Sonalksis Development Blog

DMGAudio

2010-05-30T10:18:00.002+01:00

I moved here, to my own company, DMGAudio.

And I have a new blog too!

Cheers!

Dave.

2.04 is out!

2008-05-22T15:21:00.002+01:00

... and Mastering is going back to beta today ... after some serious reshuffling and tweakage (I'm generally skeptical of things that undergo a lot of tweakage, but it does just sound effortlessly awesome all day now. It actually pains me to admit that, bizarrely, 'cause there were some changes I wasn't initially any too keen on. But dammit they sound GREAT now.)

I'm just tidying up the graph (ironically the same graph that was the first posting here to reveal that the Mastering plugs were on their way)... then I hit "BUILD EVERYTHING" and off it goes.

And then it'll be back for TDM porting... :D

How to fix a psycho Mac Pro

2008-02-13T21:32:00.002Z

Hi,

I'll just act like there hasn't been a huge gap in posting...

I have a Mac Pro. It's been acting... well... completely broken.
On startup, the two DVI screens take it in turns to flick off and on for three minutes before i can log in, my SaffireLE starts up desynchronised from the firewire bus, and my USB-MIDI devices literally crash out after a half-hour of use.

Today I fixed it.
If you have any symptoms like this, the following information may just save you a metric ton of grief.
Bit of a disappointing fix, but here it goes:
- Connect your DVIs through VGA adapters.
Rubbish, I know, but there -seems- to be some weird timing issue whereby the DVIs -spank- the data clock from the graphics card, which is messing with the bus clocks for the USB+FW. Ouch.
I genuinely can't believe that this could happen, but it certainly does look this way.

Now all my devices work fine (although my macpro still takes a full minute to boot, somehow... i'm just spoiled I guess). The Saffire works perfectly, and the system is rock solid. Awesome.

I'm going to NAMM!

2008-01-12T01:45:00.000Z

Wow! So I am finally going to visit the US!

My first trip to the states!

So, if anyone has any tips for:
- finding cigars in anaheim
- surviving as an eccentric englishman in america
- not going hoarse at a tradeshow
please let me know!!

If you'll be at NAMM, it'd be GREAT to meet you! I will mostly be hanging around at the Toontrack stand (our new allies :D ), stand 1100 in hall E.

As for Sonalksis activity - I've been preparing for the show, and the mastering tools are doing good in beta. Hope to launch fairly soon :D:D

See you there!!

Progress Update

2007-12-07T00:50:00.000Z

Hi.

It's been a tense one today. I finish work for the year tomorrow (to work on my thesis). This afternoon, I was three days behind schedule. This evening has been intense. With a good codebase you can work wonders though ;)
I need to wake up tomorrow, finish the DSP for Ultimate-D (just some tweaking), do final builds, do final alpha tests, and then I can ship MultiLimit, MaxLimit and Ultimate-D to beta. Wooh.
It's been painful, like it always is.
Looks like a release early next year is fairly plausible... so we're on track! :)
I am, however, not on track for the 80s party I am attending tomorrow evening. I should have my hair dyed by now (I am going as Hannibal from the A-Team. For the cigars, basically.).

Weird. These plugins are actually alive. How exciting!
I mentioned about the Analogue Clip being pretty groovy.
MultiLimit imparts an almost magical bigness to things. When I finish my first pop album, it'll be mastered with that. MaxLimit (especially since I added in the delay-compensation stuff) works very nicely even on tracks/busses in a session. Very groovy.
Ultimate-D is probably the least exciting plugin I've ever worked on, but if you need really really really good dither, then you probably could get quite excited about it.

However, something it's VERY easy (for me) to get excited about is that we WON AN AWARD FOR TBK3!
How cool is that?!? (more details to follow...)

Yaaay!

Dave.

BanPiracy, Waves and iLok

2007-12-03T23:47:00.000Z

Hi,

I was reading this earlier:

http://studionebula.com/blog/2007/12/02/why-i-boycott-products-that-use-paceilok-and-why-you-should-too

I found myself wondering the following:

What need is there for Banpiracy?

Waves plugins are iLok protected, and iLok hasn't been cracked, right?

Any ideas anyone?

Plans and Reality

2007-12-01T00:25:00.001Z

Gosh.

Today I got a healthy dose of how well things can turn out, when plans turn into reality.

So, you might have seen somewhere, we said we'd have an analogue clip on MaxLimit / MultiLimit?

Well, as of this evening, those two are now feature complete... there's polishing and optimising to do yet, but really not more than another day's worth of work, and they'll go to beta (Did I mention that StereoTools is in beta now? :D:D:D).

Now, as you also might recall, I'm striving for a PhD in nonlinear system theory, which means when I say "analogue clip", it really does actually have to be an analogue clip.
Following on with my current theme of making everything sound much simpler than it really is, the only difference between an analogue and a digital clip is the aliasing. Granted, most people claim to have alias-free clipping, and I'm sure that some do, I just haven't been given a copy of them. However, we needed 16 odd orders (a clip is symmetric, so there IS no even order distortion. None. I promise.), and it had to be alias free. I have some tricks for this, so I coded it up, and WOW.

Now, +obviously+ it's not for everything. I mean, you don't clip an acoustic recording, that would just be plain weird. But you do clip dancey stuff. And when you do, with this, BAD THINGS HAPPEN. This is, I think, almost a better reaction than I got from people with TBK3. And that was pretty silly. Perhaps I will post a clip.... of the clip ;)

Ez.

19" TFTs Rule My World.

2007-11-03T00:07:00.000Z

I just got an amazing deal on two 19" DVI TFTs. It's to "improve my productivity" and has nothing to do with giving me space to run Logic's Arrange and Mixer on separate windows at all.
I have been learning Cocoa because I need a quick and easy way of sketching applications. The uber-trendyness of it meant that I finally succumbed, and I spent today and much of yesterday reimplementing the UI of Apple's Installer.app, as a test. It was fun and I've learned lots. Most striking is that Objective-C is a descendent of C, not C++. The fact that you can browse header files and see how Objective-C is actually implemented is very exciting, for a geek such as myself.

Everyone I talk to at the moment is thrilled to be fixing Leopard-specific bugs. We seem to have gotten away with ease so far. This may be related to my OCD for making auval not flag up a single warning. Or my OCD for fixing ANY warning that flags up during the compilation of our plugins (the ENTIRE codebase compiles without a single warning on either mac or pc). This might sound like good coding practice, but actually, it's just a form of procrastination.

FogBugz6 is out (for Windows... I'm still waiting for the Unix version), and it is amazing. Joel Spolsky (who is a hero of mine, and all programmers, as it goes) is giving a talk in London next friday. I will be there bouncing up and down excitedly, and sacrificing lambs at the altar (though they do also accept credit card payments).

I still haven't written up my PhD thesis. This is because my mastery of avoiding it has now reached such a level that my university is considering awarding me an honorary doctorate in doctorate-work-avoidance. I can't help but feel that that would be rather ironic.

I've adopted a new habit of running MSN (actually Adium) in "Away" mode, to see if it has the psychological effect of reducing the amount that people message me. So far no change, but we'll see.

My striking score on Wii Golf has earned me the nickname "Ironfist", which may be related to a gesture that I make after I sink an Eagle or a chip-in. I may post a photo so you can decide for yourself.

My girlfriend is making a tune and she keeps programming these BIG RAW ANGRY noises which sound FREAKING cool. Every time I ask what she's using, it's TBK3. I have created a monster.

Anyways... back to work...

Waves BanPiracy thing

2007-11-02T23:43:00.000Z

Guess what?

I think that Waves "BanPiracy" thing is a GREAT idea.

Well... if you ignore all the unethical and entrapment side of it... :)

The idea of going after *commercial studios* using pirate software is bang on the money. No 15yr-old kids suffer - just the people using stolen software so that they can spend their budget on beer and cakes. It gets the dishonest users, and leaves alone the people still trying to make it.

Truth is, if you run a COMMERCIAL, PRO studio, and you are SELLING studio time, and you use cracked plugins, then you are a BASTARD of the first order, and you deserve whatever you get, frankly.

To put this in the context of my earlier postings, commercial studios who use cracks are the "dishonest users" who make a mockery of us all. These are people who can afford the software, and choose to take the piss. By the time you are running a full-time business selling studio time, you have earned the responsibility of not using stolen gear. A pro-studio wouldn't use a stolen mixing desk eh?

Now, I'm sure this strategy isn't infallible - I've heard stories of studios who have been essentially entrapped and done-over by Waves, and obviously that's not the way to go.

But if you are a bastard, and guilty as sin, and you get caught, please, for the sake of my faith in humanity, do the decent thing. Treat it as a wake-up call.

When I first heard about the BanPiracy scheme, I felt a wave of general outrage, as I generally do whenever someone does anything like this, and that whoever it was would be saying goodbye to the idea of having customers pretty quick. However, once I realised that it was EXPLICITLY targeting people who have NO excuse AT ALL for using cracks, I calmed down. BanPiracy (so i'm told) targets the MAJOR studios - ones that major labels pay a few $1000s per hour to. There's just no excuse for ripping off developers for them. Now, even if BanPiracy is getting "the wrong" people, it's always going after people who are actually selling studio time to clients. If that's you, and you use cracked software, then I DARE you to try and construct an ethically defensible position that doesn't make you sound like a crack dealer.
Anyone starting with "I'll let my paying customers use legitimate copies of the software when my business is running well enough" will result in me sending the rozzers down to their yard, if only because of how stupid it made them sound, and how annoying it is that anyone can actually be that stupid.

Now, I'm not saying that /I'd/ ever want to be involved with anything like this - there just IS WAY too much span for accidental entrapment and such, but at least Waves have enough of a clue to target the right people.

Where are the Sonalksis TDM plugins?

2007-10-24T11:31:00.000+01:00

They're coming! Have some patience, eh?
I've NEARLY finished this mastering kit, just a few more pixels to poke and samples to mash.

But probably not too late next year.

Dedicated DSP VS Native PlugIn Processing

2007-10-24T10:53:00.000+01:00

There is a difference - there are several differences. But they may well not be what
you expect them to be.

CPU Performance. Native processors have left all but the most high-end DSPs standing.
A deep-pipelined microcoded CPU like an Intel Core chip is at least an order of magnitude
faster than, say, a Motorola 56000 class DSP. It's a brutish and inelegant figure with
which to make the comparison, but the clock rate of a Core2 can be set at 3GHz,
whereas one would expect to see a 56000 DSP running at around 200MHz.

Of course, that comparison is entirely unfair- the DSP can do things that the Core2
cannot. The DSP can fetch two items from memory AND perform a multiply-accumulate in ONE
cycle (when coded correctly). That choice of instruction is not arbitrary - the most
common DSP task is to multiply-accumulate and fetch two - it's the heart of FIRs, IIRs
and all manner of other lovely algorithms. That's either three or four instructions
on the Core2, but as for how many clock cycles that would take, it's anyone's guess
- somewhere between 1 and 10 seems likely. Anyone care to correct me?

