Looking for a good free Oscilloscope...

[AdmiralQuality]

Ha! I've been in the same boat lately.

Blue Cat Audio's "Oscilloscope Multi" seems to be the best one I can find, and I like it -- but, of course, comparing its output to all of the others on this list had left me wondering "WTF???!??" with some of the differences.

Give it a whirl, too, and please let us know what you think!

(I have to justify spending $49 on a freakin' oscilloscope, with so many wonderful synths on the market, including yours. )

Hmmmm. How do I make it sync? Also, it's drawing lines between samples, so even though it lets me turn antialiasing off, I still can't tell if the jumps are from my signal, or the line drawing algorithm. (This is my problem in a nutshell.)

And thanks for the kind words. If I make a better scope for a whole lot less than $49, will you put the money you save towards a Poly-Ana license? (Kidding, kinda... maybe...? )

[nix808]

I can mod the synthschool one probably. I'd just have trouble with sync, as I'm not sure how to implement. I'll d/l and have a look. It would be easy to make it a different size, just you would be working with a window fixed at the largest it can be as a VST. The window will resize in an .exe. I'll have a look.
Cheers

[dhalfen]

And thanks for the kind words. If I make a better scope for a whole lot less than $49, will you put the money you save towards a Poly-Ana license? (Kidding, kinda... maybe...? )

If you make a top-tier oscilloscope, then I guarantee you that I'll buy Poly-Ana. AND the oscilloscope.

I'm NOT kidding.

I'm probably going to buy it anyway, sometime before the holidays, because I really like it. (And I simply LOVE the drop-down menus!!!!!)

My only request: Synth Squad has spoiled me. Spoiled me rotten! Could you please add the ability to right-click and create a text-box where I could type in the numeric values for all of the various "amount" knobs and such?

I find that this makes adjusting settings to be MUCH quicker, especially as I always "do the math" in my head and often know exactly what values I want. Fiddling with the graphics knobs, even when going by "fine" precision by shift-clicking, can be a chore.

As for the oscilloscope: if you want a job done right, then you know... And this certainly seems to be a field that's somewhat-neglected.....

[AdmiralQuality]

I'm probably going to buy it anyway, sometime before the holidays, because I really like it. (And I simply LOVE the drop-down menus!!!!!)

Thanks! There's a new major update coming any day now as well with some big news. (This is why I'm after a good scope, I'm in my testing phase before releasing the update.)

My only request: Synth Squad has spoiled me. Spoiled me rotten! Could you please add the ability to right-click and create a text-box where I could type in the numeric values for all of the various "amount" knobs and such?

Problem is, right click is taken by Poly's MIDI-learn system. And every modifier key is used to change the knob modes on the fly between circular, relative-circular, linear and linear-fine. You can access every mode with various combinations of CTRL, ALT and SHIFT (or their equivalents on Mac).

I find that this makes adjusting settings to be MUCH quicker, especially as I always "do the math" in my head and often know exactly what values I want. Fiddling with the graphics knobs, even when going by "fine" precision by shift-clicking, can be a chore.

Yeah I hear you. On many Poly-Ana knobs there's detents at the obvious "sweet spots". But I often find the same thing, I want, say a modulation amount to be exactly 1.0 or 2.0 or something like that, for mathematical reasons.

You might want to try circular mode rather than linear (which is the only mode that has the "fine" modifier). In circular you can get finer precision just by moving the mouse farther away from the knob. That's how I work 99.9% of the time.

I'll think some more about this though. But offhand I'm afraid I can't think of a good way to access a text edit field without throwing away existing functionality.

By the way, there was a big fix to linear and relative-circular modes in the last (1.19) update. Knobs with detents were accidentally jumping a bit when you first clicked on them. That's fixed now. So if you're not using that one, get it.

As for the oscilloscope: if you want a job done right, then you know... And this certainly seems to be a field that's somewhat-neglected.....

Yep. Exactly why I'm thinking of making one. It wouldn't be fancy looking, just quick and dirty. But it would be precise and unambiguous.

I'm actually doing OK at the moment with the SynthSchool OpenScope I linked to above. And Nix808, that would be great! Can you "decompile" SM DLLs? Or do they publish the "source" on their site as well?

Resizeable would be the best, of course. Maybe I can kill two birds and work on a good resizing solution and a 'scope at the same.

But first things first... back to getting this next Poly-Ana update ready for market...

[nix808]

The scope is a stock module in SM, the synthschool mod would be no worries I think. I had a quick look at the GUI. I mean to work on my synth today, or djing progaram, but I can fit the scope in too. hmm in a couple of days I'll send you a VST and .exe.
Cheers AQ

[AdmiralQuality]

Thanks Nick. No big hurry, I'm OK as-is with OpenScope. It hasn't crashed on me since the first try and, except for being a bit small (and wasting a lot of space with a huge control panel on the side) it's suiting my needs just fine.

