KVR Audio

Xenakios · Post by **Xenakios** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 11:08 am

Bump for 1.2.2

http://xenakios.wordpress.com/2012/07/0 ... -released/

nay-seven · Post by **nay-seven** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 11:54 am

Great !

Actually i've Sensomusic Usine pro VST running in HourGlass , and i've add Reaktor in Usine VST..was just for test but works fine, cool

A little suggestion (I don't see it) an option like " automatically create snapshots for each source"..?

Any chance you create a VST version of HourGlass one day..?

Xenakios · Post by **Xenakios** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 12:14 pm

nay-seven wrote:Great !

Actually i've Sensomusic Usine pro VST running in HourGlass , and i've add Reaktor in Usine VST..was just for test but works fine, cool

A little suggestion (I don't see it) an option like " automatically create snapshots for each source"..?

Any chance you create a VST version of HourGlass one day..?

You mean this by the snapshots thing? :

Regarding doing complicated work involving things like Usine and Reaktor...It's great if it works for you, but I myself wouldn't recommend relying on that working. The VST hosting in HourGlass is not an extensively developed area and I am most likely not able to solve problems that involve complicated and/or payware plugins. (For example Waves plugins are hardcoded as banned already, as I have no idea how those should be handled in the code, even if I was able to use the plugins. Which I am not able to use.)

Regarding HourGlass itself becoming a VST plugin...I really can't think how that would/should work, because of many factors. What would be the benefit of hosting HourGlass exactly as it is now as a plugin inside a DAW? Apart from starting and stopping the playback, it has no notion of a timeline or events it should be following etc...It can't currently in the public builds process incoming realtime streams of audio...(And in the internal development tests I've done, that kind of operation is not exactly ideal and controllable.) The whole concept, workflow and GUI would need to be changed radically to make any sense as a plugin...And then it would be a different piece of software.

I don't know, maybe I am just lacking imagination. In any case, the amount of work that would need to be done for the plugin version to be even preliminarily possible would be considerable. (Measured in weeks dedicated to just doing that and even then the results would not be guaranteed to be ideal even as a starting point.) I would rather just concentrate on the standalone and maybe instead take it towards features that are more DAW-like...

nay-seven · Post by **nay-seven** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 1:00 pm

About snapshots , yes but could be cool if when we add an other source a new snapshot is created automatically (but of course, must be an option for guys who don't want this feature)

About my experience, yes was only to test, but I'm really happy to use my Usine patches with HourGlass now .

About HourGlass as VST , i understand about real time streams of audio, but as a granular sample player and if we can access to some parameters could be a must have ! I'm used ( and some of our users too) to add physics objects with friction and gravity parameters to samples or VST. (here an example https://vimeo.com/41716367# , check at half of the timeline ).

So maybe not a total port to VST but if you can use the granular engine of Hourglass to create a new product..

cron · Post by **cron** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 5:47 pm

Quick question regarding functionality and two little bugs for you...

Is there a source position randomisation function in there anywhere that I'm missing? I.E. a parameter that works in the same way as rate randomisation, but applied to the location within the sound from which grains are selected? Would be nice to have such a thing available and automatable for dense complex clouds, big explosion type gestures, and dispersal/coalescence type effects.

One quick bug to report while I'm here. Sometimes when using the offline render function, I'm warned that too many voices are being choked (can't remember the exact wording). It doesn't affect the render at all. I assume you're only supposed to see this message when playing back in real-time.

Also had one crash when clicking from one envelope window to another. I seem to remember I was unable to grab envelope points set to 0 (i.e. at the extreme left of the envelope display) at any time and was trying to figure out how entering and moving points at 0 worked when the crash happened. Strangely enough, I've just found that I've no problem whatsoever grabbing/moving points at 0 since I restarted the software. Found it impossible during the previous session.

Thanks once again for this superb software.

cron · Post by **cron** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:28 pm

Oh, and just for a differing opinion, I think HourGlass should stay offline only. It seems like an inherently offline tool to me. Trying to get it to work in real time would compromise its functionality and its aesthetics. Granular synthesis comes alive when freed from the constraints of real time audio input, and I'd personally much rather see development focused on the unlimited possibilities for time manipulation offered by offline processing. To be honest, although I use KTGrnaulator a bit when I only need a small subset of granular functionality, I kind of see granular synthesis itself as an inherently offline process so maybe I'm not the best person to be giving opinions on this.

Although it wouldn't be of use to me personally, looking at the sort of interesting control interfaces that nay-seven is using makes me wonder if making the standalone program controllable from a DAW via a virtual MIDI cable such as MIDIYoke could be interesting. Perhaps the likes of Crusher-X already have this sort of thing nailed down though.

Xenakios · Post by **Xenakios** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 7:43 pm

cron wrote: Is there a source position randomisation function in there anywhere that I'm missing?

Oddly enough there's never a been built-in randomization of the source position parameter. You could add that yourself via the scripting system in the mean time.

To randomize the source position and control the amount of randomization via the Meta A parameter, apply a script as follows in the Fragment scripting panel (turn the scripting also on from the checkbox) :

Code: Select all

z=-0.5+1.0*rand(1); offset=offset+z*meta_a;

If the Meta A and Meta B are not visibile in the main parameters, press any of the main parameter [A] buttons and choose "Show Script parameters".

