New granular synth: The Mangle

[mcnelson]

This thing is going to be a big hit. It surpasses Granite from New Sonic Arts!

Although they're diffent and Granite can do things The Mangle can't, New Sonic Arts definitely has a serious solid competitor here...

Granites recordable modulation is very cool, which stands out as a huge difference; I'd love to see The Mangle "borrow" Massives visual feedback for the modulation.

Edit: Interesting, Granite just got updated to 1.503.

[mcnelson]

I think I've narrowed down the problem with the "Synth Sequence" preset: if you deactivate "quantise grains" in the Sound Setting>Timing Settings section for layers 3 & 4 (Voxel Chaos & Meaty Moog) then the patch plays ok (for me), polyphony included. Tested in Live 9.1 32 & 64.

Anyone care to confirm?

NMG

[sinkmusic]

I indeed think that quantizing stuff leads to some crashing : a couple of crashes i experienced happened after i changed that setting in the "settings" panel.

[cron]

Just picked this up for Windows. The first thing I checked was whether this was a true stereo granulator (something I've wanted in Granite, or indeed any real-time granular instrument, for ages). It is!

Just wanted to pop in here and say thanks for filling that long-standing hole in my sequencing environment. This is an absolute steal at the early adopter price. Given that this synth already feels feature complete in its current state, I can't wait to see how this develops.

Quick bug to report - I get the same issue with the first grain not sounding. For instance, if grain frequency is set to 1.5 seconds, it takes 1.5 seconds to hear the first grain.

[manducator]

I haven't read all 12 pages, so sorry if this question's already answered, but what type of copy protection does the mangle have?

[Neon Breath]

I haven't read all 12 pages, so sorry if this question's already answered, but what type of copy protection does the mangle have?

For now, none. It's beta.

[Neon Breath]

Just picked this up for Windows. The first thing I checked was whether this was a true stereo granulator (something I've wanted in Granite, or indeed any real-time granular instrument, for ages). It is!

That's something I never understood, why Granite never had true stereo implementation. It hurts.

[manducator]

I haven't read all 12 pages, so sorry if this question's already answered, but what type of copy protection does the mangle have?

For now, none. It's beta.

Maybe the developer can shed a light on what the future copy protection will be? I don't like to buy R/C protection.

[kingtubby]

Maybe the developer can shed a light on what the future copy protection will be? I don't like to buy R/C protection.

On page 6 of this thread the dev wrote:

During the beta, there is no copy protection scheme. I will probably have to implement serial for 1.0, if only so I can offer a trial version. But I'm gonna spend like 10 minutes on it, only the bare minimum of security. I don't feel like playing cat and mouse with pirates, if they steal it they steal it.

[manducator]

Maybe the developer can shed a light on what the future copy protection will be? I don't like to buy R/C protection.

On page 6 of this thread the dev wrote:

During the beta, there is no copy protection scheme. I will probably have to implement serial for 1.0, if only so I can offer a trial version. But I'm gonna spend like 10 minutes on it, only the bare minimum of security. I don't feel like playing cat and mouse with pirates, if they steal it they steal it.

Thanks, kingtubby!!!

[paradiddle]

Exact same thing here with the same setup.

On my system it's often crashing using on Live 9.1, on Windows 7 64 bit. It freezes and I have to End Task of ableton.

....Update, the same happens on REAPER 32 bit.

[widdershins]

Hello everybody! A quick update:

I've been away for the last 4 days (family stuff) but I'm back now. Here are the issues I'm aware of and working on, in order of priority:

Windows
There are clearly stability issues for some people (though others are reproting it works well). Windows is a tougher environment for VST distribution than Mac for many reasons. The biggest one is that on Mac 80%+ of people seem to use either Logic or Ableton (not counting Pro Tools). On Windows, the landscape is far broader. I currently only have Cubase 7 and Reaper on Windows. I will probably have to buy copies of several of the other DAWs...

Live 9.1
I've been having more crash reports from Live 9 & 9.1 than almost anything else. I only have Live 8 on Mac, so I think Live 9.1 on Windows will be the first thing I get to eliminate these annoying bugs. Very sorry, bear with me!!

Synth Sequences preset
I'm aware this causes crashes on Windows. The Mangle's presets are supposed to be cross-platform, but it seems there's something funky going on (someone mentioned it's related to tempo-syncing). Should be fixed in the next update.

10.6 support
Lots of audio people are still on 10.6. I explained earlier in the thread that by using newer libraries I made 10.6 support impossible. However, to get things working on Windows 7 I had to pretty much replace all of the shiny new language constructs with older ones. I'm now successfully compiling The Mangle with a standard library that should work on 10.6, so it shouldn't be too hard to get 10.6 support working soon.

Incidentally, this may also explain why more bugs have surfaced on Windows. I had to make hundred of changes to get things working, and some bugs could have crept in during that process.

LFO Sync & Random phase
As several people have noted, these are greyed out because they're not implemented yet. They will be.

UI improvements
There are a few UI bugs still remaining. They mostly relate to things updating properly when you change preset/slot or other things like that. In addition, there are clearly several points of confusion which come from poor UI design, especially relating to triggering notes from the interface, Mouse Trigger, Toggle Mode etc.

There are also a few places where things could be more streamlined, e.g. you should be able to select filter mode on the main tab.

Eventually, I may also get around to improving the look of some things. I've had a mixed response to the fairly 'flat' look. I like it, but there's plenty of room for improvement.

Docs & tutorials
There's also some confusion re: multitimbrality (new word?) and a few other points. I think some simple html docs and maybe a couple of tutorial videos would do a lot to help this.

Forum
I didn't really expect The Mangle to take off as it has, but I'm starting to think a forum would be a good idea for bug reports & discussion. I'm receiving a lot of duplicates by email, which would be better handled by forum threads. I might look into getting a KVR forum. Do people generally prefer that to one on a developer's website?

Many thanks to everyone, and many apologies to those who have experienced nasty bugs on Windows, especially crashes which suck. I'm going to be working very hard over the next few days, hopefully I can eliminate the most common ones very quickly, as I was able to do for the Mac version.

Also, if you've emailed me and I haven't got back to you yet, sorry, but between development, family Christmas stuff and all the rest of it, I'm pressed for time. I read all your emails, though, so keep sending them in.

Thanks!!!

[jupiter8]

I'm receiving a lot of duplicates by email, which would be better handled by forum threads. I might look into getting a KVR forum. Do people generally prefer that to one on a developer's website?

In my experience developers website forums are often lonely places overrun by spam.

[ThomasHelzle]

A forum here will spare you a ton of problems and time.
Other than the occasional oddball it's a lovely place

And you get some publicity along with it, since people will see posts when they browse KVR.

Cheers,

Tom

[kingtubby]

A forum here will spare you a ton of problems and time.
Other than the occasional oddball it's a lovely place

And you get some publicity along with it, since people will see posts when they browse KVR.

+1