Interactive Manual for my Compressor plugin..

philter5 · 31 Aug 2011

i´ll try that , thx for sharing! the idea reminded me of 1 of my projects (a synthmaker tutorial inside a OSM) i posted 5 years ago (man, how fast the time goes by hehe...) synthmaker tutorial module

trogluddite · 31 Aug 2011

That's great work - really professional, especially the scrolling screenshots. Built in help is definitely the best - I put it into my Soopa Loopa a while ago, but only a little 'tooltip' box, not really enough to describe most of the functions.

If you're worried about your English translation, I'd be happy to proofread your text - if you still have my e-mail address, just post me a text attachment, and I'll give it a quick edit and post it back.

aliasant · 1 Sept 2011

TY guys.

It turned out ok. Ill still polish it. Some bugs but nothing major. Looks can be better too but the big problem is as I said the text.

I will get you that Trog! I really would appreciate help with it. I tried to read it back and I felt entangled in my own sentences.. Weird. Problem right now is that I quickly wrote everything yesterday and I did it inside SM ! 🙂

Every little text is in its own string so i would have to copy it all and paste it into a normal text doc.. And last night I decided to finally reinstall Windows 7 onto my fastest Raptor drive so Im in the middle of that + leaving for the countryplace tomorrow.... Gonna be away for a week helping the family with the house.

Heres the screenshot of the plugin that I used in the manual. Its not the final one. Doesnt match perectly with the manual. A couple of things that needs new name.... it never ends does it? Always something to tinker with...

tor · 1 Sept 2011

That looks just great. But I have seen your previous work so I am not really surprised.

Way to go! 😀

aliasant · 1 Sept 2011

tor wrote: That looks just great. But I have seen your previous work so I am not really surprised.

Way to go! 😀

TY tor

Im doing some late testing getting ready to send the latest version to customers but... Theres an odd bug in Wavelab. When i render a track it seems to take just about 1 second for the effect tokick in.. sort of. i can hear it kinda fade the effect in when I listen to the rendered file.

Now what the heck could that be? Any ideas?

tor · 1 Sept 2011

i would guess there is some sort of issue with the envelope..

aliasant · 1 Sept 2011

tor wrote: i would guess there is some sort of issue with the envelope..

I have just tested in Ableton Live and Reaper and thers no problem in any of those. Could it be something in the way that samplerates are reported from Wavelab to the VST plugin or something odd like that`?

aliasant · 1 Sept 2011

hahahahaha

Found it. Silly setting in Wavelab 7 to Fade in when playback starts and stops. i would never have thought that also applied to rendering offline.

EDIT

I was sort of wrong. What happens is that when Wavelab stops playing it also shuts down the stream. In our case the blue streams in the Plugin. This is why having a Dezipper between a knob and effect doesnt really work well in wavelab. if you stop the audio and then change that knob the numbers wont pass the dezipper until you hit play again and if the dezipper is at 100ms thats how long it will take for the knob to send the numbers, After you hit play.

Incredibly stupid app.

Same here with my envelopes and other feedback parts like filters and such. I might be playing the audio and adjusting the settings of my plugin. When I find something nice I could either stop playing and then hit Render but stopping will freeze all the envelopes and filters and when the rendering starts so will the effect.

The only solution is to have a couple of seconds of silence before the file to give the plugin time to get back to normal.

Gonna see if I can use the Clear Audio Plrimitive some how...

aliasant · 1 Sept 2011

Doesnt look like Steinberg Wavelab reports things like Offline Mode, Editor Open and such. I made a VST with those and readout for them + triggercounter and nothing. Not a single trigger after rendering tracks Hiding and opening the plug countless times.

If anyone has a fix for this I would pretty much love that. Should probably post in some other area but to tired for that now...

grrrrr

I though the Offline and Editor open was part of the VST standard, the one that Steinberg created?

philter5 · 2 Sept 2011

...just tested your exe file. WOW! that looks great 😍 ! have done this exe Completely in SM? and if so how did you get rid of the upper menu bar? Great job mate

aliasant · 2 Sept 2011

philter5 wrote: ...just tested your exe file. WOW! that looks great 😍 ! have done this exe Completely in SM? and if so how did you get rid of the upper menu bar? Great job mate

Hey. Thanx 🙂 I just unticked all the options when saving as an exe. And yes. Everything is made with SM.

