Angry Red Planet

[exh]

february 25

download
standalone: http://www.angryredplanet.com/temper/Temper-preview.zip
vst plugin: http://www.angryredplanet.com/temper/TemperVST-preview.zip

Couple quick fixes: The note-shortening bug happening on some hardware that ZooTook reported long ago should be resolved; I believe SG has been reporting crashing with the drag-drop, which looked like another hardware-dependent issue and should be resolved; finally, a recent report of the Temper VST not sending out program changes has been fixed.

It's worth nothing that the first two bugs were found primarily because for the week I have access to some different hardware than I normally use; any reports of crashing or hanging bugs during this time are most appreciated, as there are definitely some hardware-dependent issues going on.

Oh, also, you'll notice a new tool in this build, Box, that doesn't appear to do anything. Just ignore it, I'm doing a little work on the tools.

Current release notes:
* You can now drag an audio file to the file name listed in the Selection 1 view of a audio phrase inspector. This will replace the audio file.
* Fix: Popping or glitching that could occur playing the tail of an audio phrase.
* Fix: Popping or glitching that could occur playing the tail of an audio phrase.
* Fix: The song could scroll horizontally when minimizing the browser.
* Fix: Occasionally a VST would remain in the red loading state even after loaded.

Previous release notes:
* When in the piano roll, holding CTRL while using the mouse wheel will now zoom vertically, CTRL+ALT will zoom horizontally.
* Fix: Bug where deleting certain controllers would make it look like all other controllers had disappeared.
* Fix: Various VST .fxb/.fxp bugs.
* Fix: Bug where notes being generated by MIDI VSTs (i.e. Humanisator) weren't turning off when the song stopped.
* Fix: Bug where clicking the ruler in the track editor was generating multiple notes for single long notes.
* Fix: Selecting a patch for a VST would send a patch change to previous VSTs in the chain.
* Fix: Removing an FX wasn't removing associated controllers.
* Fix: Tools now retain their settings between uses.
* Fix: Saving .mid files will generate controllers for any decor shapes.
* Fix: Bug where the vertical scrollbar in the song would sometimes not let you scroll.
* Fix, sorta: VSTs with a large number of parameters (10,000+) might have been choking the randomizer on some systems, so I'm currently clipping to a few thousand params.
* Rewrote phrase dragging, now dragging phrases around the phrase view is unified with dragging to and from the desktop or other applications: It's all just a click and drag. When dragging around the phrase view, a border will appear that you can hover over to scroll.
* Fix: "Phrase jumping" bug.
* Buss input and output inspectors now show a list of valid sources/destinations, instead of a somewhat obscure menu button (or nothing, as was the case for the input).
* Fix: Recorded pitch bend events weren't translated properly (they were always essentially 0).
* Fix: Recording MIDI events while looping wasn't applying the loop offset, so they were added after the loop point.
* Fix: Controllers were recording with linear interpolation instead of a flat ramp.
* Reworked loading and saving of VST data for much better performance.
* Reworked phrase dragging for consistency and better workflow. The standard dragging operations are: Left-click to drag, right-click to copy and drag, CTRL-V while dragging to paste a copy of the item being dragged. Additionally, if you select a part of a phrase or multiple phrases, you can click and drag the selection, and it will be automatically separated. Finally, there is a new bit of UI to enable dragging phrases into other song windows, the desktop, or directly to other applications: Left click and hold, and you will get a progress meter that, when complete, will allow you to drag to other applications.
* Removed the Velocirapture tool, and added all behaviour to the Line tool, which has now been fixed and updated.
* Added keyboard support when manipulating shape parameters with the mouse: Arrow UP/LEFT and DOWN/RIGHT will step through the values in the smallest units.
* Added mode to the VST File menu that lets you save bank and patch data separately from the song .squ file. In extreme cases, this can give the best-possible performance, but it can also be used to share patches across multiple songs.
* Double-clicking an FX in the FX browser will now add it as a new track.
* Fix: Multiple crashing bugs.
* Added a step recorder. Access it by double-clicking a track to open the track editor (the track in question must have input, either a MIDI controller or the computer keyboard), then pressing the record button in the track's transport controls. A marker will appear in the track ruler that indicates the current step (the step size is based on the grid). The marker is moved forward one step with each note it receives, or manually by pressing the left and right arrow keys, or directly by clicking on it and dragging. The Selection 2 view displays the available Step Sequencer properties: Lock note velocity to default, when on, will enter all new notes with the currently selected track velocity; Lock note duration to grid, when on, will force the duration of new notes to be equal to a multiple of the current track grid (otherwise the duration is however long the note was held).
* Added new preference to turn off auditioning during edits (Setup->Behaviour->Audition while editing).
* Reworked key changes. Scales and chords are now completely separate, each with their own lane in the meta info. Added chord progressions. Added more scale and chord defaults, and tools for adding and organzing the list. Reworked the scale/chord display in the piano roll. In the song rule, you can now right-click on a scale or chord to do a drag copy. Additionally, you can do a standard left-click drag, and press CTRL-V whenever you want to make a copy.
* Right-click on the lane headers in the song ("bpm", "meter" etc.) to open a menu for configuring what type of data is displayed on each lane.
* Added audition to the patch browsing menu. Next to the patch button there's now a speaker button with two modes: Audition Off and Audition On. Off is the same behaviour as prior versions (moving through the patch menu does nothing until you click an item). On selects whatever patch the mouse hovers over, so you can audition multiple sounds without closing and reopening the menu.
* Controller strip: Right-click a tab will both activate the tab and open the menu.
* Fix: The Controllers inspector now displays ranges appropriate to the type of controller being edited.
* Fix: There were some cases where changing a tab in the controller strip would not assign a colour to the new controller, so it wasn't being displayed when it wasn't the active tab.

