Added in bandwidth limited master waveform tables for the base waves: square, tri, ramp/saw, and a sine wave just to be complete. These were then pushed into the diverse oscillator code for most of the emulations. The results are a lot smoother if a sufficient number of harmonics is used, '-blo 21' or more, however smaller values also give interesting results. The Mini is generally improved by not having the 'infinate bandwidth' geometrically correct waveforms, the sound is softer and warmer with relatively few harmonics. The next work on the sound generation will need to go into the filter.
GUI now sends active sensing updates to the engine. This means the engine can detect UI failure and exit rather than hang around and damage the next attempt to connect (with the same MIDI channels, etc). There is one timer to control the rate at which the GUI sends updates and another time for when the engine will decide to stop the emulation. The GUI can detect failure of the engine the same way - the write operation of the active sense will fail if the TCP connection terminates at the remote side. The code could be improved, it should actually scan the list of synths however it is pretty trivial to extend it later. The reason is that the heartbeats are per emulation rather than at the top level however the generation of the heartbeats occurs in the GUI in a separate MIDI thread and hence is at the top level.
GUI now has a -scale option to presize the window. Default remains 1.0 and at large scaling will automatically enable aliastype 'pre'. This can be overridden with -aliastype none. There were too many remarks about the diminutive size of the GUI and whilst the author likes the size this option improves usability.
Started work on a Yamaha CS-80.
Backing of Realistic MG-1 was offset since the prealiasing code, needed to be corrected (actually had a third layer still packed but not used).
Explorer glide was not working due to changes to the operator indeces in the emulation not being mirrored in the GUI.
Change the max device ccont from 128 to 512, already under the limit with some of the synths probably leading to a few of the crashes I have been seeing.
Applied build patches from Alexis Bailler's gentoo packaging.
With antialias and mobile devices (sliders) we need to repaint extra pixels during move operation or the 'blur' starts to stain the image. Fixed with some minor alterations to the Undraw code extending its range by a pixel on the X and Y axis.
XImage creation failure now suggests using the '-pixmap' option but its almost a case of better never than late. I could consider changing the flag and then attempting the load again however this may already be a non-issue (was a broken 64 bit X Server issue).
Introduced a lever operator that changes its size at it moves up and down its scale. This was for a part of the CS80 code.
Added a configurable timer into the GUI host code midi scanning period.
Horizontal scales needed redrawing fixes.
Integrated a 4+4 split/layerable Jupiter algorithm with arpeggiator, sequencer and chording function assignable per layer. Full write up in the README file and web page.
Changed the Jupiter design such that the VCO have selector buttons rather than single switches for register and waveform. This is not per the original but it allows me to make them non-exclusive and that will fatten up the sound. This functionality is more like the JP-6 and MKS-80.
This code includes a Jack MIDI client interface. It is started with the normal options plus '-midi jack' so that it can be used in parallel to an ALSA link and TCP link to the GUI. The result is that the engine uses two midi threads, one doing bulk operations for GUI settings which might be quite slow, a higher priority thread doing Jack MIDI, and the highest priority thread doing the audio processing. Semaphores are implemented to prevent the threads interfering with eachother. Feedback on operability would be very much appreciated.
Reorganised qwerty mappings for correct MIDI note selection and transpositions, brightonController.c confdev may need to be buried in window structures. Worked especially for a couple of keyboards that were not C-C.
Implemented a prealiasing code which uses whole pixel blending. It is only applied to the silkscreens and gives far better imaging when the synths are resized towards fullscreen - they are still reasonably readable. Reducing the window size and normal size are a bit blurred. Configured with '-aliastype pre'.
Resizing windows failed on some emulations with the output signal going to zero: If some of the GUI settings did not match the engine before the resize then the sound will change. Supressed all updates when resizing since no changes should happen to the engine.
The implementation of antialiasing and window size changes also threw light on some coredumps at very small window sizes caused by anomalies in the drop shadow rendering going negative due to the reduced offsets.
Reevaluated the arpeggiator step rates to go from 1Hz to 20Hz.
Arpeggiator did not correctly terminate the note list when more keys than available voices were pressed. Resulted in hanging arpeggiation and holes in the arpeggiation sequence.
Resolved an issue with the -emulate and its interpretation of gain levels, they were a bit low.
Touched up the rhodes bass graphics. Minimal, but was bored.
