randy's Recent Posts
Here’s the preliminary Soundplane users manual. I'm going to update it fairly often, add pictures, correct spelling, etc.
I'm happy (okay, elated) to announce that the Soundplane A is available now for preorder in North America at an introductory price of $1,695. This price is limited to the initial production run of 30 Soundplanes, and will rise slightly afterwards. The discount is a thanks for helping bring the Soundplane into the world. Full payment is needed to reserve your Soundplane, and the estimated production time is 8-10 weeks after the close of preorders.
Remember, if you're an Aalto customer, you have already put $100 towards a Soundplane, and this discount is valid with the introductory price. Just remind me when you reserve and I'll refund your $100 on receipt.
To those of you on other continents, sorry that this initial run is for North America only. I need more time to sort out the customs issues and regulations we will face in getting Soundplanes to other countries.
See the hardware page for more ordering details, a product specification sheet, and high resolution images of the Soundplane A!
Aalto won't affect your setup unless you are actively running a copy of it. So I wouldn't bother trying the uninstall test. Just try mapping some parameters to another soft synth (or effect) and if that always works just fine, there is probably some problem with mapping to Aalto-- if not, then the problem is probably not Aalto's.
If you really want to try that you can just get rid of the AU component-- it's in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components. You can reinstall to replace it.
I forgot why it defaults to 63. I'm sure 1 would be better. Anyhow, sorry we didn't figure this out earlier. Enjoy your modulation.
Later this month. Thanks for the reminder.
Mod data works here though. Did you set the "mod" dial to 1 to receive CC1? If not, please email me your Live clip and I'll give it a try.
Last week was an interesting one. We have been playtesting the first instruments, and seeing what kinds of variations there are due to component tolerances. We have put together ten Soundplanes now, and this gives us the novel capability to look at the differences between them and work to reduce sources of noise. So we're taking some time this week for tuning the client software based on what we're learning, and finding the best carrier frequencies for all the instruments.
Attaching FFC (flat flexible cables) to the main board. All the red things are precision capacitors for the carrier circuits.
A closeup of the assembly showing sensor boards and the main board. At center is one of the aluminum thread inserts that hold the bottom of the instrument. The combination of CNC milling and metal thread inserts makes the Soundplane's slim yet rigid structure possible.
Looking down the instrument with the main board out of focus in front. The long rails are spacers that hold the sensors away from the aluminum back. Made on the thickness planer, they are 0.230" thick, give or take 0.005".
The last step before playtesting: attaching the LRFs (Little Rubber Feet). The feet fit into small depressions in the back so they won't go anywhere. I tried five different kinds of feet that claimed to be 1/2" in diameter. Only the 3M brand Bumpons ended up fitting accurately into the milled spaces. Yay 3M.
I'm glad to see a patch with an alternate envelope strategy like this. Aalto was definitely designed with things like this in mind. Thanks for sharing.
If you try running Mainstage on the internal audio, and then mapping some Aalto parameters to MIDI, you can tell if there is a problem without the pedal. Not that I know how to do this in Mainstage, unfortunately.
If you are seeing crashes or unexpected behavior, it's not the small amount of RAM that's to blame. too little RAM would just make things slow down. So I would try to figure out the crashing / weirdness before you invest in more RAM.
I realize we got on a tangent about other DAWs but you may want to stick to Mainstage. That's fine. I'll see what I can find out.
You might try the Numerology demo and see if that is a host that floats your boat. The demo is very permissive, so if I recall, you can actually do some work with it before paying. It's very easy on the CPU.
Aalto really does not use that much RAM. Although, 2GB is not a lot for any DAW these days. Aalto shouldn't take more CPU when you automate parameters either.
I would try turning animations off in Aalto ('anim' button) to see if that helps.
Hi Seth,
What if you turn off the animations with the 'anim' button? If that helps I recommend it as a workaround for now.
We're putting together the first production Soundplanes this week. Here are some shots of number 0001 moving through the various stages of production.
This is me using fine steel wool to rub down the paste wax that protects the finish. If I ever have an intern he or she will definitely have to do some “wax on wax off”. If you don't understand that reference, put The Karate Kid on your Netflix queue. It was pretty important for the MTV generation.
Gluing the back plate in. Our friends at Gurian Instruments gave us a great tip on using Teflon tubes to control the application of super glue.
Here's the back plate glued into the case. Yup, this is serial number 0001, headed to Portland soon.
It's cool. I always appreciate the input---it's up to me to make any sense of it.
Chris and I are on the home stretch, assembling production machines. I calibrated the first Soundplane and it is performing beautifully. I look forward very much to sending these out next week, thereby reaching a milestone three years in the making.
Me, calibrating Soundplane #008. Out of all the 30 instruments, this one had the worst imperfection in the case, a small tearout in the edge of the walnut power light surround. So I used it to calibrate and refine our assembly process. It's been put together and taken apart about sixteen times. It's going to be a demo unit for the time being.
Here Chris is applying Kapton stiffeners to our sensor flex circuits and inspecting his work with a loupe.
Tomorrow from 9am-5pm or so we'll be at the MMTA (Mostly Modular Trade Association) Summer Synthfest 2012 in Seattle, showing off our first production units. The event is at the Experience Music Project in the shadow of the Space Needle. Come down and see us if you'd like to get your hands on a Soundplane. Details here. [mostlymodular.com]
Something like you describe sounds more possible. Thanks for the input.