february 11

More bug fixes, the most noticeable is a popping and overload that could happen when playing the end of audio events. This one's been around awhile, much thanks to DarkStar for tracking down the issue. Additionally, various crashing fixes, and some tweaks to drag drop so that it works better with the cutting board -- if this causes any side effects, let me know, the drag drop code has become a little complicated.

february 4

Small update since the last -- mostly polishing on the drag and drop feedback, a collection of (more) fixes for VST saving and loading, and some UI performance enhancements for the VST version.

january 29

OK, after a long quiet, a relatively small update. Since so many bugs have been reported recently I've gone into a bug-fix only mode until things can get resolved. The current downloads include fixes for all major bugs I've been able to reproduce; I still have plenty more I'm working through, and as always, any reports with steps on how to reproduce are most welcome.

I'm not touching the step sequencer stuff right now -- ignore it. There were a lot of complaints over it, so I'm debating things. Maybe I'll redesign, not sure, but right now, the focus is firmly on bug fixing.

november 17
Another small unexciting release to quash a few minor bugs. One thing worth noting, after the VST saving bug that creeped into the nov 13 release, I took a look at the whole VST loading/saving system and decided years of hacking had made it a little unruly, so that's all been rewritten. You shouldn't notice anything -- performance is better (much better for saving) but otherwise hopefully functionality hasn't changed. Just be aware of it before throwing caution to the wind. Another item, I discovered a crash that could happen when shutting down Temper after doing audio recording. Not sure when that one appeared, but apologies if anyone hit it.

november 13
Oops, a stupid bug was introduced in the VST saving. This dates from the nov 10 build, so if you don't have it then no worries, but if you do, make sure to upgrade.

november 10
Once again, nothing exciting. Some general bug fixes, but mostly I'm posting this as support for a tutorial I just wrote on dynamically routing events:
http://www.angryredplanet.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=372

november 1
There isn't anything exciting here, I just wanted to do a checkpoint of the latest fixes before diving into the pattern stuff. There have been a few crashing bug fixes, a fix to the step recorder, a rework of phrase dragging (described in the release notes), and some changes to the Line tool, which are not yet complete but much better than how it was (broken, unfortunately).

october 22
OK, this is bug fixes and polish on the chords and step sequencer. I think they're both ready to use. Main additions: You can right-click on scales and chords to do a drag-copy, just like the drag-copy tool in the track editor. Additionally, while left-dragging a scale or chord, you can press CTRL-V to paste a copy at any point. For the step sequencer, it now has a couple modes. The Perform mode should work just like it was before, where holding down a note lets you control the duration. The Traditional mode is what I take to be a standard step sequencer, where the note duration and step increment is locked to the grid size each time you hold and release a batch of notes. If you want longer notes, you can still press the right arrow key to specify the next step position.

I think that's all the behaviour changes, everything else should just be bug fixes.

october 17
Stab #2 at relative chords: I clearly didn't understand them at all on the first attempt, so things are completely different now. There's no 'R'elative item in the root menu; instead, the chord menu has a list of the 7 (I... VII) diatonic triads (diminished chords have a '-' instead of a 'd', which was a little too hard to read). If there is some other type of 'relative' chord that should be supported let me know, but this was the obvious starting point. Also, updated the Progressions menu with a couple real ones, built on the diatonic triads.

