Despite starting on the eve of Star Wars Day the meeting stretched well into the early hours of May the Fourth and holy mother of God, there was so much Zynthian talk, even to the point of live debugging at 02:00 CET! It all got too much for this old man who was eager for his Horlicks and bed. (Note: There is American and UK specific humour in that opening - no offence is intended.)
- Some of us have been sent to Coventry
- What would a swan taste like and is it worth the risk of execution?
- The Zynthian code was described as someone asking for directions and being told, “If I was going there I wouldn’t start from here”
- Some love was shown for Rust programming language - like C for those who can’t be bothered to learn C!
- Scorn was cast on those implementing operating systems on microcontrollers - just because you can does not mean you should
- We eagerly await the posting of instructions of how to step through the Zynthian code in a debugger
- Using version control is a real enabler - you can make changes with abandon knowing you have the freedom to restore to a previous state
- Do web browser plugins steal your data?
- Sulphuric acid is the anti-ant solution
- If a chemist doesn’t sell you chemicals, ask an old lady to buy them for you
- Hot tips were shared on how to buy acid… enough said
- How many floppy discs does an operating system distribution take?
- PipeWire was discussed as an alternative to jackd
- Cascading USB hubs may stop some peripherals working
- Lots of love for lots of knobs (and dials)
- The PinePhone can actually make phone calls! Whatever next? An onscreen piano keyboard playing embedded setBfree? Give the man a challenge and half a Club night and he will deliver - in spades
- MIDI routing within Zynthian is suboptimal
- When Python meets assembly language there is trouble a(Little)Foot
- ROLI Lightpad Block M has the texture of a sex toy and is best played with lube
- MPE is multichannel aftertouch - kinda
- On the screen, no on the phone, no on the screen, on the screen…
- Roland VR-09 D-Beam - things can only get better
- Does Zynthian interface let it down?
- 5", 7" capacative touchscreens are really good for Zynthian
- setBfree on ThinkPad in a jazz club 7 years ago - then came Zynthian and it is like chalk and cheese
- It used to take longer to configure synth rigs than a it took the drummer to set up
- Zynthian OOBE should give you a set of working instruments
- Some of us think of a snapshot as representing a whole gig
- Some discussion on how using categorisation rather than the current layer / engine view
- Dropping a Nord Stage will dent the ground, not the Nord
- Spending thousands of often gives a good UI but not necessarily better sound
- Spending thousands of may not even give you balanced outputs
- Who actually needs balanced outputs?
- The RD-700X has XLR outputs - this caused balanced envy
- Is a 40kg keyboard portable?
- API + UI redesigned would be a substantial effort but could deliver significant benefit
- Should the UI be separated from a server type core responsible for reliable audio / MIDI?
- Webconf is for for config - UI is for performance and sound design
- Out of the box an official kit should work without reference to webconf - which we believe it does
- What does each LV2 actually do? It would be good to have a description of each.
- Do people tend to access the plugins they already know?
- Which are the “best” plugins / engines? Can we curate this and will we trust that curation?
- Software developers contribute a lot to this project - musicians, operators and artists can also contribute by informing others of what works well, e.g. which plugins are good for what purpose, what are beneficial workflows, etc. Zynthian needs YOU!
- Hiding the lower quality plugins by default should be done to reduce the risk of poor user experience - you can always go looking for that stuff if you want / need it
- How do we sort the good from the bad? User ratings? Curation by trusted authority?
- Can we leverage benefit from external rating platforms like musical artifacts?
- Action: Revisit the recent work to identify engines, presets and configurations to showcase Zynthian, implementing them as default presets.
- Luckily @wyleu had left the meeting before we started to talk about tagging - we may still be there…
- After discussing categorisation and how that might (not) work we considered whether tagging presets might allow a better method of finding required sounds
- Zynthian could have a set of tags that are applied to each preset, e.g. plucked, bass, realistic, etc.
- An encoders could be used to select and toggle tags which could filter an ungrouped list of all presets in an instrument
- There could be a similar global list but there are (quite possibly insurmountable) technical challenges in allowing selection and preview from such a list
- It is tempting to consider Zynthian as a monolithic monster of an instrument but it is better considered as a TARDIS - a small box containing many separate large instruments
- The concept of presenting user favourite presets in a virtual bank at the top of the engine’s list of banks was proposed which would provide a collection of what you need in one place. A similar virtual bank could be implemented for curated (showcase) presets
- Frank and open, critical discussion of the code included appreciation for the effort that has got us here and the path taken whilst identifying that there are significant flaws in the code that may benefit from code review including (but not limited to): consistent coding style, comments and documentation, reduced complexity, removal of redundant encapsulation, etc.
- Desire to provide enhanced views like multiple controllers
- Workflows in Zynthian are not always intuitive and often distract from artistic flow
- There may be benefit in splitting workflows for performance, sound design and configuration
- Don’t leave a German, and Englishman and a Spaniard alone with a common interest if you need to get up for work in the morning
Day 9 of an 11 day continuous sprint was a struggle after such an intense, long and late discussion but it was much more fun than watching rubbish sitcoms alone in an apartment 255 km from home. (That is 11111111 km to you Mr Robot.)