randy's Recent Posts
I'm just saying "this fall..." Technically that gives me until mid-December but I hope to get it out sooner.
Thanks for the good comments.
Tilt will be a tone control EQ type filter inspired by Quad hifi amps! A neat circuit.
I have blown up many other physical modeling plugins from other makers as well—even ones that don't allow pitch bend!
marc0, thanks for the idea about preorders. I like to keep things simple on the purchasing side but it's good to remember I could do that if I needed to.
I will not have a chance to try 10.9 for a little while. I don't foresee any problems, but ay reports would be much appreciated!
The new Garage Band X for 10.9 is sandboxed, which may cause a whole world of problems with Aalto and other plugins. I'll have to investigate that soon but for now my advice is, stay away from Garage Band X.
Kaivo will not have an audio input, at least at first.
Kaivo has 8 voices.
Aalto will get more voices: not in the next update, but in the update after that.
If you are on a Mac the factory patches are in /Library, and the user patches are in ~/Library. Open the "Go" menu in the Finder and then hold down option to see the Library in the menu. Apple hides this folder by default now, which is kind of annoying.
Hi Hans-André,
Paul’s Soundplane is sold. I am still planning to start another run of instruments in January.
This is still near the top of my list. Thanks for your patience.
Questions are fine! This is part of my morning customer support ritual. I just probably won't make any more videos, because they really pull me out of my programing groove for a day or so.
CPU use should be somewhere around Aalto’s. Maybe more depending on the Body type, which can potentially get expensive.
I'll probably send out some more sounds---those are quicker
It would be really great, but it's hard to represent the patcher in MIDI in a useful way. I've been thinking about it off and on for two years.
I don't know. I guess Peak won't be updated any more, so to be honest I can't throw too much time into this.
Are you using Peak for editing / processing files? There are other good editors out there in active development, including Triumph from Audiofile Engineering.
How about I just finish the plugin? :-)
will it be possible (or planned in future) to use kaivo as an effect?
That will not be possible. The sounds need to be analyzed before use in the granulator. You can of course import your own sounds.
I would love to be able to add my own functions to the LFO 2D
I think that is a very good idea. I want to take the time to do it well, so it may not be possible in the first release but I'll definitely add it at some point.
That is strange but I'm glad you got it working. I'll keep an eye out for any Aalto code that could cause this behavior.
been working on it since I got that demo video out. I'll send something ASAP.
I just need to talk to my T-Shirt guy and make it happen---sorry but the new plugin has eaten most of my brain!
Hi, I had the chance to talk with Brian and Ezra quite a bit about hooking a Soundplane up to Aleph. We think it will be possible, and I'm excited to do it when I can get my hands on an Aleph, but we don't have an immediate timetable. And we definitely don't know those other details yet, though we can think of some things that would be fun.
Hi, I have no plans to update Aalto Solo anytime soon.
Hi James,
Aalto does not need to connect to the internet for verification or anything. I would just double-check that you are installing to the same VSTPlugins folder Ableton is using.
I want to hear the result too!
Just to add... Aalto has an OSC input format, used with the Soundplane. This is detailed in the topic "STICKY: T3d format description". it allows each note to have a different pitch bend. So if you made OSC data from your controller somehow, you could try this.
Note that the t3d format is subject to change and I will be tweaking it soon to work better with TouchOSC and the like.
Hi,
The modulation should work in real time. When it gets to Aalto, the recorded data looks exactly like the real-time data. So Aalto is really not capable of doing anything different with one versus the other. This isn't worded perfectly but I hope it makes sense.
So, I would look to some workaround with FL.
If you are on Windows there are two DLLs, Aalto.dll (32 bit) and Aalto_x64.dll. Most hosts can use the 32 bit version.
I'm glad you found the presets. Yes, you can store them anywhere though I recommend you use the standard location since that is where Aalto will look for them.
People showing stuff last year at Decibel. Photographer unknown.
This year at Decibel Festival I'll be teaming up with my friend James Patrick of Dubspot and Ableton to talk a little about modular synthesis software, and give a sneak preview of Kaivo, my new physical modeling synthesizer. I’ve been working on Kaivo for almost two years now. Kaivo brings Aalto’s ease of patching to a new set of modules based around physical modeling. I'm excited to show off its interface and a few of the new sonic possibilities it offers.
I’m also very excited to be part of a panel with other instrument makers from Monome and Livid Instruments. The panel is called "New Media Hardware Platforms and Communities." We’ll discuss what the current landscape of hardware from independent makers looks like, what it’s like to be one of these independent makers, and what unique possibilities this activity of locally sourced, community-focused hardware design offers culturally and musically. And what lies ahead? Please come share your thoughts.
Brian and Kelli of Monome will also be on hand to reveal Aleph, the new music hardware that they have made in collaboration with Ezra Buchla. I know a lot of people are anticipating this one!
My session with James Patrick will be Friday at noon at Broadway Performance Hall. The Monome presentation and new hardware panel will be Thursday afternoon. Times of some of the conference programs are still shifting, so please check the Decibel Conference Program for more info and breaking news.
I have definitely listened to the demos of those instruments closely, but I'm not really headed the same way---you won’t hear an attempt to make a sax sound in Kaivo, for example. A bigger influence has been the academic work of Julius Smith, Perry Cook, Stefan Bilbao and others.
I spent most of the day yesterday wrestling with my screen capture program on my new Mac. I think I'm good to go now so I should have something up today or tomorrow.
Kaivo preview! Not Aalto 2.
HI Meng Qi,
First, I will give some really general advice: to approach the build incrementally and experiment. The material choices are many, and lots of things you have access to may work. But the geometry (thicknesses) might be changed from what is in the paper. I would build a 1x1 system first, which is a z-only controller. You can do this in Max by sending and receiving a single sine wave. Any frequency from around 5 kHz-50kHz should be OK.
Then with only 2x2 strips you can make a small xyz controller. The math to get the x and y positions is given in the paper, or you can probably figure it out with a little algebra. Again this will not require any custom max objects because it is just 2 frequencies, 2 outputs and 2 inputs. Use either FFT or bandpass filters to compare the signal strengths at each frequency.
Some of the layers in the paper are shielding for the case. Sorry if this is not well explained. The layers in the sensor itself with no case would be:
playing surface (polyethylene for example)
carrier antennas (foil)
elastic (many kinds of rubber will work, but try open-cell foam)
pickups (foil, or you can make a circuit board)
Over a large area, it is hard to make all the layers lie flat mechanically and return to the proper positions. This is why the "bump" was there , to make tension holding things in place. The Soundplane uses a different technique.
Today I would not use GND strips in between the signal strips. A small gap of >2mm is all that is necessary to prevent most interference between strips.
Please try a 1x1 or 2x2 setup to get some feel for your materials. On one of these setups you can also experiment easily with different foams and spacings.
I have not tried the Max objects for years so I apologize if they are out of date. If so, please let me know and I will try to fix them.
I hope to see details of your project!
later this week!
I think they do not. It would not be very hard to add. The main hurdle is getting the controller working. If you get to that point, feel free to ask here for tips on adding MIDI!
I'll put together a preview for the Intertubes early next week. This weekend there are a ton of friends in town for Decibel, and I need a couple of days off! Thanks for your patience :-)
Had a fun time showing the new baby off in the green room at Decibel. I will make a screencast video preview very soon!