The Core2 is harder to predict the performance because it depends on many things
- whether the numbers to be loaded are in cache or need to be fetched from RAM
- whether the code is in cache or is being fetched from RAM
- what the Core was doing previously
- what the Core is doing next.

Core processors employ what's known as a pipeline. Different parts of the chip
handle different types of task, and they do so in parallel as far as is possible.
When you write an algorithm for a DSP, at the end, you count the number of lines of
assembly, and can state that the code will use N clock cycles. If you have a list of
algorithms to run, with a list of how long they will take, it's very easy to schedule
them and to know exactly how much processing capacity you need. And it is ENTIRELY reliable
and predictable to do so.

Conversely, it's very easy when writing DSP code to know when you have been inefficient.
You are going to use too many clock cycles. Working with external DSPs, you always end
up optimising to minimise your cycle count - that means using tricks and shortcuts to
get the best approximation to what you want, with as few instructions as possible.
That's great fun, in a nerdy way. For instance, a lot of dynamics processing requires
you to evaluate the mathematical functions log() and exp(). A Motorola DSP doesn't have
a log or exp function - though it does have some instructions that can help approximate it.
So when you code a compressor for that DSP, one of the fun things you have to do is
build a fast log and exp approximator. There are endless tricks. With work, you can
get close to the precision of a standard Native implementation - which are, as near as
is meaningful, exact. You'll spend a lot of clock cycles doing that on a DSP though,
and somewhere you'll find that you can trade off a bit of accuracy for extra speed.

The biggest difference between Motorola DSPs and Native processors is the fixed-point
vs floating-point difference. To make clear the difference, a floating point number
CONTAINS a 24bit fixed-point number, PLUS a scale that it can use to increase range.
A floating point number = fixed point number * 2^scale - that is, a floating point
number is a fixed point number, with a scale that can double or halve it many times.

So how can fixed-point sound better than floating, when floating can do more, is far
more accurate, and we have more processing power to throw at it? My controvertial answer
is - BECAUSE it doesn't have the range. Open up one of your sessions, right now.
Insert a clipper at 0dB after EVERY plugin. What happened? Well, it depends on how hot you
run your session - but if in general just a /little/ bit hot, you just got an overall shine
added to your mix - a noisefloor of digital clip distortion and aliasing that boosted up
your high-frequency energy and made everything a touch noisier. And you did it native!

This is the magic of dedicated DSPs - when your channel goes INTO a DSP plugin, and it's
pretty warm but not clipping, and you then add a few dBs of EQ, you clip that band on
the EQ's output. Clipping means high frequency energy, plus a touch of aliasing noise.
The aliasing noise is likely to be very quiet, but the brain doesn't mind /small/ amounts
because within a mix, it's just noise, and we, as humans, like a bit of noise. Boosting
the high frequency energy is great though - more "warmth" from the clipped bass,
more "openness" from the clipped mid and more "air" from the clipped top.
As far as I can tell, and I must state that it is only a theory, this is what lies beneath
the "bigger mixdowns" sound from using dedicated DSPs. But this is certainly not the ONLY thing.

Developing for dedicated DSP requires an investment cost - it's a filter. The kind of users
who have dedicated DSP systems are those who spend more on software. By developing exclusively
for dedicated DSP, you enter a part of the market where piracy is small (no 16yr-old kids cry
themselves to sleep wishing they could get some new cracks for their pro-DSP rig...),
and where customers are wealthy. It's also a filter in that only developers who are serious
about their algorithms will bother to afford the buy-in cost for development.
Since it's easier to develop for native, everyone and anyone can, and do.
People with deep knowledge of how to write good sounding algorithms, however, will go that
step further and develop for DSP, paying that buy-in cost in the sure knowledge that the
market will receive them.

DSP plugins cost more because the developers need to recover that cost of developing for the
DSP - nowadays people generally write code for Native and then port it to the DSP. Recovering
the cost of the Native version will spread across many many users, whereas the developer needs
the far fewer DSP users to help recover the DSP cost, which would be ill-advisedly passed on to
the Native customers. It's also a question of standing. Selling £20 DSP plugins would just seem
ridiculous to the market. It would not be likely be taken seriously.

If you want to add in a Motorola style clip to your plugin, the rough code is:
if (x>1) x=1;
if (x<-1) x=-1;

Blogging Question

2007-10-12T00:44:00.000+01:00

Hi,

I've not been posting much recently. A big part of this is... well... I'm just deep in development work, and I'm pretty sure you're not too interested in how I refactored my UI component class (although, it's a great story... but perhaps not one for parties)... Any requests for info on anything? I miss blogging, and I'm feeling out of ideas for stuff to tell y'all...

The ongoing development process

2007-10-12T00:05:00.000+01:00

Hi,

Here's a heads-up for interested parties.

All the plugin UIs are pretty much finished, names are decided, and so forth, so now all that remains is final tweakage of the DSP, presets, gluing extra features in, and tidying up (optimising). Then a month of beta, during which time I'll be making 2.04 more shiny ready for release... with luck you'll be tweaking by xmas.
You also get a free app to download your license files off the server too, because lots of people have trouble with the registration process, and it's not rocket science to write an app to do it for you :)
We could even put a check for updates in there (and not automatically run on startup, which is just damned annoying)..

It's been lots of fun to see the new UIs come together. I'm adding in the last touches for K-metering tomorrow, and I'll probably spend a while making the graphs even sexier.

More to follow :)

Why Chris Randall is the coolest.

2007-10-11T23:54:00.000+01:00

In case you didn't know, you better get to know:

http://www.analogindustries.com/blog/entry.jsp?msgid=1192130114442

'cause it's like that, and that's the way it is...

Ultimax Force - Ninja Commandos

2007-09-29T20:17:00.000+01:00

I got this DVD:

Ultimax Force (imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092127/)

It looks GREAT. I can't WAIT to watch it.

cough

2007-09-29T00:17:00.000+01:00

Me? Leak images of things I've been working on? That would never happen.

Dave Gamble, Acting Manager, Absenteeism Department, Sonalksis

2007-09-28T23:55:00.000+01:00

Where did I go?

I'm a little embarassed by having disappeared for so long. Truth is, I disappeared to Cuba for a few months, with a huge bag full of cash (with SWAG on the side), to smoke VERY fat cigars, and get a suntan. (Chris Randall sussed me out!)

Ok, no, that's actually not the truth. That's what I /wish/ was the truth. I moved house.
Moving house proves two unique problems for me: 1) I have studio kit and 2) I'm a hoarder.
The new studio is set up now, and I've treated the room to be within 7dB at 1/3rd octave measurement at the sweet spot. I chucked out LOTS of junk, but still managed to fill a 6'x6' bookcase with the excess. And another 6'x2' bookcase. One day, I promise I'll throw out all my old papers, but I just don't have the heart to right now. My thesis draws ever-closer to completion, and, frankly, the idea of throwing away anything I've printed out terrifies me. I bought a laser printer some years ago. Best investment I have ever made. I print things out a lot. I'm not good with screens and understanding what's going on - which is why I'm such a moron to talk to on MSN.
Unless it's code. That's not an invitation for people to MSN me in C++.

The new place is a LOT nicer. My girlfriend and I got a place together, which is a little scary (first time for me!), but it does mean we can have a REALLY nice home! (she's a graphics designer... did I mention that? Flukey or what eh?) I may even post some photos.

So, to the interesting (and less rambling-idiot-stylee) news...
2.04 is in beta at the moment. Lots of fixes and improvements for all sorts of obscure cases.
Improvements across the board for: 315Mk1, 517Mk1, 315Mk2, 517Mk2, 719, FreeG, CQ1, DQ1...

As you may have gathered, there is to be a range of Sonalksis Mastering plugins. There's been a LOT of work on that. They're not quite in beta yet, I'm still making some alpha adjustments, and incorporating a few last features. They'll be in test within a month tho, and you can rely on the beta group (who just go from strength to strength. I fear them) to make em lovely.
There will be (I can officially announce) StereoTools (TM), MaxLimit (TM), MultiLimit (TM), and Ultimate-D (TM).

Hopefully the names are reasonably self-explanatory. Ultimate-D (TM) is, obviously, a Tenacious-D (TM, but not ours!) tribute plugin, and makes you feel like Jack Black (TM, his own).

I'm going to stop talking about those now... comments guessing what they do are invited :)

I'll post more shortly :)

Dave.

I spent nearly the entire week dithering...

2007-07-07T02:09:00.000+01:00

If you'll pardon the horrific pun...

Obviously a mastering limiter has dithering. Right?
So, naturally we wanted to provide the best dithering in the world, because that's just what we do.

This is really interesting, go do this:
http://www.24-96.net/dither/

It's very cool. However PLEASE DO HEED THE WARNING ABOUT LISTENING TO IT QUIETLY! :)
As many people have pointed out, the psychoacoustics behind dither rely on your hearing perception spectrum changing with volume, so unless you try it nice and quiet, you won't learn much from it.

That said, I tried it out at a higher volume... and I gotta say, things didn't change TOO much! The order of "goodness" remained -roughly- the same for me, the best stayed the best, at least... and that's MegaBitMax. The Waves IDR(/POW-R, for that is what it appears to be) comes a good second... but MBM definitely has it.

I stumbled onto (literally found by accident) the coefficients for the POW-R3 dither (yeah, they're on the net in some sourcecode! Weird!).

I spent the start of the week figuring out how dither works. Today, the maths all made sense, arranged itself in my brain, and fell into place. I now have all the dither you want... :)

So, first up, I ought to start with the background... why do we dither things, how does it work, why, etc.

Well, we're going to reduce bit-depth to fit it onto a CD, and whatever we do to get rid of those excess bits is going to generate some form of distortion. That distortion sounds bad. We want to get rid of it.

Step1: Add some noise. If the noises is louder than the distortion (which is actually quite quiet), you won't hear the distortion.

Good one. A little noise, and the distortion is gone.

Now we have this extra noise that we don't want... so..

Step2: Maybe, with some feedback, we can filter the noise and make it less audible.

Bingo! now, we've hidden the distortion under some noise... and then we hid the noise! ACE! :D
Does it get any better than that?? This is the magical thing about noise... you can bend it - so we fold it out of the way to places we can't hear!

"How is this all psycho-acoustic?"

Easy! We want to get rid of the noise where you can't hear it. Psychoacoustics tells me about where your hearing isn't very sensitive... so... I EQ it away from where you CAN hear, and towards where you CAN'T hear... there are curves for this sort of thing, and all you need to do is invert that curve and you're home and dry... maybe...

"Really?"

Well, actually no! You're not! If that WAS completely true, POW-R3 would sound better than MegaBitMax. But it doesnt, does it? How strange! So... there's a little bit more going on than psychoacoustics wants us to know about... but hey we can experiment and get it right.