One thing I want to change on the real version I use inside my plugin is to not use an extra image (screencap) of the plugin but instead use a cached bitmap of the users plugin. That should cut down on the overall VST.dll size. THe Manual can simply, on opening, cache the current plugin window and use that and when the manual is closed drop the picture again.

philter5 · 2 Sept 2011

aliasant wrote: philter5 wrote: ...just tested your exe file. WOW! that looks great 😍 ! have done this exe Completely in SM? and if so how did you get rid of the upper menu bar? Great job mate

Hey. Thanx 🙂 I just unticked all the options when saving as an exe.

😊 haha thx just haven´t noticed this feature in SM 2. cool 😀

MegaHurtz · 3 Sept 2011

aliasant wrote: hahahahaha

Found it. Silly setting in Wavelab 7 to Fade in when playback starts and stops. i would never have thought that also applied to rendering offline.

Im sick at home with a fever and that still cracked me up 🙂

aliasant · 3 Sept 2011

MegaHurtz wrote: aliasant wrote: hahahahaha

Found it. Silly setting in Wavelab 7 to Fade in when playback starts and stops. i would never have thought that also applied to rendering offline.

Im sick at home with a fever and that still cracked me up 🙂

Hehe

Glad you feel better if even just for a laugh.

I really dont get Wavelab. I just cant get it to work as it should. Everything works just great in all other hosts but not silly wavelab.

Dell · 6 Sept 2011

Hi.

Bear in mind Wavelab is an audio editor and does not require a constant stream for there isn’t any need for vsti when editing audio and mastering.

Do you have a delay in your plug-in?

I’ve used Wavelab for over 12 years and, Wavelab 7 tends to react differently than the older versions. Can you explain exactly what is occurring?

Cheers!

aliasant · 6 Sept 2011

Dell wrote: Hi.

Bear in mind Wavelab is an audio editor and does not require a constant stream for there isn’t any need for vsti when editing audio and mastering.

Do you have a delay in your plug-in?

I’ve used Wavelab for over 12 years and, Wavelab 7 tends to react differently than the older versions. Can you explain exactly what is occurring?

Cheers!

Hey Dell. Nice to hear from someone that knows Wavelab.

I do have a delay in the plug but only used for the look ahead function and only 3ms if active. The Envelopes has feedback and the PDR ( Program Dependent Release) function has its own envelope that feeds back into the main envelope. I think maybe thats the main culprit.

Since theres no live stream the feedback will stop and freeze when Wavelab isnt playing and it will start from that exact same place but the audio coming in will be something else so all the feedbacks gets "confused" and needs time to analyze the new audio that blends with all the different feedbacks. That takes time and the only way that it could work in Wavelab would be if I could trigger the "Clear Audio" primitive just before it renders. Havnt found a way to do that though 🙁

Dell · 7 Sept 2011

Your dilemma occurs with a few reverbs I’ve tried.

Upon activating certain reverbs the tail will stop when I press the space bar and continue where it left off once I press the play button. In the event I choose to start the track from the beginning, reminisce of the tale will continue from the lead of the track.

I can recall this behaviour in Wavelab 2 to Wavelab 7. I might add the house reverbs & echoes never offered this type of behaviour so, the chances this will get addressed by Steinberg are minimum.

You could reset the compressor by manually triggering the bypass button on Wavelab’s plug-in window pain. This was the only way I found to remedy the problem.

Pending on your design, you could engineer an internal automatic reset. Such a device would need to monitor the internal floating of the signal and, automatically reset itself when there is no signal flowing.

I have never designed such a module however I know it could be done in Synthmaker. It will require a lot of work and lengthy architecture.

aliasant · 7 Sept 2011

Aah. Ok. Thanx for the tip about the bypass button. That I will pass along to my wavelab customer. A question . Im not sure which one is the bypass button? Theres is one green/red that looks like a checkmark and then theres Another one looking more like an On/Off button. Ring with line thru, also green/red depending on stage. To me they seem to do the same?

Another odd thing. If I render and keep the checkmark to Bypass the Master section after render, I cant enable the maste section again. How the heck is that supposed to work?

Im not sure I want to go thru a complete shutdown procedure just because wavelab is a strange app. It works brilliant in all other hosts I have tried. Maybe the primitive Playing could be used to trigger a reset?

Dell · 8 Sept 2011

There are numerous ways to bypass the plug-in in Wavelab 7

The first one is on the window pain the plug-in resides in.

The second option is the master chain's effects section.

The third option is located at the bottom of the master section.

