Hi Kevin,

Many thanks for the vsynth package, I'm enjoying it a lot, great work. One thing I would like to see is the capability to automate effect parameters, eg on the rota object. Is this something you are considering?

Cheers

Paul

Hi Paul, thanks for your words. Taking into account we are inside Max and there are a lot of snippets out there to automate things, I won’t develop them myself (at least not for now). I’m focusing on the oscillators, cv_ins, envelopes, filters, that is, all that has to do with video synthesis. However, for the next update, I’m adding a control inlet in every module so you can externally control them in a Max-style way with whatever you want! Here is a screenshot that exemplifies this better. You can see I’m controlling parameters with Beap and Vizzie (but this can be whatever you want) by adding just one or two simple Max objects.

Hi Kevin,

That's great news - being able to control vs parameters with standard Max objects will be even better. I think I had - incorrectly - assumed you were aiming for a fully self contained system. This will be much better.

I look forward to the new version.

Cheers,

Paul

v1.0 was released yesterday fellows, go grab it through the package manager! Lots of new features!

Hi . First of all thanks for this brilliant tool. I tried your beta and was loving it ! im dying to try the new version ,but the max package manager doesnt like me today. any manual way of installing it? otherwise i will just wait THANKS , great job!

Thanks Carlo. Yes, I uploaded the package to gumroad for those with an older version than Max 7.1. Place it under /Documents/Max 7/Packages.

Thanks a lot. Working really smooth this new update. Thanks for all that examples !

Hey just passing by to say this is amazing, lots of thanks, having loads of fun, and it's useful to learn a bit about jit.gl.pix too :) One question about the feedback though, i'm not sure i understand when it can be connected, like what are the conditions and the logic behind it ? As i'm a noob in graphic generation and trying to use my little knowledge from audio synth to transpose it to this world.

Hi Kevin,

Thanks so much for making this and sharing it with the community! I starting playing with V Synth about a week ago and I really love it! It’s so nice to have access to this process of image making without the insane price of modular hardware or their restrictions, especially fixed NTSC resolution!

I have a couple of questions that probably relate to the same issue:

1. Sometimes after building up a patch with many wave generators, I'll decide to unplug/delete one or more from either an FM path or mixer path but their feed continues to affect the generator or mixer it was previously connected to. Is this normal? I wonder if this happens because I am often copying module chains (alt-dragging) and the copied modules have overlapping named contexts by not being instantiated from the V Synth menu bar? Do VSynth modules have to be instantiated from the VSynth Menu Bar in order to function properly?

2. I've been trying to use Snapshots with my V Synth patches. I feel like Snapshots is a huge feature to be able to take advantage of within Max7, especially when compared to equipment based modular analog video synthesis, in which preset making is impossible. Many of the V Synth modules aren't natively visible by Snapshots but I have been able to make them visible by modifying controller objects within the original bpatchers. For example, in the CLRIZER module I've ticked 'Parameter Mode Enable' to ON for the 'swatch' object within the bpatcher and now it seems to work fine with Snapshots.

The big problem I had is that the native VSynth Menu Bar will create/instantiate a bunch of new modules every time I change presets in Snapshot. Often times these modules include new R3NDER modules which then create huge conflicts with the VSynth output window, sometimes even crashing Max7 in the process. Initially I tried to fix this within the V Synth Menu Bar by disabling 'Parameter Mode Enable' for the ‘coll’ object in that bpatcher. It seemed like it had worked until I tried to create a new VSynth module from the VSynth Menu Bar and I was no longer able to instantiate new modules at all. Reactivating the 'Parameter Mode Enable' for that coll didn’t work ( I now understand why) and I had to start again by completely reinstalling the VSynth Package.

Now I think I’ve figured out how to fix the issue with the VSynth Menu Bar. In the bpatcher for all of the ‘live.menu’ objects I have changed their ‘Parameter Visibility’ to ‘Hidden’.

I guess I’ve probably solved my problem here, but perhaps I can make a feature request out of this? Could all of the VSynth modules be made compatible with Snapshots in a future update? I’d be happy to give you notes or copies of my patches that I’ve fixed for this use, if you’d like.

Thanks again for such an awesome set of tools!