"The way you're describing all this, it makes it sound like this is just about some EQ settings"
Well... that's the magic, it really is. Go find Alexey Lukin's page on dither, grab the pdf
(here: http://audio.rightmark.org/lukin/dither/dither.pdf)

see... curves! Magic.

"Is this really the only way to do it?"
No, but it is the best way.
We have a number of other options that we could explore, which I shall detail here:

1) We could not add dither noise.
Sure, and then the distortion comes back- that's the only reason we're doing this.

2) We could just shape the noise but not the quantize error
Sure, and then you'll have noise which isn't masking the error in the most sensitive part of your hearing.

3) We could just shape the quantize error but not the noise
Sure, but if you just want to add loud noise, why not record onto an old tape?

4) We could change the EQ to follow the shape of the music, and hide the noise in places that are loud so it's masked!
Good idea, but there are some real problems here that you must pay attention to: First and foremost, we add noise because it is specifically uncorrelated to the signal - if it WAS correlated, it would be harmonic distortion (that's the definition). Now, if you're planning to change the filter coefficients depending on the signal, then not only is that a time-variant filter (where you'll either be changing the curve too slowly to be useful or too quick, and making bad noises - it's a fine line and not a fun game) you would actually be adding in a correlated change - so you'd actually be adding in more distortion. It's possible that a strategy based on this might one day find the balance with the time-variant filter and allow you to blend between distortion and noise, but it's a very complicated task, and you really wouldn't be gaining anything. (Although it would make for a very interesting paper.)

So, with these decisions fixed, made and justified, my task was reduced to finding a way to generate the perfect dither response. The literature hints at it, but the answer is obviously an optimised Levinson-Durbin recursion since the problem can be resolved to solving a set of
simultaneous equations with a symmetric Toeplitz matrix. I can do it in realtime now :)
I've been A/Bing with the POW-R3 and MegaBitMax, and what I have here sounds at least as good;
I've reduced the problem down to calibrating one number, which is mad really. I think the final
answer will be about 2.2. ;)

I'll get some samples up sometime :)

[I will concede that finding the one number that tweaks it just right was a stroke of luck.. I've seen no reference to it in the literature.]

What's that?

2007-06-29T04:55:00.000+01:00

.... more evil deeds are afoot....

Celebrating the launch of TBK3

2007-06-15T20:18:00.002+01:00

... and just when I'd convinced you I wasn't a cigar-smoking fat-cat...

We're all very excited and pleased about the TBK3 launch! :D

[and for those of you who care, it's a Carlos Torano Reserva Selecta torpedo, and it is delicious!]

Can you guess what I just uploaded?

2007-06-14T22:22:00.000+01:00

... Can you?

Ship dates are always very emotional for me.
There's something really significant about declaring something ready.
Well, it's had two months of beta and it's rocksolid. And nasty.

Anyone who reads about marketing will discover Zipfs law soon enough... #1 gets 90%, #2 gets 9%, #3 0.9% and so on... I have a feeling about TBK3.. this really could be the plugin that becomes the #1 compressor... I wonder...
There's been a long phase of people wanting accurate models of analogue compressors, but I dont think i'm being controvertial in suggesting that it's more due to wanting a compressor that really does the job than there being some bizarre magic to a particular piece of kit - it's always you that decides what sound you take from it, after all. And here we are sitting on TBK3, which REALLY DOES get the job done and is quicker to use than any other comp I know of...

It could just happen...

What's even more nuts is the realization that the people who read this blog could make it happen. The biggest problem at Sonalksis is that no-one knows who we are... we've really struggled for magazine inches, and without big advertising capital you're stuck... Everyone's always telling us about how good the plugins sound... perhaps people like to keep them as secret weapons? ;)

But I've got this long list of things people tell us they really want, from ring modulators to spring-reverbs, pitch-shifters to new even-more-pro eqs, some really pro mastering gear, etc etc (i might post the list sometime...) and I really do like shipping products... with your support in spreading the word, we could afford to take on more people and get these things done.
Can you help? What could we do to make spreading the word easier? Will TBK3 just make it happen?

You can either stay tuned... or start writing the script...

TBK3... Mind your speakers....

2007-06-12T13:26:00.001+01:00

Before:

And after:

[If that doesn't work, click Before and After]

It's that time again....

2007-06-05T15:53:00.001+01:00

Something wicked this way comes....

Again More Hackers...

2007-05-03T19:53:00.000+01:00

I haven't edited the comments to my last post. Nor replied to them. It's a heated issue, and I'd rather get involved by making a clear statement than by making short replies that could get misunderstood.

I had the opportunity to speak to someone who actually knows some crackers, and I learnt a lot about how it works. And to explain what I learnt, we need to start with ethics.

In my last post I talked about how it is unethical to use cracked software. I also referred (perhaps not as clearly as I should have) to the critical distinction between a lost sale and a non-potential sale. Let me restate this: a 14-yr old who wants to learn about making music the way that professionals do it and uses cracked software is not a potential sale. 14-yr olds do not have £3500 to spend on studio equipment to get started. There is an argument that they could learn by using free software - and many do, but the point is that free software is not what the professionals use- if it was, there would be NO music software market.
A lost sale is a producer who is making his money by selling records, or perhaps renting studio time, who gets a cracked piece of software and decides that there's no point in buying it, because he has it now.

No-one in this market suffers from non-potential sales. Ever. In fact, the reverse is completely true. If you work in this industry, you DO know people who started out with cracked software and now have spent thousands and thousands of pounds on their studios. If you don't know anyone like this, then you either know less than two people, or you don't work in the industry. This is a fact. If there was no crack of Photoshop, there would be FEWER legitimate Photoshop users. The fact that businesses HAVE to buy Photoshop for their employees forces this to be the case, but it's equally true in music just because musicians are (with almost no exceptions) GOOD people.

Now, suppose we naively believe that people who can afford to buy software will do so. We believe this, because it's true for us, and we don't really think anyone would be that different to us.

Well then, ON THAT ASSUMPTION, it becomes an ethically justifiable case to crack software and make it available to people who need it but can't afford it, safe in the knowledge that as soon as they CAN afford it, they will, of course, buy it! This, so I am informed, is the ethical foundation for the cracking community. And clearly, this will develop into an ethically driven and ethically justified community of people working together for a common good.

Effectively, cracking is aggressive marketing to people who can't YET form part of your customerbase, done for you, the developer, by a 3rd party.

The crackers feel ethically justified in what they are doing, because their foundations show that they can't harm you. Hey, they've probably paid for the copy that they use themselves.

So there's this lovely symbiotic relationship going on, where the crackers provide new software to people who /can't/ buy it, so that one day they will. Great.

Except that the assumption is, apparently, wrong. Not enormously wrong, but wrong enough to show up some nasty statistics. Y'see, people who /can/ afford to buy the software are also getting their hands on the cracks. That's not what the developers want - because these people ARE potential sales. That's not what the crackers want either - these people are mocking the crackers by using the cracks commercially.

Go find some cracks and read the files that the hackers include with them. The more respected the cracking group, the heavier the emphasis on "try before you buy", and "if you use it, pay for it". This is universally true.

So, it's not the crackers that hurt the developers, it's dishonest users. Of course, there's an easy argument that if the crackers didn't distribute the cracks to /anyone/, then there'd be no problem with dishonest users. There'd also be fewer users, and less publicity for products. Swings and roundabouts - statistics you can never gather, because it's a clear example of the uncertainty principle; if you try to measure it, you'll change it.

I personally believe that this wraps up the story with the crackers. They have an ethical standpoint that is naively defensible. However, they're being exploited in the same way as developers. It was not for nothing that I urged anyone seeking to hack the Sonalksis plugins to customise the UIs to show that they were cracks. I really will release the installer files upon request to any crackers who want them in order to repackage the plugs.

Do legitimate users care if 14-yr-old kids have a copy of the software that they've paid for to play around with? I consider that pretty unlikely. If you've gotten far enough in this industry to be able to afford pro plugins, then you already have a pretty good idea of how all this works. Better than I do, most likely. And EVERYONE can get hold of the 30-day demo anytime - they're just using the "infinite demo", because that's their culture.

But users who could easily afford to buy plugins but don't... what to do? Users who'll happily pay out a few grand on hardware, but not even a few pounds on software...

...will be discussed in a future posting.

Dave.

What goes on at Castle Sonalksis?

2007-04-20T03:08:00.000+01:00

Hello,

I feel I ought to give a quick update as to what's going on behind the scenes.

TBK3 finished its first beta phase.
A few minor things to tidy up... and a decision that it should go even nastier.
So, it's just ridiculous now. Totally ridiculous.
Set to extreme settings I can't make any sense of what's going on at all. :D
I think the testers like it. Audio perverts.
So, now it's just polishing and making sure all the bugs are closed and buried.
With luck and good weather (which we've been having a lot of in the UK recently!), it should be a few more weeks to release.

I guess it's time to read some books on writing about high-energy action adventures, so I can write the manual... ;)

In other news.
I finished the DSP and plugin-y-ness for another new plugin... a useful utility-type thing. It still needs a UI, so it hasn't gone to beta yet; so that'll be out after TBK3
Specs are confirmed for another two plugins, which I intend to start veeeerrry soon ;) NO DETAILS FOR YOU! :P

In other other news.
I bought a copy of FogBUGZ. I used to use it at Focusrite/Novation, and it was one of the best things ever. It still is one of the best things ever.
It's frankly astonishing that a piece of software can turn bug tracking into an enjoyable experience. I've no clue how it's done, but if you have bugs to track, throw out whatever you're using and get FogBUGZ now.

I bought a copy for my mac. It's all working now, but pheww... it took some time...
To get it to work I had to:
1) Install the latest PHP ('cause the one that ships with macos is lame)
2) FIGHT this thing called PEAR (which seems to be some kind of package manager); I say FIGHT because there were two versions installed that were fighting. If you get into the same trouble, the answer is: sudo pear config-set bin_dir /usr/bin, THEN do all the sudo pear upgrade PEAR stuff. and use sudo pear -V LOTS. You need it to say that the version number is 1.5ish, or better. 1.3.6 is right out.
3) Use PEAR to install some PHP modules (i think thats what it did)
4) Install MySQL off the 'net
5) Learn the bare minimum to get MySQL working (install all 3 things in the dmg, open system preferences, click start. know that by default db passwords are blank)
6) Poke around 3 or 4 setup screens for FogBUGZ
7) Configure my php.ini... but which one?!!? The one HIDDEN in /usr/local/php5/ of course!
8) Reboot apache lots. Thank goodness apple have a button for this in system prefs.
9) Configure my my.cnf file. It doesnt exist yet. It goes in /etc/. It needs to contain about 2 lines of text.
10) ENJOY!

