Experiment from the MUTOOLS Lab: LUNA Modular

[muzycian]

"Like LUNA Now"

why "kill+destroy" luna's original concept 3-steps before the finish line?
and trying to make something totally different out of it?

the new idea is like:
teasing poor little luna with a voodoo puppet imho *sniff*

there are already enough projects around who try to copy the idea of XT.
like maize studio, plus i've found at least 5x more at sourceforge.net and other places.

at the present stage,
i would simply make a sub/fork-project out of it
but keeping the main focus on getting luna done,
the way it was meant to be...
before doing anything else with it.

-> LUNA must be EASY FUN and CREATIVE

-> I fully agree that Tryout 1 is not good enough. It was launched as a conceptual question. A big Thanks to Everyone sharing thoughts here! Without You I'm Nothing!

-> It's because i'm not yet 100% convinced of the current concept (LUNA PR7b) that LUNA is still in Pre-Release. (and because of some minor issues which need finetuning).
And so it's better to put this basic conceptual question now than later.

-> Be sure, i do like the lovely easiness of the classic rack system and will not throw that away as nothing.

-> The powerful benefits of being 'modular' cannot be denied. But there is a typical aspect with modular systems: they're easy for complex projects, but they're complex for easy projects

-> LUNA IS modular inside, and so it's all about the User Interface

-> MUTOOLS does NOT want to copy ext.

-> Last but not least: MUTOOLS is working on a hybrid system (classic + modular = 1). And the works are progressing well. So i'm already curious for your critical feedback on LUNA Modular Tryout 2. To be there next week..?

Cheers,

Jo

[muzycian]

don't kill luna, she's already very sexy

Wowkidowki

Is she modular?

[Bonteburg]

[muzycian]

There are still too many loose ends/more important features (hanging note syndrome, missing preset chooser for GUI-less plugs etc) to implement such a drastical change at this point.

Marco, these issues will be handled soon.

At least the missing preset chooser, i mean. The hanging note syndrome i can't reproduce here with my korg kontrol 49.

I just stamped as a monkey on the keyboard, 2 to 3 octaves (24 to 36 notes) at the same time, and fast. 0 hanging notes.

Could it be a driver/system issue? Anyway, i have to reread your posts about it. You don't have it in muzys, you said?

[Bonteburg]

that would have been PLJones.
I still have Muzys on my OS9 disk but PLJones actually uses it (PC user)
Driver issue! I was thinking that before. I'll have a looksee!

[DaveL60]

-> LUNA must be EASY FUN and CREATIVE

<snip (other good info)

-> Last but not least: MUTOOLS is working on a hybrid system (classic + modular = 1). And the works are progressing well. So i'm already curious for your critical feedback on LUNA Modular Tryout 2. To be there next week..?

Sounds like good news to me. I spent a happy Tuesday evening playing with Tryout 1, so wny not another next week.

DaveL

[Bonteburg]

Downloaded a driver patch from m-audio's horribly cnfusing website, the issues are still there.

I still don't think it's Luna, because it happens in Tracktion too. Looks like a Mac OSX/VST related thing, as it doesn't occur in Logic.

[muzycian]

Bonte, i'm sorry, i did my monkey jam on pc, now realise you're on osx.
(it was late this night)

Will do nother monkeyjam, joehoe ...

... and let you know.

[pljones]

For me "the sound on the keyboard" should be that of the focussed part or plug, thus the sound you're working with. And it should be there automatically. (with eventually the option to break that auto-follow, an option which could be added lateron).

Until now, i do think that the current automatic midi input routing is working very well, musically.

Agreed on both points - with the rider that I like the "MIDI In follows selected part", once I've laid the basic parts down. Whilst I'm still doodling, searching for a sound, I'd just like to be able to load up a bunch of synths and switch between them - i.e. "MIDI In (and record) follows selected plugin". I want to avoid having to create the part beforehand. But that could wait a bit.

(And whilst the modular layout is good for loading up a bunch of random synths without taking up loads of racks, I would have to spend ages wiring them up... Hmm... I'm definitely still undecided! )

[MattmaN]

Why not add templates that could among many things be used in modular projects to save complicated wiring?

[muzycian]

For me "the sound on the keyboard" should be that of the focussed part or plug, thus the sound you're working with. And it should be there automatically. (with eventually the option to break that auto-follow, an option which could be added lateron).

Until now, i do think that the current automatic midi input routing is working very well, musically.

Agreed on both points - with the rider that I like the "MIDI In follows selected part", once I've laid the basic parts down. Whilst I'm still doodling, searching for a sound, I'd just like to be able to load up a bunch of synths and switch between them - i.e. "MIDI In (and record) follows selected plugin". I want to avoid having to create the part beforehand. But that could wait a bit.

(And whilst the modular layout is good for loading up a bunch of random synths without taking up loads of racks, I would have to spend ages wiring them up... Hmm... I'm definitely still undecided! )

Hey, with LUNA Modular, you don't even have to create a part! Just select a plugin in the plugset area, and it's there on your keyboard

Same when you create a new plug: it's immediately there

This is new since LUNA Modular.

[pljones]

Mmm... How about:

If I've got a plug selected and I insert a new plug, the new plug gets wired up into the selected plug's inputs (as if it had been inserted above it in a rack) and the new plug becoming selected. That would make wiring up really quick.

(Don't try to insert "between" anything already plugged into the selected plugin - ignore them. Or... If I've got two plugins selected and insert a new one, wire up as if the new one were between the two selected ones in a rack.)

I could click audio out, insert a synth and start playing!

[muzycian]

Nice ideas!

[muzycian]

Bonte, i'm sorry, i did my monkey jam on pc, now realise you're on osx.
(it was late this night)

Will do nother monkeyjam, joehoe ...

... and let you know.

Bonte, i monkey jammed on osx too:

Korg kontrol 49 -> FM8 many many notes at the same time, fast, meanwhile moving pitchbend and modwheel. 0 hanging notes.

I'll try to include a MIDI Monitor asap in LUNA, so that you can see which notes are ACTUALLY sent from OSX (i.e. the driver) to LUNA.

That way we can know whether the problem is before or after that point.

If it's before, then it's a system/driver issue.
If it's after, then it's a LUNA internal issue.

(but i suspect it will be the first, because of my test here)

[theorize]

Why not have both?
...
I'd also like to see sequence and audio parts in the modular view, so I can connect them to plugins and audio outputs at will. The same sequence part could easily be connected to more than one plugin, and audio parts to more than one mixer channel.
Also double-clicking on a mixer strip in the modular view could focus that mixer strip in the mixer window instead of the pop-up.

i like this idea, i think it would be cool to also be able to chain audio and midi parts to sequence them, this was one option that was always missing from energyXT. it would be very easy to do, just a pass signal at the end, either control is passed or not.