There was a fair amount of misc bug fixing for this release, both in the chords and more in general -- after reports of some crashing problems I went on a bug hunt and managed to find a few. Don't know how common they were, since I'd never seen any of them before, but if you've hit crashes in the past this release is highly recommended.

october 11
OK, this was supposed to be more work on the chords, but I'm still sussing some things out so I did a little fun side project, a step sequencer.

october 5
Sorry for the long delay. The vast bulk of the time has been reworking scale and chord handling, which ended up being far more of a rewrite than I was anticipating. What's there still needs a little polish but should work fine.

Key changes used to be in a single lane of track info combining scale and chords together. That's no longer true, they're now separate lanes, and in fact you'll need to maximize the track header area in order to see the chord lane. I'll tighten that up a little for the next release. Scales are still an 'on-until-off' thing (i.e. they don't have duration, the current scale is enforced until a new one is encountered), but chords have a duration, which can be resized by hovering over the right end. In both cases, right click and select the relevant option under Add Key-> to create a new scale or chord.

Since they're separate objects, scales and chords are now each in their own editor. There are a couple common amenities: There are now arrow buttons to let you step through the scale or chord list, and they each have a preset button that lets you manage the list of scales or chords, accordingly. Temper has defaults, but as soon as you add or remove a default, it will create a scales-and-chords.xml file in the My Documents->Angry Red Planet->Temper folder, so you're free to completely replace the defaults.

The chord menu is a little more sophisticated: In addition to having all chords listed, it also displays all legal chords for the current key. It also has a menu of progressions (although the only included one is just a test -- if anyone wants to generate any for me to include as defaults, by all means please send them over). Progressions are a bit experimental right now, so comments are welcome. Select the default and you'll see a list appear you can add to, remove from or modify. I decided to make the timing based on measures and beats, so that progressions can be easily transferred between different time signatures. Figured there's no need for a higher resolution, but if you need it for something let me know. Also, ideally the last progression should be the same as the first -- this is used when you loop the progression (i.e. make the chord longer than you have progression steps). If there's any confusion, just pull up the piano roll and start editing the progression to see what happens.

Coming up soon I hope but not included are relative chords, shifted to the root of the current scale. That's mostly working but I haven't had any testing time yet.

That's all that comes to mind. I've just started diving into chords, progressions etc. Partly why this took so long is because I tried to get all the wish list items in, so any ideas or opinions at this stage are most welcome.

[exh]

Scales and Chords - A Guide

Scales
Scales and chords appear solely in the ruler at the top of the song (i.e., where measure and time signature are displayed). By default, every song has a C Chromatic scale starting at measure 1 (and continuing for the entire song -- scales remain active until a scale change). If you don't see a lane labeled 'scale' in the ruler, click on the drag bar and drag down until all 5 lanes are visible. (Note: the order and stacking of lanes is completely customizable, you can at any time click on a label ("scale", "bar" etc.) and select which types of data should appear on that lane)

To edit the scale, left-click it to open the Scale editor. The scale editor lets you select a root and scale name, or manually create a scale by directly selecting which keys should be on. You have complete control over the available scales: If you create one that doesn't exist that you want to use as a default, click the folder icon to the right of the scale name and select Add to Defaults. You can also click the folder icon and remove any existing default scale. When you do either operation, a scales-and-chords.xml file appears in My Documents->Angry Red Planet->Temper. You can delete this file to restore the original factory defaults.

To place a scale change, right-click in the song ruler and select Key->Add Scale. Note that the full scale names are displayed, and placing one scale two close to another might make the second disappear -- if this is the case, either zoom the song in, or use the < > buttons in the Scale editor to step through the scales.

Chords
To place a chord, right-click in the song ruler and Select Key->Add Chord. Chords are different than scales: Where as scales are active until the next scale change (or forever, if none), chords have a set duration. By default, new chords will be 1 measure long. Hover over the right edge of the chord, then left-click and drag left or right to change the duration of the chord. The Chord editor is also different than the Scale editor: In addition to the standard note roots (C-B), you can also choose R, which will make the chord relative to the currently active scale. Also, the chord menu has subcategories, most importantly, Progressions, for creating chord progressions.

Chord Progressions
Chord progressions are created by either selecting a progression in the Chord menu of the Chord editor, and adding progressions to a chord by clicking the Add progression... button in the Chord editor. Progressions work on a measure/beat basis: Each progression has a time in Measures:Beats (the first is always 0:1, meaning it starts at the beginning of the chord) . Then, for each progression, you can select the root and the chord name (chords in a progression can't be directly edited, you need to select chords from the active list, but it's easy enough to make a custom chord, add that to the defaults, then select that).

