New test version

All about the development and use of SynthFont2
tayfun
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2015 3:53 pm

Re: New test version

Post by tayfun »

Hi there Kenneth...
there are 2 things i like to add..

1:
capture_001_04072015_112148.jpg
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as seen in the picture. that little window in the piano roll. click on it to drag to the posision you want to see, it flies away furter from the place you want it to

2:
capture_001_04072015_171431.jpg
capture_001_04072015_171431.jpg (25.27 KiB) Viewed 22323 times
the value on the left is adjustable and the value on the right used to change along so we could see both values and change it the way we wanted. but is now gone

and ofcourse still wpıld like to have quantize function

Thanks lot!! And cheers
Admin
Site Admin
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Re: New test version

Post by Admin »

Okay!
Cheers!
Elven Spellmaker
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2015 3:02 pm

Re: New test version

Post by Elven Spellmaker »

Image

This seems to be a bug. =)

EDIT:
I have found another bug whereby if I try and change SoundFont (playing or not) and the SoundFont doesn't have the required patch then it refuses to change the SoundFont despite me clicking yes to change it.
EDIT2: OH this isn't a bug, it's just I expected the dialogue to be the opposite way around! After reading the text it makes sense, but I think the options should be flipped.

EDIT3:
Image
The equaliser button here is highlighted (because it thinks it is selected), which I took to mean that I had the built-in equaliser enabled for that track. Not sure the best way to go about changing that if at all. I thought I'd point it out though.

Also, I'm not sure how easy this is, but some of these rows on the controls are out of line with their main row:
Image
ray890
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Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2015 4:27 pm
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Re: New test version

Post by ray890 »

I just encountered a significant bug, one that actually caused my 11 hour rendering job to be a waste of time; Rendering MIDI to file with Normalize To Max Peak enabled at the same time as separate channels into separate files causes incomplete RAW files to be generated.

Image

So once the rendering job is completed, they all show up as *.raw, converting them into *.wav causes them to be playable, but it sounds as if the normalize function was never applied, and in my case that causes them all to be far too loud. The results I expected was a gain level that would be appropriate to sound normalized when all of the files are all combined in the mixer.

Image
Admin
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Re: New test version

Post by Admin »

"Thanks" to the very poor weather we have had in Finland lately - like in October - I have had the opportunity to do some real work. Here is the first test version of 2.0.2.2.

Bugs:
- The virtual keyboard kept playing in the background after closing the open SoundFont file dialog (you could see the CPU meter move)
- Moving the region in the mini pianoroll window by dragging it did not work as expected
- Changing Pan value [range 0..127] in the Events list now updates the other value [range -64..+64] as well
- Normalize channel files did not work (sorry about that ray890!!)
- Improved the alignment between tracks and mixer

New feature (actually old as Methusalem). Hint says:
'"Cutter" cuts note-off events for which the decay level has fallen
below a certain threshold which depends on the voice count.
This is the default in SynthFont1 and SynthFont2 up to version 2.0.2.0.

You find this next to the Voice Limit settings.
Here you can actually toggle the use of it to keep voice level down. Especially useful on older, single CPU core, computers.
ray890
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Re: New test version

Post by ray890 »

Alright, now that you've started with a test build for the next version, I'll continue to say my new findings and suggestions, excluding the ones that'll involve lengthy and/or major changes for now:

File dialog box bugs:
- File name input box takes the name of the folder you have selected (Save audio and save midi as dialogs only)
- Folders with a large amount of MIDI files take a long time to open and freezes the whole program during the loading
- Opening "Libraries" from desktop opens "My Computer" instead
- Using keyboard letters to locate folders/files doesn't work properly unless you scroll down the folder fully
- Pressing enter with a file highlighted causes the file to be opened in an external program instead (Open SoundFont and save midi as dialogs only)

Etc bugs:
- Half of the attempts to load a MIDI file from a network location will cause a "File Not Found" error

Piano Roll ideas:
- If there are the more than one of the same notes, either right beside each other or overlapping, there should be a visible line to indicate it, instead of misleadingly appearing as one long note
- Give options to allow the vertical zoom to be smaller (eg. 4 pixels/key)
- Give the option to popout the piano roll into a separate window
- Add a toggle button to switch between default "middle" playback marker position, and locating playback marker right where the virtual piano keys are
- Users should be able to right click a track name and get the same kind of context menu that you get when right clicking track names at the bottom of Plug & Play (rename, delete track.etc)


Now, regarding the Cutter option, I tested it there doesn't seem to make a difference to performance, but I did notice more notes seemed to be heard properly with the cutter option enabled. For the hint tooltip, the tail of the speech bubble should be aligned to near the left rather than the center, so the hint won't get cut off if the left-area of the checkbox were to be rolled over. Well, if your keeping this checkbox that is.

