randy's Recent Posts
This past weekend I took a good long look at Kaivo and made the decision to push the release date back to early February. Kaivo is making some great sounds right now, but there are just too many raw edges left to call it done next week. I only get one chance to make a first impression with a new instrument and this one needs some more spit and polish before I can send it out for review.
This month will give me a chance to do some very important work, like tuning parameters so that Kaivo is easy to program, and making great presets. Maybe even getting the manual written!
I know some of you had hopes of playing with it over the holidays. So, sorry to disappoint. I'm just one guy that writes these things for the most part and, even after 20 years of doing this for a living, estimating when software will be done is still a task I am horrible at.
Stay tuned for sound examples and such coming soon. I wish you all a relaxing holiday season in the company of friends and family.
Check the Reaper docs to see about Reaper's MIDI learn capability. Using the host's MIDI learn has the advantage of working with any plugin. Aalto does not have internal MIDI learn.
This is actually by design. On Retina displays, especially in Logic, the graphics were sometimes causing the audio to choke previously, so now I made sure they stay out of the way.
In a future release I would like to move to a completely OpenGL-based UI, which will be very speedy again.
Hi,
There have been some people reporting problems with the preset install. Rather than use the installer, you can get a zip file of the presets from
http://www.madronalabs.com/media/aalto/demo/Aalto%20Presets.zip
Unpack this to get the "Aalto" directory and put that into in ~/Library/Audio/Presets/Madrona Labs (Mac OS) or /AppData/Roaming/Madrona Labs (Windows).
Sorry for the hassle.
Great stuff!!!
Hi Randy! I am experiencing some problems when using Aalto 1.5 in FL studio producer edition 11.0.0. Some patches seem to have volume issues. The sound suddenly drops away and the patch silences completely.
There's a lot to check out here, and these are all new issues for me, can you email me at support @ madronalabs please? First I'm wondering which patches if consistent, and if it happens on both 32/64 bit.
curious, can i see a screenshot of the updates to the Aalto interface ? as far as changes go. not sure what the difference are. also, i only use aalto in Live 9.1.1 on os x.
It doesn't look that different. Just twice the resolution on OS X w/ Retina :-)
But not in Live :-(
Thanks for posting the update. I'm sorry to hear that, but not surprised, since I haven't done anything with the sequencer for this release. It is getting a major rewrite soon, and then I can look into what is going on with host clock in Maschine.
Thanks for posting the info! It seems Live 9.1 is a big improvement on some systems.
Logic will always be a bit heavier than Live 9, in my experience.
Well, since closing the graphical window helps, let's say for now this is a graphics issue. Do you have any kind of graphics software you run that would affect drawing, like that popular time-of-day gamma changer for example?
Thanks for the report. This comes as a surprise. I have a 10.6.8 machine so I will look into it.
I've been wanting to use a round Robin max midi dispatcher to get more voices...
Oh man... I'll add more in a future update, but unfortunately it's not trivial.
Hi bongo,
What I just wrote to the other fellow looking for an instrument:
I'm writing to make sure you know that another run of new instruments is planned for this Spring. Now that Kaivo is very close to release, I can confidently say I will be taking Soundplane orders in March. Our build schedule has been 8-10 weeks in the past, so unless there are parts shortages that puts delivery in May / June.
If you want to try and find someone selling a Soundplane here, that's fine too.
Hi there,
I'm writing to make sure you know that another run of new instruments is planned for this Spring. Now that Kaivo is very close to release, I can confidently say I will be taking Soundplane orders in March. Our build schedule has been 8-10 weeks in the past, so unless there are parts shortages that puts delivery in May / June.
If you want to try and find someone selling a Soundplane here, that's fine too.
Hi, sorry for the delay in replying, I got swamped with the Aalto release...
I want to add the feature of assignable scales per zone, scales as in patterns of notes like chromatic, pentatonic, minor, etc, etc. So "all the same note" could be one of these patterns and I will certainly add that. Would that work?
I plan to give more attention to the Soundplane client while I am building the next batch of instruments this Spring. If you have any other ideas, let me know.