The red line which resembles a minus emblem is what activates and deactivates the plug-in. I might add version 7 now offers each audio file to have it’s own master section. The older versions of Wavelab ranging from version 6 to version 2 used a single (primary) master section in which you could highlight each audio track and render the effects in the audio file.

I haven’t used version 7 much for it drains too much CPU compared to the older versions. 😮 I'm focusing only Samplitude and using my older version of Wavelab for severe editing.

Here is a video I offered public ally to demonstrate the compatibility of my designs. Notice how all the red minus emblems turn into checks upon enabling the effect.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/SirElliot/videos/4/

Cheers!

aliasant · 8 Sept 2011

Dell wrote: There are numerous ways to bypass the plug-in in Wavelab 7

The first one is on the window pain the plug-in resides in.

The second option is the master chain's effects section.

The third option is located at the bottom of the master section.

The red line which resembles a minus emblem is what activates and deactivates the plug-in. I might add version 7 now offers each audio file to have it’s own master section. The older versions of Wavelab ranging from version 6 to version 2 used a single (primary) master section in which you could highlight each audio track and render the effects in the audio file.

I haven’t used version 7 much for it drains too much CPU compared to the older versions. 😮 I'm focusing only Samplitude and using my older version of Wavelab for severe editing.

Here is a video I offered public ally to demonstrate the compatibility of my designs. Notice how all the red minus emblems turn into checks upon enabling the effect.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/SirElliot/videos/4/

Cheers!

OK. Thats not confusing at all!..... 😉 Apparently my wavelab hugging customer had a bypass problem in more then my plugin so I ruled and SM / Inerthia bugs out. Feels good. He uses 6 and wants to wait with 7. I can understand that and since my particular problem still exists in 7 theres no real need for a change.

Great looking plug you got there. If you need someone to beta test it I can provide Ableton and Reaper testing.

Dell · 8 Sept 2011

Your customer’s mistake is precisely the reason I partitioned my hard drive, installed Windows 7 and, have nearly all the most popular digital audio workstations demos at my disposal.

I downloaded Ableton Live’s demonstration a year ago when a user claimed one of my designs wasn’t functioning. After 5 minutes of testing and videoing it so he could see, it was evident the problem was not my plug-in, Ableton Live nor, the other free plug-ins I downloaded he claimed it would not work with.

Wavelab 6 is very old, and it is odd a Wavelab 6 user would have difficulty figuring out something as simple as the bypass control. Wavelab 7 is more challenging due to lack of a user manual whereas Wavelab 6 offered a manual. It also offers a brand new overlay and, lots of rearranging. Wavelab 6 is self explanatory for the buttons a named.

There are a lot of users that are illiterate with their DAWs.

Thank you for the compliment.

I am not a graphic designer so I try to make my designs look appealing.

I offered that plug-in in video free in June so beta testing is over. 🙂

You are more than welcome to download it if you like. Here is a hyperlink to my plug-ins based in Sweden. http://sirelliot.blogg.se/ Just scroll down and click on 1977.

Cheers!

aliasant · 8 Sept 2011

Dell wrote: Your customer’s mistake is precisely the reason I partitioned my hard drive, installed Windows 7 and, have nearly all the most popular digital audio workstations demos at my disposal.

I downloaded Ableton Live’s demonstration a year ago when a user claimed one of my designs wasn’t functioning. After 5 minutes of testing and videoing it so he could see, it was evident the problem was not my plug-in, Ableton Live nor, the other free plug-ins I downloaded he claimed it would not work with.

Wavelab 6 is very old, and it is odd a Wavelab 6 user would have difficulty figuring out something as simple as the bypass control. Wavelab 7 is more challenging due to lack of a user manual whereas Wavelab 6 offered a manual. It also offers a brand new overlay and, lots of rearranging. Wavelab 6 is self explanatory for the buttons a named.

There are a lot of users that are illiterate with their DAWs.

Thank you for the compliment.

I am not a graphic designer so I try to make my designs look appealing.

I offered that plug-in in video free in June so beta testing is over. 🙂

You are more than welcome to download it if you like. Here is a hyperlink to my plug-ins based in Sweden. http://sirelliot.blogg.se/ Just scroll down and click on 1977.

Cheers!

Downloading the plug but im at the country-place using an old laptop so I cant really test it until after the weekend. Looking forward to it! Now.. why do you have a Swedish download spot? You dont have one in every country do you? and if you do what the heck kinda nice service is that ? 🙂

My customer told me he was an old Mastering Engineer and Im pretty sure hes used to tape and not the digital stuff. Now he just masters for friends and old customers and I guess he does it from home.

