New Xhip version

[aciddose]

well xhip won't be for sale - although i do have plans for a xhip 2.

my immediate goal is to finish xhip, include at least some support for the effects inside it.

then i will make the effects commercial.

one question i'm still trying to find an answer for though is what i will provide with the commercial effects which will make someone want to pay for them rather than just using the free versions.

i'd still like to provide free versions also.

one solution is presets. so the free effects will never support more than one preset, and won't have browsers.

i think once that gets going, assuming it does (as if there is a market for more effects...) that will motivate me to look a lot more into implementing xhip 2.

[scoobz]

well xhip won't be for sale - although i do have plans for a xhip 2.

Why not?It doesn't have to be anything crazy, $10-15 just for the recognition of your time. You sell 100 units that's $1500, now THAT'S motivation to get it done!

I think you'll have a job selling plugins that a) are already free and b) reside in an already saturated market.

With Xhip you have a USP with the approach to coding and the 'purity' of the sound so make the best of what you have.

Just my 2 eurocents

[aciddose]

if people really wanted to pay $15 to support me they could have been making donations for years

i do get some which i really appreciate but ultimately if i wanted to make any money with xhip it would need:

- to be trendy
- to go just a notch above the competition
- to do things the "commercial" way, not the "right" way
- to have dongle copy protection!

honestly asking $15 for it would only do damage to it's appearance. "$15? so what is wrong with it? any real product is at least $200!"

that is unfortunately really the way the world works.

i've wanted to sell the effects for $99 and i'm constantly worried that's way too low.

example: look at all the single delay, reverb or compressor plugins that sell for $300. for one plugin!

[aciddose]

can anybody with a x64 machine and host give this a test?

http://xhip.presetexchange.com/temp/xhip_x64.dll

mostly i'm interested in if it loads up and at least attempts to work. there is some 32-bit int code that i had to translate to x64 and i'm unable to test it. so those functions might produce "wrong" results, but it should at least still produce a horrible burst of noise or something.

[ClubHo]

can anybody with a x64 machine and host give this a test?

http://xhip.presetexchange.com/temp/xhip_x64.dll

mostly i'm interested in if it loads up and at least attempts to work. there is some 32-bit int code that i had to translate to x64 and i'm unable to test it. so those functions might produce "wrong" results, but it should at least still produce a horrible burst of noise or something.

Yea, it loads. I do get white noise to play when I mess with the volume knob. Pan knob works too!

Club Ho

[ClubHo]

if people really wanted to pay $15 to support me they could have been making donations for years

i do get some which i really appreciate but ultimately if i wanted to make any money with xhip it would need:

- to be trendy
- to go just a notch above the competition
- to do things the "commercial" way, not the "right" way
- to have dongle copy protection!

honestly asking $15 for it would only do damage to it's appearance. "$15? so what is wrong with it? any real product is at least $200!"

that is unfortunately really the way the world works.

i've wanted to sell the effects for $99 and i'm constantly worried that's way too low.

example: look at all the single delay, reverb or compressor plugins that sell for $300. for one plugin!

I've always liked the sound of your synth. But to be honest, I thought you would never finish it, so I didn't bother donating.

But I tell you what, when you finish Xhip, I'll donate $150-200 dollars.


-Club Ho

[scoobz]

Here's a little GUI goodness to help things along

[aciddose]

But I tell you what, when you finish Xhip, I'll donate $150-200 dollars.

you mean you "might", otherwise it wouldn't be a donation but a payment

the purpose of the donation button is to let people pay what they feel they want to, not should or ought to. so if xhip hasn't been useful for someone i wouldn't expect them to donate a thing.

that was my point though - i wouldn't start to demand that people pay $15 for xhip suddenly. if someone wanted to pay that they could, whether it's now or after the finished version is released.

so when you want to, do as you wish of course.

it isn't a payment though, it's a donation! no promises on either side!

if i were selling xhip i'd think it would be worth $30. if i really sold it i'd list it for $120. people associate price to value. unfortunate but true! i'd probably get more sales and become more popular with the same product at $120 than if it were $30. it seems backwards and crazy but that's life.

[aciddose]

Yea, it loads. I do get white noise to play when I mess with the volume knob. Pan knob works too!

so does it actually work or only produce white noise? does it seem to work "correctly" ?

if you notice anything specifically wrong that will help me quite a bit.

otherwise if it works in general that's good. i expected it would as i haven't changed anything major that would cause problems with x64. if i can just get the x64 version tested and make sure the audio functions work fine and there are no crashes, that'll be another major feature i hadn't thought of. native x64 bit support.

[ClubHo]

Yea, it loads. I do get white noise to play when I mess with the volume knob. Pan knob works too!

so does it actually work or only produce white noise? does it seem to work "correctly" ?

