aejonel's Recent Posts
Know what is the little triangle pointing up inside the patchname field next to the closing bracket? No. Nothing to do with a drop list of patch names. You can hover it: it says nothing.
Looks like it is an indicator that the patch was edited. (Only, it gets cleared from time to time for no perceptible reason, without saving.)
Every other synth use a * next to the patch name... And there is the well thought off patch menu to the right, a blank doc icon that could get a *, a ! or a scribble inside to show that the patch hasn't be saved.
It feels almost like little pranks at times... We've got a very, very, special synth trying to be special too in ways that do not matter at all when you're making music, and are just hurdles to the use of the thing...
And this follow up goes to show what an ingrate I am: I had a few hours of fun today with Sumu and I like it a lot...
Go figure.
No bugs so far on Studio 1/Win10.
I always found the Madrona UIs cool and pretty. I'm sure a lot of time and consideration went into a few UI/UX decisions for Sumu, and the innovative UI is starting to feel mature, but some of these decisions really feel wrong, just too idiosyncratic:
The pop-up anchors: this straight line ending with a dot. In itself, pretty. But for example, when half the name of the partial end up being stroked out... cringey. Not difficult to think of another way of doing that. Anything but this "violator" feel.
The brackets as previous/next buttons. Not only nothing visually gives any clue that they can be clicked/touched, but really, why [ and ] when < and > or ‹ and › could be used. I know this is not meanness but it feels like gratuitous cruelty...
Clicking again on an UI element that just triggered a pop-up should close the pop-up. This ease up the "discoveries".
When a pop-up displays a list, I wish the "current" element of the list could be distinguished from the rest. I wish I got some inkling of the length of the list (is everything displayed, am I at the start, at the end? How could I display the hidden parts of the list?) Something like a scrollbar? I know, what a revolutionary thought! Previous/next on the lists would be nice too.
The dials are pretty slick. If only I knew at first how they work. I kept doing what I'm used to do everywhere else: clicking anywhere in the middle of the thing to give it focus, and expecting to smoothly change a value by dragging. By then, my first click already lost the existing value. I had no clue how to use them.
All in all, the UI felt too often contrarian. And now that I watched the UI Basics video, I feel stupid at times, and I feel the synth is stupid at other times, like for the lists. Not nice thoughts. And I know that if I stop using Sumu for a while, I'll have to fall in all the same traps again the next time I use it.
I just wanted to make music! This should not be so difficult so soon.
I can't end like that, of course. Sumu is a great synth, doing things that no other synth do. I wish I could have just added my (so deserved anyway) thanks for your work.
All the other dunces like me, watch this:
UI Basics - Essential Tips for Patching and Performing
Hey Randy!
Hope everything is going well with your release plan!
Would you say it's relatively "safe" to start using Sumu pre-release 1.0.0b15 in projects? I mean, should they (projects/presets) sound the same with the release?
Yeah! Sumu is working now for me on Windows 10, Cubase 12 (that I'm phasing out) and Studio One 6.6.1.
Still a few details to polish, if I may be so bold:
1/ Default preset is silent/empty (partials file not found)/whatever. Slightly jarring that the synth is not producing any sound on load up. (A default/empty preset might very well be useful, I have no idea yet, just not loaded by default?)
2/ On a HiDPI screen, default size is teeny tiny.
3/ I very much like the new UI controls/animations. I wouldn't have however opted to disappear simple arrows for previous/next preset and other very established/well known UI conventions. Sumu is different more than enough in the ways that matter.
4/ I don't think the plugin sizer disappear, I think it's invisible black on black in some cases when resizing the window makes a black border all around the plugin become too thick.
5/ Last and not least: as most Madrona Labs plugins, what an hungry beast Sumu is! I hope one day you will find a way to optimize it further. (I suppose this will become moot if we wait long enough...)
6/ You will never hear the end of it if Vutu doesn't end integrated in some way. Just sayin'.
7/ +1 on adding Undo button/history: So important to feel free to experiment...
All this petty nagging first to end with the most important:
Even a few minutes in, I think this is the best synth in a long while, a very nice surprise after some pitifully disappointing wishful engineering coming from other developers I like too much to mention by name here.
The sounds that come from this thing! Weird they might be, but music to my ears. I don't think the videos I've seen so far do Sumu justice... I would embrace the weird in some new ones.
Thanks for your work!
Bearing with... Bearing with... Haha!
Re Vutu integration
I must admit that silly me totally overlooked the license aspects of the integration of Vutu.
I tried to get a better idea of what those limitations might be and found that Loris was distributed under GNU GPL v.2 or later.
It looks like what I suggested would be permitted: "If the two programs remain well separated, like the compiler and the kernel, or like an editor and a shell, then you can treat them as two separate programs—but you have to do it properly. [...] if they know that what they have received is a free program plus another program, side by side, their rights will be clear."
However, making sure of what is permitted can be difficult. So I hope you will still find a way of making a "loose" integration work...
CLAP support would be nice!
Re Vutu integration:
To keep all the advantages of the separate app, if desirable, the "integration" could even be as loose as:
When the user drop a sample on Sumu, Sumu invoke Vutu with either the file or a temp copy full path and name.
Sumu could also provide Vutu with appropriate parameters for Sumu like exports path, etc.
If Vutu location on the system isn't known, Sumu just ask for it and store it, and/or offer to download Vutu with a link to its appropriate (Mac/Win/...) installer.
I for one would very much appreciate even such a "minimalist" approach.
Hey there,
Sumu 1.0.0b13 crashes both Cubase 12 and Studio One 6.6.1.99821 on my Windows 10 machine, NVidia graphic card. (Can't play with my new synth at all!)
If I can be of any help resolving that, would be happy to. Can't wait for an update...
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Studio One Actions.log
[startup][6320]
[crash]C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\Sumu.vst3\Contents\x86_64-win\Sumu.vst3
[dump]C:\Users\Uuu\AppData\Roaming\PreSonus\Studio One_6_6_1_99821_Win x64_20240524_182929571.dmp
[call]C:\WINDOWS\System32\USER32.dll
[call]C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\OPENGL32.dll
[call]C:\WINDOWS\System32\USER32.dll
[startup][18604]
[action][18604:Win32 Thread]ApplicationStartup
--- 8< ---