MU.LAB beta A

[muzycian]

Will do - off to work now though

Ok, thanks in advance.

OK I've been going through adding VST's folder by folder and checking the log. I'm afraid it looks like at least one of the culprits is Zebra 2 - it made it crash and try to bring up Dr Watson (which is possibly also why it took so long to close properly as Zone Alarm had blocked it from doing that)

Good to hear at least part of the problem, the difficult shutdown, is resolved.

About zebra2: Strange, it loads fine here.

Oh is that on windows or osx?

(sorry if i asked before, don't keep a record of that, maybe i should, at least temporary)

How does it load on other systems? Can others please check this out too.

Earlier was reported that CM Vocoder crashed, and that's the case here too, so i'll research that!

[muzycian]

Plugging in a Rack between Voice In and Out is not supported and not recommended.

As said in earlier messages: i'll try to finetune mulab so that IF you would do that, you get a friendly alert that this is not possible.

However, in the same situation, rack/VSTi->Audio Out, when I play MuSynth from the midi editor keyboard or playback a midi part, it will trigger the "voiced" section of MuSynth while ignoring the Rack/VSTi plug entirely - even if I connect it to a Midi In plug.

I think this needs to be cleaned up a little.

Maybe it's because i'm used to it, but it's really very simple: no racks between voice in and out.

Or better: no non-voiced plugins between voice in and out.

No - it's really not simple to me I'm afraid.

Again - my comment is if you don't have a Rack (for example) connected in any way to the Voice In plug-in then you are actually NOT putting it between a Voice In and Voice Out. It is not in the Voice In/Out structure.

In that case it's ok to use it.

For example, you CAN use a rack after the voice out.

I'm assuming what you're getting at is that you can only connect non-voiced plugs to the Voice Out plug. However, I'm having difficulty with this too.

No, that's not what i said.

Rule is: you cannot connect non-voiced plugins within voice-in/out.

That is not the same as: "you cannot connect voiced plugins outside voice-in/out" which is a false expression.

Yeah, logic is sometimes not obvious.

So to emphasize: You CAN use voiced plugins outside voice-in/out, but then they will not be used voiced, i.e. they will act like a standard plugin. Cfr the Oscillator in MUX example.

In fact, so far I haven't successfully used the Rack plug-in with VST or MuVerb for example inside a MuSynth structure at all.

Here is an example: http://www.mutools.com/mulab/beta/examp ... .MuSession

This demonstrates:

1) the use of muverb within a musynth patch
2) the use of an oscillator within a mux patch

(just a technical example, not a beauty art piece )

I can use MuVerb independently of the Rack, but not inside it.

....ARGH! Now I get it - same problem as before. It won't work if I'm playing my keyboard. It will only work if I'm playing from a midi part or onscreen keyboard.

Now it makes more sense.

So in summary - when using an external controller everything goes to hell once you add a Rack plug-in with anything in it in MuSynth regardless of where you connect it. This is now the real issue for me, not my other comments.

Hoh, that's something else. I'll check this out!!

I've given the example above anyway because it also demonstrated the osc in mux.

[Caleb]

I can use MuVerb independently of the Rack, but not inside it.

....ARGH! Now I get it - same problem as before. It won't work if I'm playing my keyboard. It will only work if I'm playing from a midi part or onscreen keyboard.

Now it makes more sense.

So in summary - when using an external controller everything goes to hell once you add a Rack plug-in with anything in it in MuSynth regardless of where you connect it. This is now the real issue for me, not my other comments.

Hoh, that's something else. I'll check this out!!

I've given the example above anyway because it also demonstrated the osc in mux.

Yeah - something else entirely. This behaviour was completely confusing my understanding of several things you were posting.

When I ignored the external controller and used the piano roll, the functionality was making much more sense.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, but at least it ended up uncovering a potential bug.

Regards
Caleb

[muzycian]

Hey Jo

Been playing for a short while, looks and sounds grand.

One thing that is niggling at me though, I cannot seem to edit a plugin/vsti from the rack.
The only way that I can edit parameters etc for a plugin/VSTi is from the track window and setting the target to the specific plugin rather than the rack.

To edit a plugin in a rack, just doubleclick on it.

Does this help?

Maybe you have been clicking the round 'thing' at the right of the rack plug slot, but that is only active for a send: it shows the send level there.

I find that a bit confusing, so i'll communicate with the skin developer about that.

[Caleb]

Maybe you have been clicking the round 'thing' at the right of the rack plug slot, but that is only active for a send: it shows the send level there.

I find that a bit confusing, so i'll communicate with the skin developer about that.

Ah - that's what that thing is for.
I thought it was an activate/bypass button and it wasn't functioning properly.
Confusing indeed.

