Architect beta for macOS, Windows, and Linux. 0.10.5 now available

[colin@loomer]

Yes, I think you're right, that's a sensible stop-gap solution.

[ThomasHelzle]

I also learn best from dissecting, so yeah, that would be great!

Cheers,

Tom

[David]

…an overwhelming amount of components.

Hmm, an overwhelming amount of [something or other] is always one of the best selling-features for pretty much every kind of software I ever buy:) Please add!

…to allow users to upload and share macros and presets, a la the Reaktor user library.

THIS! The Reaktor UL is THE best feature of my personal all-time favorite musical software. It's the main thing that makes R essential for non-builders as well as builders, and without something similar for Architect, it would quickly drop from the top of my wishlist to somewhere down in the vast pool of maybes:)

Ok, if there’s one thing reading all of the above has shown me, it’s that the current Beta is way above my current level. Which is fine! Not everthing has to be dumbed down for me! (That would be a pretty dull world.) But I’m going to have to hold off until the documentation is in a more developed state and presets / user devices start appearing so I can figure out if I’ll personally get any practical use out of this amazing-looking but complex tool.

EXACTLY true for me, as well, thank you, Sirkus:)

[colin@loomer]

Thanks for the feedback David; absolutely I'll take that all on board.

[David]

Colin, do you foresee this beta/discount period lasting as long as, say, until end of Jan?

Still in Holiday cash shock here, so at least another month of recovery would certainly be helpful:)

[colin@loomer]

Definitely, David - you're good to wait. As we get closer to 1.0, I'll make it known well in advance when the discount period ends.

[koalaboy]

Is there a simple way to trigger a single event from the timeline - fire a signal rather than note data ?

[colin@loomer]

Not yet, but it's been planned for a while.

If you want a sledgehammer approach in the meantime, you could just use an aux seq with a single trigger on the first step, and arrange that?

[ThomasHelzle]

Some quick feedback:
For beginners it would be good if the "reference" field in the inspector could be always open by default - maybe a preference?
Also, the text in the reference is often rather short, the field as such stays very large though - would it be possible to make that adaptive in height to the actual length of the text? On my laptop this uses a lot of space when open and shows mostly blank background...

Is there a way to drag the graph background directly with the mouse? In 3D software this is often ALT-drag.
I would like to be able to drag the canvas around freely, for instance to move all my existing modules up to have empty space below again. Sorry if I missed this somewhere, but I tried all combinations I could think of
The scrollbars are too limited for my use if I want to make more space for further construction.

The data node almost cries for being able to enter values directly on the node...

+1 for the VST plugin sorting by folders on the harddrive. I've built my own structure there that I can navigate fast, the current categories make no sense to me at all and most of my instruments and midi plugins land in one long list in "synth" while there are many overlapping categories like fx, fx-reverb, reverb and synth, instrument-synth, instrument-uhe, instrument... looks somehow random to me?

Is there a plugin search somewhere? I have very many and can't find anything ATM... - where would Valhalla Vintage Verb show up?

Can I also request different icons for VST2 and VST3 plugins (see Bitwig Studio). ATM I do not know what's what.
Bitwig recently introduced the option to prefer VST2 or 3 by default and hide the other in the list if both are available. Very handy.

Some more canvas suggestions:
- Houdini has the option to click a node, hold CTRL and move the node with all other nodes connected to it below at once. Very handy to create space in the middle of a node graph.
- Also Houdini has the shortcut "y" to get into scissors mode which enables me to click and drag over several wires to cut them all at once.
- One more: When I drag a node in Houdini over an existing wire, it auto-inserts into the connection (and moves nodes below further down to create space), which is very handy and saves a lot of time. This could be wire-type aware in Architect.

Windows 8.1 x64, 16 GB RAM (Laptop), i7 4 core, Intel & Nvidia graphics.

Cheers,

Tom

[colin@loomer]

For beginners it would be good if the "reference" field in the inspector could be always open by default - maybe a preference?

Also, the text in the reference is often rather short, the field as such stays very large though - would it be possible to make that adaptive in height to the actual length of the text? On my laptop this uses a lot of space when open and shows mostly blank background...

Yes, I agree to both of these. Consider them added (to the features list, I should hasten to add, rather than the product!)

Is there a way to drag the graph background directly with the mouse? In 3D software this is often ALT-drag.