I hear your fair request but I feel like I have too many formats to support already.
The way Rack Extensions do UI, I don't think it's even possible to make anything looking remotely like Aalto in that environment.
OK, thanks for the update. hard at work on Soundplane at the moment but I'm definitely going to look at this.
Thanks for the report, will investigate.
Please add your Mainstage version number (2.?) and OS version.
Super! Thanks for sharing.
The AU should be in the right place after install. I have not tested Mainstage 2 specifically so maybe someone else can help. I might try reinstalling Aalto after Mainstage.
THere aren't really any schematics. The version that's most competely documented is the 8x8 one in my these on the DIY page. This requires tying up an 8x8 audio interface.
Never used an Arduino myself, just a recommendation for low data-rate options.
Seriously, make the 1x2 first... even with your electronics person helper. It's a 4 hour project that could save you days of time on the full version!
What I'm saying is, this is mostly uncharted territory and you will have to do some of the experiments yourself. I tried to be informative with details in the thesis, but it's still a hard project.
Thanks for contributing-- I'm listening to all these ideas and scheming!
I'll probably do something really simple for 1.3. Longer term I think a more general scriptability will be the best way to address people's diverse desires.
On epiece of advice at the outset: Instead of jumping into an 8x8 or large, I would make a 2x2 or even 1x2 version. That way you can get a feel for some of the work involved and make mistakes that you will inevitably make, on a small scale instead of a big one. And, you may even wind up with a useful controller.
For the small sizes (1x2 or similar) you can probably use an Arduino to make the USB data and do all the work. For bigger sizes like the Soundplane, this will be too much data, so I don't really have anything simple to suggest.
Hi Says Chris,
I moved yr threads to DIY.
You can check out the G-Tar project from Medialogy lab in Denmark -- this is the only other DIY Soundplane project I know of. For whatever reason it's not a thing a lot of people have done. It has not taken off like the monome. One reason is that it's quite a bit harder-- there's a lot more data processing and a high-powered processor required.
The USB thing is no easy task either. There are so many ways you might want to do it, that I can't give an easy answer without spending a lot of my own time developing such.
I set up this part of the forums to encourage DIY folks to make Soundplanes, and I was hoping that activity by adventurous people would result in more information getting out there, and an easier starting path... but that hasn't happened. I can do some more of this myself, after we ship.
Meanwhile I'm still here willing to answer your questions.
So, the Soundplane A has a blank area on the left side, where the DSP board lives. There is some room inside the case here for a bit more sensing hardware, and we are leaving extra ADC channels available on the board for it.
So, my question to you is: should we put a few sliders up there? Or a big knob? Or something else? Or leave it blank?
The "blank" option has the advantages of keeping the costs of the Soundplane A down as much as possible, and getting us to a finished product faster. If we do add something, it will have to be done with the level of quality the rest of the product has, so it might add a significant cost in materials and assembly time. And you can get a bunch of USB sliders or knobs pretty cheaply, as you like, and set them there.
On the other hand it's nice to only bring one controller to a gig, and it's very useful to have a knob or slider that you can set to a value and leave there.
Thoughts?
That PolyKB demo is pretty cool. I have always thought their oscillators sounded good in the AKS clone etc.
Aalto avoids aliasing in oscillator FM by calculating what aliasing harmonics would appear, then backing off on the index to reduce them to a certain level. You can hear this pretty easily in that high notes have a sort of threshold of mod index after which they don't get any more gnarly. It occurs to me that the same calculations could be used to treat hard sync as a kind of instantaneous FM. I also have some papers around on hard synching sines. Stuff to try for Aalto v.2 or future products!
The sounds of Aalto's oscillator are Buchla-inspired but the algorithm design is not. Having a sine that's waveshaped into square / saw probably leads to some commonalities, but I'm not trying to emulate the circuit.
I don't know of other soft synths that take the same approach of waveshaping a sine, but there have got to be some out there. The magic is really in the details and fine tuning.
I suppose this is just one of many considerations for any prospective modification, but will the advantage of more steps be outweighed by their addition overcrowding the User Interface?
Maybe for now, working at slower tempos, automation could be used to adjust step values while the sequencer plays? This might effectively offer 64 or more steps.
Yes,thanks for the thoughts. Aalto's main goal is to keep things relatively simple, to do as much with as few UI elements as possible. I'll make future products and modules with more options.
The push to finish the first 30 Soundplanes continues, with software development at home and hardware production at the shop. Here's a cool thing: the alder instrument bodies in line for hand sanding. I'm really happy with the way the variety of grain presentations gives each one a unique personality.
Each Soundplane needs a significant amount of hand shaping work after it's milled, to get rid of marks from the planer and to smooth down the sharp edges that the milling tools leave. We'll be at this stage for a few days---time to get some new choons into the iPod. You'd think that Madrona Labs would have better speakers... well yeah, something to consider after we ship.
After the initial sanding will come three coats of finish, the applying of which means a little careful work but mostly just setting up a reasonably temperature-controlled environment and then, that most universal of chores, waiting. Everything should be dry around the time the surfaces and FFC interconnects arrive.
Hi Garf,
Mostly 1.3 will be a stability / compatibility upgrade, so I won't add this new feature, but I'll put it on the list of "features wanted by people who know what's up."