New Documentation

Shifrin · 18 Mar 2005

Checking this out now!

Cheers malc 🙂

Shif.

Tom7777 · 19 Mar 2005

I found the coding documentation helpful but everything else i had already worked out but to any newbie to modular synthesis this will be a great starting point for them.

malc · 19 Mar 2005

Tom7777 wrote: everything else i had already worked

Out of interest, how easy was it to work out without any documentation? Just curious to know how intuitive it is, or what is intutive and what isn't.

sequencer · 20 Mar 2005

Malc,

I think the program is fairly intuitive to use, at least to me it is.

The problem I have is not with the program itself, but with figuring out the logic of what needs to be in each schematic to achieve a specific Effect/Synth. Whilst I understand that you cannot be expected to teach the likes of me about Modular Synthesis, would it be possible to have examples available of the use of the components, perhaps with a bit of verbal blurb to make us lesser mortals comprehend why something has been connected the way it has.

I know that this is already part of what is available in the forum, but I have a problem in that (courtesy of a program called XP Lite) I do not have (or want) an internet connection buggering up my Music partition. Any plans for a PDF/Word format manual for the future.

sequencer 😀

Tom7777 · 20 Mar 2005

Out of interest, how easy was it to work out without any documentation? Just curious to know how intuitive it is, or what is intutive and what isn't.

Hi Malc, From the start I guessed that the folders to the left allow you to drag modules onto the schematic. From using SE and reaktor ect before i worked out that the modules would be connected together by dragging wires. From simple synth DIY i had knowledge of the basic OSC forms and filters, maths ect and also have further knowledge of certain parts that have yet to be added to this program. I am however still not sure on everything as of now because everytime i use a brand new app i take about a week to gain full/good understanding of everything within it. Im currently awaiting some true pro/advanced tutorials then i will be ready to start making something advanced that i can't in certain other modular apps 🙂

malc · 22 Mar 2005

Ok the section on GUI editing has just gone up.

beno · 22 Mar 2005

Thanks Malc. This helped a lot. But I think I may have encountered a bug (either in the software or in my understanding). If I have multiple links coming from the same output connector (as I do in the example where I just created two coloured rectangles), clicking on the output connector does not cycle the link order. For multiple links coming to the same input connector, this works fine as expected. Am I missing something?

Thanks again. I'm slowly but surely coming to grips with the power of SM. Ben

malc · 22 Mar 2005

Thanks beno.

Your understanding is correct. Although it isn't a bug as such maybe you should be able to change the link order at an output as well as at an input.

If you're going through the documentation then let me know if anything is unclear, missing or misleading.

Thanks.

sluggo · 22 Mar 2005

Hi,

I've found the documentation to be helpful. I would say though at this point that 60% of what I've learned is by looking at examples, 20% was from forum questions, and 20% from the docs. By far and away I've found the gui stuff to be the most foreign and confusing. As an example, consider the waveform selector module in example.osm. This module and its children contains so much information that only by studying it can a person understand how gui stuff works. It's the interaction between modules that might be hardest thing to understand.

s.

malc · 22 Mar 2005

I think you are right about it being the interaction between modules that's hard to understand.

I think the principals behind the GUI editing in SM are very straightforward. I'm not saying this because I came up with them either, because I didn't. I had to learn how it was done when jorge showed me one of the early prototypes.

I would say that it's not necessarily immediately obvious how GUI editing works but once you've read about or been told the basics I think it makes sense.

I think it's also much harder to read someone else's schematic compared with your own. The schematics could be equally as complex but you're always going to understand your own work better.

The waveform selector only has four different modules in it. The mouse module simply treats the whole panel as a mouse area and when you click, it translates the vertical position of the mouse into an option index.

The drawSelection module is duplicated several times. The modules are chained together and each one draws a radio button whose vertical position is offset from the one that precedes it. The radio button itself is made from basic bitmaps and labels.

The drawSelected module is dead simple - it just draws a selected bitmap over the radio that is currently selected.

Finally the preset module is just a wrapper for the Preset Parameter component that stores the selection for each program.

I hope that provides you with some insight into what's going on. Let me know if anything else is unclear or confusing, I'd be only too happy to help.

Thanks.

Kitchen Sink · 23 Mar 2005

I think Synthmaker schematics themselves would work nicely as tutorials, if there was a way to have meta level "do-nothing" components to write (preferably RTF or HTML formatted) text into. I mean like post-it notes that could have arrows and other graphical elements pointing to or highlighting the parts of the schematic they describe. They could also have hypertext links that would open longer textual explanations (contained inside the Synthmaker schematic file), or web pages.

Currently, the schematics quickly become "write-only", so that only the original author understands them. There should be better means to document things like what, why, and when the program (schematic) does, just like in ordinary programming.

stefan · 23 Mar 2005

A very good suggestion indeed. I've thought about that myself. It would be good to be able to put explanatory notes where you wanted in the schematic. As I see it, there's no other way to make modules and shared schematics fully "self-contained".

saltpeter · 27 Mar 2005

ok i'm a total newbie to this stuff. i've managed to make a few things with synthedit before, but i'm kind of lost with synthmaker. so heres my suggestions for the documentation.. 1- an explanation of what the different connector types are, i know the 'm' is midi and the blue sine is mono audio, but i don't know what the rest are. you'd probably get to that anyway, but sometimes people who know what they're doing forget that i don't know what i'm doing.

2- while obviously its not your responsibility to teach synthesis techniques, a little tutorial on making a basic single-oscillator-with-a-filter type synth would really help. something where newbies like myself can start making some noise right away and then play with it from there.

3- i don't know, haven't thought this through very much. but this looks like its going to be some nice software when its done so i figure i should offer a suggestion.

jorge · 27 Mar 2005

hi saltpeter, welcome to the forum,

saltpeter wrote: ok i'm a total newbie to this stuff. i've managed to make a few things with synthedit before, but i'm kind of lost with synthmaker. so heres my suggestions for the documentation..

we like suggestions so keep them coming please.

saltpeter wrote: 1- an explanation of what the different connector types are, i know the 'm' is midi and the blue sine is mono audio, but i don't know what the rest are. you'd probably get to that anyway, but sometimes people who know what they're doing forget that i don't know what i'm doing.

Did you read the documentation that malc wrote? here is a link to a section related to connector types: [old link]

saltpeter wrote: 2- while obviously its not your responsibility to teach synthesis techniques, a little tutorial on making a basic single-oscillator-with-a-filter type synth would really help. something where newbies like myself can start making some noise right away and then play with it from there.

We have already planned to use synthmaker to teach some DSP and synthesis, we'll have to wait before things settle a bit and basic stuff is implemented and documented.

malc · 27 Mar 2005

Thanks saltpeter,

Those things were coming (as Jorge said, there's already some info on the GUI connector types). Still, it's always good when someone gives us a nudge because it makes it easier to decide what should be done next 🙂

saltpeter · 27 Mar 2005

yeah i figured you'd be getting to all that. i'm definitely excited about synthmaker, i mean synthedits ok, but its ugly, and the layout is messy, and it all sounds kinda the same.. so i'm just gonna be patient, and if i manage to come up with anything that might be useful for tutorials or examples or whatnot you guys can help yourselves to it. thanks for replying by the way.