Yes, planned already. Funnily enough, I got stuck wandering what key to use. Apparently space is standard in Adobe products, but that starts the transport. ALT starts an exclusionary drag. I just need to find an empty key, and this feature is so in!

The data node almost cries for being able to enter values directly on the node...

Yes, that would be convenient. I did have this at one point, but it felt weird being the only node with that feature. I'll look into bringing it back.

Can I also request different icons for VST2 and VST3 plugins (see Bitwig Studio). ATM I do not know what's what.
Bitwig recently introduced the option to prefer VST2 or 3 by default and hide the other in the list if both are available. Very handy.

Good idea. The build out tomorrow does have "sort by format", so that'll surely make it easier for you.

- Houdini has the option to click a node, hold CTRL and move the node with all other nodes connected to it below at once. Very handy to create space in the middle of a node graph.
- Also Houdini has the shortcut "y" to get into scissors mode which enables me to click and drag over several wires to cut them all at once.
- One more: When I drag a node in Houdini over an existing wire, it auto-inserts into the connection (and moves nodes below further down to create space), which is very handy and saves a lot of time. This could be wire-type aware in Architect.

All good suggestions, and I've added them to the feature list. As niceties (rather than critical bug fixes), they may have to wait a few builds before I find the time to implement them, though.

[ThomasHelzle]

Thank you very much Colin!
And yes, always feel free to prioritise as you see fit of course.
You know I work a lot with nodes so I just thought I mention the things I totally love in other systems.

As for dragging the canvas: The middle mouse drag seems to be unused (?) and since the wheel already moves the canvas, that could be a good fit maybe? Or do you have other plans there?

I totally understand the data-node thinking. But I always loved when simple things are as direct and simple as possible, and since the GUI already shows the value anyway...

Cheers,

Tom

[ThomasHelzle]

More:

- Would it be possible to show the name of the performance parameter in the graph in the host as parameter name? That would be very handy. Or is there another way to name them?

- I found it a bit irritating that the warning icon on a node stays after I solved the problem. Could this be made so that a node that does not have an error right now does not show the icon? I was looking for a long time what could be wrong with a simple multiply node and only by accident saw that I have to clear those manually. Since I just missed to connect a wire right away to the second input this was more warning than I needed...
Houdini (sorry, that's my reference since it's very well laid out nodewise) does it that way and I never had a case when I would have wanted to see "old" errors on the nodes.

- I guess there is no way to get at the midi output of a hosted plugin in Architect ATM?
I was able to route my midi output from the graph to an arpeggiator and from there to another tracks input with an instrument in it. But routing it back to the graph would be interesting also. Or having a Midi-VST-node to insert them right into the graph?

Cheers,

Tom

Windows 8.1 x64, 16 GB RAM (Laptop), i7 4 core, Intel & Nvidia graphics running in Bitwig 2.4.3 as VST2 x64

[AZZIN]

Hi Colin, all,

Happy new year and congratulations for such a huge achievement!
My feedback from the Linux world: downloaded the 64 bit version, loaded fine in Linux Mint 18.3 both as a plugin (tested in Carla host) as well as standalone. ==> Bought.

I agree with Thomas that the best way to learn is to "reverse engineer" ready-made patches, and I hope that in version 1.0 the "presets" will allow a faster learning. Another point already raised is the documentation, which is ... well, ...let's say "far from complete": the first thing I tried is to play a midi file and it is not fully intuitive from the description of the different modules how to do it.

I am used to work in Pure Data since many years, so I find quite strange the concept of active inlets (for example in + or x operands) instead of using the leftmost inlet to "bang" the values out of the operand. Well, that's a choice. Also deleting a patchcord with left mouse press by just hoovering on is something I was not ready for.

I had a couple of freezes of architect standalone by loading one VST and trying to show its GUI, nothing dramatic anyway. I'll report if the crashes are more systematic.

Now time to go back learning...

Alberto

[ThomasHelzle]

And one more:
Bitwig shows me Architect as having multiple audio outputs but inside of Architect I only seem to have Master as an option or other tracks. How would I address multiple plugin audio outputs in the Mixer? Since I work a lot with surround this would be handy.

Thank you!

Tom

[lickle_emu]

Hello people,

For an absolute novice like myself, could somebody kindly break down in baby steps how can I use the mono sequencer to trigger a VST inside my DAW (Bitwig)?!

So far, I have added the mono step sequencer on the 1st track on the timeline, and I have added "MIDI output/host" on the graph.

What else am I missing here?!

Many thanks!