2CAudio Kaleidoscope | It's A Trip | Latest Update 1.1

[aMUSEd]

I see, I think they need to provide more legible error messages though.

[Sampleconstruct]

I see, I think they need to provide more legible error messages though.

There is only this one unreadable error message for every error which occurs I think, I can't read what it says in that window at all.

[Sampleconstruct]

But if you have Melodyne, it provides great resources to extract tunings from any sound on this planet, just created a tuning from a clay vase texture sounding very microtonal with a tad of minor melodic
Now I have to manually convert these values into a text files though....

Oh really *taking notes*.

The scale detective in Melodyne works fabulously, import any sound/texture/instrumental and let the detective detect the available notes, then save that scale as into a user folder, then extract the numerical values and use them for a text file which KS can read.

I hardly ever use Melodyne for what it is supposed to be used unless I am cutting instrumental/vocal samples which are badly out of tune or have a very strong/too strong vibrato or note drift or I want to create a very artificial instrumental/vocal tone for things like synth-pads, yet it's a great sound design tool. Try importing the chaos of a tuning orchestra backstage with everyone playing the last 2 centuries worth of classical music snippets, go for Polyphonic mode, choose a scale and quantize all pitches to taste, adjust/delete some of the artifacts, timestretch a note here and there and be amazed
Really bad artifacts can later be eliminated with RX4 Advanced which cleans up about everything on this earth (and is also another great sound design tool).

Or use it on a field recording of bird flocks in the woods with the technique described above.

[Sampleconstruct]

I do have Scala installed. If you want to try it then the missing piece of information is that it runs under X11 and that is no longer supplied by Apple but by xQuartz.

When I tried opening up the KS files in Scala though it wouldn't have anything to do with them.

I have just spent about 20 minutes studying the Scala files and the KS files and the reasons would appear to be:

1. Scala expects the files to have a .scl extension.
2. Scala does not like empty lines.
3. UTF encoding.

There is inconsistent formatting in the headers of the KS files in the default factory library.

Scala likes:

-------

! name of file
!
Description of scale
Number of scale values [integer]
!
1
2
3
etc

--------

The KS factory files sometimes have an empty line where description of scale goes. Then, they often have a blank line before the list of values. This appears to trip Scala up as it is expecting a list of lines/values that matches the 'Number of scale values' field.

However, in the files from the AV01 library the headers appear to be in the format Scala likes.

BUT, merely changing the extension from .txt to .scl will does not allow Scala to load them, because their UTF encoding has line endings as CRLF.

--
So, to be sure to get a KS file to load into Scala:

1. Open the .txt file.
2. Make sure there is some sort of description on the first non commented line.
3. Make sure there are no other empty lines.
4. Save the file with a .scl extension, encoded as UTF-8 LF.

…. Well, that's the results of my cursory examination at least.

Edit: Andrew - I expect you will say that you expect people to go from Scala to KS rather than the other way round.

For me, though, KS is a great way to explore tuning files (well, to explore so very many different things) hence my interest in seeing what some of the KS/Architecture files look like in Scala.

It's the X11 thing which scared me away, running things in the terminal and logging out and in again and all of that seemed frightening, but I will eventually try it I assume. Thank's for all the great info!

[Sampleconstruct]

Melodyne ! Oh No ! Another need to add a tool.. probably only the most expensive version can do this! From the back of my clouded fuzzy in the morning head a thought pushes it self to the front U erh ah am looking forward to KALEIDOSCOPE SUBSCRIBE SERVICE AT PATCHPOOL.. AND A KALEIDOSCOPE USERS LIBRARY!

It's on the horizon and will eventually happen in a not too far away future.

[lnikj]

But if you have Melodyne, it provides great resources to extract tunings from any sound on this planet, just created a tuning from a clay vase texture sounding very microtonal with a tad of minor melodic
Now I have to manually convert these values into a text files though....

Oh really *taking notes*.

Melodyne ! Oh No ! Another need to add a tool.. probably only the most expensive version can do this! From the back of my clouded fuzzy in the morning head a thought pushes it self to the front U erh ah am looking forward to KALEIDOSCOPE SUBSCRIBE SERVICE AT PATCHPOOL.. AND A KALEIDOSCOPE USERS LIBRARY!

Lol

If you read Simon's post above about using Melodyne, he just casually dropped 'cleaning up the artifacts' with RX4 Advanced just after it as well

You're a dangerous man Simon !

(I have already bought B2 and Filter Forge on the back of picking up Kaleidoscope, I have my eye on Crusher-X and Artmatic following Simon's recommendations, and now we start getting to the really expensive stuff with Melodyne and RX4 Advanced).

Time for Andrew to come along and remind me that none of this is *needed* to enjoy Kaleidoscope

[Andrew Souter]

Time for Andrew to come along and remind me that none of this is *needed* to enjoy Kaleidoscope

nah... you guys are on your own today.

If you don't have a wife, mother, or girlfriend that tells you how to spend your money, well, it's not my fault if you buy other stuff to use with KS... Fine by me. I think it's cool to use other tools with it...

I'm in "math land" today. I just solved some quite interesting math puzzle that will help the efficiency of some aspects of KS by at least a fact of 2x! i.e. twice as fast... so my marketing mode is off today, and i've got my propeller hat on instead...