Hi there. Really enjoying V Synth! Are the control parameter names for each module documented anywhere? Some are obvious, but others are not & having trouble guessing. For instance, on WFG_Shapes and WFG_2, the time parameter does not respond to the message "time x". Also, several parameters on XYZ.Displace are a mystery.

thanks! //jake

@VICHUG: you are doing feedback when you displace (frequency - position in the screen) or mix (amplitude - brightness) the video signal with itself (or with itself+process). Here an image of two simple feedback chains to illustrate. I’m working on a patch-book at the moment but in the meantime, you can also try with the cam_2 or a lumakey+framedelay among others. There are a lot of possibilities actually!

@TYSON: sorry for the delay and thanks for taking the time to write all this, really appreciated!

1. Is normal, is happening to me too and that's the reason why I didn’t add more ‘cv’ inputs to the modules. I think I found a way to solve this but I need to work and test it more before release it. I always alt-drag, thats not the problem!

2. I've started a preset system with the pattr familly objects but using the new Snapshots system sounds promising and easier/faster to develop. I will look at it and yes, of course I wanna see patches! Does Snapshots allow to morph between presets?

Cheers!

@JAKE RODRIGUEZ: they aren’t. I will post them in the next update. To control time you should write "/time 0”, “/time 1”, etc. You can always open up the bpatchers, is really easy to add your own control params!

thank you--i don't know why it didn't occur to me to open up the bpatchers at first. i have since added controls everywhere i need them, and spied on the ones already present.

cheers! jake

Perfect Jake, just remember to backup before downloading the next release!

Kevin:

Am interested in learning more about the Patchbook. I don't have Max, just use M4L inside Live. Will that limit what Vsynth/Patchbook can do? Is there a syphon out or other video out option to use with Live, or the ways to save your work?

@JCRYSTAL You can use the Patchbook without having the Vsynth Package installed. The difference is that you won't have the entire modular environment to build your own configurations but some configurations I came up with to produce certain visuals. Both configurations from the Starter Kit of course comes with Syphon Output. You can load them in your Live set and turn them on and off to have different 'scenes' with presets.

do vsynth modules support custom midi mapping for a midi controller?

@BYOU, you can control all the modules externally by sending messages to the most right inlet. For midi mapping check the 'external_connection' tab on the Launcher and to see the complete list of the public variables go to the 'sync_time' tab.

Hi everyone! I'm gonna leave here some of the patches I sent to the students that attended my Vsynth workshops.' Hope they are useful to you too! You should have the latest Vsynth version installed (v1.2.1), so if you didn't update now its good time to do it!

Thanks Kevin! Is the latest version the one in the Max package managet?

yes @foldh, also available here for the ones still in Max 7.0

Vsynth v1.2.2 I've just uploaded a little update that brings some new features and bug fixes. They are all detailed in the changelog file. As usual, you can grab it through the Package Manager or from here.

Stay tuned!

basic questions on this - apologies for any noobery this stuff outputs to a jit.pwindow just fine but can it go into a regular jit matrix? I tried just running it into jit.matrix and it makes something but it seems to be just color changing and not my shapes. I ask cause I've got some things going already in other jitter stuff and wanna combine the vsynth stuff and the other stuff with jit.op.

@JIM LEYDEN you can connect it to a [jit.matrix 4 char 320 240] for example, but my advice is to stay on the GPU and use either Vsynth's [operators2] module or check the jit.gl.slab-op.maxpat.

is it possible to control the PM on a WFG via sending a message through the right inlet, the way you can with freq, fm, and other variables?

@BYOU you can do that in the WFG_2 with Vsynth v1.2.2. Cheers!

@2K thanks man everything is lookin noice now

Hi, I would like to do a visual and audio project with a friend. Him with his modular synth and me to the video. The idea would be to use and modify the shape of the waves emitted by its modular oscillators and then project them. I am just starting to use Ma7 and I also have M4L. VSynth is it is ideal tool for this kind of thing? Is it better that I use The PatchBook on M4L? Thank you

Asked a question sort of tangential to Vsynth over here, curious if anyone knows how to alter the amount of inputs into the mixers: https://cycling74.com/forums/jit%C2%B7gl%C2%B7pix-inputs-and-vsynth

Anyone know how to "smooth out" the "time" variable? it jumps from one preset value to the next, and one of the things I find myself doing with regular video playback is altering the "rate" of stuff with slides and such. Was curious if it were possible to disable that locking-in of those values? I'm inside wfg_2's p timediv object and it reads a file called "timediv.txt" which has those values and their corresponding integer in it, but deleting it and just feeding a float value into that input isn't flying. (and even when I was altering the value before it seems to "reset" the generator whenever the time value jumps from one to another) Just curious if there's something I'm missing or if a smooth rate alteration is something that's actually way more complicated for generative stuff than it is for video playback.

