alpha forever...upcoming modular synth

[Everglide]

I was being cheeky and I do appreciate the reasonable price.

Congrats on a phenomenal release. Any chance of KVR Forum coupon

We did not think about discounts and coupons yet. We try to keep our prices reasonable, we hope, Alpha does not feel overpriced!

[9b0]

I would like an easily-identified, prominent menu item for loading files. Right now you apparently have to right-click to bring up a menu that includes loading .fxp files. That's not consistent with how file handling is done in pretty much any other application.

You also now have 2 types of preset files which are handled in completely different ways. I.e., the .fxp file, and the text file which you import via copy-paste. Loading a file via copy-paste is again different from how pretty much all other applications operate. Also, it was causing problems with hosts which don't like to give keyboard focus to plugins (this was back around version 1.0, maybe this has been fixed). I'd like to see one single type of preset file, or maybe a couple (like how Reaktor has both Instruments and Ensembles) but accessed in a consistent way.

Thanks for your feedback! I think, i kind of understand what you are suggesting, but a node editor is kind of different to most of the plugins (there's not many plugins out there with similar functionality, most of them do not have anything else to save than a preset). I do not want to go into too much detail, but even Reaktor has more than ensembles and instruments, since it's also able to save and open macros (and even core macros) from a dropdown menu.

Currently you can use 2 kinds of files in Alpha Forever:
- we use .txt that only stores the connection of nodes. This are parts of patches that can be reused later. The dropdown menu is useful for this, because with it you can define where to put the loaded patch to on the designer.
- we use presets (.fxp), which is the standard way of dealing with presets in VST2.4. This saves the connection of nodes and the state of the plugin also (like polyphony, unisono, effect mode, window size, ...). This part is the same as what your host would do when saving / opening presets, so if you don't like the dropdown menu, simply use your host.

We have plans on making the access of custom designers and patches easier in the future, but we do not feel that the current state is too confusing compared to other similar editors (there's not many out there), so a more self explanatory differentiation on the palette would be maybe a good solution. We will look into this anyways.

Keyboard: unfortunately every DAW handles keyboard messages differently, and sometimes we still have some conflicts (currently we have reports of Reaper not allowing keycommands with more than 1 key, and shift stuck sometimes, and FLStudio with shift stuck in random cases), but we do everything to fix these. We don't know about any issue in other DAW's.

[9b0]

Here's a not too short post about the things we have been working on in the past weeks. We hope, you'll like all the new stuff!

https://www.afmodular.com/devlog/july-20200713

[ralfrobert]

Here's a not too short post about the things we have been working on in the past weeks. We hope, you'll like all the new stuff!

https://www.afmodular.com/devlog/july-20200713

This looks, well, GREAT. I am happy to have these "bigger" building blocks available, as this might -- in the near future -- make it possible to create effect-enhanced channel strips or similar stuff within AFM. (I know this was not your intention when you started the project, but it is a new perspective.)

Another question: Is there already a beta available incorporating the new features? Or do I have to wait?

[9b0]

Here's a not too short post about the things we have been working on in the past weeks. We hope, you'll like all the new stuff!

https://www.afmodular.com/devlog/july-20200713

(I know this was not your intention when you started the project, but it is a new perspective.)

Actually this was partly our intention. I'm challenging myself everyday to make music using Alpha Forever only (that's why all of our videos can feature a soundtrack, where the only thing a DAW does is to mix tracks together and provide MIDI information... except for the May release, where even sequencing happened inside Alpha using Custom Functions), and i was struggling with using compressors / EQ's for signal processing, and found unintuitive to always rebuild these patches. Lately i was able to prototype these nodes and found, that using these processors in a modular environment makes actually a lot more sense than just a challenge for myself.

We call these nodes big nodes: they have their own UI, and do complex stuff, but we still avoid to go Eurorack style, and avoid to use normalized values, and we try to keep every parameter available for modulation. We worked a lot on making the development of such 'big nodes' fast and efficient, but this workflow requires lots of testing for the time being, since it's completely new stuff. I did not find any issues yet (the nodes run smooth and fast, and they feel stable), but there's still a few questions to be solved before we can release these nodes safely (without the fear of the need of compatibility breaks later on).

[Charlie Firpo]

Feature requests (some of them you already know 9b0, but i throw them out here also, cause it's always interesting to see what other people think): 1) Adjustable starting phase for the oscillators and lfos. 2) Adjustable curves for the adsr. 3) Some kind of hardcoded phase modulation oscillator. I know that you can already do things like this in AF, but it would save time workflow wise. Thank you very much for the latest release (the custom function is amazing!). I use AF everyday, and i'm looking forward to the upcoming things you posted. Can't wait!

[9b0]

Feature requests (some of them you already know 9b0, but i throw them out here also, cause it's always interesting to see what other people think): 1) Adjustable starting phase for the oscillators and lfos. 2) Adjustable curves for the adsr. 3) Some kind of hardcoded phase modulation oscillator. I know that you can already do things like this in AF, but it would save time workflow wise. Thank you very much for the latest release (the custom function is amazing!). I use AF everyday, and i'm looking forward to the upcoming things you posted. Can't wait!

Hi Charlie! Oscillators with starting phase are going to come in the release after the current one. We wanted to implement them into the current one, but we finally decided to postpone this due to the topic of this release (it’s mostly about signal processing). We are finishing this release in the next 2 weeks, and if everything goes well, i’ll be prototyping the custom shape adsr and the phase mod osc after that, so we can include them in an upcoming release.

[Charlie Firpo]

That is awesome! Thank you 9b0!

[bmanic]

Very nice dev blog! Really looking forward to the next release!

Cheers!
bM

[bmanic]

Any news on this?

[9b0]

Any news on this?

We are preparing the release currently, it should be out in a week.

I've finished a song with it, so it should be pretty stable.

[bmanic]

Absolutely AMAZING track man!

Here's the direct link to the video for everybody to listen. You should definitely post this in the Music Café section of KvR. This track and video is absolutely top notch production.

[The Nerdy Music Guy]

That is indeed some seriously great stuff! Amazing work!

[9b0]

Absolutely AMAZING track man!

Here's the direct link to the video for everybody to listen. You should definitely post this in the Music Café section of KvR. This track and video is absolutely top notch production.

Thanks for the tip, i just did that!

[9b0]

The autumn update of Alpha Forever Modular is just available to download.



New features and fixes:
// Compressor - a transparent compressor to enhance your mixes
// Dynamix - our own version of a dynamic processor
// EQ band filter (single and dual channel) - a high quality EQ band filter using ZDF filters
// EQ shelving filter (single and dual channel) - a high quality EQ shelving filter (low/high) using ZDF filters
// Spectrum analyzer - a 2 channel spectrum analyzer with adjustable refresh rate and smoothing
// Stereo Mixer 4 - an 8 channel mixer with 4 stereo tracks
// Stereo track - volume and panning of a stereo track
// Node processing order display mode
// Plugs that create a sample delay (due to feedback or other processing issues) are now differentiated by a ‘z' sign
// Eliminated a sample delay on the 4p filters Hp and Bp outputs
// Node processing order optimizations
// Pop-up descriptions are now more readable in dark UI mode
// Improved version tracking

More info on the new nodes in the July devlog: https://www.afmodular.com/devlog/july-20200713