This also ties in with the algorithm concept suggestion I gave earlier that you could experiment with, which I'll repeat here: "The Voice Limiter engine should favor eliminating voices by lowest velocity, un-held, and maybe the oldest of voices"


Edit: Just one more quick suggestion, I think it could help reduce confusion/annoyances/excessive-messages if a track's program, preset, and soundfont changes were to be automatically apply changed to all events within the set of duplicate (surplus) program events in a row (this can be form of an option for example).
Last edited by ray890 on Sun Jul 12, 2015 6:40 am, edited 9 times in total.
tayfun
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Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2015 3:53 pm

Re: New test version

Post by tayfun »

thank you kenneth
AndrewU
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2015 3:51 am

Re: New test version

Post by AndrewU »

There appears to be a bug introduced after 2012Q (?) with the VSTi's where if it reaches the end of the song and I play it again, all the notes in track 1 (and only track 1) hang, no matter how many times you try to play the song, until you restart SF. I've tested it with sfz player and the EastWest Play, both do the same thing. Does not appear to affect soundfonts in any way. Additionally, it seems to be messing with the pitch with the Play VSTi (also only on track 1), but not with sfz...don't know why. That problem was introduced at about the same time.
Admin
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Re: New test version

Post by Admin »

As both versions 2.0.2.0 and 2.0.2.1 has got one serious bug that may prevent the program from starting I fell urged to release a new version soon. It is almost done. Here is for testing:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/173 ... t2022B.rar

- The serious start-up bug should be fixed
- Some other minor bugs reported through crash reports have been fixed

@ray890:
File dialog box bugs:
- File name input box takes the name of the folder you have selected - Fixed
- Folders with a large amount of MIDI files take a long time to open and freezes the whole program during the loading - Not fixed. Probably not much I can do as I use a third party product I for these controls. But I will investigate later.
- Opening "Libraries" from desktop opens "My Computer" instead. - Hmm.. Dunno. I couldn't reproduce it. Anyway, I have changed how the folder tree displays the various folders so that it is the same in both the "Files / Folders" and the file dialogs. However, I am not satisfied yet.
- Using keyboard letters to locate folders/files doesn't work properly unless you scroll down the folder fully - Hmm.. Dunno here either. To me it looks like you just have to activate the file list in order for this function to work.
- Pressing enter with a file highlighted causes the file to be opened in an external program instead - Fixed
- Half of the attempts to load a MIDI file from a network location will cause a "File Not Found" error - Fixed. Also some other related issues fixed.

Piano Roll ideas:
- Give options to allow the vertical zoom to be smaller (eg. 4 pixels/key) - Done.

Your other suggestions have been entered into my ever growing TODO list.

@AndrewU:
I have tried to reproduce your findings but I cannot. I do not have the EastWest Play VST but I do have the SFZ player. When you say "track 1", I assume you really mean the very first track, the one that seldom has any notes, it is usually reserved for meta events. Am I right?
AndrewU
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2015 3:51 am

Re: New test version

Post by AndrewU »

Admin wrote: @AndrewU:
I have tried to reproduce your findings but I cannot. I do not have the EastWest Play VST but I do have the SFZ player. When you say "track 1", I assume you really mean the very first track, the one that seldom has any notes, it is usually reserved for meta events. Am I right?
Yes, that's right. Bu the notation program that I use - MuseScore - to create my midi files, which I then edit and tweak to my liking in Synthfont, always uses the first track. :-\

Here's the one I've been working on lately. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bfjwr3qy77ki ... _c41a?dl=0 It plays alright the first time, but if you've played it all the way through, then all subsequent times there's a million French horns playing at the same time by the end of the song. :? I used SFZ player and the SSO solo horn to play it on my computer.
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