Now, as you can see, had I installed it on a Linux machine, I could have skipped stages 1->9. Let this be a lesson to us all! :D :D :D

Now I've moved the buglist from Excel into FogBUGZ which is working just lovely on my machine. It's very exciting. Admittedly there aren't THAT many bugs to enter, but the joy is, I can assign myself new tasks as feature requests for building new things! YAY! :)
FogBUGZ is so wonderful because:
1) Things that live in databases that you can't see feel much more safe and secure than .xls files on your desktop
2) It forces you to work in a formal way, and this in turn makes you feel much better and safer about things
3) It remembers all these things for you! You can even leave messages to yourself! What more could you ask for?
4) It is so simple that anyone ever could learn to use it in less than 3 minutes, without a manual.
5) There is a strange and magical process inside my brain that works like this: if something is in a place where I know it is safe, and other people can see it, then I don't have to burn braincycles on worrying about it. In this way, FogBUGZ makes me feel better about my life in general. Weird huh? It just destresses me. I'm sure the same thing will work for you too if you have bugs to track, or features to implement :)

So, that's my exciting news. I have some bug tracking software which is so good I want to write pages of blog about it. Oh, and lots of new plugins on the way.

I'm planning to take a holiday at the start of next month. I'm considering Palma/Majorca or Barcelona... or maybe Paris. Any suggestions?
I'm just thinking that with the weather being this good over here at this time of year, it's nuts to go away, but a nice holiday away somewhere would be just the ticket.

Bye for now,

Dave.

Hackers Again.

2007-04-16T17:31:00.000+01:00

Hi,

It looks like I haven't blogged for a while, but actually I have another post I just haven't finished yet.

There's a big thread on KvR where someone is offering $1000 reward for information that leads to prosecution of some hackers. I think that's a paltry reward given what's being asked for, but of course, everyone's opinions vary- the thread is about 55 pages long now. Some people are pro hackers, some people against. I've made my position clear before- or at least I thought I had...

You may or may not be aware that I got a little message wishing me a happy new year from some hackery-type people. That left me somewhat perplexed. I wasn't sure if they were sincerely hoping I had a happy new year (although a perhaps somewhat impoverished one), or if they were just being mean? I'm pretty sure they read the blog, and I'd love some clarification. I can't trace anonymous comments, so there's nothing to stop you posting to me. In fact, I'd love to find out.

I did ask in a previous post that if anyone does feel the need to crack Sonalksis software, they should update the UI graphics to make sure everyone knows they did it. I've even made this easy to do. Perhaps I should make the installer files available to make it easier still for them?

The argument that plugins should be free is false.
You want Sonalksis plugins. They require X amount of working time to develop and test.
For me at least, if it wasn't a day-job, I could not find the time to do the work necessary.
Free plugins = non-existent plugins.

Not so! You say - there are many free plugins!

Yes, but evidently the circumstances that apply to their authors do not apply to us at Sonalksis.
If you want Sonalksis quality (and customer support and updates and new features and...), you need to get it developed by Sonalksis. For that to happen, we have to have the time, and that means taking things seriously.

Even if you disagree that circumstances are different (though everyone's circumstances ARE different), that makes you an ethically justified user of free plugins, not an ethically justified user of cracked non-free plugins.

Essentially, when you buy something, you are saying not only that you want that item (and support for it in future) but that you want the manufacturer to provide you with similar future items which also appeal to you.
By using cracked Sonalksis software when you can afford not to, what you are saying is that you DO NOT want more Sonalksis software to be available. Now, if that is what you mean to say, then that's fair enough - but pay for the software you do use, and tell us that for whatever reason you want us to go bust. That's the only ethically defensible position, I'm afraid.

I have started to get the impression that a lot of people think of plugin companies as big fat-cats, all rich beyond their dreams, driving porsches and ferraris. Big glass offices, server rooms with millions of blinking lights. Water fountains. Multi-million pound mansions in the countryside with stables and maybe a racetrack for practicing rallying at the weekend.
Yeah, that's the dream, but actually, I don't know of ANY company who's got that far (except perhaps Waves at their highest peak).

So some reality just so you can ground what it's really like. Most plugin companies are very small. 20 people is a HUGE number of employees for a plugin company. Pay is never great - there's always more money working for some faceless corporate consulting outfit. I've almost finished paying off my student debts - maybe another year or two will get it. No-one at Sonalksis owns a car, let alone a Porsche or a Ferrari (although one of the guys has a van!).

Making plugins is not (as far as we can tell!) a way to get rich and retire, making a killing exploiting the musicians of the world. Actually, making plugins isn't even I.T. It's not the same market. It's the music industry. The market for a plugin company IS NOT everyone with a computer, it's PURELY musicians. I think we ALL know how much money there isn't in this industry.

This is why my comment above about sustaining company development is moot. No-one in this industry (not even Waves!) is sitting back and laughing (WUP?). Not any more. We're all doing the best we can to stay in business. We're all still trying to live the dream - making a living in the music industry! Everyone goes about things in different ways, and I'm sure different approaches have different merits - even though I strongly disagree with a few things going on today.

When money comes through the door here, it gets invested in three things:
1) Making new plugins. This is the only way we can stay in business.
2) Supporting existing plugins. This is the only way we can guarantee that we're a company worth buying from. No-one wants to be a bad company, do they?
3) Growth. We need to advertise to have new customers, we need to take on people who are good to do the stuff we're bad at, we need to expand as a company in order to keep growing (because otherwise you shrink and die)

So, now you know. No fat-cats smoking cigars. No Ferraris. Not even a second-hand Lamborghini. What you're paying for is for us to keep making new plugins, and to keep the old ones working.

Hopefully you remember that I'm not hopelessly naive about these things and I can tell a lost sale from someone who never would have bought. So I'm not arguing that a 13yr old with his first sequencer is destroying the industry - that's clearly nonsense. However, a studio selling recording time and using cracked software clearly IS. If they didn't pay for their hardware, someone would be in there to retrieve it nice and quick. If they didn't pay for their electricity, it'd get shut off. Cracked software should be the same deal, but it's not. This is what led me to request that hackers badge cracked software. But let's not think of it as "going after people who OUGHT to be paying".

I've seen dontcrack.com, and I like it. I have one of their t-shirts.
I saw their forums. Wheeewww... A lot of very angry people there, who've been done-over by large software companies, and now feel that their piracy is justified.

Well, what can you say to someone who's been put through so much pain that they'd rather pirate software than pay a cent to support the companies. Shame on the companies that messed them about! But that's not enough, because NOW, every other company will feel their wrath. It's worth noting that these people are in the large paying customers who're not prepared to pay any more - they want the companies that have mistreated them to go bust, and as long as they stick to non-cracked software, they are ethically sound!

We make a point of looking after our customers. We are a small company, and as I've probably mentioned before, all of our customers (so far.. touch wood) are lovely!
This might be related to the fact that customer support is essentially our highest priority as a company. Sometimes growth/new products suffer as a result; we just have to interpret that as a measure of how tough the market actually is. We can't afford to let customer service suffer, or we'd be out of business in a week.
Nor can we differentiate between the level of support a demo-user vs a customer gets. We've no way of demonstrating that we offer good customer service to customers unless prospective customers get the same service too.
So customer service is opened up to everyone.
Now out comes a crack, and suddenly TWENTY TIMES as many users have the plugins.
How fair does it feel that the cost of supporting them through customer service is paid for by the legitimate customers?
To clarify that- I can't distinguish between someone who is "using the demo and needs help" and someone who is using the crack. The former represents a potential sale, the latter most likely does not. I have to help them both.
Or maybe I only offer customer service to existing customers... would that be popular?

But on the flip-side, TWENTY TIMES as many people have now heard of Sonalksis... maybe they'll buy? Well... the demo period is (we think) pretty generous, so it's not the benefits of try-before-you-buy. So maybe it's a marketing thing?
Perhaps there is some benefit there?
But marketing is something you ought to take control of - if you had to choose between spending X amount advertising to random people, or the same amount advertising in a magazine read by your target audience, which would you choose?
I have a funny feeling this analogy isn't a million miles from the way it is, whether you measure X as cash expenditure or lost sales.

Ah well. There's really no fixed answer to this type of argument.
There's no hard data - and there never can be.
You can prove precisely nothing.

There's another angle that interests me though.
Why do crackers crack?
I suspect it goes something like this:
1) Young, very smart, technically gifted, wants to acquire some status
2) Does a few cracks which get some attention, acquires desired status
3) Gets surrounded by a network of people who really want more cracks done
4) Gets half-way emotionally blackmailed into it, and keep cracking until finally s/he gets the opportunity to stop.

It's well known that hacking (white hat) is something people do because it's interesting and fun. That explains the first few cracks (black hat). But surely there comes a point where it becomes routine and monotonous. Points 3&4 are my theory as to WHY people would carry on cracking after it's become dull. Suppose you've cracked CP mechanism X, and you did it because it was fun. Well, now it's cracked, why would you keep on cracking it for other plugins?

I believe that points 1-4 form a valid explanation for the motives and actions of crackers. It makes sense. To start with, they find something technically fascinating (although illegal), and they dive into it. Then, they find themselves locked into it, long past the fascination has gone.

I don't believe for one second that the crackers we have heard of are immature in any way. The concept that someone could have the immaturity to keep trying to attain status in a childlike way just bears NO conceivable parity with the level of skill required to crack software.

However, while I /like/ 1-4 as an explanation, I have two more potential hypotheses:
A) Crackers believe they are ethically justified
B) Crackers hold a vendetta against their victims
Now, as I have said, anyone with the skills to crack software is necessarily mature enough to realise that A is clearly false - there isn't /really/ an ethical justification. If they really do think that, then all we can conclude is that that's a +frightening+ state of affairs.
As for B... well, why? It would have to be a very generic vendetta too. Some kind of prejudice against plugin companies? Weird.

The handiwork I've seen from crackers recently indicates that the level of skill required to enter the arena is higher than ever before. The crypto knowledge alone is not something you'd learn at university... So here we are talking about people who could WALK into some of the highest paid jobs in the IT industry...

I just wonder why they don't surf over to musicdsp.org, spend 20 minutes figuring out DSP, and start their own plugin companies?

Any ideas?

The button...

2007-03-02T01:37:00.000Z

Ok people...

So, as you may have guessed from other posts, TBK3 is /bit/ nasty...
In fact, it's so nasty that we've had a little think.

Now, we know damn well that you want a compressor so evil that it frightens your pets, so none of the functionality is going... but we're going to have a button which lets you pick just how nasty it gets; y'see, it's a really great compressor when you're NOT killing things dead, so there'll be a "nicer" mode...

So... a button which brings the pain...

Our ideas for labels so far include:
EVIL
PAIN
DEATH
NASTY
VICIOUS
ATTACK!
KILL!
FIERCE!
etc...

So... What should we call the button that brings the kind of compression that has only existed in your most perverse nightmares?
Let us know!!! :)

Dave.

And it is done...

2007-03-01T04:36:00.000Z

I feel an enormous sense of relief now. 2.02 is out :)
The last email has been sent, and it's all sorted.
Installers are up, pages are updated, ChangeLog is added, mailouts are sent...

It's half four in the morning.
Now I just have to wait for someone to spot the obvious mistakes... :-S
Wish me luck eh?