Regards
Caleb

[muzycian]

for some reason I am not able to connect a rack module to the audio output in the MuSynth.. I had no problem doing this last night before i saved, but when i opened the project today, it wouldnt let me connect the rack module to anything.. infact it was already disconnected when the project was opened.

heres a pic of how things are set up, so let me know if i made another stupid mistake



Now before i had a chance to send this post, MuLab crashed a few times.. once when i tryed to delete the vst effect from the rack that wont connect, and twice when i tried to connect the rack again.

I notice that you're using 2 voice outs. Theoretically that should work, but to be honnest i did not check that yet. Will do asap. Maybe there is a reason of the crashes, i don't know, will check.

Besides that everything looks ok in the patch. Can you eventually send me the .musynth file.
Use Options in musynth editor and "Save".

Im not sure if this has been brought up already, (if it has, sorry in advance for reposting) but the musynth window seams like it needs to be resizable. things are getting cluttered if it already is resizable, im missing something

I agree.

It's on the whishlist.

one more thing, it would be nice if the patch selection is attached to the VST's GUI window, just for quick changes.. having to figure out where to right click can get frustrating.. Also, a nice little dry/wet knob would be awesome to have for vst's, like you had in muzys. I used that constantly

Will have to re-research this.

I know that since vst 2.4, there are some graphical difficulties on osx

Note that also live doesn't offer such 'hybrid' vst editors. But that's no argument, sorry.

Anyway, taken notice!

[muzycian]

I can use MuVerb independently of the Rack, but not inside it.

....ARGH! Now I get it - same problem as before. It won't work if I'm playing my keyboard. It will only work if I'm playing from a midi part or onscreen keyboard.

Now it makes more sense.

So in summary - when using an external controller everything goes to hell once you add a Rack plug-in with anything in it in MuSynth regardless of where you connect it. This is now the real issue for me, not my other comments.

Hoh, that's something else. I'll check this out!!

I've given the example above anyway because it also demonstrated the osc in mux.

Yeah - something else entirely. This behaviour was completely confusing my understanding of several things you were posting.

When I ignored the external controller and used the piano roll, the functionality was making much more sense.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, but at least it ended up uncovering a potential bug.

Sorry for my misunderstanding too.

I cannot check this out at the very moment cause i need to get my keyboard back in. It's not here at the moment. Will get it back asap. Curious to test this issue!

[ApBTranCer]

Jo, sent you a PM with a link to my buggy .MuSynth file

[Fuzzbeard]

To edit a plugin in a rack, just doubleclick on it.

Does this help?

Maybe you have been clicking the round 'thing' at the right of the rack plug slot, but that is only active for a send: it shows the send level there.

I find that a bit confusing, so i'll communicate with the skin developer about that.

Hah - I had in actual fact never tried a double click.
Every time I clicked on there, I got a choice to use Plugin. Right clicking brought up the options and I figured out the button on the side when saw it in operation on the demo. Just never tried a double click

So yes, that does help

I'm really enjoying the parameters buttons - seeing a track controlling a plugin is really cool

Cheers...

[Newbie Brad]

Mu.Lab's sequencer starts running automatically when I load a session file, which I'd rather it didn't. In earlier posting I mentioned a different method for VST preset operation. After a day of working with the program, the present preset method has gotten more familiar, not bad. Another thought about VST presets/-ish, what if you made the racks with their own preset mechanism so you could make rack VST chain presets and make a library of your common rack chains? I worked with Mu.Lab Beta A some more yesterday. It rejected the following plugins: Alien Artifact; CDCopy; Eclipse; KarmaFX Synth; KeFIR; Loopitch; OddyFree; PanGloss; Res; ResEx; ReValver II; Synchro; WaveThresh; and Fretted Synth FreeAmp 2 is accepted but crashes Mu.Lab after a few seconds of operation (seems to crash after audio input made). Speaking of crashes, Mu.Lab sometimes crashes without explanation when I load or delete VSTs within the rack. Sometimes VSTs work, sometimes loading or unloading the same ones cause a crash that worked a moment earlier.

[Calum]

Hey Jo

Been playing for a short while, looks and sounds grand.

One thing that is niggling at me though, I cannot seem to edit a plugin/vsti from the rack.
The only way that I can edit parameters etc for a plugin/VSTi is from the track window and setting the target to the specific plugin rather than the rack.

To edit a plugin in a rack, just doubleclick on it.

Does this help?

Maybe you have been clicking the round 'thing' at the right of the rack plug slot, but that is only active for a send: it shows the send level there.

I find that a bit confusing, so i'll communicate with the skin developer about that.

Jo

I will have a look at this. Just a hangover from the Luna 7 skin.

[Caleb]

Jo,

Just a few observations clicking around the sequencer part of MU.LAB that I found in need of a little TLC.

I can see you have Parts and Sequences as different objects with Parts being like a container. However, I'm not sure there's much sense in having the word "Part" written on every part in the sequencer. It would be better off naming the containing sequence wouldn't it?

