randy's Recent Posts
@neccss I'm glad to hear it! Enjoy.
@bobswans Glad you're having fun with Aaltoverb—thanks for sharing!
@neccss sounds like a permissions problem, possibly. If the Aaltoverb plugin does not have permissions to write the license for some reason you should be able to do this to get a permanent license:
- make the directory ~/Music/Madrona Labs/Licenses
- save your license key to a plain text file called "Aaltoverb.txt" in the Licenses directory.
Aaltoverb, our tweakable reverb for sound design and live performance, has been updated to version 2.0.
Aaltoverb now supports both Intel-compatible and Apple Silicon (M1) processors natively. In addition, it brings several new features, including:
- MIDI Learn for all parameters.
- LFOs for all main parameters.
- Patch storage and new example patches.
Aaltoverb 2.0 is available now as a free update.
@neccss - the license should be written to ~/Music/Madrona Labs/Licenses/Aaltoverb.txt. Can you check and see if the license is there?
(EDIT) and also, please try creating a preset file when you have the plugin registered—does that work? I'm wondering if the plugin has the entitlement to write to the directory. I have not heard of this issue before.
This thread has become a catch-all for various slow UI issues in one or more plugins, so I changed the thread title to reflect that.
I understand that "use a different resolution" might not be a good fix for you.
Have you tried Kaivo? Does it behave in a similar way when using a similar amount of CPU? If you try Kaivo 1.9.4 (or demo) and let me know, it might provide a clue.
Hi Robin,
The files are still on the server. If you copy the current links for the installers and substitute 1.9.1 for the version number, you should be able to download the older versions.
I might be able to add this behavior back to the new version as a different voice allocation mode.
Have you tried Virta without running other plugins at the same time? Virta is currently relying on the JUCE framework for graphics and when other plugins using JUCE are also open there can be big slowdowns. I'm switching to my own framework partly because of this. I don't have a release ETA right now.
Some of the first Retina MacBook Pros were the worst for this issue because they have big screens and relatively underpowered GPUs. What year is your machine from?
If you try all the 4 or 5 different resolutions that the system provides you with there may be one clear winner.
Thanks for your understanding!
No news yet—I have at least get Sumu to beta first.
It's a fair question about buying Aalto. Given that M1s have been out for a while, I think it's only fair if M1 compatibility is a free upgrade path for anyone who has bought recently.
What I am leaning towards is releasing M1 compatibility across all the plugins ASAP as free updates, then any v.2 enhancements (there will be a lot) as a separate paid upgrade.
Some combinations of computer and graphics card and screen scaling are particularly prone to slowdowns. It's possible you can find better settings.
First, turn animations off in the plugin's settings (gear) menu and see if the helps.
Next, you can try different Resolution settings in your Mac's System Preferences/Displays. The problem with some of these is that they draw a ton of pixels offscreen and actually downscale the result to the screen. So the hybrid software/GPU graphics engine of the plugins is really hurting.
Of course, just making the plugin window smaller may help, if you can use it that way.
I've finished a fully hardware-drawn graphics engine and will be rolling it out across all the plugins this year. This should fix all issues with slow drawing—meanwhile, I hope the tip about resolution settings can help.
I've played a Synclavier a bit but never really studied what it does. From what I know I would say Sumu goes in a totally different direction.
I really sort of design from the user interface in—thinking about what kinds of possibilities the player / sound maker should have. So starting with the patchable UI and being semi-modular like Aalto and Kaivo has determined a lot of how Sumu works.
Hi and thanks for the note. Using the GPU is something I have considered and I know others have too. When you look into what it would take to make it work and support it across all the differenct GPU configs out there, it seems to me anyway to be totally impractical. Especially for a software team of one! Also there's the latency issue getting computations on and off the GPU. If you're a tech-minded person it's tempting to think about (as I have) but probably not a useful way to spend my time.
As far as the names, Aalto came first and the the trend just kind of stuck.
Hey that's great! The path is not always clear for new Soundplane users now so I'm glad you were able to find what you needed. I'll be around when you have more questions.
Searching the forums here using the support page should turn up a lot of info from back when more people were getting started.
Do you have your heart set on building the source? If not, you can try the released version at the Hardware forum: https://madronalabs.com/topics/1691-sticky-soundplane-client-for-mac
There's also a manual and some Max/MSP patches on the hardware forums.
I don't know why you are getting this CMake error. It's not one I've encountered. Google turns up some related threads.
Thanks for the note and the details. I'll revisit this ASAP.
Yes, the channel is active and I plan to drop the final beta this week.
Here's a new link that will work for seven more days:
https://discord.gg/UhsxEaM6
I’ve made a beta of Aaltoverb 2.0 available on the site here as both Mac and Windows installers. Links are below.
I’m excited about this release because it’s the first rollout of a whole new framework I’ve written as the technical foundation for my plugins going forward. This will enable fast animations so I can make the fun and informational UIs I’ve had in my sketchbook for a while but was not able to put into products.