Dave.

Two things! (Both of which are exciting!)

2007-03-01T02:33:00.000Z

Wheeeeee!

Today (well, tonight) is exciting because:
1) It's TBK3 day
and
2) It's Essentials Mk2 v2.02 day

(2) first:
So, they've been in testing for long enough now. They're stable and great and all round lovely. A few nice new features have gone in, and the last few niggly bugs have been cleaned up!
Felix is visiting from Paris. Despite talking every day on the phone/msn/aim/email, it DOES make a difference to actually SEE someone. I am pleased he is here! :)
So, we are shipping 2.02. No-one can find anything else for me to fix (and our testers are AMAZING! They scare me! :-D), so it's time to ship. I will be genuinely surprised if these ever make it to 2.04!! (... until we add new features! :P)
I've built all the installers, uploaded them, written the changelog (ooh! a first!). Felix is writing the mailshots, and I have to go update the webpages, and then make the installers live.
Then we have to hack a stack of SQL to send out the mailshots... and then Felix can write the press releases. Aceness.
It feels good to get closure on such an intense phase of work!

Felix has a new blog. I am gonna update the links on the side of the blog to link to him... when I figure out how... :D

(1)... TBK3... It came to life today... It is born.
It is UTTERLY F+CKING TERRIFYING!
Can't remember how much I've said about it before, so here's the skinny:
It's a compressor. With a bad attitude. Overcompression is just the starter, dual-domain envelopes is the entree, analogue-style curve softening is just another starter, the sidechain bias is rather handy, the clipper is fairly useful, the additive analogue-modelled (filtered gaussian distributed pseudorandom) noise is very chewy, and the inbuilt transient designer... well... ;)
Basically, we took everything we know about what makes analogue compressors sound nasty and evil, took it to an extreme, converted that to DSP and made it a plugin.
There is no possible "nice" use for this plugin. I have tested. Play some thin sounding beats in, and as you sweep the knob, you go all the way from "solid" to "heavy" to "crunchy hip-hop" all the way to "instant dubstep". It's just mean to the beats. But they love it ;)

I am super-excited. Can you tell? :D

It needs tweakage before I let it out the gate, 'cause I like to tweak, and I reckon I can balance the transient designer and compressor stages more tightly... and I might set an envelope follower to control the noise... and the graphics are still in progress... but oh boy, this is gonna upset a few people! :D :D :D

If you've read this far, then you must REALLY like me, so come and find me at SoundsExpo!! I'll wear my blue t-shirt which says "Code Monkey"(friday) or my black t-shirt that says "Insufficient Memory"(saturday). I might even have a namebadge! I'm the one with glasses hanging around with the REALLY tall dude with dreadlocks (Felix). Come say Hi!! :) I'll be there friday + saturday.

Hope to see you there!! :)

Dave.

Where have you gone? Where has 2.02 gone?!?!

2007-02-13T12:59:00.000Z

I mean, it wasn't that much to ask for, was it?
Except, who saw it coming...? That I would find myself locked in a room for two weeks, on the verge of losing my mind, trying to fix a bug in the RTAS version that just plain didn't want to be fixed.
Well, I guess that just goes to show why it's never safe to publish release dates for things in beta testing!

I am feeling slightly better about life now that I'm no longer focussing every fibre of my being on this one retarded bug ('cause it's fixed now).
I do want to say BIG THANKS and BIG LOVE to Angus @ FXpansion and Nixx @ Focusrite for keeping me sane during that fortnight... Errrgh.
I'm uploading a new beta for the testers while I type this... :)

And then I get to make some exciting NEW plugins!! Now, that IS something I'm looking forward to!! :)

I watched 8 DVDs this weekend:
Farenheit 9/11 (veeeery interesting)
Layer Cake (just great)
The 40-year-old Virgin (actually a lot more funny than i expected)
Memoirs of a Geisha (very cool)
Ultraviolet (no actual storyline to speak of, nor dialogue, but lots of fighting, and that completely redeemed it, in my eyes)
Hitch (it's a will smith rom-com, you know what it's gonna be like)
Team America - World Police (required viewing for everyone, ever)
Anchorman (really really really funny)

While watching Layer Cake, my macbook's power supply failed. The cable melted through, just at the join between the cable and the magnetic connector. Very scary.
I went to the Apple Store in London and showed them it. They asked me to take a seat. I waited about 1hr30, and then a very nice man gave me a new one!! :D
So now I am online again. I have photos of my melted power cable if anyone would be interested to see them?

Files have uploaded... onto some new plugins now, methinks :D

Dave.

Bogdon Box Bass

2007-01-29T11:35:00.000Z

Thanks to Chris Randall for the tipoff...

These are AMAZING!!
Get yourself a Bogdon box-bass now!

I built mine this morning... and it is VERY exciting!

Photos/videos/mp3s to follow ;)

Dave.

Hard Disk Recording- Internal Vs External

2007-01-23T12:38:00.000Z

There's absolutely no mistaking it. These internal drives sound MUCH better.

Word Verification

2007-01-17T11:31:00.000Z

Hey,

I've switched on Word Verification for comments posting.
That's not to be anarchic or anything, but going through deleting spam sucks...
[though... if you think it's bad here, you should see the Sonalksis forum... I reckon we spend an hour per day cleaning it up!! :(]

And my blog appears to have been dead for a few days... so hopefully a sharp republish should help fix things :)

Mono Versions not working in Logic 5...

2007-01-11T17:06:00.000Z

Mental note to self,
Please observe that VST process() is declared deprecated in VST2.4...
so if you don't declare it with the right name, it doesn't override the right function...
[i.e. DECLARE_VST_DEPRECATED(process)(...)]

Dave.

Essentials Mk2 UIs

2007-01-11T15:37:00.000Z

Hello,

While most people really like the MK2 UIs (some even claiming that they make things sound better), it has not escaped my attention that there are some people who do not like them.

Make no mistake, I appreciate that some people won't like them- that's true for ANY piece of artwork... and I do care about your feelings, and I want to give you ACE products...
Just EXPECT to receive NOTHING but "diplomatic" (i.e. content-free) replies from me on the topic.

My alternatives to being diplomatic are:
Insult my graphics artist for your enjoyment; which would be a disgusting thing to do, since he IS a very talented, very capable artist, and a very nice guy to boot. So I'm not doing that.
OR
Insult YOU! Which I'm not going to do, because I DO believe that your opinions are valid, and I'm not the sort of mental bastard who wants to shoot his customers (not mentioning any SPECIFIC competitors... ;) so I'm not doing that EITHER.

To be clear, I have only a very limited control over graphics, so I'm just not the right person to talk to, but there IS a feedback form on the site, designed for SPECIFICALLY this sort of thing, and that will go DIRECTLY to the right people :)

Anyway, I like em :P

I got a rowing machine!

2007-01-05T01:00:00.000Z

I have decided I need to get more healthy.

So I bought a rowing machine!! :D It's a sculling one (the pullcord ones don't appeal to me at all... being able to actually row a boat feels more useful...), and it's really good.
I have been eating more healthily too; lots of natural yoghurt and fruit.

It's ACE :)

I have been fixing buglets today. I'm going to do a 2.01 (or do we only release even numbers? 2.02?) revision of the Essentials, which will be slightly tidier. There's a few cosmetic things bugging me, so I am tidying :D

Dave.

Oops... I messed up...

2006-12-29T02:32:00.000Z

A short while ago, we sent this out...

Hello,

You are receiving this email because you have recently downloaded an installer for the Sonalksis Essentials Mk2 series plugins.

We were informed earlier today of a bug in the VST versions of the SV-315Mk2 Compressor whereby it identified itself to the host incorrectly. As a result, installing the SV-315Mk2 can cause existing sessions containing SV-315Mk1 to open incorrectly, and using this version of the SV-315Mk2 could cause problems in the future.

The bug is fixed, and we strongly suggest that you install the updated versions, available from:
http://www.sonalksis.com/index.php?section_id=14

If your VST plug-in host reports the version number to be 2.00, then you have the fixed plugins.

We are very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause,

Sonalksis Development Team

----

I messed up, and the VSTs reported the wrong names/IDs to the host :( I sux.
Still, it was easy to fix, but it could potentially be a pain in the ass to you, so we fixed it immediately...
It's an obscure detail, and the only way we found it was opening sessions with both the mk1 and mk2 plugs in... Urgh.

I'm starting to conclude that I live in a world of paranoia. I'm not convinced that the installers overwrite the old plugins correctly. There's a universe of arcane logic to decide whether to overwrite or not, and flags to force overwriting... and although I've set those, there's ANOTHER layer of arcane reasoning to decide whether to ignore those flags... Urgh. I hate installers. Although, the new ones only took 1hr to build all of them, so Inno ROX as does Iceberg! :D [Even if they are predicated upon some arcane logic that i fear...]

It's all going off 'round here!

2006-12-20T20:27:00.000Z

I've just built the release candidates for Windows, and the Mac stuff is compiling while I type...
Press releases are written, manuals are getting one last proofread...
Installer configurations are being made, and I even found a neat tool (EasyDMG) for making the mac .DMG files quickly...
The website is being updated, the purchasing system is being upgraded (so all you existing users can get discounts!) and the launch is very near...
Code is all finished, fixed and tested!

Dynamics Love

2006-12-19T01:20:00.000Z

Sonalksis Dynamics...

You've seen 719, and a bit of 517mk2 on the 'net... Well, here's 719 and 315mk2, living in peace and harmony on my logic session ;)

They are very much in love ;)

517mk2

2006-12-16T19:39:00.000Z

A teaser of the makeover...

Dave.

It is done.

2006-12-15T23:35:00.000Z

I have been quiet recently, no?

That is because I have been working night and day... in some cases THROUGH the night (such as this week, when I was building a multiresolution fourier analyser...).

Mark 2 is complete.

SV517Mk2, is, in my totally non-humble opinion, the finest EQ you will be able to find. I can't see anyone who is serious about their music 'getting by' without a copy. It sings.

SV315Mk2 is the compressor of my dreams, and hopefully that of many other people's too.

SV719 is probably the most interesting and flexible gate out there... and if you remember my past in RTAS/TDM plugs, you'll know I've seen a few.

We've all worked SO hard on these plugins that it's been physically, mentally, psychologically and SPIRITUALLY exhausting. This evening I built the installer to send SV517Mk2 to join the other plugs in beta. Reports are good, and I've only a handful of cosmetic bugs to clean up. Which I intend to clean up tomorrow. Manuals are underway. The website is being updated. The release date is set.

And yes, it's before Xmas, just in time for you to all get a nice present.
Existing users get a cheap upgrade price too...

I am excited, relieved... amazed that we've pulled it off... and very eagerly looking forwards to the reviews! No stone has been left unturned in delivering solidly pro products.

Pheww. Now for a nice cup of Chai tea, and a good listen to my mate Harry Coade's remix of "Danger in the City" by Roy Young, featuring Snake Davis...

New Parallels Desktop Beta!

