CAUSTIC audio rack for Android

[JimmiG]

+1 for chords, an arp too. And I'd personally love me some snap-to-scale and 'fold' ala Ableton, IMo only those features that make composing on a tiny screen with fat fingers easier. chords and scales would be so helpful for me.

That would be really nice. Composing on my 4" Optimus 2X is a little fiddly but very flexible if you're patient. Being able to create arpeggios by just drawing in a sustained chord would speed things up.


Also, the ability to edit (draw in) automation would be nice.

Other than that I'm enjoying the demo version of this app and might purchase it later.

Edit: After some use, another feature that would be nice is multi-select and copy+paste in the pattern editor and options for transpose. I often want to transpose and re-use the same arpeggiated baseline pattern for different parts of a song or create variations of a pattern.

[BertKoor]

The playbook arrives tomorrow, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to the "porting" investigation. Hopefully within the couple of weeks I'll at least know if it's possible without a ton of work.

Well, have you checked out the Android Packager by RIM?
https://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/android/bpaa/
If your app passes the compatibility check (chances are though it doesn't) then it's no work at all

[Geze]

Hi SingleCell, i have a question for you, i'm a musician, i play the keyboards but i usually use a midi - usb cable to connect it to the computer and play with Reason 4.0. Recently I entered in a band and i thought in buy a Mini netbook (That cheapiest netbooks from china with android 2.2/3 and 7 inch screen) it haves USB ports (In any case i was thinking to install the honeycomb) and I was searching a good sequencer / synthetizer to use, and I found the Caustic videos on youtube (And I must say, is kinda awesome, a lil bit like reason), the thing is that I need that synthetizer as USB host, send my midi keyboard signals to the Caustic. I just want to know if there is any way possible to do that, 'cause that would be awesome.


Thanks for reading and taking the time to response and sorry for my bad english (I'm from Argentina hehe)

[Ghostwave]

Geze,
The latency on Android makes it unusable with a keyboard.
The full version of Caustic says 93 ms on my Galaxy Note.

[SingleCell]

The playbook arrives tomorrow, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to the "porting" investigation. Hopefully within the couple of weeks I'll at least know if it's possible without a ton of work.

Well, have you checked out the Android Packager by RIM?
https://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/android/bpaa/
If your app passes the compatibility check (chances are though it doesn't) then it's no work at all

Yeah, I tried that one. It says it doesn't support Native code, and Caustic is 99% native.

Although someone wrote me to say they tried converting it via another "unofficial" converter and got it to work so I'm not sure how that works.

If have Caustic rendering and accepting touch inputs on my playbook, which is the easy part. Now if I can figure out Blackberry's low-level audio system and get it generating audio without drop-outs, the hard part will be done...

[SingleCell]

Hi SingleCell, i have a question for you, i'm a musician, i play the keyboards but i usually use a midi - usb cable to connect it to the computer and play with Reason 4.0. Recently I entered in a band and i thought in buy a Mini netbook (That cheapiest netbooks from china with android 2.2/3 and 7 inch screen) it haves USB ports (In any case i was thinking to install the honeycomb) and I was searching a good sequencer / synthetizer to use, and I found the Caustic videos on youtube (And I must say, is kinda awesome, a lil bit like reason), the thing is that I need that synthetizer as USB host, send my midi keyboard signals to the Caustic. I just want to know if there is any way possible to do that, 'cause that would be awesome.


Thanks for reading and taking the time to response and sorry for my bad english (I'm from Argentina hehe)

Hola. As has been said, latency in Android makes that impossible right now. You'd have better luck with a cheap PC. I will soon be releasing a Windows version of Caustic that should run ok even on old laptops. (runs fine on my 600Mhz) It has basic MIDI support for the synths, even though it only for debug purposes and so it's very limited.

[Karmacomposer]

Can caustic load audio files / does it have a sample player?

Mike

[SingleCell]

Can caustic load audio files / does it have a sample player?

Mike

It can load WAV files up to ~30 seconds in either the PCMSynth or the Beatbox, depending on how you want it played. But it doesn't have a proper MPC-style sampler. I might just add one based off the PCMSynth's core with a more traditional MPC "pad" interface.

[Karmacomposer]

Can caustic load audio files / does it have a sample player?

Mike

It can load WAV files up to ~30 seconds in either the PCMSynth or the Beatbox, depending on how you want it played. But it doesn't have a proper MPC-style sampler. I might just add one based off the PCMSynth's core with a more traditional MPC "pad" interface.

I would like to know if the PCM synth or BeatBox can loop a sound automatically?

Mike

[Karmacomposer]

Forget it - I loaded my samples in and they looped wonderfully.

Great job.

Mike

[UltraJv]

SingleCell, Wonder if these tips on reducing Android latency are current/useful 0r just misleading ?

http://sseyod.blogspot.com/2011/12/andr ... tency.html


http://www.tinkerteam.se/?p=400

[SingleCell]

SingleCell, Wonder if these tips on reducing Android latency are current/useful 0r just misleading ?

http://sseyod.blogspot.com/2011/12/andr ... tency.html

http://www.tinkerteam.se/?p=400

Well the first link just points to someone saying how Android should have done it, but didn't.

The second is to a hack method that might have worked when the audio system was first introduced but gives the same latency as every other app now, plus some crackling no doubt due to his unsafe writing method. (I just compiled and ran his example)

What we've got now is very similar to the first article, minus the nice callback (which isn't a big deal). The problem is when he says:

App asks: how many audio blocks do I need to keep prepared and primed in the queue to guarantee no break-up, at this rate/format, with minimal latency?

In this case Android answers with a ridiculously high value (the one you see in Caustic's menu) and you can't go below that or the system will refuse to play your audio signal.

There's no magic to this. Either: Google fixes it in the OS and forces manufacturers to stick to the guidelines or you build your own ROM with some of the alternative methods out there, none of which work on all devices yet

[twisted-space]

Any chance of having variable loop lengths in sequencers?

EG have a 4 beat bassline loop running against an 8 beat drum pattern, or a 3 beat bassline against an 8 beat drum pattern.

[SingleCell]

Any chance of having variable loop lengths in sequencers?

EG have a 4 beat bassline loop running against an 8 beat drum pattern, or a 3 beat bassline against an 8 beat drum pattern.

yup, it has been requested

Although 3-bar patterns create new problems in pattern mode, so I'll probably just do 1,2,4,8 for now.

[twisted-space]

Ok cool.
Was hoping more for the ability to choose the number of steps in a pattern, like in D16's Phosycon for example.
You can get some cool effects looping a 3 or 5 step sequence over a 16 step drum/bass pattern