The inevitable drive to 64bit - Litter Power and fluidsynth

davidestevens's icon

So it appears that sooner rather than later, Apple is going to force me to shift to 64bit Max. (I know, I could not upgrade, but from time to time I create permanent installations that will inevitably be on new Macs, which will come with the most recent OS and so won't allow the 32bit option).

I've been through my main patcher, and it looks like most of the 3POs I use now have 64bit versions, which is great. However, there is one object and one set of objects that I can't find info on, so I'm hoping someone here might know.


1. Litter Power. It doesn't look as though the site has been updated in a while. Does anyone know if Peter is going to be updating these?

2. More critically - fluidsynth~ . Was being handled by Ircam, but again, no sign of recent updates. Anyone have any info, or alternatives? (ie a lightweight source of a general midi soundset, that integrates very easily into Max (on Mac). I've tried some vst~ sample players before now, but none of them have played well with voice/bank recall using midi messages). The other option would be to build a simple sample player, but I don't know if I can load or convert fluidsynth files to a useable format???

davidestevens's icon

And it looks like jasch's fscopy and createfolder are no longer in the jasch Package. So I'll need a new way of creating folders, and deleting files & folders too.

Ullstein's icon

Hi Davide,

Jaschas filemanager object should do for you?
Best
Hans Peter

davidestevens's icon

Fab! I'd missed that one. That's one problem solved! Thanks Hans Peter.
I suspect that fluidsynth is going to be the really problematical one.

Holland Hopson's icon

Try DLSMusicDevice.auinfo in a vst~ for general MIDI.

Source Audio's icon

I just stumbled over link to source of fluidsynth, which looks as 64 bit...
from 2015, maybe someone could compile it
https://forge.ircam.fr/p/fluidsynth4max/source/tree/master/

volker böhm's icon

ok, here you go...

fluidsynth~64bit.zip
application/zip 2.12 MB
fluidsynth~64bit

Source Audio's icon

Hallelujah - that was fast indeed, thanks for all that support Volker !

volker böhm's icon

you're welcome - it was a matter of a couple minutes, as the sources you provided worked fine.

davidestevens's icon

Volker! Thankyou! I owe you a big drink!

Kasper's icon

as for Litter power the last time I talked to Peter, he said he won't do it - but if someone is willing to do the port he might give the source code etc etc

volker böhm's icon

hello kasper, if peter is willing to share the code - publicly or privately - I would have a look at it and see how complicated a 64bit update would be.

yaniki's icon

Wow! 64 bit fluidsynth~! How a nice Friday...

Btw. I see one strange behaviour: I need to switch off and again on audio processing after loading a new soundfont. Is somebody else experienced this issue?

Rick's icon

https://github.com/pcastine-lp/LitterPower

Kasper's icon

hi - I replied to Volker in private, if someone is willing to port Litter object all fine, and I know Peter Castine is not against it (and I would love to have those)

volker böhm's icon

@Yaniki sorry, can't reproduce that - loading new soundfonts works fine here.

yaniki's icon

@Volker Thanks. I think, if you can't reproduce this that that maybe something specific to my hardware/software setup. I'll by trying to investigate this issue later. And - from my point of view - it is simple to solve it by simple patching (off/on DSP after loading a new soundfont).

Thanks again for your time and effort. I'm really happy with 64bit fluidsynth~.

alistair macdonald's icon

+1 for Litter objects. I'm no programmer so no help, but would love to have these back for 64-bit Max

sequencersampler's icon

Another bump for the Litter objects.

volker böhm's icon

After a quick conversation with p.castine, I started working on these some time ago. Managed to get through about the first half, when other stuff became too pressing.
The project is still on hold, and it's still a lot of work.
Will come back to it, but can't promise anything when this is gonna be.
Here is the current state:
https://github.com/v7b1/LitterPower/tree/64-bit-version

alistair macdonald's icon

Thanks Volker. If you're ever in Glasgow I'll buy the beer/whisky!

Kasper's icon

HI Volker
excuse my stupidity, but when I follow your link where are the max objects??? I was expecting to see some max objects, and none of what I see there seem to be.... but I am pretty ignorant in all code-things. Many thanks. Kasper

volker böhm's icon

It's a code repository. so what you see is the source code of the objects with the necessary changes to make them work in 64-bit mode.
In order to 'see' objects, you'd have to download the code and compile it.
when the work is finished, I will provide the compiled objects for macos.

Kasper's icon

:-)
this is exactly what I thought, of course - but I know that "compiling" the code is something I am unable to do - would not know where to begin. But of course I am willing to wait. Many thanks for the work !!

sequencersampler's icon

This is exciting news to read Volker. Thank you for your efforts.