2006-12-06T00:47:00.000Z

Hey,

As I may have mentioned, I use Parallels for my PC development stuff (and thereby only need one computer to roll EVERYTHING out). I got an email the other day to tell me there's a new beta out... so, throwing caution to the wind, I downloaded and installed...

Cool Feature one: It boots your BootCamp installs... When I got my macbook i rather naively allocated a rather large windows partition that has lain pretty much dormant... So, tried it, didn't work... read the info PROPERLY, found I had to install some Parallels tools, and it worked like a charm - it adds new bootmenu options to windows, and it all rolls out nicely.

First time I installed it, all my network stuff was broken... scary, but after I rebooted (having installed the Parallels stuff) it came back perfectly.

Cool Feature two: Coherence... I kept clicking on this and nothing happened, so I reinstalled my Parallels tools, and then it worked. Oh My God. It's crazy. This is the coolest thing anyone has done in a long time... Basically, my Windows apps float around with my mac apps... and I have a startbar under my mac menu... Crikey. This is incredibly cool.

If you own an intelmac, and have any reason at all to run windows in any circumstances (and even if you've already set up bootcamp), you NEED Parallels. This is the coolest piece of software ever.

Dave.

719 finally goes to beta

2006-12-01T14:02:00.000Z

It's amazing how those little things add up.

It was nearly finished.
I was tidying up the UI.
Then we realised that a full sample-accurate MIDI implementation would be nice... which takes a while when you have to support VST AND AU AND RTAS.
Then someone pointed out that independent stereo gating would be nice (gate open on one side, closed on the other)... and that took a little while.
Then someone suggested lookahead, and that was too good an idea to ignore... so we did that...
It's a very sexy plugin... to me at least.. because it does actually let you do whatever you want to do... such as using both MIDI and an external sidechain (oh, yeah, we have external sidechains on VST, AU and RTAS... the VST one is with 4in2out and 2in1out versions) at the same time... so you can sidechain the gate off a beat, and play in some extra swung notes, to make it groove. It's fun.

Feature creep? Or making a great plugin? I dunno. We've certainly made you wait for a while, and that's not so great. It would have been nice to finish it a month ago. We stuck in a DirectX version too, just because some people use it. We're considering doing a MAS version (though it may prove more sensible to just wait until DP supports external sidechains on AU).

Still, today, I can announce with great happiness and relief that we have finally gone to beta. The last phase of optimisation is completed, and all the bugs I know about have gone to bug heaven.
I'm hoping that release will follow fairly shortly (but I don't control that... so who knows).

Phewwww.

I'll post more when we get some feedback, and I'll tell you how it's looking :)

TEN DAYS SINCE MY LAST BLOG POST

2006-10-14T04:59:00.000+01:00

Scary.

10 days.

Well, it's been hectic. The UBs are out now, and 719 is coming along verrrry nicely.
Production graphics came through today, so I have a few days of stitching to do :)
I have some tidy tricks up my sleeve for this [that I'm importing from FreeG]... all that textbox<->control stuff is implemented by magic in FreeG, so we'll have editable textboxes for 719, with almost zero code to do it! :D I'm happy.

The final Lemony Snicket book came out today: "Book the Thirtheenth". I've been waiting excitedly for months. :D It was worth the wait.

My Macbook got fixed! It was doing the random shutdown thing.
I will relay my tail of woe and then great happiness! :)
Basically, it was shutting down at random. Earlier yesterday was the first time it crashed and took some work with it, so I decided enough was enough, and phoned Apple.
First A:"do you have applecare, 'cause there's a 35quid charge if it's not a fault with the machine".
ME:"It's a fault with the machine. It's a macbook. It's the same thing they all do. It shuts down at random."
A:"Ok, well, we'll arrange a collection, fix it, and courrier it back."
ME:"How long will that take?"
A:"7 to 10 days"
ME:"It's business critical, that's too long. How about I take it to the Apple store?"
A:"They have to send it away. still 7-10 days"
ME:"So... any other options?"
A:"Maybe you have a nearby Apple Authorised Repair Centre?"
ME:"Yes! I do! I know em! They're great! Can they fix it?"
A:"Yes"
ME:"Will it cost me money?"
A:"No. They have access to our database here, so they can see it's a warranted repair."
ME:"Great. Niceone. Bye"
*digs up the number for Computer Associated Decisions, my local Apple Repair Centre*
ME:"Hello, I have a macbook, serial number xyz, can you fix it?"
CAD:"Yes, we'll just order in the parts, then you can just bring it in and we'll fix it."
ME:"Ok, GREAT!"
-NEXT DAY!!!!-
CAD:"We got the parts. We can collect it if you want."
ME:"Really?"
CAD:"Yep, give us an hour and we'll have it back to you."
*knock at door*
*hands over laptop*
*1hr passes*
*laptop returns*
!!!!
So, there you go people! 1 hour to fix my macbook. UNREAL! :)
If you can get to Computer Associated Decisions, use them. They're GOLDEN. :)

I have been spending too much time on KvR. It's too easy. Lots of nice music people to chat to. Addictive.

Dave.

Cracking Sonalksis Plugins

2006-10-04T19:04:00.000+01:00

Hi,

This is a public request to crackers.

You would expect that serious professionals would buy plugins... but actually all too many of them still use cracks so...

Our request is:

If you crack a Sonalksis plugin and release it, please badge it with your team logo on the front fascia.

We'll be very grateful to you if you do this for us.

Dave.

FreeG v1.01

2006-10-04T18:55:00.000+01:00

Sonalksis Announce FreeG V1.01!

Changes:
1) Nicer mouse-hide behaviour
2) Improved interpolation for automation
3) INSTANT attack for digital PPM ballistics

Available to download now!

Thanks for all the support!

Dave.

FRESHNESS

2006-10-02T15:04:00.000+01:00

Ello,

So, TBK2 is out now, FreeG is out now, the new User Area is up and alive!! :D

Intelmac binaries are in beta, so they'll be around next week!

And we have a few more tricks up our sleeves...

Anyway, that's the work stuff.
The actual real life meaning of all this is that we've been locked in an appartment in Montmartre working our ASSES off for the last three days solid. I haven't even made it to the Louvre yet... which is my plan! With luck, I'll get there this avo. It doesn't feel like a monday. Weird.

Amazingly, we've already sold a plugin without having even told anyone that the site had been updated... which means that people are ACTIVELY checking the site for changes! That's exciting :)

I need a cup of tea. And some lunch.

Crepes are the best thing in the world ever. I could eat nothing but crepe until I die, and die happy. It is true.

Mac Users- Quick Question

2006-09-30T15:54:00.000+01:00

Hey,

I need quick answers as to what people prefer:

I'm building the installers for some things, and we're providing the option to install specific plugins as well as specific platforms.

So, topical example: TBK+TBK2 installer
Platforms: AU RTAS VST [ + Documentation]

You know how mac installers work? With 'custom' install type, where you get "main" options and suboptions? Well, we're figuring out how to split it.

Here are the options:

1) FLAT
AU TBK
AU TBK2
VST TBK
VST TBK2
RTAS TBK
RTAS TBK2
TBK Docs
TBK2 Docs

2) Plugins->Platform
TBK
| - AU
| - RTAS
| - VST
\- Documentation
TBK2
| - AU
| - RTAS
| - VST
\- Documentations

3) Platform -> Plugins
AU
| - TBK
\- TBK2
RTAS
| - TBK
\- TBK2
VST
| - TBK
\- TBK2
Documentation
| - TBK
\- TBK2

[the stuff with text arrows are the suboptions... you know the ones...]

Which do you want, 1 2 or 3?

I want to go with 3, because it makes more sense... i.e. ... Joey Beatbox uses Logic, so he unticks RTAS and VST, and then opens AU, and chooses to only install TBK2, which he uses the distort his vocal rhythms. Makes sense to me... but I'm often wrong...!

LET US KNOW PEOPLE!!!! QUIIIIICK!!!

p.s. did you see me on kvr! :) EXCITING! :)

Ha ha ha ha ha

2006-09-26T01:08:00.000+01:00

http://prosoundrat.blogspot.com/2006/09/about-native-instruments.html

Ha ha ha.

Reminds me of that episode of Black Books where he gives the guy 40quid just to take the box of books away, so he doesn't have to price them and sell them...

TBK2

2006-09-21T02:13:00.000+01:00

So, here it is... ;)

TBK2 which brings filth to your music :)

It's a combination of clipper, downsampler and bitcrusher, all blended together in our own inimitable style, to give you as much filth for your mouse movement as possible!

If you look at the screenshots, you'll get the idea pretty quick - four different modes, a LPF to tame it a little, and a threshold for the clipper. And the knob. Of grime.

Out very soon ;)

Free-G

2006-09-15T02:05:00.000+01:00

So

Free-G our FREE gain plugin... is 99% done! :)

Time to:
Do PC RTAS + VST Ports + Installers = 1hr
Do Mac RTAS Port from VST/AU code = 30mins
Do Mac Installers = 10mins
Decide how the fine fader mode should work = THREE DAYS!!!
Make the fader move beautifully, with labelling, autokerned fonts, shadows, alphablended everything = TWO DAYS!!
Pan knob, Trim knob, Flashing LEDS, peak displays knobs = a day
Delicious metering, with VU/PPM/EBU/Digital PPM ballistics options = a day
Deciding on the UI layout: FIVE DAYS!

Oooh. it's been fun. And stressful. And relentless.
Really the majority of the credit for this has to go to my parents for buying me a coffee service for my birthday - i can now sit on my bed with a cafetiere of freshly brewed coffee, a milk jug, sugar bowl, mug, etc. It's ace.
Hans our graphics designer is the most patient and forgiving person in the world... he's put up with us changing our minds every 15seconds for weeks, and those few occasions where we suddenly remember important things... like... metering? ;)

No credit should go to Felix or I, since we've just bickered constantly about what options should be available on the back panel.

Lots of credit goes to you lovely people who suggested it and gave us a feature set...
We've embellished a little on the original spec... like, lots of metering stuff, the HARDCORE Neve-style linear/fine fader mode [you're gonna go nuts for that.. trust!]. Nice things like ultrafine adjustments by holding down shift. Typable text boxes. A Trim knob with [configurably] up to 36dB of gain. Yes, the phase invert is there, as is the mute + bypass - which both have flashing (or non flashing) leds.
I'm convinced that it's the MOST complicated volume adjuster in the world. :) Yay! :)
Still, while all the other functionality is there, it's all out of the way until you want it. :)

Felix is gonna take some screenshots, and I'll stick em up in a bit (like tomorrow).
It's 2am now, and I'm going to go to sleep.
Tomorrow I'll tell you all about TBK2 which will be coming out very shortly too... ;)

Felix has really made this project happen; he's a joy to work with, and we even finalised a 'fine mode' implementation [which turns out to be intensely complicated to actually do!!] without killing each other :)

So, we'll run it through a quick beta and I'll keep you posted. With luck, we'll send the beta out tomorrow. There are a few more things to tidy up [exact pixel alignments of centered text and such], but nothing major - it's all done now, on all five platforms.