Dell · 9 Sept 2011

aliasant wrote: Downloading the plug but im at the country-place using an old laptop so I cant really test it until after the weekend. Looking forward to it! Now.. why do you have a Swedish download spot? You dont have one in every country do you? and if you do what the heck kinda nice service is that ? 🙂

My customer told me he was an old Mastering Engineer and Im pretty sure hes used to tape and not the digital stuff. Now he just masters for friends and old customers and I guess he does it from home.

Wavelab was the first audio editor that suited my taste when I embraced the digital market. Despite Soundforge being more popular, I never fancied it much.

Why do I have Swedish download spot?

Europe and Asia are my main customers despite living in the States. I am a perfect example of Sting’s song entitled Englishman in New York for I was born in Great Britain.

As my popularity grew, I received numerous contacts stating the download server (based in the States) was difficult to access from many who resided in Europe & Asia.

When box.net shutdown my account for one month due to exceeding their monthly download limit, I knew it was time to expand. Upon investigating who were downloading my plug-ins, it made logical sense have a server in Europe & Asia. So I decided to create a server in Sweden, The United Kingdom & Mainland China. I have United States server as well which covers North & South America. At the moment, I am in the process of locating a server in Africa & Brazil.

Despite offering some of my plug-ins free, operations is handled like a business.

My biggest challenge was finding blogs, video hosts in addition to, cloud servers that were not based in the United States. Living in the States, your Internet provider directs you to websites within your region and alienates you from everywhere else.

Cheers!

aliasant · 9 Sept 2011

your Internet provider directs you to websites within your region and alienates you from everywhere else.

Yes that is rubbish. Similar things happening over here but I think much less so far. Its market driven I guess 🙁

I have to set my browser to not report were Im from when possible. Not sure I have that set up ok but most times it works and they dont kick me over to some obscure Swedish miniature version of the website Im looking at. Internet was supposed to get us closer to each other and open up the borders but it seems many big interests are trying to counterattack that. Great that you are expanding like that though. Really crossing borders 🙂

What do you pay for a server like the Swedish one for example? You dont really need more space then a few hundred megs perhaps? but I guess you cant buy that small a server 😉

I have been thinking about what to do when I finally have a working concept. My basic plan is to finish Inerthia II and when I trust it works in all hosts ( well Maybe not Wavelab 😉 ) I will make variations of it. M/S version, Multiband, Simplified versions, De-esser and so on. As long as preset system, automation and any other bugs are worked out it wont be hard to create different plugins using that same framework.

As of now I only sell to those that contact me in person via mail or similar and only if they seem to be a nice person 🙂 I kind of like to have a personal connection at the moment especially since its not perfectly ready yet even if the bugs are fewer and fewer if any at the moment.

Dont think I need any special servers but one day not to gdmn far away I might so its always nice to get ideas and intel about it.

Thanx for sharing.

Dell · 10 Sept 2011

If you ever reinstall Windows, you can another part of the World. This will give you more information on current affairs taking place in region you select. I am uncertain if it can be done once Windows is installed.

The Internet was more open to discovery in the 1990’s when owning a computer was a luxury.

Storegate offers free hosting providing you do not need a lot of storage. I focus only on effects so 15 MB is largest design. Since I am offering some of my plug-ins free, I am not going to spend money on cloud, video and, web hosting services. Financially, that would not be a smart decision.

Surprisingly, there are companies that will supply their services for free providing you are not selling a product. I have found free cloud hosting in Sweden, England, China, United States, Germany in addition to Russia. If you would like the German or Russian sites, I will check my bookmarks. The majority resides in the United States, which can be a good or bad thing pending on your market.

When you have Inerthia II sorted out, create videos so the user can visually see it in action. Bear in mind Youtube is not globally welcomed so make sure your market can watch your video if you choose to go that route.

I don’t use Youtube for anything more than pink noise and sine waves these days for they ban countries from viewing certain videos.

I remember offering my first plug-in and receiving comments that it would not load in Cubase. While I did get issue resolved, I vouched that would never happen again. It was clearly my fault for not confirming it worked in Cubase.

Many tend to rush out a design before confirming it works in the most popular hosts. The lower the chances your plug-in malfunctions, in the user’s host, the better chances you will not be categorised as just another Synthmaker/Synthedit developer.

Take you time and release Inerthia II when you are certain it is working properly.