briancares's Recent Posts

Fantastic work, Randy & team. This is exactly what I´ve been looking for for a long time.

Two niggles (so far):

GUI needs more contrast. Looks a bit "washy" now and is harder to read than Aalto.

In Ableton, closing and reopening the GUI resets the size.

Anyways, outstanding synth. Congrats!

I´ve been talking with Randy about proper PT integration as well.
He said that he´s working with the FXPansion guys on proper wrapping. Since i´m not the most patient guy i tried Reaper as Rewire host and it works without a hitch.

Plus there is the bonus of Reapers parameter modulation.
You can modulate any parameter in Aalto with either audio signals or LFOs. Makes for a very powerful modular thingy ITB :)

Since i saw there is going to be an update of Aalto i thought i´d just ask politely if you might have had a look at this problem . I´d also be in game for beta testing and wrote you an email :)

Hey Randy,

Any news on Aalto in ProTools?

I get a quit crash as well with PT 10., Wrapper 2.1 & Aalto 1.2.6.

Hey Randy,

First of all, congratulations for this beautiful instrument!
It sounds just marvelous and is tons of fun to tweak.

I encountered some oddities with the Windows 32 version:

  • Hold pedal is not recognized (via Mbox midi. All my other VSTs do recognize)

  • Strange behavior of mousewheel control in the mod-matrix (value gets adjusted first. then jumps to full value and has to be clicked to adjust further)

  • In Reaper: When pinned on top, the preset- and microscale popup is hidden behind the GUI

  • The sequencers behavior was odd in the demo. After tweaking a while it would stop to put out values. It would work when changing presets. But not when going back to a blank patch and trying to modulate. I had to re-load Aalto, then it worked.
    (I will try to reproduce in the full version.)

There are a couple other things i thought would be good to discuss:

  • Is it possible to lock the option of showing animation&numbers when changing the presets? (Or make them global options..?)

  • Have you thought about making the GUI scalable? Or give it two different sizes (just like Zebra & ACE) The synth is a "tweaker".
    And sometimes just want to lean back and twiddle knobs rather than sitting and leaning to the monitor to see everything.

  • The GUI itself is beautiful. I must say though that i would prefer a bit more contrast and a slightly different font. Its really kinda hard to read from a bit greater distance.
    (Sean Costello wrote interesting stuff on his blog about Valhallas GUI approach. Especially the parts about the font recommended by NASA for readability and the contrast stuff.)

  • Parameter locks for "all" parameters and/or the patches would make a great addition for a 2.0 version. Just like with the original buchla you could leave the patches in place and try different sounds.

  • The microscale menu would be even cooler with arrows for selcting next/previous as well. (Just like the presets)

All in all i can say that this is a wonderful project and i´m looking forward to see further development from Madrona Labs. You guys really have something going!

Cheers.

Brian.