I can't wait to see what you all think of it! :)

Dave.

It's all gone quiet...!

2006-09-08T04:12:00.000+01:00

But I'm still here...!

Thanks to peeps for publicising the blog!
Sorry for not replying to all the new comments and such, I'll get to it in a few days once the current task is over...

I'm working on a plugin which'll be in your mitts soon enough; just figuring out what needs coding, and coding it as I go! ;)

Betas are going good. Should have a release once I finish this little beast.

Sorry for such a brief post. It's late. I'm gonna sleep now.

:D

Putting your names on things.

2006-08-30T00:34:00.001+01:00

Hello.

I am debating a point, and I'd like to throw it open to anyone who'd like to comment.

Obviously our job is to provide you with as much as we can for your money.
I don't think anyone wants to question the quality of the software, but what I want to discuss is other stuff we can do to make your world a bit better.

Personalised installers look like a good thing - zero hassle for you.
Perhaps also including an uninstaller, so you can easily and quickly install/uninstall bits?

People like to customize things - I've changed things so you can customize our UIs... but...
When I ran the very first TBK beta, I put the betatester's name across the knob. And people loved it!? Honestly, I don't know why. It WAS discrete, but it was still prominent. I can almost see the appeal... but I don't really get it. But----- if it makes people happy, I'll do it! :)
I've been thinking that maybe people would like to have their names on display on the UIs of plugins?

Basically, I'd like to do some things to reward paying customers for being lovely and supporting the cause.

People who support the cause without paying are ok, because they keep the name alive... but without the paying customers, I'd be working in a supermarket, and no-one would have any plugins!
Remember, I'm the last one in (most recent hire), so I'll be the first one out!

I'm well up for any kind of online communities you want, I'm happy to go and hassle people for whatever purposes you can devise.

Tell me what you want (besides more software... I'm on that!) and if people want it, it will happen :)

Please, talk to me!

Copy protection and demo periods.

2006-08-30T00:25:00.000+01:00

Hey,

So, today, I fixed a bug in TBK. As I mentioned before elsewhere, if the demo runs out, it just stops passing audio. It doesn't tell you anywhere, unless you click on setup.

This is relevant, 'cause people forget to register their plugins (they just install em, and forget about the registration files), and then the demo period expires. I'm gonna do new installers that fix this, but right now, something needs to improve, so that's what i'm on.

When it's expired, the plug is basically useless until you register it. So.
Now, when it's expired, it comes up in setup mode automatically [and stops you switching out] - basically the plug ui becomes a big warning saying "it's over! register me!"
Potentially, we can also pop up a messagebox to warn you. Is that too annoying? Or is that really useful... Either there's no box, and you wonder why it's not passing audio [it mutes the channel], and have to open the ui to find out... or it tells you straight up, once per session...

Thoughts please people :)

Why I am a GEEK, part 1.

2006-08-30T00:23:00.000+01:00

Version numbers are a serious pain in the ass.

Today, I have edited millions of files, and thrown around loads of code, so that I have one file with all our version numbers in, so I can update them when needs be.

It was painful, but it worked; mostly because apple allow you to run your Info.plist file through the C preprocessor. I love apple.

AU and MIDI [mac specific]

2006-08-24T00:55:00.000+01:00

Uuuuuugh

So.

We wanted MIDI input for the TBK AU.

Now, if you want midi input, you need to be a MusicEffect (or a synth, which we aint).

So, I hacked and hacked, and now we're a musiceffect.
I've been playing midi to TBK in Logic and it loves it. Filth.

Now, the catches:
1) To play midi to a plugin in logic, you have to instantiate the TBK on an instrument channel, and select a "sidechain input" as the audio input. Then it all just works.
2) I can register as either an Effect, a MusicEffect (with midi in) or BOTH.
If I register as Effect, you don't get midi.
If I register as MusicEffect, you get midi, but your old sessions stop working, 'cause it can't find TBK any more
If I register as both, everything keeps working, you get midi... but TBK shows up twice in your plugin menus. Definitely the least evil option. I'm going with this.

If anyone has a fix, or a better idea- or some magical hackery - please please please let me know!

Dave.

TBK MIDI Control Mode - take 2! the KEYS!

2006-08-24T00:54:00.000+01:00

Hey people.

Part 1 of today's antics.

I've added in a feature to TBK whereby you can play keys, and it'll set the cutoff to that frequency. It's a preference, so it won't mess up your existing stuff...

Releasing sooooooonnnnnn

Dave.

VST2.4... the saga continues

2006-08-22T16:47:00.000+01:00

Hey,

Well it's all good news over here now... but there was a scary moment earlier...!

Like probably everyone out there, our plugins are VST, with interfaces to convert to AU, DX and RTAS.

When I did the port, I had to fix loads of stuff in the interface code... everything went fine... except... RTAS... Digi (who rock) provide sample code for how to write a VST->RTAS interface layer, and it passes through "Draw" and "Mouse" messages to the VST. However, the interfaces it was calling no longer exist in 2.4, so I figured it would sort itself out, and just took out that code.
It did not sort itself out.

So, I had to paste in the old handling code to the top-level of the GUI implementation (which the RTAS interface has a handle to), and put the old code back in. It's not evil, because I'm adding the old code back in _in my code_, rather than in the VST libraries, and because it's still absent in lower layers, noone gets hurt! :)

Little bit sticky... but essentially 10lines of code pasted into a headerfile, and the world was well again...

Phew. Well. I've finished the 2.4 upgrade... what shall I tamper with now... hmmmm...

VST Users! Love me! :)

2006-08-22T13:23:00.000+01:00

Hey,

I just added double-precision (64bit float) to the entire range of sonalksis plugins.

They've always been double-precision internally, and now you can run double-precision between things.

It took about 5 minutes, after getting the VST2.4 port completed successfully ;)

I am such a pedant.

2006-08-22T12:19:00.000+01:00

So

I decided to rid my world of warnings.

Never more will a NULL and a 0 be used incorrectly!

Actually, I did this ages ago for the VSTs and AUs. Leave warnings ALL on, tidy the thing up.
That's another reason to like VST... there's nothing implicitly wrong with the code; it doesn't throw up many errors... and, yes, I did fix the handful that it did.
AU- same deal; nice clean code.

AUs and VSTs have been building clean for ever.

RTAS is a different story. RTAS was throwing up ~1200 warnings. Mostly (almost all) warnings of nonvirtual destructors in classes with virtual functions. This is a violation of the "effective C++" rules. However, it's meant to be that way. It's correct, for a variety of reasons, for the digi classes to have nonvirtual destructors alongside virtual functions. So.. just disable the warning for that file, right? GCC doesn't do that yet. Ugh.
Disable the destructor warning? You know the code is otherwise clean... No. -Wmost switches it back on somehow. I've never really understood XCode's build system. Well; I think I do, it's an inherited overridable system, and as such it's pretty straightforward. But, it IS magic when things start to interact within the compiler. Or just plain lie to you.

Anyway. I switched off -Wmost, and was suddenly left with a sensible set of warnings!
Entire build is now warning free.

I'm a pedant, but I do rock ;)

Updating to VST 2.4

2006-08-21T17:37:00.000+01:00

So, updating to VST2.4 is on my list of things to do.
We've got full double-precision processing internally (and have had from day one, because we rock), so it's just adding a double-precision input and output connection to the host. No big deal. Real easy.

Guess what! WRONG!

If you've ever written a VST plugin, you'll know that the SDK is a bit messy... there are a few things that you sort of have to assume, or figure out for yourself... but it's not BAD. It's not TERRIBLE. The sheer number of VST plugins is evidence to that. It's not messy, it's a bit scruffy. Rudeboy like even.

It's hard not to like VST. It has an elegance and minimalism to it. An ill type flow that makes it all groovy.

Steinberg are smartening up. Oh lord no.

So. You need to work on Win64... this means that some things need to change.
No, part of the scruffiness of VST was that everything was just assumed to be 32bit. And, because it was, everything worked, and there was no problem at all.

So, let's have thousands of lines of code, expecting the C type "long". Now, let's change all the functions to use "VstInt32" instead of "long" (to be explicit and mark out what will change between 32bit and 64bit versions).

Because of something that you don't care about, but which is a very very good thing, called "polymorphism" in C++, if you don't remember to change EVERY appropriate instance of "long" to "VstInt32" in the definitions of ALL your functions, then random bits of your plugin will fall off. Literally. Bits you were relying on... like... the UI... will just stop working.

**** WHEN YOU UPGRADE TO VST2.4, GO THROUGH ALL YOUR CLASS DECLARATIONS LINE BY LINE, AND VERIFY THAT THE TYPES ARE CORRECT. USE STEINBERG'S ONES. DO NOT RELY ON THE TYPEDEFS RESOLVING THEMSELVES, BECAUSE THEY WON'T ****

And then, when your code actually compiles again, adding double-precision processing support is a synch! :)
But... factor in a few hours of very careful code review.

We chose to stick with the old VSTGUI, rather than moving up to 3, because our current VSTGUI is heavily tested, and works. Merging the old VSTGUI with the new VST SDK was easy enough... although a bit dodgy in places. You MUST be using QUARTZ if you want to keep the old VSTGUI on mac. This is because the VSTGUI QUARTZ implementation registers a carbon eventhandler, and makes all the mouse and key stuff work by magic. VST has now stopped passing mouse + draw stuff up to the gui, so you wanna be on quartz, or you will probably lose your UI!

But anyways... I'm most of the way through with catching bugs... and I've just got to make everything compile smooth ;)

Hope this helps VST2.4 peeps :)

Free-G!

2006-08-18T15:21:00.000+01:00

Hey Peeps!

So, it's official now, we're releasing a free plugin! :D
[This started elsewhere on the blog!]

What you get:
- Really nice metering [pre / post fader], [peak, hold and rms]
- A really tall fader
- Ability to use it as a +/-24dB trim, or a channel fader
- Phase invert
- Mute

So... do you want a Bypass button on the UI?

Here's how the thing works, btw... There's a button on the bottom, marked "Trim".
When you boot the plugin, you get a channel-type fader, from +18 to -96.
Hit Trim, and the fader labelling changes, to +/-24 db of where the fader is set, so that you can
do extra accurate fader positioning.... or, just boot it up and hit trim to pad or gain a few db.

How does that sound?

You like customising your UIs [mac specific] ?

2006-08-17T16:08:00.000+01:00

Well, you'll be pleased to know that I've just restructured things so that we now have .bmp files inside the plugin bundles! :)

Those .rsrc files are GONE!
This means, you can open up the plugin, and reskin your graphics.
This bring the wonderful result that I won't need to support the process by generating files for people ;) you can just send around the bmps.

Of course, if we update the UIs... [ ;-) ] you'd have to start again (because things would probably move around!)

