MuTools

Trancit · Post by **Trancit** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 12:19 pm

I had a serious crash with Mu.Lab by simply drawing a sequence and choose an existent one...

Now a lot of work is lost...

But I see regulary Mu.Lab autosaving while working...where are those files and how to get them loaded???

Trancit

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 2:16 pm

It's saved as "AutoSaved.MuSession" in the MuLab folder, same folder as the application file. Backup it a.s.a.p as it can be overwritten if you're working on other sessions!

Trancit · Post by **Trancit** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:30 pm

Found it, thx...

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:34 pm

About the crash: Do you have any more details about the crash, or a repeatable pattern, which could help in locating the problem?

Trancit · Post by **Trancit** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:59 pm

mutools wrote:About the crash: Do you have any more details about the crash, or a repeatable pattern, which could help in locating the problem?

Honestly, I don't know, what really happened, but I'll try to describe the scenario...

My intense was to make a demo song for Mu.Lab free...I listened to the existing demo songs and thought there should be a little trance tune as well

...
Second, I wanted to try, how far one can go by using only 4 tracks. the existing demos are very minimalistic and I wanted to see, if a "real" track is possible with the free version.

I removed my user license and set the 4 tracks to "Set target module by part"
I used the session modular area as well as complex Mux structures to get as much as possible out of the four tracks, what meant too, to layer 2 or more sequences on the same track...
Here happened the crash... I had a track with two layered sequences triggering two different bass synths at the same time...all worked fine...

I wanted to make some variations, copied the bass parts to the next 8 bars, found would be better to draw the sequences and assign existing sequences to them, so I deleted the copied files, draw a new one, assigned an existing sequence from the menue to it and baaam... I got a red message box telling me about some serious violations happened... I hit the OK button and Mu.Lab closed imidiately...

There were no VST/is envolved...all Mu.Lab internal...

Don't know, if these infos are usefull for you... I didn't worked further, so I cannot tell, if I can reproduce the crash.

Cheers
Trancit

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:36 am

Thanks for the detailed description. I tried some of the things but no crash yet here, but i'll keep an eye on it!

A pity you didn't continue your track. Why did you stop? Did the AutoSaved.MuSession recover the biggest part?

Trancit · Post by **Trancit** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 12:08 pm

I didn't stopped it, but after the crash the party was over for the moment

But to be honest, I have really problems to find a good workflow with Mu.Lab, especially, if I am forced to use only the internal instruments and effects...
Building bigger instruments is really a pita for me, because of the lack of control of certain parameters in the GUI...
I know there is always the possibilty to assign parameters, but it's limited to 16 and a lot of work...there is too much clicking with the mouse to go deeper and deeper into the instruments to reach a certain control...

A real improvement for me, would be something like rightclick a parameter and have something like "visible on the top panel"...if it is a rack...show me the rack, if it is a module, show me the parameters of the module...if it is a knob, show me the knob...but this would require a bigger Mux window, or better a resizeable one or scrolling possibilities.
This would make life much easier for me... I don't know, if perhaps others feel the same. Perhaps, I only have to get more used to it, but in Mu.Lab, work is much much slower for me...
I found a way to hide the modules I have to edit often, instead of closing them, but I have to try, if it is really a workaround...

Is there really no sidechain possibilty in the internal effects???
At least the compressor should have a sidechain input!

Trancit

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:26 am

Thanks for your interesting feedback.
Modular systems are always more difficult to use than 'preset' synths and effects, that's part of the nature of modularity.
That said, i do understand your practical concerns, and you're right to emphasize that every click is one click too much. In fact it's amazing how much (mental?) effort a click costs, really, i wonder what the ergonomic background of that is. Feel free to point me to examples and concepts of pure modular synths/effects (not semi-modular) with a much more fluent workflow.

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:30 am

Trancit wrote:Is there really no sidechain possibilty in the internal effects??? At least the compressor should have a sidechain input!

Sure it has! It's the 2nd audio input on the compressor module.
The compressor will sense whether it's connected or not. If not then compression is done based on the 1st audio input, if it's connected then you can compress an audio signal by means of another audio signal.

Trancit · Post by **Trancit** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 9:58 am

mutools wrote: Sure it has! It's the 2nd audio input on the compressor module.

Yes, of course...
First time I tried it, it didn't worked for me right away, so I overlooked it...but it is correct, it does, what I requested for...seems, that the first time, I was to silly to use it

Trancit

Trancit · Post by **Trancit** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 10:50 am

mutools wrote:Thanks for your interesting feedback.
Modular systems are always more difficult to use than 'preset' synths and effects, that's part of the nature of modularity.
That said, i do understand your practical concerns, and you're right to emphasize that every click is one click too much. In fact it's amazing how much (mental?) effort a click costs, really, i wonder what the ergonomic background of that is. Feel free to point me to examples and concepts of pure modular synths/effects (not semi-modular) with a much more fluent workflow.

