KVR Audio

Tzarls · Post by **Tzarls** » Fri May 11, 2012 8:38 pm

Hi. I've been working on this application for some time now.... it's not ready yet (far from being ready actually) but I wanted to share a couple of videos about it. Hope you like them. Thanks!

ps: There's no "narration" in this video....everything is being written in the message window, so you'll have to go "full screen" with the videos.

ps2: These are the (shorter) edited versions of the original videos. Now you won't have to wait while I type and correct my errors. Sorry about that.

chuck death · Post by **chuck death** » Sat May 12, 2012 3:31 pm

Looks like an interesting project but there's only about 30 seconds worth of content in the first video the rest is 10 minutes of watching you type. You could have put the text in the comment on the YouTube page and made the video much, much shorter.

I'm not even going to watch the second video, at 20 mins it's clearly way too long... Your project definitely looks interesting though and I wish you the best of luck with it!

Tzarls · Post by **Tzarls** » Sat May 12, 2012 7:50 pm

chuck death wrote:You could have put the text in the comment on the YouTube page and made the video much, much shorter.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll make an updated version of both videos - that way you will be able to enjoy the second one too!

Z3R0T0N1N · Post by **Z3R0T0N1N** » Sat May 12, 2012 9:33 pm

really interesting looking project!

I look forward to more about this. Nice work!

I also look forward to better videos

hehe
The typo, backspace backspace backspace, etc. was cracking me up a bit

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Sat May 12, 2012 9:41 pm

I'm curious about your application, but the typed description was too much for me to take. Make a proper video with audio narration, and I'll watch it. That doesn't seem like an unreasonable request for AUDIO software...

Tzarls · Post by **Tzarls** » Sat May 12, 2012 10:40 pm

Sorry about the "typed" thing - right now I'm uploading an edited version. Still text only (no narration) but I've edited out the "typing" parts. Both videos are now half their previous length.

@deastman - Believe me, you don't want to listen to me speaking in english - it has nothing to do with audio, but everything to do with my accent (and the fact that english isn't my mother tongue).

For the next video I promise to have some narration.

Thanks for your comments - I'll post the links to the new videos as soon as they finish uploading.

Tzarls · Post by **Tzarls** » Sun May 13, 2012 1:09 am

I've edited the videos and cut most of the typed parts.

chuck death · Post by **chuck death** » Mon May 14, 2012 9:39 pm

Thank you. The videos are still a little hard to watch but much better than before. I've just watched the second video and I definitely think this is a very interesting project. Let us know when you have more to show or maybe something to try!

Tzarls · Post by **Tzarls** » Tue May 15, 2012 3:16 pm

Glad you liked the video. I'll post another one soon. A demo will have to wait, though, but it's getting closer. I still have to make this app safer to use, even though I've done some silly things when testing and haven't managed to crash it!

chuck death · Post by **chuck death** » Tue May 15, 2012 9:44 pm

I'll keep an eye out for further announcements!

Tzarls · Post by **Tzarls** » Thu May 24, 2012 4:05 am

It's official - Genera now works under Windows AND Linux!

Stay tuned for the upcoming video...

Z3R0T0N1N · Post by **Z3R0T0N1N** » Mon May 28, 2012 6:54 am

Tzarls wrote:It's official - Genera now works under Windows AND Linux!

fantastic, well done. Can't wait to see more.

Burillo · Post by **Burillo** » Mon May 28, 2012 7:32 am

why, oh why do people choose Gtk over Qt when Qt is much more pleasant to work with, and is more cross platform than Gtk can ever be...

But otherwise an interesting project indeed! And it's good to see Linux getting some attention.

Tzarls · Post by **Tzarls** » Mon May 28, 2012 4:26 pm

Burillo wrote:why, oh why do people choose Gtk over Qt when Qt is much more pleasant to work with, and is more cross platform than Gtk can ever be...

I don't know other people.... but I've never ever used GTK....

Burillo wrote:But otherwise an interesting project indeed! And it's good to see Linux getting some attention.

Thanks! I'm aiming at having the app running in Windows, Linux and Mac OS.

Tzarls · Post by **Tzarls** » Thu May 31, 2012 5:44 pm

I've received some questions about Genera and the plans I have for it and the possibilities it offers, so here it goes for anyone interested in this project:

On the surface, my project will look quite similar to any other graphical programming tools out there. But actually there's a big conceptual difference: Most of the other apps give you an assortment of small boxes that perform a certain action each. Using them you can build programs by patching those boxes, almost getting rid of the need to get too much into actual coding (Lego-style). On the other hand, Genera actually encourages coding, but by using the graphical paradigm you can graphically "see" how the different parts of your code interact. It also gives a more concrete meaning to the "object oriented" definition - in Genera, when you instance an object of some class, you get an actual object on screen - a box that performs the actions you defined in your code. And of course everything is done (almost) in realtime.

Genera will have just a few of the usual built-in boxes. We'll include some basic mathematical operations (because once in a while you just need to add two signals together, or scale some amplitude) and value boxes (and of course the I/O boxes for interaction with the outside world). Everything else will be done in code. The idea is to have a large amount of included scripts so you can learn from them and use them in your projects. And we hope to have a community of people using the app and creating scripts and sharing those scripts.

BTW, when coding you'll have acces to some built-in objects. For example, if you need to read an audio file, you'll just have to instance the appropriate built-in object like this:

Code: Select all

gWaveFile file;
file.open("My Song.wav");

Some people have asked about the platforms the program will support, if it will make possible to build a GUI and if it will export the schematic to AU/VST/etc., and even if it will be able to import libraries. Let's see:

I'll approach the development of Genera in several stages.

For the first stage I intend to have the most important features working: Audio In/Out, MIDI In/Out, mathematical blocks, built-in objects (in code), included example scripts, and the usual tools (save - load - undo - redo - etc). And of course the scripting facilities (the scripter itself could use a makeover). I will also include a couple of GUI objects, like generic knobs and sliders, and some audio analysis objects as well.

At the end of the first stage Genera should be a stable stand alone application for both Windows and Linux (save files should be interchangeable) and maybe Mac OS (if I cant get my hands on one) that should enable the user to create instruments/Effects processors and provide a good learning/developing/prototyping experience. It should be useful for people already coding audio apps and processing algorithms or for people willing to learn how to code audio apps with a gentle learning curve. It might become a good addition for people creating modules for Synth Edit, for example.

The second stage will involve adding tools for creating custom GUIs. There could be a plugin version of Genera, so you could load your schematics and use them inside your favourite DAW - very much like Reaktor, but with the scripting advantages. We could continue developing new built-in objects in code.

After that, we could evaluate the possibility of adding export functions to the app (like "export to vst" or "export to AU" or "export to standalone"). The main problem is that the Virtual Machine that provides the scripting facilities is a little CPU hungry, and that might discourage people. I've seen that countless times when using Synthmaker - people complaining that a VST made with SM is slower than a native plugin. I've been thinking that a good possibility would be to have the app export all the files needed to build your app as a native app (like, create all .h and .cpp files ready to be loaded into your IDE) because once you're finished making your instrument/processor, 90% of it would be in code anyway.

Genera will only load external libraries if I give it such functionality. I don't know if that will ever happen, to be honest. It will depend (among other things) on some third party project called Cling supporting Windows - if that ever happens, I might consider replacing my current scripting library with Cling which should give us true C++ compatibility, but that's another story.

New graphical programming system in the works....