Ideally, the last chord in the progression should be the same as the first. The last chord will determine the loop point, for when you stretch the duration of the chord beyond the length specified by the chords in the progression.

Using

So what can you do with scales and chords? There are three basic things:

1. They can be used to colour the piano roll, as a visual aid to the valid notes at any given time. Do this by opening the track editor, clicking the '#' button next to the magnify glass in the bottom border, and dragging left or right. The display is segmented: Values below 50% fade in the scale colouring, values above 50% fade in the chord colouring.

2. The current scale and chord can be enforced during destructive edits with the Pencil, Velocirapture and Flip tools, along with the group editing operations, by turning on the Key Grid. The key grid is the button labeled '#' directly to the right of the transport controls in the track editor.

3. The current scale and chord can be applied non-destructively to any track by placing an On Key FX in the output stage, then turning on its Follow track property.

So here's a simple way to get started with it all: Place an Arpeggiator FX on the output stage of a track, then place an On Key FX after it (and turn on its Follow track property). Now place a note on the track and extend it for 4 measures or so, and put a loop point around the note. Finally, place a chord down and extend it to cover the length of the note. Open the chord editor, choose the default progression, and start looping the song. With it looping, select difference chords in the progression, try setting the roots to relative and selecting difference scales, etc. Have fun!

[LiquidProj3ct]

Well, I was waiting a step sequencer as FL Studio, or Orion, or Sonar...

[exh]

I've never actually used a step sequencer before, so there are no doubt things that need to be added or altered -- feedback welcome!

[LiquidProj3ct]

haha ok

Temper hasn't got a step sequencer, temper has "step recording" in piano roll. A step sequencer is very useful for drums and for monophonic melodies. It's a note trigger with infinite sustain, then if you put a note with sustain in the step sequencer it won't stop never! Due to this limitation the step sequencer is used with Samples (and for drums! is ultrafast!).

You should download FL Studio demo and take a look to the step sequencer, is pretty easy to use!

[SG]

Thanks for the updates Eric !!!

Here is a screen shot of FL Studio's step sequencer. With this you can quickly write drum parts by clicking on the 'notes' turning them on or off.
Each row represents a different sound. Snare, Kick, ect
And of course you can alter velocity, and all that

Hope that helps.... SG

[exh]

Ooohhhhhhh, is that what is commonly meant by a step sequencer? So I've actually just been adding I guess step recording. Ok, thanks much for the info. I've been thinking along these lines, but more as part of the overall 'pattern sequencing' that everyone wants, i.e. what can a pattern be, how best to modify it, etc. I'll see where it goes.

thanks much,
eric

[SG]

Eric, I should add ... you'll notice by the FLStudio photo that the 'step sequencer' is usually used to create 1 to 2 measure patterns, but can go
as high as 8 measures. In other words midi "patterns" that are 1-8 measures in length.

Now this is where the "pattern sequencer" that we mentioned a while ago comes in. After you've created your patterns ie: Intro,
verse 1, verse 2, bridge, ect you then enter them into the pattern sequencer to create your track. (usually, but not limited to drums)

This then (of course) has to either play along in sync with the other midi and audio tracks in Temper, or be converted to a single midi track and added to the others.

I hope this clarifies somewhat .... SG




Here's another for comparison, the step sequencer is bottom left, and the pattern sequencer (he calls it song seq) is on the right...
It's a freebie if you'd like to check it out and get a feel for it. The FLStudio demo is also available for download if you'd like...

http://www.rhythmrascal.com/
http://www.flstudio.com/documents/download.html

[Elden]

yeah cool! directly developed like i told you

regards

elden
_________________
www.soundcloud.com/elden

[ZooTooK]

Regarding step sequncer ala Fruity Loops I think that the option to rename the piano key (MIDI key names in the track options) by drum name (bas=midi note 20 snare=21 etc) is quite close. Just set the quatize grid to your needs and away you go. Reaper has the option to use diamonds or triangle symbols instead of the square but that's finer details IMHO. Also to ba able to colapse the piano/drum key only view the once in use and the sort them in any order would be nice, but IMHO it's finer details....

[blacker]

thanx 2 share...

regards...
_________________
I'm tibetan

[caleb]

Like what you're doing with scales and chords - much more up my alley.

Simple way to hang Temper:

Add chord in timeline. Add two progression lines - make the second chord in progression at the same measure/beat as the first -> Temper hangs.

Regards
Caleb

[LiquidProj3ct]

any news eric?

Best regards

[exh]

[exh]