PCwise... ugh. resource files. it's NEVER easy to reskin things on PC unless you're happy using resource editing tools. What +DO+ people use to skin plugs on pc?!? If you can find something that works for people, I can bring it through... but I don't REALLY want to spend a week adding an interactive skinnability mechanism to the plugs [read: that'd be REALLY boring]

Ezzzzzz

Going quiet for a bit...

2006-08-16T16:43:00.000+01:00

Ezzzz

If I don't reply to postings until... say... friday-ish, it's because:

1) I have to write some code...! I need to actually make some things for you all :)
2) I'm going out for drinks tonight and it's going to be messy :-D
3) You should all come to Swerve at The End tonight!

So, I'm going to focus on beer, and then working, in that chronological order... but with equal priority. I've been working verrry late recently, and I need to go relax for a bit ;)

Back in a bit people :)

Dave.

Input Trims/Gains on plugins

2006-08-15T17:35:00.000+01:00

Heya

Is it just me that regularly chucks audio at +12dBFS into plugins?
I kinda rely on having +/-24dB of gain on things. On input AND output!

I want to add input trims to things. Particularly 315 and 719.
Please post "me too" to second the idea!

Cheers,

Dave.

Copy Protection

2006-08-15T13:10:00.000+01:00

We're redoing the installers, as you probably know, so we're looking at ways to fix up our copy protection so that it's easier for people to handle. I'll explain a bit about it, but first, I need to make the following point:

PROGRAMMERS HATE COPY PROTECTION

PROGRAMMERS HATE COPY PROTECTION

PROGRAMMERS HATE COPY PROTECTION

It's basically the worst thing in the world for a programmer to have to deal with, because it just gets in the way of trying to work. If it annoys YOU as a customer, using it, say, once... consider how much it annoys ME using it several thousand times.

Reasons to not have copy protection:
1) I hate it.
2) Our software gets cracked the day it comes out, and people are using cracked copies on the day of release ANYWAY.
3) It annoys the HELL out of users.

Reasons TO have copy protection:
1) It protects the investment of customers.

Unfortunately, as utterly bizarre as it sounds, that's a really strong reason.
If you're a customer, we have to put something in place which makes our software not free, because otherwise we're being disrespectful to you by asking you to pay for something which there are no restrictions to using free of charge.

Personally, I'd like to give stuff away free to everyone, but alas, I'm not naive enough to believe that I'd be able to go on doing that for very long before someone asked me for some rent, and I realised I was skint... the more money we make, the more plugins you get. [Or, in the case of recent history, the more mindblowingly groundbreaking a product you get...]
So in our case, you who pay for software invest in the future of that software... and for R&D that will give you more of that quality software that you love

So... our copy protection has a bit of an issue. In its eagerness to NOT annoy the user with windows telling you things like "err, hang on, you need to actually register this", after it has expired, it just locks itself into bypass [or won't pass audio]. So, when your 30days demo has expired, it doesn't tell you... it just stops working. To a legitimate user who didn't realise that they had to register it, after 30 days, our software appears to break!!! You open up your session and it just sounds different... and you wonder why!

We're thinking about how we can improve things. This issue of dilligence to protect investment means that we MUST do SOMETHING.
Currently, you go to the registration site, enter your details, and it sends you a license file
which will register your plugins and make them work forever. (though it has to be done manually)
We need to wire SOMETHING into the installer to sort this. But what if your studio computer ain't on the 'net?

Things we've been considering:
1) I got some speak'n'spell samples. I'm going to splice them up, a-la Cassetteboy, to say "Your Sonalksis plugin has expired. Please register them... etc" when you instantiate an expired plugin or open a session.
2) A BIG MESSAGE BOX TO TELL YOU THAT THEY HAVE EXPIRED AND WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO REGISTER THEM.
3) A page in the installer that tells you ALL about registration (because you really care), or perhaps something that takes your details, and tries to connect to the 'net (or generates a link file if it can't?) and downloads+installs your license file.
4) A license manager application which is your friend.

Basically though, you know way more about this than we do, so we want you to know that we're taking it seriously, but really we want to know what you think.

Please tell us! I hate copy protection.

Dave.

DirectX Plugins

2006-08-11T01:13:00.000+01:00

I don't want to write DirectX versions of TBK, 719, and the new stuff.

If you DO want me to, leave a comment and petition me!
Best of all, tell me what system you'd use them with!?

Today, my brain hurts.

2006-08-10T21:54:00.000+01:00

Heya,

Today has been.... eventful (read: painful).
Fixed a bug in the copy protection so that intel mac demos don't time out immediately.
Refactored TBK severely, so it's MUCH MUCH quicker to open the UI and to load.

Suddenly TBK crashes in protools on launch.
Uuuugh!
Poke around for an hour or two, and discover that I have (Very cleverly) left a directive in the build that it should use the instruction set and register set for the G5 only, for compiled code. I have no idea how. I didn't know that that setting existed. I'm using a macbook. It crashes. I remove the directive. It works. I curse, loudly, but feel better afterwards. :)

Killed the lovely nag screen when a plugin starts up.
Built all the plugins ready for beta.

At this point, I was ready to celebrate.

Until.

Someone *cough* decided that we should use this opportunity to check that the copy protection actually works, which is, unfortunately, fair enough.

Rebuild all plugins.
Then, beat up the installers (well, actually the mac one was fine, but the PC one needed kicking) to build TBK installers. Uuugh. If I'd put a few more hours in before, it'd have taken a few hours less.

I still haven't built that window that lets you choose -which- plugins get installed. Still on the list of things to do.

So, built em. Felt glad. Ready to celebrate. Headache in full swing by this point.

Recompilation sucks, because it takes a long time, and makes the computer very VERY hot.
I have a heatpad thing from the apple store. My laptop is cool, and comfy, all day. Except when it's doing heavy compiling. Then it melts my legs again.
I am using Parallels to run windows and compile for windows. I have to test stuff using bootcamp (because isochronous streaming to a virtualised os is mostly impossible), but it means i can compile win stuff, and check i haven't broken anything without rebooting.
Unless I leave XCode open, which eats ram. When both apps are running, my computer is essentially dead. It's a deeply frustrating experience. More RAM please! Anyone know if I can fit more than a gig in a macbook?

And now... we're going to beta -without- the installers, because we want to test them separately. Oh great. I'll do that tomorrow. Enough for today. Gah.

Feel free to post ibuprofen :)

Best Looking Plugins Ever

2006-08-09T23:52:00.000+01:00

What do you think is the best looking plugin(s) ever?

BETA BEGINS!

2006-08-09T15:02:00.000+01:00

Woohoo!

Well, it's taken a little longer than I'd have liked, 'cause we've had server nightmares [PLESK YOU ARE A CURSE!!], but everyone is signed up now, and I've sent the first email!
As I type this, FTP is getting sorted out [PLESK YOU REALLY ARE A CURSE], and the testers are starting to mail in info for our test grid database!

Woohoo!

I'll let you all know how it goes!

Dave.

Comments

2006-08-05T15:05:00.000+01:00

And switching on "anyone can leave comments" option might help...

Installers

2006-08-04T23:40:00.000+01:00

So, I got the DirectX stuff building as part of the build, and everything is all tidy.
Which brings me to my next agenda point... Installers.
Now, InstallShield CAN be used in an automated build. Of this I am reassured...
I opened up InstallShield for the first time today, and my eyes BLED.
Wow.

So, I figured I had two options - 1- stick with InstallShield, deal with it, be a man.
or 2- move to inno setup.

In case you've never seen Inno Setup, it's amazing. It's hard to get excited about installers, to be honest, but Inno Setup is CLASS. That's the installer that makes installers that look like windows installers. ;)
And it's free!

So... our needs in the installer are pretty weird... no application to install... but installing four different sets of files, to four customizable locations... InstallShield does handle it very well... View: Old Installer:

This certainly does the job. But I don't want to use it because InstallShield is ugly confusing expensive and the sort of thing that makes me want to cry, since it is based around a database that they're quite happy for you to edit by hand and the files are binary and aaaaagh.

So Inno Setup uses scripts, and you can write bits of pascal, and customize it to hell, and basically anything remotely complicated you might want to do, they've already thought of, and given you a function call for.

This afternoon's work:

What do you think? Is it ok?

Dave.

Ideas?

2006-08-04T15:06:00.000+01:00

Hey,

You could post ideas for plugins on the forum, and they would filter their way to me in the same way that bug fixes and such do.

However, I'd like to invite you to tell me directly!

Please add comments to this post, and tell me what you'd like to see!

Feature requests, new plugins?

I'll be checking this blog every day, so you can be sure I'll read your comments.

Looking forward to your ideas... :-)

Dave.

And so it begins

2006-08-04T02:28:00.000+01:00

I decided it'd be a good idea to start a development blog for Sonalksis projects.

This way, you guys can tell how things are progressing, and it saves me (a developer, rather than tech support) trying to read through the forum. Hopefully a big link to this is pasted somewhere on the forum so you will all know about it.

So... what IS news at camp Sonalksis?

Well, I saw one posting on the forum claiming that the two founders have new jobs now... wow... actually they've been immersed in some geniunely groundbreaking research for a few years now.

I've been brought to the team to take care of all the other 'little' things... like IntelMac (which is done now, and just needs testing), the RTAS versions of TBK (which are done, and again just need testing), and next is the 719 Gate, that just needs a little tidying.

Sorry you've not heard much from us, but now I have a blog so you can follow what I'm up to!
I'll try and post fairly regularly - every time I get to some milestone.
I can even use this as a way to share notes on the weird weird things that go on in plugin development!

So... let's start with some questions you'll probably be asking...
1) Why is this on blogger.com, and not on the sonalksis site?
Because blogger is really good, and I didn't want to have to add anything to the sonalksis site. I don't look after the site.

2) Who are you?
I'm Dave, I'm a software engineer - I used to work at Focusrite/Novation. A few things I've done include The Forte Suite for Protools, some MIDI drivers for some novation/digidesign units, was on the team for The Saffire Suite plugins, on the team for the Saffire range control panels, contributed some bits to the Liquid Channel... and TBK, which I hope you all like.

3) Will you let me be a beta tester?
No. I choose my beta testers - they're people I know and trust. Sorry; my beta list is like the A-Team. If you're hardcore enough, or prove yourself in some way, I'll come to you.

4) When can we see some stuff?!?!?!?!!?
Well, the email server blew up today, and it's getting fixed - hopefully as I type this.
Once that's done, someone will be setting up a mailing list for the beta testers, and we'll launch a load of stuff for beta... There's a new product finished too...

Basically, I've spent the past few weeks acclimatising myself to the way all the existing Sonalksis code works, and setting things up, like automated builds (This is important! see: The Joel Test ), and doing things like intel mac, and RTAS ports.

I've got to the end of that now, so it's time to test and release... and then the next major objective is the gate...

but before that...
*) Beta test everything
*) Get the DirectX plugins building automated
*) Maybe redo the installers to use the fantastic Inno Setup, which will work well with automation...