This is maintenance code and you may want prefer to defer using it until 0.20.5 is released. There are numerous fixed integrated here, the midi note event management has changed considerably and there may be some anomalies in the implementation of the multiple dual linked listed that govern key assignments. The code was heavily debugged to ensure the it was correct but the symptoms of such anomalies are potentially quite ugly if you run bristol with real time scheduling, the tight loops may lock your system so you may want to run it with '-priority 0' for no realtime prioritisation. There may be lots of thread and arpeggiator diagnostics that will also disappear in the next release but you can also use the -quiet flag to prevent them. Also, since the MIDI and audio thread now use exclusion then a very busy audio thread may result in what appear to be dropped notes: The note_on gets delayed due to system overhead but eventually generates a 'newlist' entry for the engine to process. If the note_off arrives before the audio thread has taken the newlist entry then it is removed before it even gets started. These actions are visible with the current debugging. A master keyboard should not be badly affected by this however the GUI can end up clumping together multiple events if the CPU load is high and that causes/exacerbates the situation.
Reworked the OBXa for some stronger sounds with a couple of routing corrections. Overall sounds is a lot richer. This lead to changing the glide to be a log controller rather than lin, another improvement that will affect existing memories though. Will become a general capability. Fixed some flagging issues with OBX modpanel and layer assignments. Adjusted the mod mix and corrected the mod LFO rate controller. Should build some more OBXa memories as well. Rework OBXa dual/split options for single midi channel. Reworked some of the OBXa graphics including a shading layer ready for distribution.
Arpeggiating sequencing now records under suitable control - only emulation with an interface is in the OBXa, Bit-100 but others may follow. The settings can be saved in a memory to be recalled and recoded to the engine. There is serious fun to be had now with the OBX-a emulator and sequencing/arpeggiation. Details are in the readme file but basically start arpeggiating and then crank down the filter envelope decay and play with the filter cutoff and mod level.
Implemented the chording code as a small extension to the 0.20.3 sequencer. When enabled it will assign a voice to every note in the note list, transposing them as it goes.
Worked the arpeggiator changes back into the Juno-60 code. Made the OBX-a Seq be once per voice rather than once per synth.
The LFO rate parameter was converted to a log controller rather than a linear one, it improves response and allows for some very slow cycles. It will affect some memory settings. Glide also changed to logarithmic control. Arpeggiator rate similarly.
The memory library was changed such that it honoured the active parameter when calling memory locations, something that may well have changed the characters of the other synths. Went through the code to clean up the obvious ones but should run through them all again.
It is now possible to have the GUI search for an emulation rather than passing the emulation explicitly. This is with the -emulate option. The feature also sets default voice counts, detunes, gains, etc, from the emulation such that the options such as "-voices 10 -emulate jupiter8" and "-voices 10 -jupiter8" are different - the first call would default the voice count to 8 from the emulator, the second would have the emulator inherit the explicit option of 10 voices and since we have not actually requested an emulation then the remaining options will not be taken from the application defaults.
Installed some new key bitmaps, not sure about the results as they look a little surreal, almost chrome rather than ebony.
Corrected some tv_usec comparison failures that were damaging the double click timers and defaulting to 1000ms only.
The bristol ASLA seq interface would misinterpret note on/velocity zero. Caused some strange results with certain keyboards, and only with some bristol features (arpeggio) since it is correctly reinterpretted later in the chain. Also, the OB-Xa midi tracking would double strike with the GUI linked up to the master controller, the GUI was not honouring exclusion and retransmitted midi events already seen by the engine.
Reorganise the transposition system for some emulations, they now correctly request the transpose to the engine rather than just scale their own keyboard. Both methods work and are arguably both correct however unless the engine is informed of a tranposition then it will not be audible from a master keyboard driving the engine. This alteration needs to be reviewed as it separates the midi key id from the qwerty keyboard id's and that is awkward for anybody who wants to build their own mapping files. The mapping is now not qwerty key to midi key but qwerty key to GUI button index - for most emulations this is the key 0 to 60 on a 61 notes keyboard. Also separated the mapping table per window rather than globally - when the GUI goes medusa this will be required.
Resolved another window timing issue with note on events at high load. This required using a couple of semaphores and was a big change to the note event management. It ironed out a few other unlikely situation such as running two monophonic synths simultaneously would give unexpected results - their note selections could get intermixed. The use of semaphores for mutual exclusion of the midi and audio threads was very worth the effort as it will probably be used to distribute load over different cores with multiple audio threads presently.
Resolved a lingering seg fault in the DX operator with the bounds checking that was added and cleaned up the L1/L2 gain levels to be lin rather than log, the log did not work well for these controls.
Fixed a heap corruption in GUI has needed addressing for rather a long time instead of providing a long term workaround. Resolved a couple of related issues with detection of pure blue from negative offsets that also caused segfaults that have been annoying me for a while. The workaround that had been in place for several releases was pretty ugly.
Cleaned up some parts of the code that were giving in my opinion spurious error messaging during compilation.
Finalised the bit-100, some extra options, ability to save -1 and -99 memories.
