Schwung for Ableton Move

Related Projects
1

Youtuber AudioPilz recently published a video about an alternative OS/Framework for the Ableton Move, called Schwung

In some ways it’s a similar concept to Zynthian, in that it is a framework which allows Move to run various open source synths, including Dexed, Osiris and OB-Xd.

Of course, there are conceptual differences too, the Move doesn’t have a large graphic display, but on the other hand it has 4 x 16 pads and a row of knobs.

Hardware-wise, apparently the Move runs on an RPi 4 Compute Module, which makes it impressive that it can run Osiris, as Zynthian requires an RPi 5 to accomplish that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ableton/comments/1fzd9ln/move_is_a_raspberry_pi_module_4/

EDIT: It seems that only the Virus A is available, the B and C are too CPU intense for the Move.

I didn’t know the Virus A was even included among the synths supported by TUS. (It’s not really surprising given the similarity of the Virus synths, and the fact that the TUS plugins run the actual original DSP56000 code.)

I’m not sure how the various ‘modules’ (corresponding to Zynthian engines) actually are integrated. The sheer number of available modules leads me to think that Schwung simply runs some standard plugin format like LV2, but I haven’t seen any details of the system.

EDIT: Some investigation uncovers that Schwung uses its own plugin format, and thus all the ‘modules’ (engines) need to be rebuilt for Schwung, which essentially means that in the plugin code, the top-level implementation, which interfaces with whatever framework is employed, is replaced with a Schwung version, while most of the actual DSP code can stay intact.

1 Like
2

I saw / heard in the video mention of the CLAP plugin format. Zynthian uses LV2 (atm).

3

Yes, there is a ‘module’ which allows general CLAP plugins, but the native plugin framework is proprietary (well, proprietary in the sense that it doesn’t conform to any existing standard, but it’s still open source so “easy” (in some sense of the word) to implement support for). So (all?) plugins in the Schwung ‘catalog’ seem to be ported to the Schwung framwork. All the ports are open sourced, and generally called schwung-something, like schwung-obxd and schwung-virus .

The author makes note of the fact that a lot of the work has been AI assisted. So likely that is one reason for the seemingly large number of Schwung ports of popular plugins.

From a technical viewpoint I find it interesting to see how the various ports have been implemented.

4

I saw one of the modules is a grain synth !
I think it would be a good add for zynthian !

1 Like
5

Could you link to the project you mean?

Best regards

Bernard

6

I can’t quite remember is we have previously tried BHarvestr before. It isn’t production ready and may have high CPU but looks like a contender for granular synthesis on zynthian.

[Edit] This subject had been discussed before.

2 Likes
7

I suppose this is the one you mean?

forked from

It looks like it is designed specifically for Schwung though, so some work would be needed to port it to LV2.

8

Yes this that project.
Oh i did not see it was too much work.
A granular synth would be cool for Zynthian !

Thanks

1 Like
9

I read in https://schwung.dev/ that Schwung adds a screen reader to A Move:

Screen Reader
Optional TTS announcements for accessibility making Move the first musical instrument with an on-device screen reader.

10

We have that!!!

11

Indeed, our is better because it’s not a just a screen-reader.

Regards

2 Likes