for the feedback.
Our third run of Soundplanes is looking good. Here are all 30 enclosures after three coats of oil finish.
There is some particularly nice variety in this batch of cherry.
Cutting the veneer is a fun part of the process, where I get to decide what part of the crazy abstract walnut grain landscape to turn into each playing surface. This is done now, and the sandwich of materials that forms each Soundplane surface is ready to be laser-cut by our friends at Gurian Instruments here in Seattle.
You might wonder why Madrona Labs doesn't have a laser cutter, since they are such fun tools. The kind of laser cutter that can do the needed cuts through the surfaces is a big, expensive, and sometimes tempermental beast. To do that work with precision takes a lot of practice and I'm happy to have it done by experts.
I am definitely lucky to have such craftspeople to work with, so close by. I look forward to more Michael stories when I get the chance—he is a busy guy whose guitars are the stuff of legend. A cool short doc on Michael and the shop: https://vimeo.com/51647584
Soundplane production is in full swing here, and a busy month is planned so we can start shipping in early August. Here's Christopher tapping the walnut eyes into some Soundplanes:
Here are some of the new cherry enclosures with eyes awaiting final sanding and finishing. The wood has milled just great and is very smooth and dimensionally stable. I like the figure in the cherry very much, there are some nice waves and topographies going on and I’m excited to see how they pop when we put the finish on. Part of the charm of cherry is that it takes on a darker patina over time with light exposure and handling.
Thanks to my friends Alex and Erika we are the proud caretakers of a Shopsmith Mark V. I remember these being advertised on late-night TV long ago. Sort of a giant multi-tool with saw, drill press, lathe and boring capabilities. Turns out it's actually a good sturdy tool, much nicer than my loud old contractors' saw. It transforms into various configurations including a lathe, but I will probably leave it set up as a table saw most of the time.
And that's the news from the shop. The next couple of weeks are all about sanding and finishing the enclosures, then we can start in on the surfaces.
Hi Mark,
I'm glad to hear you've been diving deep into Aalto and using the OSC features! Glad that not only Soundplane owners are finding OSC useful. Thanks for the feedback.
I can definitely add some of these features when time permits.
note-per-channel over MIDI is already implemented for the next release.
Yes, outputs from the patcher are summed. Your multiply idea is intriguing because I've been wanting to add multipliers but I like the current complement of modules, especially in Aalto. I'll think over the ramifications.
I'm definitely interested! For me the most exciting feature would be making patches with the iPad, then taking them back to the studio for production.
It's not coming anytime soon though. I have another plugin planned first, and there is only me doing the programming.
Thanks for your continued interest in Soundplane drivers for Windows. No breakthroughs there yet, but after I'm done with this Soundplane run I should have some time to spend on Windows / Linux support.
Delete the plugin files /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Aalto.component and /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/Aalto.VST. There are no other files anywhere.
Sorry there is no uninstaller, that would be nice but I haven't had people asking for it.
There are two Library folders on the Mac, one is ~/Library (home directory) and one is /Library (system disk root.) You can put plugins into either one, which is confusing. I put Madrona Labs plugins into /Library.
Sorry, I forgot to include them in the most recent app distribution. Here's a new 1.2 version with the patches back:
The only changes from 1.1.2 should be some minor cleanups. I will send out a new Soundplane app soon with more improvements.
Here's a thread for users to post Soundplane Max examples.
There are also some instructive Max patches in the Soundplane software distribution.
Thanks for the report, I'll check into this.
Hi there,
I wrote up an article about this very thing and it is available here:
http://madronalabs.com/topics/3565-getting-the-most-out-of-kaivo
And as I mention there I do plan to distribute processing to multiple cores in the future, which should help a lot on your setup.
I'll look into adding search to the forums.
Thanks for writing, and let me know if you have any other questions.
This is fixed for the next release. I'm working to finish another couple of fixes and get Aalto 1.6 out ASAP.
OK, I uploaded the current Soundplane app with docs and extras. It's at the same link for the previous 1.1 version: Soundplane 1.1 package
Soundplane application v.1.1 is now available at the usual spot in the hardware forums.
This is an interim release with a few important fixes to issues that cropped up in 1.0. It works with Aalto 1.0 and Kaivo 1.5.
Please note that I moved the zone configuration files to the new location ~/Music/Madrona Labs. You will have to move these files from their existing locations in ~/Library. Why did I do this? With Apple making your Library folders hidden by default, ~/Music is becoming the default location for various software makers to put things like patches and saved presets. Now I don't have to explain to people how to get to their Library folders. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Remember, this is open source software! All the code is viewable at github/madronalabs. I welcome your suggestions and contributions. Thanks to Greg Wuller for the note-off fix.
Changes:
- PLEASE NOTE: moved support files to ~/Music/Madrona Labs.
- fixed a problem where the wrong note value was sent on note-off
- fixed a potential crash sending MIDI if a MIDI device was not set
- made benign errors less alarming