Restructured the rate algorithm for the glide, there were historical issues with its mathematical correctness. Additionally added a bristol NRP to allow the maximum glide time to be configurable. The default value was up to 30s however that often felt excessive and makes configuring short values awkward, changed this to be 10s with the ability to request up to 30. The GUI now responds to the -glide option per emulation and the Bit emulations have memory parameterisation.
Added pink and filtered noise options to the BIT synths, defaults to white. The option 'white' could be dropped and turned into Pink with progressive filter.
Added a flag required to enable NRP parameter changes in the engine. Default is now not to pass them for interpretation since it is a rather arbitrary interface and has been probably responsible for noisy interaction with some master keyboards.
Diverse fixes to the BIT emulations: Layer volumes were damaged going into split/layer settings. Layer transpose, split and midi channel tracking needed some corrections for the different options. Specifically there are flags for supporting different settings per layer (per default they remain in sync) and these were not being honoured. The same fixes were required to ensure that non-aligned settings would be correctly returned after dual loading splits and layers. Layer parking was damaged (required writeThru cache enabled to work). Added parameters for the 32' subharmonic and square wave generation. Memory loading was damages for high ordered parameters. More issues with the high order parameters.
Restructured the arpeggiator to centralise the code ready to put it into the Jupiter emulator. Code inserted to allow the arpeggiator to hook into the midi note event dispatching to prepare it for reprogramming.
Tested now with jack 0.99, 0.103 and 0.109 successfully.
Updated copyright dates to reflect 2008.
Built a Crumar Bit-99/Bit-1 and an m2, all variations on the bit-99. Added several bristol features via data entry parameters. The capabilities and the differences to the original are documented on the website and in the README files with the distribution. This is an early release of the code and the memories are a little spartan. That is a bit of a shame considering the flexibility of the emulation, having over 100 parameters per layer. Fully implements the splits and doubles, including the quirky left right voice assignments in stereo mode. The next upload will have more sounds and probably another interface to access more parameters directly. Due to the flexibility of the interface design it was possible to integrate more options than a fixed configuration would allow. The parameter list may also extend in future releases.
Edited brightonButton for highlighted buttons, required repainting the control and could be rolled back into the brightonButton rather than being separate.
Patched in a dummy audio driver such that no audio operations are executed. This may seem rather daft for a synth however working under virtualized systems often gives dodgy and unreliable audio interfacing so having a dummy lets me still work on the GUI to engine interfacing rather than limiting the work to the GUI. This is accessible with '-audio dummy'.
Fixed an issue with port redirection and multilayer synths failing.
NRP were being incorrectly interpreted which meant that emulation gains and detunes were not being registered.
Velocity of note off events was being mapped into voice velocity as well as note-off velocity. This is incorrect as it causes jumps in envelope gains, etc. The correct behaviour is for device that want to use note off velocity should search for it in the correct place. The bristol ADSR does not adjust release rates by velocity however it could by using this explicitly.
The envelope uses a power gain curve that is precalculated for lookups on attack/decay rates. It was a little damaged at the zero point and could cause 'inf' failures on some of the work being done, highly inefficient. Only seen in very rare cases and normally just during development since the code avoided using the limits. Corrected.
Implemented OMNI mode however only the Crumar allow access to it at the moment.
Transpose has been reimplemented such that the MIDI library is correctly handling the transpose. Previously it would lose track of some notes - press key 36, transpose 12 notes and it would not be able to match the note off to the original note on. The fix was resonable trivial and now the rest of the synths should also start using this method, something that will happen later.
Velocity control has been added into the GUI so that it can be requested at start time per emulation. I should try and document all the 500 or so different mappings - the only references at the moment are the source code.
Compilation without jack or ALSA would fail dismally, the make routines would not pull out all the ALSA definitions. There may remain some issues since the OSS Midi interface does not seem to work, only rawmidi. If you really want OSS support with MIDI and all then mail the author. The changes altered the list of drivers, removing the Sun D-BRI and ALSA revisions prior to 0.9, both of which are now antiquated anyway.
The remaining audio interfaces are:
OSS (pretty much any release as the interface is stable)
ALSA 0.9 or greater (SND_LIB_MAJOR=1)
Jack 0.99 or greater
There does not seem to be any jack version information available from the include files at compile time unfortunately, something that may be an issue with the currently new 0.109 release that appears to have altered the library interface specification.
This was not released until jackd with a 64 sample period size was tested (reported to fail) and we also the jack interface has been folded into the bristol audio library even though it does not like being there. The alterations to the audio library to remove the diverse unused interfaces and changes to the compilation flags seems to improve stability (and may be ported back to 0.10 at some point).
Cleaned up some of the debuging.