Roman Thilenius's icon

the 64 bit version of a 64-bit-audio max object, which can play your 16 bit soundfont samples on 1 of the 18 cores in your new mac.

Music_SDP's icon

Hey everyone, got turned onto this thread today via the Max FB page.

Did anyone ever build fluidsynth~ for Windows, or is it only MacOS?

ben sonic's icon

Have a look at ircam's forumnet.
FluidsynthForMax - Mac OS X and Windows.

Firmus's icon

Hi Music_SDP,
fluidsynth~ for Windows is still available at http://imtr.ircam.fr/imtr/FluidSynth_for_Max/MSP
I'm using it since 9 or 10 years and it works very well. Currently, fluidsynth~ for Windows is 32-bit only.
Any hope to get one day a 64-bit version?
Thanks

shreeswifty's icon

anyone please that knows how to compile it for windows?

xxc's icon

Hi Volker,
I was wondering if you could ever finish the conversion of Litter Power? I see you updated the code again one year later, but I'm not sure how to compile if that's the case.
I'm really interested on noise objects, and this looks like a pretty neat collection. If it is too much work tough, don't worry. I'm sure there is plenty of ways to replicate that!
Thank you a lot for your work

pdelges's icon

I did compile some LP extrernals for Mac 64 bit in the past. I can PM you what I did.

alistair macdonald's icon

Hi Patrick. I'd be really interested in the externals if you're happy to share.
emailmacd {at} gmail

shreeswifty's icon
alistair macdonald's icon

To clarify, it's the Litter Power externals I'd really like to get hold of
(and hints on how to send PM on tis forum!hinfo I must be missing something)

pdelges's icon

AFAIK, there is no way to send PM, but I sent you an email.(still)

volker böhm's icon

I was wondering if you could ever finish the conversion of Litter Power?

I finished upgrading the objects long ago (with only a few exception), but the project became stuck. I was in contact with Peter Castine at that time and he asked for also updating the help files - which absolutely makes sense, but which is a huge amount of mostly tedious (for me) work, I'm not keen on doing...
Last thing I remember is that Peter also wanted to add a new license for the release, but our conversation seized before that actually happend and I haven't heard from him since then.

So, I've put everything on github and moved on. Sources should compile fine - choose the '64-bit-version branch' - , but there is no 'official' release.
If someone is willing to work on these final steps (help files, testing, license, packaging, windows version? etc.) I would be happy to help, but I don't have the time to do it all myself.

pdelges's icon

I uploaded a .zip file here with the externals I compiled. No support, but please tell if some don't work.

xxc's icon

Thank you a lot, I will tell you if I encounter something!
Sorry I am not familiar with compiling or deeper coding. Max is already a lot for me!
You guys are the best:)

alistair macdonald's icon

Thanks! Looking forward to exploring these again.

Pablo Chin's icon

Hello,
I worked with the fluidsynth~ 64bit last year, but this year (2023) I got a new macbook pro with M1 chip, and now fluidsynth~ doesn't work. Console says there is bad architecture or something like that. IRCAM support said to ask directly to the developer, but not sure how to reach out to the developer. Anyone here had a similar experience?

yaniki's icon
Pablo Chin's icon

Amazing, thanks so much, YANIKI!!!

yaniki's icon

From my point of view FluidSynth should be a regular part of Max (or downloadable package) ;-)

davidestevens's icon

One of two things missing in Max for me too. The other, of course, is native DMX/Artnet out

Ullstein's icon

YYEEESSSSSSS: native DMX/Artnet out !!!!!!! PLEASE....

davidestevens's icon

@ullstein - I don’t know if you saw the thread where Ironside was asking about finding a developer for a dmx/artnet object
https://cycling74.com/forums/looking-for-freelancer-to-create-artnet-external?replyPage=1#reply-65819cde0316a10013ce5ff8
but as a result of that thread I've ended up buying Beam for Max a few days back. It’s very good, and I think it solves my dmx problem. But it’s not free (though it’s on sale at the moment). But it looks like I can finally go full arm64 with Max!

Ullstein's icon

@DAVIDESTEVENS - great ! Thank you, I think you (and of course the Showsync/Beam people) saved me from a lot of headache. I could not check it completely, but it looks already a the solution. Thanks for the hint.

Happy New Year (indeed)

Hans Peter

davidestevens's icon

You’re welcome. Hidde, on the Beam for Max part of their forum, is really helpful with trying to figure out how to use their objects.