It could be confusing for some, since on Mavericks the user Library directory is hidden my default.
Right. And yet that is where Apple wants us to put things like presets. I think the best solution is to write a nice preset manager as part of the plugin, but I haven't gotten around to that yet...
The presets (both user and "factory") should be in ~(your home directory)/Library/Audio/Presets/Madrona Labs/Aalto. It could be yours are in /Library, on the root directory?
I heard some people are having problems with the preset installer on Mavericks. I'm going to sort this out for a 1.5.0 release very soon.
Meanwhile, I uploaded all my presets here:
Aalto Presets.zip
You can just copy the "Aalto" directory to its destination.
Sorry for the confusion!
Hi Adam,
Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into the key issue. I have fixed this in the past but unfortunately it's always a moving target.
re:CPU, you may see a heavier load if you have a Retina Macbook Pro, because Aalto has to draw four times as many pixels to the screen! If you close the window the performance should be on par with the previous version. The latency fix also takes up a bit more CPU than previously, but on the order of 10% difference.
I happen to have 10.8.5 here, and Logic 10.0.6. And a Retina macbook pro. But I can't duplicate your issue. I bring up a new Aalto in a new Logic song, and four voices run at about 40% CPU with the window open, or 25% with it closed.
So what might be different on your computer? Audio interface? Maybe try the internal audio to make sure we are on the same page.
I see that you are logged in now, since you posted---can you tell me exactly what is happening when you try to log in?
Also if it's more convenient for you, given the website problems, you can email me at support@madronalabs.com for support.
KAIVO PALETTES
So, the Kaivo "palettes" are just multi-channel wav files. If you download the first beta collection, the "bubbles.wav" should be a good example of the kind of thing I'm looking for and I guess there are a few others. You can see that the idea is just to make an interesting 2D "map" of sources with some variety and space in it, and not overly cluttered sounds. I usually try to make the lowest channel have lower frequencies in it, and so on up the channels for a nice frequency spread.
There are nine categories:
- Air - whooshes, blowing, turbulent sounds
- Earth - friction, things sliding on other things, creaking, woody and dirty and very organic sounds
- Impacts - varieties of impacts from percussion or whatever
- Instrumental - acoustic instrument sounds, sustained or particularly instrument-like excitations
- Fire - electrical and mechanical machines, metal sounds, sparky burny things
- Oscillators - special category for single-cycle wavetables (these take some care)
- Synthetic - Tone clouds, Noise sources, Klangs
- Vocal - people and animals making sounds with their mouth parts
- Water - bubbles, trickles, drips, drops, plops, etc
Where to get sounds? Anywhere that you have rights to them. Maybe you have some sounds you have recorded, or maybe you would like to record some.
file specs:
- WAV
- 96 kHz
- 1-4 channels
- 8 seconds long or less.
I use Audacity to put the multichannel files together. It's free and works reasonably well for this task. I use Logic to do any fancy editing or EQ, bounce each track, and simply put them together in Audacity. You may have your own good way of making multi-channel WAVs to your specifications, but if not, here's how to do it in Audacity:
To stitch files in Audacity:
First: set up custom Export in Audacity by selecting Preferences -> Import/Export -> Use Custom Mix.
then for each palette you go:
- New file (cmd-N)
- Import multiple (cmd-shift-I)
- select the tracks you want to include in the palette. Having them named already so they alphabetize from low channel to high channel will make this easier because they appear in the right order.
- for each track: if it is Stereo, click its drop-down menu and select "Split Stereo Track" then click the "X" to throw away one. You want 2-4 mono tracks. I always have to do this because Logic won't export mono files as far as I can tell.
- do any fade-ins/outs you want by selecting all tracks and "Effects…"
- select Export (cmd-shift-E) and name the output.
- The export dialog comes up with lines connecting tracks and output tracks. You can use this dialog to direct tracks to output tracks, and select the number of output tracks, but I find it a little fiddly so for me it is easier to just to the Split Stereo Track thing beforehand.
That's it!
