smuff's Recent Posts

Great rundown. Looking forward to seeing it come out. Is it too early for sound demo’s? Thanks for all the hard work this must have taken.

How about Aalto filter too

Brilliant news. I can now rest over the weekend and stop checking in every five minutes!!!

From what I have heard so far it will be great. Have a great easter break!. Best. S

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/dMFFBAFYnNx

It looks amazing cannot wait to use it as I am working on a vocal piece at the moment. Great work Randy.

Food for thought (although I would imagine your have enough well meaning suggestions)

I like the simplicity of the one knob for the formant oscillator but thought how kaivo's 3D LFO could navigate a vocal chart like this.

http://www.analoguehaven.com/grendel/formantfilter/

Anyway that is for the very distant future. Virta is now! Great to see it. Also great tip about compressing each formant in the vocoder!!!

Sounds great. Sorry for the distraction. Good luck with it all. Best

S

http://www.matrixsynth.com/2015/10/ipad-pro-running-isem-audiounit-in.html

http://9to5mac.com/2015/06/12/ios-9-audio-units-plug-in-effects-virtual-insturments/

Look forward to seeing how this pans out. All the best. S

The developers forum suggested it is trivial addition as it is still a full AU as Aalto/Kaivo already are. Perhaps this could be paid upgrade for those who already own the full Aalto/Kaivo rather than an App style purchase price.

But I take your point you have enough on your plate. Good luck with Virta.

Best

S

Just to say that thanks to thetechnobear, I am using Aalto with the Eigenharp pico and I am finding them a great combination. I am demoing Kaivo at the moment as well.I have a question is the level module limited in its dynamic range or is it my inexperienced programming? ( I wont be offended )

Anyway one of the things I would like to support is some sort of X pressure object that is mentioned above. It would greatly expand the expressivity.

One of the things I like about the Eagenmatrix is the ability to scale the touch dimensions for the sound. I am not suggesting anything as involved as on the continuum but perhaps a right click on the patch cables to bring up a scale/curve dialogue for that connection. Hope this makes sense. Feel free to prioritise this as you see fit. Appreciate your time. Many thanks. S

Well Done! Glad to see it going so well. S

Having only seen the pictures so far ,would something like this:

http://www.neutrik.com/uk/en/dataconnectors/210_86512536/NKUSB-__detail.aspx

http://www.neutrik.com/client/neutrik/media/products/view/210_t2_619292854.jpg

be available as a special built-to-order option if requested?

I am not sure how the SoundPlane is being manufactured so sorry in advance if I am barking up the wrong tree. I am just thinking about gigging such a beautiful thing and the need for robustness. Good luck today!!!

You have thought of everything! I should have guessed.

Best

S

Thanks for clarifying that. It is 50/50 I guess, yes it gets saved in that circumstance but USB ports can sometimes get very wobbly over time. All the best. S

It looks stunning. I cannot wait to see a movie of the surface in action!!

Great Work. Looking forward to the announcement tomorrow of pricing and more detail!

S

Great News !

Congratulations! For those of us in the UK and elsewhere can i echo the request for videos and pictures etc. Good luck.
S

Any thoughts on this software development for the Soundplane and Aalto

http://www.steinberg.net/en/company/technologies/vst_expression.html

I know Eigenlabs are implementing it. It seems a very elegant solution to the polyphonic expresion problem. I hope Software instrument manufacturers will implement it. What are your thoughts?

Best

S

Fascinating! I cannot wait.I would imagine the streams you talk of might be akin to what Wessel at CNMAT talked about with his SLABs device? Whilst you are not running at quite the same scan rate as him I would imagine this would make for a more responsive instrument.
Best

S

Yes I have been checking out the Roger Linn tour very interesting indeed. Whilst I can see the benefits of the fingers being the envelope there does need to be a note on type message to implement fast attacks and transients.

I can see the benefits of going with OSC and not using MIDI. However, when using a controller such as this, people might want to use it with there favourite VST easily. Note expression allows people who are not used to the modular /non-envelope paradigm to get the most out of the controller and possibly use it with their DAW, should they wish. It should not replace OSC however.I can appreciate that recourses are limited and maintaining a midi and OSC protocols is costly so I guess we should see how things develop. I heard form the eigenharp guys that they do not use OSC natively as there are timing issues with the data, is that something you have experienced?

