Bigglesworth, an editor for the Waldorf Blofeld

[MaurizioB]

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Hello,
in the previous 2 months I worked on an editor for the Waldorf Blofeld.
Why? I wasn't really satisfied with the alternatives: I use Linux, and, while MonstrumFeld might be a valid choice, I didn't find that its price offered the features I'd expect from it.
So, for a lot of reasons (mainly because of fun and the will to give something back to honour people helping me in the latest 15 years without even knowing it), I decided to write my own editor; and, since I know about Waldorf's puns about Bond's movies, I decided to call it Bigglesworth, after Dr. Evil's cat, the villain from the Austin Powers movie series.
Since I received a lot of good feedback from it, and I wisely choosed a cross-platform framework for its development, I decided to release a Windows porting.

Right now it's still in beta-stage (meaning that it should work fine, but some bugs are still there, usually when you don't want them to happen), but I got positive reports from Windows users, so I decided to let you know about this. Nonetheless, since it's still in beta (please, please, remember it, don't blame me!), some things might not work as expected, including unexpected behavior, random crashes and so on.

Features:

• Works on Linux and Windows (there's not an install procedure for Linux yet)
• Library editing: dump from/to the Blofeld (provided that you connect it to USB or both MIDI in/out for the keyboard edition), library renaming and reordering, category change.
• Full parameter editing, including a blofeld-esque Arpeggiator editor and visual envelope editors.
• Virtual keyboard
• Soundset import from MID files and sound import from SYX files
• Wavetable editor (including wave import and sysex import/export)
• Coffee maker (no, just kidding )

Known issues:

• Windows releases are still buggy, some random crashes might occur now and then.
• It looks ugly on newer HiDPI computers; so, if you run a Windows 10 device with a High DPI screen, everything in the Editor window will be almost impossible to see/use. I'm working on that.
• The librarian doesn't always know the current sound you're working on the Blofeld, but this is partially due to a Blofeld's (pseudo)bug.

Now, I'm really looking for some feedback, expecially from Windows users. If you're already subscribed to GitHub you can submit issues there, but comments in this thread are OK anyway.

Last notes...
I created Bigglesworth completely under Linux. I could test it only using Wine (a program which "emulates" Windows) and a VirtualBox-ed Windows XP machine. I know for a fact that it works even on Windows 10, according to some feedback I received, but I do not own Windows machines to actually test it, that's why I can't always find problems and issues you might find instead.
Conceptually, Bigglesworth will always be open source, meaning that everybody will be able to access to its source code; but, since I put a lot of efforts in it, I might consider in releasing final binary versions (as to "just download the setup.exe and double-click it") only under a nominal fee payment. Also, to quote our beloved McCoy, «I'm not a programmer, I'm a musician»: I don't have time for utopian feature requests, ugly sounds coming out from a patch and so on. I'm just going to ask for some aknowledgment for my efforts: I did this for fun, right, but, if you use it, why don't you just buy me a beer?
Oh, yes, OSX users. Don't worry, I'll get you too. I've an old MacBook (right, not a MacBook Pro) with OSX Leopard running alongside Linux, so I will try to make builds for OSX too. Just stay tuned...

So, if you're ready, that's the link for the latest builds (I know I'm new to this forum, and I can't link URL's as I'd want):
https://github.com/MaurizioB/Bigglesworth/releases (https://github.com/MaurizioB/Bigglesworth/releases)

And, since I know you'd expect those, some screenshots!

(https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/523596/23536073/e25f7e08-ffc2-11e6-9af5-dfd48cd2e906.jpg)
The Editor window and Librarian on Linux

(https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/523596/25111154/8cf31204-23e9-11e7-8e68-2b8172fc4237.jpg)
The Editor window on (virtualized) Windows XP

(https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/523596/25111153/8cec921c-23e9-11e7-87b5-b417e776a8d8.jpg)
The Librarian and Wavetable editor windows on (virtualized) Windows XP

[Mradditive]

Hi,

I registered to KVR after seeing your message about the Blofeld editor, just to tell you what a wonderful piece of software you wrote, and after I downloaded it, it also worked on my Windows 10 machine. Amazing, this is by far the best looking Blofeld editor I've seen so far!
Actually I'm amazed that nobody commented on it until now. I know it's in beta stage, but I'll watch this space for updates. I just have to figure out how to dump my banks into the editor. Keep up the good work!

Pieter

[Mradditive]

Hi,

I saw you just published a new update, it's working even better now! Great job
I have one feature request: would it be possible to show the filter display on the filter edit pages?

[Ingonator]

So far Monstrumfeld was my favorite Blofeld editor (which also owrks as a VST plugin) but ijust downlaoded Bigglesworth and had a first look.

My OS is Windows 10 64-bit.

Overall the editor seems to look good so far and i was able ti import teh patches from my Blofeld synth but i found a major problem with my own patches. The waveform selection does not seem to be capable of detecting both samples and custom wavetables.
With patches that use those the waveform is set to "Sine" or other standard waveforms like "Triangle".

[Mradditive]

Hi,

I've found 2 more issues, I can't connect my midi keyboard to the editor. The program does see my M-audio Midisport device, but it doesn't receive midi from any of my attached keyboards. Further more, the qwerty letters on your mini keyboard don't correspond with the letters on my pc keyboard, it gives different notes.
And I have another feature request: a morph button on the wave editor So far it's still working well, I haven't had your program crashing once.

Pieter

[BipTunia]

Hello,
in the previous 2 months I worked on an editor for the Waldorf Blofeld......

Hi!
I love Bigglesworth!
I've been using it to go through each bank, and edit and/or replace the bad factory patches. I'm getting rid of about half the factory patches.

Today I ran into something that I can't tell if it's a Bigglesworth bug or a Blofeld bug. Do you know this one?:

Got through A bank no problem. At some point in B bank, the patches in Bigglesworth got out of sync with the Blofeld by exactly two patches.

i.e. the patch at number 60 in Bigglesworth was number 58 in my Blofeld, etc.

This was the case even after rebooting both the computer, Blofeld, and Bigglesworth. Also did an extra sync just to make sure. Bug still happening.

Also, sometimes when scrolling the encoders through a bank, while the cat filter was off, it would jump from one bank to another, and I'm not at the end of a bank. Happens sometimes in the middle. And the encoders feel smooth.

I'm on Win 10 latest vesion, 64-bit, i7, 32 Gb RAM.

Thank you for your service!