[LAU] Yoshimi V1.3.5 (out now) - more details

[Will Godfrey]

A recap of my earlier post, but with much more detail.


In response to suggestions at LAC 2015 we have made the title bars of all
editing windows display both the part number and the current name of the
instrument you are working on. In the addsynth oscillator editor you also see
the number of the oscillator you are editing.


Also, in response to suggestions, horizontal as well as vertical mouse dragging
can be used to set rotary controls. Additionally, the mouse scroll wheel can be
used, and if you hold down the 'ctrl' key you can get very precise setting.


Another request we had was for the part effects window to have the same layout
as System and Insertion effects. This has been done and it is now almost
identical to Insertion effects.


The most noticeable GUI enhancement is colour coded identification of an
instrument's use of Add Sub and Pad synth engines, no matter where in the
instrument's kit they may be. This can be enabled/disabled in the mixer panel.
It does slow down yoshimi's startup, but due to the banks reorganisation (done
some time ago) it causes no delay in changing banks/instruments once you are up
and running.
Some saved instruments seem to have had their Info section corrupted. Yoshimi
can detect this and step over it to find the true status. Also, if you resave
the instrument, not only will the PadSynth status be restored, but Add and Sub
will be included, allowing a faster scan next time.


Requests that don't look so likely:

Oscillator sync: Not possible on SubSynth - no oscillators! - or PadSynth
(Reset the wavetables every cycle?) and debatable on AddSynth due in part
to the variable nature of what oscillators you might set up and the complexity
of providing an interface for all of this.

Subsynth filter levels: Changing apparent sensitivity would be potentially
visually confusing as well as possibly changing the the resolution. Further
confusion would be caused by the fact that these are not absolute levels but
normalised ones, so changing the one with the greatest amplitude changes the
relative level of all the others.

Instrument kit note range: A cross fade overlap looks interesting until you
consider 5 or 6 kit items all crossing over at different points, and
different ranges. This is assuming you only want to control and maintain
a reasonably consistent volume.




In Yoshimi V1.3.5 a number of existing, as well as new features have come
together to give much greater flexibility (especially for automation) using
standard MIDI messages. These are:

NRPNs.
ZynAddSubFX controls.
Independent part control.
16, 32 or 64 parts.
Vector Control.
Direct part stereo audio output.


NRPNs can handle individual bytes appearing in either order, and usually the
same with the data bytes. Increment and decrement is also supported as
graduated values for both data LSB and MSB. Additionally, ALSA sequencer's
14bit NRPN blocks are supported.

Zyn. System & Insertion Effect controls are fully supported with extensions to
allow you to set the effect type and (for insertion effects) the destination
part number.

Independent part control enables you to change instrument, volume, pan, or
indeed any other available control of just that part, without affecting any
others that are receiving the same MIDI channel. This can be particularly
interesting with multiple layered sounds. There are more extensions planned.


With 32 and 64 parts it helps to think of 2/4 rows of 16. When you save a
parameter block the number of parts is also saved, and will be restored when
you reload.
By default each *column* has the same MIDI channel number, but these can be
independently switched around, and by setting (say) number 17 taken right out
of normal access.

In tests, *compiling* for 64 parts compared with 16 parts increased processor
load by a very small amount when Yoshimi was idling, but this becomes virtually
undetectable once you have 8+ instruments actually generating output. In normal
use, selecting the different formats makes no detectable difference but using
the default 16 reduces clutter when you don't need the extra.


Vector control is based on these columns giving you either 2 (X only) or 4 (X +
Y) instruments in this channel. Currently the vector CCs you set up can (as
inverse pairs) vary any combination of volume, pan and filter cut-off. More
will be added.
To keep the processor load reasonable it pays to use fairly simple instruments,
but if you have sufficient processing power it would be theoretically possible
to set up all 16 channels with quite independent vector behaviour!


Direct part audio is Jack-specific and allows you to apply further processing
to just the defined parts, which can still output to the main L+R if you want
to. This setting is saved with parameter blocks. Currently it is only set in
the mixer panel window, but it will also eventually come under MIDI direct part
control.
In this release (again, to reduce unnecessary clutter) part ports are only
registered with Jack if they are both enabled, and set for direct output.
However, once set they will remain in place for the session to avoid disrupting
other applications that may have seen them.


Yesterday someone reported a build problem with fltk 1.1, so in our sourceforge
tickets section there is a patch to fix it. I think most distros have been
on 1.3 for some time.

There is another patch to deal with a minor annoyance connected with gui
refreshes when doing a state reload - something I've never used myself :o

-- 
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.