Release 0.20.1 is based on 0.10.13 with the above changes. Apologies to the people who downloaded 0.10.13 yesterday, this release followed rather shortly afterwards.
Resolved a failure in the Vox M2 percussive harmonics, they were not decaying, an issue with the operator selection in the GUI.
Cosmetic alterations to some of the vox switch images, prophet panels, etc.
Added some bounds checking to the jack interface to prevent a couple of errors that occur when failing to open the interface.
XImage issues with 64bit sytems - the XCreateImage() fails due to pad and line length errata. Workaround is to use -pixmap (avoids the XImage acceleration code) and the fix needs testing but does not break 32 bit systems.
This will be the last development of 0.10 stream, no more features only bug fixes. Further developments will go into the pending 0.20 stream.
RT priority is now defaulted to 75, a value of zero for the runtime parameter does not reschedule the thread at all, it is left up to the linked libraries.
Vox Continental would segfault due to pedalboard buffer pointers.
Implemented a workaround for damaged segment sizes with some jack attachments but this is not really a fix, it just avoids the problem by exiting a little more gracefully when there is a mismatch. It may become the fix though, the problem only happens when I cannot find the period size a priori.
Reworked parts of the MIDI library code such that it checks for data availability rather than going into a wait state. This is a lot cleaner as it has a timeout for failure situations. Timer defaults to a few seconds only, that could be improved.
Rhodes voices were broken due to reorganisation of the ADSR default gain to be linear rather than logarithmic, firstly the notes barely decayed but also the harmonic content did not vary from the FM algorithm.
Integrated a chorus into the Rhodes GUI and a wrapper in the engine FM startup code.
Built some default "temperature sensitivity" into the dual manual synths, it should improve the sound, at least when layered.
Reorganised the voice initialisation code to have better GM2 conformancy.
Double click timout made into a GUI configurable option.
Added a 7 segment LED digit block to the library for the Jupiter display.
Implemented the arpeggiator for the Juno. It was a requirments for the Jupiter however it is easier to test with a synth that already works.
Reworked the threeway switch so that it was sequential, required some changes to the emulations using them.
The frequency table for the VOX was 'too correct', rewrote the vox microtonal map to have a table based on integer division from 1MHz to introduce a few cents of detune as per original.
Some of the microtonal maps were incorrect, loss of key 108. Had no effect as none of the emulations used the microtonal map however it needed to be fixed.
Put a bass pedalboard into the Hammond B3 emulation. It requires extra graphics space which is not an issue, and for both emulations the pedalboards kind of come for free - they use the same MIDI channel as the lower manual but call a different oscillator depending on MIDI note. The B3 memory structures had to change to support the lower manual drawbars. If you had your own memories in ~/.bristol/memory/hammondB3/* then you should really delete them.
Made the audio thread priority a runtime option.
Reworked the prophet pot bitmaps for higher contrast and closer alignment.
Distributing the GM2 MIDI controller mappings as default, not all emulations support it though - does not work well for the dual manual synths nor the organs.
* EQ: control the gains of each wave according to a profile.
* EQ: drawbar profiles.
* Distorts: control the harmonics of the wave, also with a profile.
* Rework chorus (other file) - need to take another filtered delay algo.
* New reverb (other file). Reworked reverb for 2600/Aks too.
* Always pass through Leslie - have it stop rather than bypass.
* Added in random phase difference between teeth.
* Crosstalk: between teeth of same compartment.
* Crosstalk: between drawbars.
* Crosstalk: between box output filters.
* Crosstalk: Different setting of bright/normal.
* Drawbar leakage.
* Tapering of drawbar busses.
* Check foldback, seem to be too much - damaged for damping. (tapering)
* Drawbars to full 9 stage swing.
* Drawbars graphics numbered.
* Added permanant drop shadow to hammond and pro-10.
* Percussive bypass of chorus plus add in HPF.
* Fixed ALSA Seq registered device name.
* Fix parameter damage on lower manual. There were two, resolved.
* Put diverse defaults tables into a header file.
* Fix lost note issues. Timing issue between threads.
* Fix memory linkage failure on exit. Effects mem allocation error.
Most of the hammond extensions take two setting for 'normal' and 'bright', one of the front panel buttons. This gives access to two potentially widely different tonewheel configurations directly. On the GUI side there were some fixes and additional shadowing to some of the renderings.
This release still includes development versions of an MS-20 (graphics only) and a Synthi Aks.
This release still includes development versions of an MS-20 (graphics only) and a Synthi Aks.
This release still includes development versions of an MS-20 (graphics only) and a Synthi Aks.
This release still includes development versions of an MS-20 (graphics only) and a Synthi Aks.
This release includes development versions of an MS-20 (graphics only) and a Synthi Aks.
01/01/2007
There is no news other than the arrival of this page.