When the pandemic first hit I was playing video games regularly for the first time in years. In console games like Animal Crossing and Breath of the Wild I saw a lot of cool interface concepts that were fun to look at and also very usable. “Why can’t we have these nice things in plugins?”, I asked… kicking off at least a year of work.
Feel free to grab the software and try it out. And if you have time to contribute by writing quality bug reports, or sending your thoughtful feedback on the new features, please sign up to the Discord to do that.
In addition to the new graphics layer, Aaltoverb 2.0 provides Apple Silicon compatibility, MIDI learn, an LFO per control, a patch browser and a small collection of example patches.
The 2.0.0 beta release seems solid but as with any beta software, use it at your own risk and not in crucial projects! If you’re more tending towards caution right now, the release version should be out soon.
Since the manual will take some time, I made a quickstart video on the new features. You can see that here: Aaltoverb 2.0 Quickstart
Aaltoverb beta links:
Mac: http://madronalabs.com/media/aaltoverb/Aaltoverb2.0.0b2.pkg
Windows: http://madronalabs.com/media/aaltoverb/AaltoverbInstaller2.0.0b2.exe
Discord invite link:
https://discord.gg/a86NhCws
NOTE: I've had some trouble using the invite link in Safari. If you run into this, just use another browser to accept the invite.
Yes, I'll be adding Apple Silicon native versions ASAP. Aaltoverb is native now.
@mensch.mueller got it! thank you. I'll make a note to fix our forum software here when we can.
Thanks for your contributions @nichttuntun, of course I'm not offended.
People have a lot of different ways of approaching the products and things they want from them. I can't please everyone. So I try to take in all the information about what people want as just that: information. It will probably only affect the design if I hear the same thing from at least a few people. One person can always point out something I overlooked though.
In this case I've heard from more than a few people that a way of getting the submenus up without any delay is needed.
The meters do not show a lot of information—my intent is not to overwhelm. They should be accurate though. The red light should go on at 0dB. I just looked at the code to remind myself: they are RMS levels with a 1ms integration time. As I write this I'm actually changing that, because a much longer time on the order of 125ms is more typical for an RMS meter. I think this is an improvement.
I also looked at the levels in the code and it seems each light was a 5dB step. Weird, and just an error on my part. I'm changing this so that they will be 6dB in the next version.
You did? Wow! Congrats! I'm around if you have questions.
A place for Kaivo patches! Just select copy to clipboard from the patch menu, and paste here to share.
I would try restarting. Sometimes the AU needs a restart to get properly registered.
I'll fix the installer to install v.2 over v.1 and then maybe you can try it again. Removing the VST3 itself should be a complete uninstall. The license and patches may also be present but these can't confuse a plugin into not opening.
If you can scan the plugins in Cubase, maybe it will give you some more information?
thanks.
@nichttuntun please give me more information about what happens on these hosts that prevents it from being inserted. You see the plugin in a menu and try to insert it—what happens instead?
also, I'm afraid I don't have either one of these VST hosts—which is not your fault—but is there a chance you have one I do have, so we can test the same thing and see if it is specific to those DAWs? I test in Ableton Live, Bitwig, Reaper, and FL Studio on Windows.
Hi @avantronica,
As you found, rebooting is sometimes needed to get new AUs to install properly. Nobody I know has a good solution.
The demo noise didn't seem too loud to me—that wasn't my intention. I can make it softer.
As noted above I plan to add a popup patch browser. Not sure about version 2.0.0, but this will definitely be needed for Sumu, and I'll add it to Aaltoverb as well.
I'm waiting for a 2022 Mini also, I hope they will show it next week!
With the few presets available with Aaltoverb the scrolling through presets isn't too problematic, though I can imagine if a preset list grows considerably (like my Kaivo and Aalto preset list), scrolling through presets as per this Aaltoverb beta method will take a while. Maybe the click and hold paradigm could be extended here so when you click and hold on the preset list a preset menu pops up ?
I'll be adding this at some point. For Aaltoverb I reasoned that people aren't likely to have too many presets around.
Thanks for the other info, these are things I will fix.
Overall I am very appreciative of everyone's interest. In the post above I broke with what I usually do and gave a big preview. I got some good feedback from it that is helping my morale! I also knew it might make people impatient, if I couldn't release soon.
The Aaltoverb release was a big update because it means now all the common UI things are done. I still have the Sumu-specific UI elements to finish and if anything is looking exciting I might show previews of these before they are in beta. Same with good-sounding audio clips when I get them.
Right now I'm taking a few days off coding. If I type too much for too many days in a row my wrist tendons just kind of lock up and don't let me type any more. And yes, I've tried braces and ergo keyboards. What helps is not typing for too many hours/days in a row. And, oddly enough, running seems to help. I have a harder time making myself get out there for a run in the winter, though.