Hi Jim, you will have to wait to the next release to have a smooth time variable natively. In the mean time check if this patch is helpful. Cheers!

wew @2k I think I'm out of my depth on that one lol. Alright, I have one last question then I'll quit bugging y'all: I'm effectively building a live "set" for some audioreactive stuff, with different vsynth bits for different parts of each song. At the moment I'm just building it all out but I've only got 3 parts and I'm already hitting some pretty low framerates. I'm sending it all into mixers and have built controls how I want them so I can fade in and out from one visual to the next, but as you can imagine the mixer only displays one vs. the other, and they keep running in the background. So what I tried was using the same controls to send signals to the individual vsynth elements' "enable $1" to turn them on and off but that seems to be a global control - it turns off other stuff that it's not directly plugged into. So I guess my question is: is there any control I can use to disable the elements individually, or is that impossible and I need a better way to do my switching? Basically, how does someone build an entire, free-flowing "set" from vsynth where you can kill elements you're not using so they taking up resources. Like I said, I'm on my 3rd "part" of what will be perhaps 40+ and my framerates are already dropping to like 8.

Hi again Jim! You should send the message 'enable $1' to the most right inlet of the modules you want to turn on/off. Check the 'scenes' tab from the examples of the vsynth_launch, I do that myself all the time when building complex patches for live sets. Feel free to drop me a line if you need more help. Have a good one!

So that's what I had already done - the problem was (I didn't think it'd be an issue) that the things being disabled were running into a vsynth mixer. I put a pwindow before the one element hit the mixer and it kept running, but the mixer froze it. I'm not 100% sure what's going on but whenever you freeze/disable the input into the 1st input of the mixer, it stops all the other inputs. I tried sending the mixer its own 'enable $1', both through the control input and the in1 input and nothing was working. I even had a metro constantly bang an enable to it, and nothing. I finally just sent a 'solid color' module through it that's not connected to the other enable/disable message, and that works. As long as it has something flowing through it, the other ins will continue running. I'm sure there's a smarter, "code-ier" way to do it but that's my workaround for now, so I'm all good. I also figured out that the big resource hog wasn't that I was running a fair amount of modules but that I was maxing out xyz.displace values at 2048. I have a gtx1070, was thinking that low-ass framerate was a little shady tbh. Not doing that any more. ANYWAY thanks for all the help, and for making this package to begin with. Now that my set skeleton and resource management issues are out of the way I can start doing the fun part.

any reason or experience anyone has with switching the MAX video engine?

Kevin, have you looked into adding a particle based module to animate the equal to your synth profound VOSC vid synth. Not a programmer but perhaps you two could collaboratr for the greatest digital analog style Vsynth ever made.

has anyone dealt with frame drop/stutters in max-vsynth? every 4-5 seconds I get a little stutter

I'm on a mid 2014 MacBook Pro NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB

Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB, 6 GB 1600 MHz DDR3.

I only have a few patches that run smoothly without the jitter.. looking for any help, suggestions, paths to success.. hoping someone has come across similar issues. Maybe max settings.. maybe Mac settings?

thanks nick

Heya, Trying to get the kinect into vsynth using jit.freenect.grab but unable to. Has anyone tried this? What do I need to do / what objects should I use? I looked at the examples/render_context but unable to figure it out. jit.gl.node was also suggested but still no luck. cheers.

@0THELL0 MARTINI should be really straight forward but I don't have a kinect to try atm. If you send me the patch I can help anyway!

@2k Here's is the patch. Thank you.

I guess this should work. Tell me how it goes:

Thanks @2K, I see that you added the [r draw] object but I'm interested in getting the depth image or any kinect image from the kinect in to vsynth. Any ideas?

HI Kevin, is it possible to have a quick way to translate Vsynth messages to audio? In order to sync audio and video? For example how would one go to input a frequency into the oscillator through max? Or the other way around?

@Jestern look in the launcher the audio_to_vsynth tab!

Perfect!

Course audio control is amazing and I would love a prefigured prepatched ready to “play” vidsynth with a playable gui with all the modules as options and switches for a max simpleton but aesthetic obsessive like myself, but wonder if there is a way to get a z axis for the occilator displays to give a greater cathode/occiloscope dimension to the signal image?