Hmm that's odd, I haven't heard of any CPU problems with Aalto 1.5. I'll try to duplicate this here. What OS are you running?
Things to try:
- make a fresh Logic project, make a new Aalto, and try that
- make sure buffer size in Logic prefs is something reasonable, like 256
- close Aalto window, does performance improve?
I haven't heard of the password problem either, sorry-that sounds like a nuisance. I wonder if clearing your browser cookies might help.
Blast. OK, I see the key trig issue and will get a fix out ASAP. Thanks for the report.
The date on the archive files themselves is what I mean. You should be fine.
The typo actually affected both Mac and Windows. D'oh. I posted a fix, still as version 1.5.0. The release date on these new downloads should read February 16.
all of my patches lack of the x vel setting in ENV 1 - so they sound different. this is not acceptable by any means
eek, a typo in the Windows version somehow made it through testing! I'll send out a 1.5.1 update today.
Thanks for the quick report.
The slower UI is actually by design. Aalto does a lot more drawing than most plugins and this can really bother some hosts. So I have slowed down some things to avoid clicks in the sound in high-CPU situations. I don't like seeing this either but after all, it's the sound that matters! Someday i will have a full OpenGL interface and we can get back up to speed.
I just posted the 1.4.1 update to the Mac version of Aalto. This fixes the Logic validation problem some people were seeing on Mac OS 10.8.
The Windows version is unchanged for now.
Mac users, please note that using the Aalto installer on OS X 10.8 requires that you control-click to open the installer to get past Gatekeeper’s code signing. Now that I have a computer running 10.8, I can address this and some other details that come up with the new operating system and Retina displays very soon.
There is still some issue with the user presets in the installer, but I can not wrestle with Apple’s PackageMaker any more today. Installing the user presets from the demo version should work for now until I have time to tidy things up more.
It's damp and chilly, and I hear the gray pitter patter of endless rain. Looking out my window I see gray sky, gray water, gray trees and gray clouds. That's right, it's Christmas in Seattle.
Because of your support of Aalto these past few months, I can now work full time to bring you more software and hardware to make music with. And that is something I am very thankful for. I am very excited about what we will have to offer this coming year: Aalto for Windows, the Soundplane A, and more software instruments that are even farther off the beaten path.
As a small way to say thanks, today I'm releasing Aaltoverb for Mac OS X. Aaltoverb is just the reverb section from Aalto, packaged up as its own plugin and with mix and brightness knobs added. It won't replace your ValhallaShimmer, but it is easy on the CPU and on the eyes, and I hope it makes a nice addition to your box of colors. Download it here: [Aaltoverb.dmg]
Happy holidays and all best wishes for the new year!
[edit]
And, a day later, Aaltoverb 1.1.1 is out! During my morning-after listening I found I had changed the sound a little too much when adding the brightness control, taking away some of the magic. So now the brightness is not as useful but the magic is back.
OK, thanks for the update, I'll try sending you an OpenGL-free version in a bit.
I have sped up drawing to the screen using OpenGL, and it works on Mac and Windows here, but I wonder if this is going slower on your machine for some reason.
Do you know if you have a recent, or any, OpenGL driver? A good place to start looking would be here: [http://www.opengl.org/wiki/Getting_Started#Windows]
If you want to try upgrading your drivers that would be interesting. if not, maybe I'll send you a version with OpenGL turned off and we can see what happens.
No, that doesn't help. Just to be clear about what I mean regarding UI responsiveness, I'm referring to things such as the shape of the envelope not updating smoothly when changing parameters. Aalto's envelopes are snappy and redraw immediately on param change. Kaivo's seem to lag heavily. Same with the noise offset. I have no idea if this is my machine or if others experience the same thing.
Thanks for explaining better. So, that's not a problem. Because Kaivo does so much drawing, I do draw those things like envelopes at a lower priority so they are less likely to get in the way. Aalto is going to be more like this with the next update.
e: Displaying the Kaivo window makes my CPU load meter jump from 4% to 60%. Hiding it drops it back to 4%.
What if you turn 'anim' off, what does that do?