No I did not know abou the Aalto polyphonic aftertouch. I will have to check it out

http://www.macmusic.org/news/view.php/lang/en/id/10266/

Just wondered if you had been involved with this in any way. I dropped Roger Linn an email about the Soundplane and he said he had been in touch!

Looking forward to seeing the SoundPlane in action. How are things coming along? Do you have a working prototype? Have you changed the design in any way. Do not feel obliged to answer, just curious?

Best

S

Indeed. Look forward to the info. Best.s

I just wanted a ball park, that is perfect, many thanks. Once again good luck. s

Obviously you wont have specifics yet , but up to £1000, between £1and 2K or £2K+ P.S I have put pounds but put whatever would be easiest, I need to start saving you see.

Any chance of one coming to the UK or some videos?

I am really glad things are coming along. If you need a tester in the Uk...

Anyway good luck.

Best

S

Thank you for the reply I am sure it is a complex problem and certainly beyond my skills. I look forward to seeing a working prototype of the software and hardware in the fullness of time. Good luck. I have mentioned the project on the Kyma forum so I hope it yields some positive input for you.

Best

S

Dear Randy,

You mention elsewhere that the SoundPlane is approximately 64x8 channels (strips of copper tape) am I right in thinking that each vertical strip (64) could correspond to a pitch with interpolation for pitches between notes? When you mention tracking Piano size I get the impression that the adjacent resolution would not be very fine? Is the adjacent resolution effected by the pressure of the two points?

Best

S

Sorry yes my head is still buzzing.

I guess my question fall into two parts one is the form and engineering of the Soundplane hardware / software the other is it implications and community response:

Firstly;

Generally speaking one switch one continuous ( for example sustain / volume).

I guess questions would be how accurately can the SoundPlane accurately track adjacent objects?

In what form will the data form the SoundPlane be presented? I am thinking I would like centroid data with X,Y,Z and size/surface area. This would allow the basis for gesture recognition. It would be good to have a simple Max object or raw OSC would also be great. Would that sound reasonable?

Secondly;

As for GUIs, visual interfaces can be mapped from that data presumably. I think something like this with for example a Processing designed front end could be really amazing for new ways to interact with the Soundplane.

Will the objects be open source and/or similar to the Monome project? I am assuming that they will.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Best

S

Ok I have calmed down now!

My vote would be for some discrete foot pedal socket. Perhaps as you suggest you could leave a spare A/D, but dedicated couple of jacks would be great. I want my hands free to play the Soundplane and switch with feet

The problem that I find when I play the continuum is the resolution when two fingers are adjacent can lead to erroneous (pitch) information. Will the Soundplane be similar in this regard?

I agree with some of the other posts this is defiantly the way to go. Much as I love the ethos of the Monome it feels like I am typing music which given that we are in a computer age and the main interface is a keyboard makes sense. But hopefully with the onset of the ipod touch and other touch screen interfaces people will appreciate more expressive hand touch interfaces.

I have always been drawn to multi-touch because of its multi-dimensionality. I don't compose to a strict rhythm I am more interested in sonic gestures to wit this is the type of controller for me. I think the thing to get right is the playing surface, the Continuum for all its floors plays like an instrument, I want the Soundplane to be an instrument to master. Whilst I like the general discreet pitch/pitchbend paradigm of the Continuum I think there is, in addition, now space for new performance gestures based on the Ipod Touch interface where pinches, finger sprays and swipes etc can be mapped for directly translatable sonic gestures.

I for one will use it with Max/Msp, Reaktor/Kore, Kyma, Alchemy, AudioMulch. For sound design and live performance. Initially I would like to be able to plug-in and play, simple correlation between pitch volume and say brightness. A good sounding basic synth demo would be good for getting the feel of it and practice. Then obviously I would like to get my hands dirty with the Soundplane data. Whilst I don't recommend the closed nature of the Lemur, some of their physical modeling modulators would expand new ways to interact with the board. I mention this because you had visual feedback in some of your demos. There is a beauty to playing without reference to the screen, but I would like the option of a nice visual interface whilst practicing/designing. I guess much of this can be built by the user but with these kind of features I think the Soundplane would be top notch.

I was saying to my friend as I played him the Continuum wouldn't it be great if this had more resolution and communicated via OSC, well thanks for making a wish come true. I just hope this does not go the way of the Surface One (midiman) .

Now to start saving, do you know anyone who wants to buy a MTC Express?

Best wishes and good luck

S