I suppose I could add that as a built-in parameter for the 1.3.0 version. (Adding new parameters to the main parameters is not as clean as could be hoped, so it probably won't happen for 1.2.3.)

cron wrote:One quick bug to report while I'm here. Sometimes when using the offline render function, I'm warned that too many voices are being choked (can't remember the exact wording). It doesn't affect the render at all. I assume you're only supposed to see this message when playing back in real-time.

I'll look into this.

cron wrote:Also had one crash when clicking from one envelope window to another. I seem to remember I was unable to grab envelope points set to 0 (i.e. at the extreme left of the envelope display) at any time and was trying to figure out how entering and moving points at 0 worked when the crash happened.

Some of the envelopes are forced to handle the first and last points specially, but it may be you found a way to move them in some way anyway and something subsequently trusting those points to be in those special positions crashed. I will look into those special envelopes handlings if I can see how it could crash and maybe if they could just be allowed to be edited like the other envelopes anyway.

cron wrote:Thanks once again for this superb software.

You're welcome!

cron · Post by **cron** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 8:54 pm

Now I think about it, the warnings during rendering might have happened after the audio engine crashed. The first time I changed audio device, the play button on the transport stopped working and wouldn't work again despite trying different devices. Render still worked. I'm afraid I can't remember if this only happened after the real-time preview crashed as I use offline render exclusively. Will let you know the circumstances if it happens again.

Thanks for the clarification on the envelopes. The issue I was having was that I had to click to the right of 0 and drag the point backwards to change 0's position. The crash happened a little while after the transport crash described above, but the described envelope behaviour was definitely happening before that. This didn't seem to happen when I tried again on restart but maybe I didn't try envelopes that behave like this... Again, will keep you updated.

Apologies if this is too much superfluous detail. I'm rubbish at this kind of thing!

Thanks so much for the scripting example!

Xenakios · Post by **Xenakios** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 9:23 pm

cron wrote:Now I think about it, the warnings during rendering might have happened after the audio engine crashed. The first time I changed audio device, the play button on the transport stopped working and wouldn't work again despite trying different devices. Render still worked. I'm afraid I can't remember if this only happened after the real-time preview crashed as I use offline render exclusively. Will let you know the circumstances if it happens again.

Thanks for the clarification on the envelopes. The issue I was having was that I had to click to the right of 0 and drag the point backwards to change 0's position. This didn't seem to happen when I tried again on restart but maybe I didn't try envelopes that behave like this... Again, will keep you updated.

Thanks so much for the scripting example!

The warning while rendering is actually legit and supposed to happen under normal operation. There's a limited supply of voices that can run out even while offline rendering and the rendered result will likely have audible glitches as a result. I have however now disabled that warning from showing while offline rendering. One possible change for this could be that when offline rendering, new voices are allocated as needed. But that might have undesirable consequences elsewhere, so I would have to investigate more deeply.

It really is too bad if the envelopes have a crashing bug.

I will try to find it.

cron · Post by **cron** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 9:37 pm

Xenakios wrote:
cron wrote:Now I think about it, the warnings during rendering might have happened after the audio engine crashed. The first time I changed audio device, the play button on the transport stopped working and wouldn't work again despite trying different devices. Render still worked. I'm afraid I can't remember if this only happened after the real-time preview crashed as I use offline render exclusively. Will let you know the circumstances if it happens again.

Thanks for the clarification on the envelopes. The issue I was having was that I had to click to the right of 0 and drag the point backwards to change 0's position. This didn't seem to happen when I tried again on restart but maybe I didn't try envelopes that behave like this... Again, will keep you updated.

Thanks so much for the scripting example!
The warning while rendering is actually legit and supposed to happen under normal operation. There's a limited supply of voices that can run out even while offline rendering and the rendered result will likely have audible glitches as a result. I have however now disabled that warning from showing while offline rendering. One possible change for this could be that when offline rendering, new voices are allocated as needed. But that might have undesirable consequences elsewhere, so I would have to investigate more deeply.

It really is too bad if the envelopes have a crashing bug. I will try to find it.

Aha, that'll be it! I was absolutely hammering the voices. Max duration and max generation rate in parts of the automation. If this does affect offline rendering, then leave it in by all means! Although I didn't hear any audible distortion, knowing when you're running up against the limits of the software is definitely useful.

P.S. I edited my above post about a minute after you posted the above.

Xenakios · Post by **Xenakios** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:21 pm

Bump for 1.2.3

http://xenakios.wordpress.com/2012/07/1 ... -released/

nay-seven · Post by **nay-seven** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:47 pm

Cool !
And thanks a lot for the automatic snapshot addition.

Xenakios · Post by **Xenakios** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 4:00 pm

Bump for 1.2.4 :

http://xenakios.wordpress.com/2012/07/2 ... -released/

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 4:02 pm

Awesome as usual, many thanks

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 4:42 am

Hey Xenakios, I found myself wanting to control the "Texture Length" with an envelope so that I could speed up / slowdown everything globally... actually I really wanted to have two "Source Position" envelopes.

Here's my audio demo contribution: http://www.elanhickler.com/_/elan_hourglass.mp3

Xenakios HourGlass 1.4.5 granular processor (OS-X too), grab it while it lasts!