[Sampleconstruct]

If you read Simon's post above about using Melodyne, he just casually dropped 'cleaning up the artifacts' with RX4 Advanced just after it as well

You're a dangerous man Simon !

I refused to upgrade to RX4 Adv from RX3 Adv for months, but recently I just had to do it, as the new Leveller is way to cool for certain things and the whole thing works snappier and better, and I use it every day for several hours cutting/fading/truncating all these files, denoising them, tweaking them, removing DC offsets, adjusting frequencies, levels, removing little quirks, designing new sounds with 3rd party plugs within it - the best tool for my perfectionism.

[jc_vt]

I agree with you. I only discovered this explanation by debugging the files which would not load.

I see, I think they need to provide more legible error messages though.

[rustman]

Yay! I actually already own Melodyne. RX4 is not going to happen though...

[jc_vt]

There is an appendix in the manual that clearly spells out the format required. I found a few simple edits in TextEdit allowed me to load many .scl files (changing the extension too)

Thanks for that Simon. A couple of Qs - to you or Andrew or anybody

1. Am I right in thinking that KS has its own tuning file format - i.e., that some editing of the text files is necessary to open KS files in Scala? And vice versa?

2. For someone who doesn't 'do' vocals, Melodyne editor is prohibitively expensive. Anybody know of an alternative for the functions you describe?

[TwoToneshuzz]

Melodyne ! Oh No ! Another need to add a tool.. probably only the most expensive version can do this! From the back of my clouded fuzzy in the morning head a thought pushes it self to the front U erh ah am looking forward to KALEIDOSCOPE SUBSCRIBE SERVICE AT PATCHPOOL.. AND A KALEIDOSCOPE USERS LIBRARY!

It's on the horizon and will eventually happen in a not too far away future.

Resistance is futile, buying into the Patchpool scurpscription is surely the only economically sound route to Kaleidoscopic nirvana..

At least looking at this list of some of the tools Simon mentioned he is using, all prices include vat:

Adobe Cloud scrupscription costs me around $1000 if I need the 3 programs Simon mentioned in this thread, Lightroom,Photoshop and illustrator, too rich for me I have downloaded the Beta of Affinity Photo, a photoshop killer program and their $75 Affinity Design. and will likely go this route buy two programs that do what I need for around $140 instead of being tied to a subscription fee forever!

So for me I've got Capture One Pro 8.1, and eventually Affinity Photo and Affinity Design. all paid for once with a $60 upgrade to the next version of Capture One Pro every two or three years, and what $20 upgrade to the new versions of the Affinity Photo and Design programs every 2 or 3 years...

To exactly copy Simons setup then

Creative Cloud $640 business binding period 2 year
Metasynth $599
Wave lab 8.5 $612
Melodyn editor $450
Artmatic $299
RX 4 advanced $999
Crusher X $150


Sure I'm not going to duplicate his setup but I can see eventually getting a paired down version with
Wavelab elements
Melodyn basic, probably can't do the tuning scales though, still useful for tuning the samples for playing in Mach V though..
RX 4 not the advanced version, perhaps on one of their sales I could upgrade to advanced version
I'll use images I construct in other programs or harvest images from other resources.. instead of Artmatic.. I will use images Islamic Art, photos of minerals, details from impressionistic painting, macro and near micro photography..paint own structures on paper and photograph textiles photograph and so on.
I like working with images and will be experimenting after I get some experience working with Kaleidoscope for a while!

I am sure the extensive set of tools that Simon uses for his productions are for the most part needed to make any kind of progress in advanced sound design development. Speed is of the essence when working on creative ideas and development that's for sure..

Even with all the tools in the world there still stumbling blocks and problems...I spent some time trouble shooting a Logic Project that had got things garbled after I updated Halion 5 today and wanted to update Automap it lost my Serum synth..and Trash 2, oh the joys of bug hunting!!!

I like the Kaleidoscope world, it's interesting to see all it ties in with the other fields of imaging, audio, mathematics, tuning, textures, filters..

[jc_vt]

Has anyone gotten these to work? Is there a trick to using the BPM tuning setup?

jc_vt: same here with 6.2 delays and 6.3 granular. I do get the normal sound from the AU plugins but no sound processing. This is with version 1.01.
Tested the demo on another computer (v. 1.0) in same daw (live) and I do get the processed sound. Maybe something changed with the 1.01 version?
Still looking into it...

[Phorous]

If anybody needs an app for creating tuning files, check out Scala - it's free:

http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/downloads.html

Thanks Simon was just looking for something like this

[Andrew Souter]

Has anyone gotten these to work? Is there a trick to using the BPM tuning setup?

jc_vt: same here with 6.2 delays and 6.3 granular. I do get the normal sound from the AU plugins but no sound processing. This is with version 1.01.
Tested the demo on another computer (v. 1.0) in same daw (live) and I do get the processed sound. Maybe something changed with the 1.01 version?
Still looking into it...

We're looking into it... There was an issue with Sound Forge regarding memory allocation for extreme settings (very low freq strings ARE extreme in terms of memory usage). We did something to fix it. Some other hosts might not like this solution... We are exploring...

Try moving the Damp knob.... does it bring back sound?