[dhalfen]

Problem is, right click is taken by Poly's MIDI-learn system. And every modifier key is used to change the knob modes on the fly between circular, relative-circular, linear and linear-fine. You can access every mode with various combinations of CTRL, ALT and SHIFT (or their equivalents on Mac).

How about a fast double-click?

I'm often finding that I want "odd" values, to boot..... I'm a MAJOR experimenter.

Exactly why I'm thinking of making one. It wouldn't be fancy looking, just quick and dirty. But it would be precise and unambiguous.

"Precise" and "unambiguous" will earn you LOTS o' fandom here!

But first things first... back to getting this next Poly-Ana update ready for market...

Yes, yes. Back to work you go!!!

[JerGoertz]

But first things first... back to getting this next Poly-Ana update ready for market...

Hey! I promised I wouldn't ask again, BUT:

WHEN IS ADT COMING OUT???!!!

I'VE ALREADY DROPPED MY CASH ON POLY-ANA, NOW I NEED ADT!!!

[AdmiralQuality]

But first things first... back to getting this next Poly-Ana update ready for market...

Hey! I promised I wouldn't ask again, BUT:

WHEN IS ADT COMING OUT???!!!

I'VE ALREADY DROPPED MY CASH ON POLY-ANA, NOW I NEED ADT!!!

Hey Jer!

Sorry, I keep getting sidetracked and have been having some unrelated to AQ issues/problems/poor health over these last few months that have slowed me down. But this Poly-Ana update was a a bit of a redirect from the official plan. Poly's the flagship product, and in keeping with policy, if I have some goodies that I can add to it relatively quickly I don't hold back with an update -- I get it out ASAP! (The new big feature was originally going to be for Poly-Ana 2.x, but who knows when that'll be and it's just too good to keep in the can that long. )

Next is a SCAMP update, because its copyprotection system isn't working on Vista or Win7. We should have an OSX VST and AU of SCAMP with that update as well. That should happen fairly quick. (Days, not weeks.)

Then I still need... oh, probably about a month, to get ADT into decent enough shape to release into Beta.

(Also sorry to hijack this thread with AQ news, but at least it was "my" thread. I'll be making an official announcement on the Instruments board in -- I hope -- the next couple of days.)

[DavenH]

I'm not too sure when youtube will make this HD, if ever, but you can look anyway:

[AdmiralQuality]

I'm not too sure when youtube will make this HD, if ever, but you can look anyway:

Nice sync for such a funky waveform!

[AdmiralQuality]

How about a fast double-click?

I'm often finding that I want "odd" values, to boot..... I'm a MAJOR experimenter.

Double-click is hard with the version of VSTGUI I've based the interface on. But maybe not impossible, I'll look into it.

Something else for the major experimenter... did you know that Poly-Ana's .pap (Poly-Ana Program) and .pab (Poly-Ana Bank) files are plain text? You can edit them by hand with notepad.exe or any other .txt editor. (Be careful though, the parser isn't very robust. Stick to the existing format EXACTLY.)

You can even assemble banks just by appending program files together. (Another little known feature, banks don't need to be 128 programs long. You can make short-banks too that will load only n programs, then leave the remainder of whatever current bank was loaded intact. Same thing with programs. You can actually make a "sub program" that only has the parameters you want changed in it. Just leave out the ones you don't want to specify, and when that program is loaded it'll leave what was already there in place.)

It would be a bit of a clunky way to edit patches (edit text, save text, re-load into Poly-Ana) but there you go, there's a way!

[DavenH]

I'm not too sure when youtube will make this HD, if ever, but you can look anyway:

Nice sync for such a funky waveform!

Thanks - if you like funky waveforms, this one's a bit more impressive due to the harmonics 3-6 being higher than the fundamental:



But I haven't finished the rest of the synth so this probably isn't going to be released for a while!

[AdmiralQuality]

I'm not too sure when youtube will make this HD, if ever, but you can look anyway:

Nice sync for such a funky waveform!

Thanks - if you like funky waveforms, this one's a bit more impressive due to the harmonics 3-6 being higher than the fundamental:



But I haven't finished the rest of the synth so this probably isn't going to be released for a while!

Is the 'scope part of the synth or a separate plug-in? If part of the synth, I'd think you get sync for free as you know what phase your oscillator is in. (Of course, that doesn't help if you have more than one oscillator? Hmmmm...)

Anyway, looks nice. Please consider indicating discreet samples in some way when the zoom level is high enough. Antialiased lines are pretty, but exactly as I'm looking for here, it's not always the best way to view discreet digital samples. Particularly when you're a developer working on CENSORED.

[DavenH]

Welll I cannot reveal too much but in addition to synthesis it incorporates an analysis tool for modelling purposes, this is the result of that.

I'm intrigued now... is your interest in a sample accurate oscilloscope for wave output debugging?