randy's Recent Posts
Welcome aboard, and thanks for your support and feedback! I really appreciate it.
Unfortunately the website has a bug right now, where the patches are in the wrong format! Does it work if you try one of the patches from patchdump.com ?
It would actually be 512 floats because that’s the raw sensor data size. Unless you have other ideas. But, it seems like this is the feature for someone who wants all the data, so I should give them all the data.
Here is a video showing how to take apart a Soundplane and put it back together again. I designed the Soundplane to be easily hackable and repairable; hopefully what you see here gets that across.
If you don’t have a Soundplane but are interested in making a DIY version, this will probably give you some ideas!
solid elastic works fine too---the gaps are a refinement that reduces the pressure needed to move the surface.
Separating the adjacent touches well is a difficult problem. As with any research topic, it is impossible to promise exactly when I can deliver results, but please know it is very important to me and I will be working on it.
Yes this proximity effect you describe is part of the touch code as well, and I do hope to eliminate it. Right now it is needed to avoid some false touches from nearby ones.
You can see the work in progress at github.com/madronalabs/soundplane, and I welcome your ideas.
Yes, I can do that for you in the next update coming this week.
There’s probably no reason to use the CM Aalto if you already have the full version. If you want a mono version just set the # of voices to 1!
There’s an Aalto 2 coming, but not for at least a couple of months. There will be a 1.4 before that.
Have you tried just using Ableton’s Configure menu to map the Soundplane’s output CC to whatever knob you want?
I would follow up with Symbolic because I did what they asked me to do as far as OSC output, and they told me it was working.
Did you look at this Kyma documentation?
Thanks!
Note that unfortunately the forum software is fucked up right now since we upgraded some of our Web software. The patches will be stored just fine but right now some translator is breaking them when people copy them. I'm waiting for a bit of my web guy’s time to fix this issue.
Before these instruments left the shop I snagged a few photos, to show the variations in wood that give each instrument a unique personality. When I put a surface together with the enclosure I try to find pairs of grains that somehow speak to each other. It’s a happy task each time because it means that the Soundplane is almost done.
Waves with planets:
Small rays:
Big waves:
Yes, you're correct in your understanding of the mod +1, +2 stuff.
Thanks for leaving this up, and for a good laugh when I got to the end!
test
Hi Marko,
Thanks for letting me know. We just updated the website and it looks like the new version of our comment formatting software has a new feature that breaks the patches by turning underscores into italics. I'll see what I can do to fix this.
With Kyma connected over OSC, you should see messages of the form
/key (touchID) (onoff) (note) (z) (y).
the /con messages are just polling whether the Soundplane is connected or not.
This is what I came up with after consulting with the Kyma folks. I'm not really familiar with using Kyma myself, so questions about how to actually use this data are best sent to Carla / Kurt.
You can also use Kyma over MIDI---y and z use MIDI CCs 74 and 11, respectively.
I'm sorry the docs suck right now. Now that I'm done building instruments for a little while I can do some much needed work on them.
How do I program the soundplane to control different knobs of a synth? For example, moving up and down on the y axis the HP filter would change.
The answer totally depends on the environment you are working in. Are you using OSC or MIDI? What VST / AU host? and so on.
It's easiest to use Aalto over OSC. In Aalto over OSC the x/y/z signals all come out right into the patcher. You can see the lights change when you move a touch, and then connect that signal to any parameter you want, like filter cutoff.
To set up Aalto over OSC, just make sure OSC is enabled in the Soundplane app, and run Aalto in any host. That's it. Aalto will display "t3d connected" and you are up and running.
If you want to use another synth plugin, you will have to use MIDI. So you need to know how your host application handles MIDI mapping. Some hosts like Live make this very easy. Others not so much . But in any case you map MIDI CC 74 to whatever you want.
Thanks Wednesday!
Coffee is a big part of it.
I'll re-examine this, thanks for the feedback. I've made some tweaks to the seq from user feedback, that unfortunately break other behaviors people were counting in. The sequencer is hard.
An update is definitely planned.
Hi there!
I have a fully modular version of Aalto planned. This will let you put external audio through whatever modules you want, including the waveguide. It's a little ways off, though.
Nothing about the electrical characteristics of the foam is really important. It is part of the picture mechanically not electrically. Of course, something has to insulate the carriers from the pickups. It should be open cell foam, solid material will not work. I think I posted the exact part number I use in a recent thread.
Oh, well-- it might be interesting to you but there's probably* nothing it will help you do. JUCE is a framework I used to write Aalto-- and those other plugins you mention also use it. There is some basic problem with Live’s window handling and JUCE-based plugins. People are looking into workarounds, and I tried one before but apparently it has broken again on 10.8 even with the fix I used. So as soon as I can find time I'll try some other workarounds and test on 10.8.
I added "probably," because I know there are some obscure commands you can send to Live by editing the prefs, that might affect things like window handling. But this is likely to be a dead end, so I wouldn't bother spending too much time on it.
Totally weird, maybe a new and different problem with Live. I'll have to try your exact setup when I can find time to get on a 10.8 machine.
[EDIT] due to the different plugins involved, looks like a Live / JUCE problem apparently.
Until the mapping features are added to the software, there are default MIDI controller maps. Pitch is sent out with a combination of note-on and pitch bend. Y is sent out controller 74 (timbre). Z is sent out controller 11 and channel pressure.
Ableton is not the best at dealing with MIDI---it removes the channel information from each note so that the independent pitch bends coming from the Soundplane are lost.
I have never personally tried to use Max for Live, so hopefully someone else will chime in.
I'm working on the user mapping features again now that the hardware is going smoothly, so these should be available soon. Meanwhile let me know what you want to do and I can help you or even add some stopgap features.
I've tried replicating the problem here in Windows 7 64 bit with live 9.0.2 32 bit and everything seems to work no prob for me.
Thanks for the info! This has always been an Audio Units problem only, but actually it's great you said something, because I forgot to tell frankc he can probably use the VST as a workaround.
Hey frankc, you can probably use the Aalto VST in Live as a workaround.
Please see my email.
Hi MD,
Aalto works the same way as all the other plugins in Logic.
To record the output from a plugin in Logic, you need to use the Bounce feature with the [Bnce] buttons on individual tracks. You can look up the Bounce feature in the Logic manual for more info.
The big recording button will record audio and MIDI input to tracks, not plugin output.
Please take the time to go through the Logic manual and learn more about these functions of Logic.
On these forums people use all sorts of different DAW programs, so questions about Logic may go unanswered. People on the Logic forums will definitely be more help.
best,
Randy
So, to be clear, you are playing MIDI notes to Aalto with the computer keyboard in Live. Then when you bring up Aalto’s window, Aalto stops getting the notes?
I have not heard of this happening to anyone since the fix. I will test the OS 10.8 / Live 9 combination when I can, please stay tuned.
What OS, Mac or Windows and what version?
This was fixed in 1.3. If you are still seeing it let me know what OS and versions of Aalto and Ableton.