Hello everyone! I’ve been away again for a while, focusing my attention on some AI projects and job hunting. However, working on modules makes me happy, and I’m carving some time out for happiness.
I wanted to run an idea past you…
#1: Simplified Panel Design
I’m considering simplifying the voxglitch front panels.
Here’s why:
My current front panels consume memory and require some extra CPU to render. Although this isn’t a big issue in VCV Rack, it’s keeping Cardinal from using my newest builds, and I’d like to support them.
I’d like to support VCV Rack’s “Use Dark Panels” feature.
Although I love the look of the panels, the theme system that I have implemented increases the complexity of the code. I’m looking to simplify the code to make it easier for me and others to change and understand.
Using SVG instead of PNG files will result in less weird pixelization on lower resolution displays.
Here’s an example of a simplified panel (before/after). Please note that the ports and knobs may also change, and that’s not reflected here:
Most of my modules should look fine with the simplified panels. However, there are some modules, such as Satanonaut and Groovebox, where graphic design is especially important. For those modules, I intend to:
Create simplified panels for Satanonaut, Groovebox, and include those in my main collection
Modify the Ghosts panel to reduce the mega-large Position knob and introduce a visualizer to use that space (@nate.reeves )
Create a new collection, “Voxglitch Devices”, which contains the Satanonaut and Groovebox with their more elaborate designs. This new collection would likely be a paid collection. Any new utilitarian modules would go into my main collection, and anything wild and weird would go into Voxglitch Devices.
Let me break down the distinction clearly, because I don’t want you to worry too much:
All current modules will still be available for free in the Voxglitch collection, with the only difference being that the panels will be simplified to be compatible with Cardinal (and Cardinal on the web). Groovebox and Satanonaut will still be included, but with simpler panel design.
Future utilitarian modules that I create will likely be released for free in my main collection.
I’ll create a new, paid collection called “Voxglitch Devices”. At first Voxglitch Devices will contain only the colorful Satanonaut and detailed Groovebox. But I’d like to use it to explore more weirdly wonderful modules that use more complicated panels. (Voxglitch Devices may not be fully compatible with Cardinal.)
Also, a quick hello to all of my friends on the forums. I miss you guys and hope to be around more often.
I like these panels. I must confess though to being in that camp that prefers simpler panels to the fully 3D rendered stuff that a lot of ppl like.
I’m not crazy about that psuedo LED font for the numbers, but if you only use if for large numbers it should be plenty readable. I like that all caps title font - what font is that?
I don’t recall how I got a .ttf of that font since the download only contains .otf and .sfd. I may have found it in someone else’s module and pilfered it. Or maybe I found a conversion utility.
some interesting ideas you introduce here,
I like the “simplified” UI idea alot, will help you maintain the modules and makes them easier to use for some people.
as always, please let me know if I can help you with some beta testing.
Hi, i just figured out that the Groovebox might be malfunctioning on my vcv (win11, x64,), not sure if im the first to have that problem: the sample slots wont load any wavs, and wont even show their names. I tried to turn interpolation off, as well as trying to load first 8 samples, but neither seemed to work.
Could be a problem with samples. I had a very similar issues with a couple of sample packs. Not really sure what was different about these samples (it’s easy to check, I am just lazy), but some of them didn’t load at all and the other ones while showing the names, didn’t work still. So yeah, try different samples
From my personal perspective, VCV is first about music, and not really about graphics (except scopes, meters, and so on). So I prefer simple panels.
But you could give the user the option to choose between simple (and therefore CPU-light) panels and complex (and therefore more CPU-intensive) panels, similar to other developers who let users choose between light panels and dark panels.
Here in VCV 2.5.2 on Win11 it works flawless (as all the other Voxglitch sampleplayer),
maybe the samples don’t work,
did you try to load the same samples in other sample players in VCV?
Do they work there?
I think you intended to link your post that appears below Squinky’s, but I suppose people will find the video where you use the Autobreak Studio either way
non UTF-8? do you mean “non ascii”? I know it was a bit of trouble to get SFZ player to work in windows with sample files in folders with non-ascii names.
I think you are right, but I don’t know the details - i.e. which functions work with unicode. And, yeah, that’s the issue I’m talking about. E with that accent is not an ascii character, but it can be represented easily with any unicode, including UTF-8.
Yeah, but quite a few “poorly” coded ones might stop working as well, and that’s why they’re taking their time. The long tail of legacy is very long indeed.
Text encoding is kind of like the low-temperature Y2K bug that keeps on giving. To a good extent it’s a relic of the OS wars of eras gone by - very silly and we all get to suffer the consequences still.
Another favorite of mine is that at one point we had 3 different ways to express a new line in text, now we “only” have two. Or look at our keyboard layouts. Oh my lord… I can tell you that for those of us outside the US/UK, special keys are an absolute nightmare.