That's easy: Reaktor

One of it's really strength, is it's "GUI building ability"...
But this is a special product (was with Generator the first one from NI) and was developed for ages...

Perhaps, I should make my point a little more clear here:

I am aware of the weakness of Modular areas being more complex to handle.
Your internals doesn't have multiple outputs, so if you don't want to use a bunch of single racks with as well a bunch of Instruments and effects (which costs more CPU than sharing them), you are forced to use MUX and MuSynth for even simple tasks like mixing drums and without a "useable" GUI it is too much clicking and going deeper for simple things like adjusting volume, pan, effect portion and so on...
I don't know, what the new Drumsynth/sampler will look like...perhaps this weakness will be gone soon, but at the moment I notice this time bandit very extreme and believe me, when I call it a timebandit for me...

Since there will be much modularity still in the future, you should think about improving the GUI abilities for reaching deeper settings even faster than clicking through the different layers still you've reached your target.

One thing, which came to my mind, while taking a shower (bathroom is still the best place for new ideas

) is to finetune the "Hide area" ...
I don't know, if it would be possible to make it "expandable" to show all the hidden modules with their parameters with a single click on something like a plus symbol...( I make little mockup pictures to make this clearer...Don't know, if you can follow me here

)

By having this, one could attach every module from which you know, you'll tweak it further to this hide area, bring one (in the old manner) or all together up again and would solve many many problems for me...
Like the mixer, it should be available in 2 ways: Expandable to the same height like the mixer to make it act like a submixer i.e. if you have attached a bunch of racks to it or detached from the main window like the Modular area and resizeable as well...
What would be definitely necessary, would be the ability to arrange the attached modules in order...

I don't know, if this would be easy to implement or not, or what other user say, but I like this idea...this would make Mu.Lab much more easier to use...

Like it is now:

Expanded:

Detached:

So far by now

Trancit

Trancit · Post by **Trancit** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:36 pm

Btw, are there any rules or limits for embedding samples into a demo song???

Trancit

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:14 am

Trancit wrote:I am aware of the weakness of Modular areas being more complex to handle. Your internals doesn't have multiple outputs, so if you don't want to use a bunch of single racks with as well a bunch of Instruments and effects (which costs more CPU than sharing them), you are forced to use MUX and MuSynth for even simple tasks like mixing drums and without a "useable" GUI it is too much clicking and going deeper for simple things like adjusting volume, pan, effect portion and so on...
I don't know, what the new Drumsynth/sampler will look like...perhaps this weakness will be gone soon, but at the moment I notice this time bandit very extreme and believe me, when I call it a timebandit for me...

Indeed M4 will have many more options. The MuDrum is a great new tool that allows for a complete drum mix inside the MuDrum, the MUX can have as many inputs and outputs as you want and the Multisampler also has multiple outs. To name a few things.

Since there will be much modularity still in the future, you should think about improving the GUI abilities for reaching deeper settings even faster than clicking through the different layers still you've reached your target.

I agree, am fully aware of that. In fact custom MUX Play Editors is one of the remaining big points on the M4 R&D list. It's not yet sure it will make it as i'm running out of time. Hopefully M4, otherwise a later version.

One thing, which came to my mind, while taking a shower (bathroom is still the best place for new ideas ) is to finetune the "Hide area" ...

I think pasting the modules in full size on the hide area is not really comfortable. Atoh you trigger these ideas:

* The Hidden Windows Dock buttons could show a miniature snapshot of the window content.

* The Hidden Windows Dock could use buttons that are as width as their window, proportionally.

* The Hidden Windows Dock could get a dividor so you can tweak the height of it as you please.

* The Hidden Windows Dock could be scrollable. But then without scrollbars? Otherwise it will look to bloated, no?

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:29 am

Trancit wrote:Btw, are there any rules or limits for embedding samples into a demo song???

As small size as possible! Lets say max 5 MB for now. Thanks for asking!

Tip: When your demo song is ready, then goto Sample Manager and Delete Unuseds.
Then save the used samples with extension ".ogg" (this will save them as ogg files!) in a subfolder (eg "Samples") which is beneath your .MuSession file, as that will make the file references relative to the MuSession file!
Then zip the MuSession + "Samples" subfolder (+ any other file you want to include) and then you have a nice compacted demo session package.

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:38 am

PS: I'm convinced that the 'embed samples' feature should be removed and that always the above method should be used when one wants to 'pack' samples with a session.

In this context i would like to streamline the workflow by adding a session function like "Save Used Samples In MuSession Sub-Folder". This will do all steps at once. Options will be: The file format (AIFF, OGG, WAVE) and whether the target folder (MuSession/Samples) should be resetted so that it *only* contains these used session samples, i.e. any other files there will be deleted.

Feel free to counter my conviction with any critical thoughts you may have.

MuTools

KVR Audio

Where are the autosaved files???