Not having the sequence name on the parts is troublesome for easy overview when looking at the arranger. Again - clicking on a part shows the sequence name in the top panel, but if you have to click on parts all the time just to see what sequence they hold, it will possibly be inefficient in the long run.

When you create a new part you should have the option of allocating an existing sequence or loading a sequence when you do it as well as the default which is creating a new sequence.

Audio and Sequences have a renaming inconsistency. In Sequence parts you can only rename at sequence level, whereas with audio parts you rename at the part level. However, the behaviour in the upper panel is the same - the target name is shown - confusing, particularly when if you change the part name you really expect to see the "Part" vanish on the screen to be replaced by whatever name you type in.

I understand why you can see the entire sequence when opening a Part. However, it would be good in cases where you've shortened the length of the part to cut off part of the sequence or if you've split a part into smaller components that you have some visual indication of which part of the sequence is covered by the part you're opening. For example, if the rest of the sequence outside of the part borders where shaded a little.

It would be good if you could reduce the length of the part by dragging the left as well as the right edge of the part. Actually you can do this already, but what I mean is that you'd be able to click-drag the left edge of the clip without moving the sequence notes beneath. Do you know what I mean? You already have of moving the underlying notes of the sequence with the part, you don't need this method as well.

Why is the Duplicate Sequence in the Part Menu?

With Duplicate Sequence, the sequence should be automatically renamed (maybe an incremented suffix or something?) Makes it easier to distinguish.

When you do things like renaming sequences etc.. why is the input box and font so huge? And in some cases, I'm not sure why you would need a pop-up input box. Why not just be able to edit the label where it is? Eg. BPM, Location, Sequence etc... And can the current value already be highlighted so you can simply overtype when performing functions like rename?

With the position marker it would be good if you could click-drag the value - both the integer and the decimal - just a thought.

Does Mu.Lab release the ASIO driver when opening an external audio editor? I didn't have any luck with Acoustica or Audacity.

When you select Mixdown in the part menu of a sequence part what does that do? Is that a mixdown to audio or something else? It doesn't seem to do anything but create a new sequence as far as I can tell - in fact you still get a part containing a sequence - called Mixdown, but there doesn't seem to be any notes in the sequence itself?

OK - that's quite a few things. Just making some notes as I try this and that.

Regards
Caleb

[Newbie Brad]

Mu.Lab's sequencer starts running automatically when I load a session file, which I'd rather it didn't. In earlier posting I mentioned a different method for VST preset operation. After a day of working with the program, the present preset method has gotten more familiar, not bad. Another thought about VST presets/-ish, what if you made the racks with their own preset mechanism so you could make rack VST chain presets and make a library of your common rack chains? I worked with Mu.Lab Beta A some more yesterday. It rejected the following plugins: Alien Artifact; CDCopy; Eclipse; KarmaFX Synth; KeFIR; Loopitch; OddyFree; PanGloss; Res; ResEx; ReValver II; Synchro; WaveThresh; and Fretted Synth FreeAmp 2 is accepted but crashes Mu.Lab after a few seconds of operation (seems to crash after audio input made). Speaking of crashes, Mu.Lab sometimes crashes without explanation when I load or delete VSTs within the rack. Sometimes VSTs work, sometimes loading or unloading the same ones cause a crash that worked a moment earlier.

As with FreeAmp2, Mu.Lab recognizes Cinematic Reverb but crashes audio soon after it loads Cinematic Reverb.

[plutonia]

have had a look at mu lab and have following observations:

drawing in oscillator shape in mu synth is very cool. haven't seen this before

any chance of formants in wft oscillator for sound creation- i seem to remember muzynth had this feature

labelling of parameters on top of mu synth?

option to 'right click' for toolbox would be more useful than 'cut etc 'as it is at moment. its much quicker for selecting tools and 'cut etc' could become 'control right click' mibbe

Sequencer doesn't play input notes as it cycles or show notes but only does this once you stop the sequencer and restart

key commands for transport controls. hitting space for second time could set back to bar 1 mibbe. configurable key commands all round would be fantastic

sends etc should be available on racks all the time not just when a rack is selected

gui - clicking on racks to select them often results in rack name change being selected instead. the hit point mibbe needs looked at

gui - pan blocked out once but can't repeat this

when typing rack names have to move to end of 'rack 1' etc before you can type in new name. slows down workflow

mixdown option doesn't appear to do much. mibbe its jo's intention to have it mixdown mu synth or vst sequencer parts to audio files cos if it did and then the named track was available as an audio file it would be cool(and needed)

i really like where its going. great work jo!

[Newbie Brad]

It might be nice if a right mouseclick on VST gui shows all the VST presets at once and gets one with a click.

Also WIDI Audio To MIDI VST 1.10 seems to crash audio in Mu.Lab.