It doesn't actually work. It just makes white noise when I press the midi keyboard. But the GUI does load.

-Club Ho

[ClubHo]

But I tell you what, when you finish Xhip, I'll donate $150-200 dollars.

you mean you "might", otherwise it wouldn't be a donation but a payment

the purpose of the donation button is to let people pay what they feel they want to, not should or ought to. so if xhip hasn't been useful for someone i wouldn't expect them to donate a thing.

that was my point though - i wouldn't start to demand that people pay $15 for xhip suddenly. if someone wanted to pay that they could, whether it's now or after the finished version is released.

so when you want to, do as you wish of course.

it isn't a payment though, it's a donation! no promises on either side!

if i were selling xhip i'd think it would be worth $30. if i really sold it i'd list it for $120. people associate price to value. unfortunate but true! i'd probably get more sales and become more popular with the same product at $120 than if it were $30. it seems backwards and crazy but that's life.

Give me your paypal address.

[aciddose]

address is on the site on the right-hand side. if that doesn't work i can pm it to you, don't want to attract spam.

http://xhip.presetexchange.com/temp/xhip_x64_b.dll

does this still produce noise?

the float code will all work much better, i just haven't gotten to moving everything yet. that will be one of the last things i do because it isn't really a core feature and the stuff in there already works now - no sense in mucking it all up until i've got nothing better to do. just want to make it work.

[ClubHo]

address is on the site on the right-hand side. if that doesn't work i can pm it to you, don't want to attract spam.

http://xhip.presetexchange.com/temp/xhip_x64_b.dll

does this still produce noise?

the float code will all work much better, i just haven't gotten to moving everything yet. that will be one of the last things i do because it isn't really a core feature and the stuff in there already works now - no sense in mucking it all up until i've got nothing better to do. just want to make it work.

The GUI loads now, but no noise can be produced.


Anyway, I just donated $150. No promises needed. I hope this helps.

Club Ho

[aciddose]

thanks! hopefully this next one will work perfectly.

http://xhip.presetexchange.com/temp/xhip_x64_c.dll

if it doesn't i'll be wondering...

i've actually discovered a bug in microsoft's compiler. otherwise it should have worked the first time.

i've tested the function now and it produces the right result so hopefully it should work fine - although it isn't optimal i can worry about that later.

[eidenk]

Cool, thanks aciddose, looking forward to trying that next version.
Cheers

could you let me know if this last version works? i don't think winme has support for the application data directory either which would mean the bitmaps won't show up. i'd like to provide some kind of work-around to just get it to work correctly.

you're not supposed to store configuration or data files with programs anymore - it's basically against the law of windows and it would anger the gods if i were to ignore it.

so on windows i suppose there is the option of storing configuration in the registry to point to where the "real" configuration is stored. it all just gets messy being turtles all the way down, though.

ideally the program (xhip.dll) goes into the vst folder, and 100% of the configuration, data, banks, presets and all that other neat stuff goes into your documents folder and under application data.

this is important because while i'd like winme to work, i'd also like it to run at all on win7 and win8.

worst case for the last guy using winme on earth, i can just do a special version that assumes the local folder with the dll also contains everything else

Hi, thanks for your time accidose but unfortunately, as the error message now says, it can't create a window even without shadow or layer attributes.

Application Data is fully supported under Windows ME (& 98 as well AFAIK) so that is not the issue I would think. As I have mentioned in my first post the UI bitmap gets displayed after clicking on the error popup message (but it's outside of the host created container window and is useless and goes away with a screen refresh) so it seems xhip finds its data files without problems.

The dll has an imported function from user32.dll that doesn't exist on WinME, UpdateLayeredWindow, so the dll loads at all only because KernelEX "emulates" that function. Without KernelEx xhip would fail with a message "a device attached to your system is not functioning". I have several programs that run normally even tough they require that function and many others that are non existent on my system thanks to having KernelEx installed.

Last Windows ME user on Earth? I would not think so but last Windows Me user on kvr would be more true perhaps. For the little story I am still using that because all my hardware (which is 6 years old high end gear, asus a8v deluxe mobo, Opteron 154 2.8Ghz cpu, nVidia 7950GT gpu and 4GB of OCZ Platinum RAM) supports it and upgrading the OS to even XP for more current software compatibility would force me to deal with things I dislike immensely on XP and above MS OSes such as online activation to start with. When/if I'll upgrade my hardware to some current multicore cpu setup ( I haven't got any cash for that right now) I'll have to go with the Penguin.

Anyway thanks again for your time and concern and I won't hold a grudge against you if decide it's not worth your time and effort to debug this issue for just one single person like me.

Cheers