Skrasoft Dev Blog

Click here for the Turntable Surgeon site.
GUI Updates:

A Working Zoom Tool
The zoom tool can get all the way down to individual data points, allowing much better resolution than anything before.

The Freehand Drawing tool makes more sense now. No more automatic uncontrollable smoothing.

Bug Fixes:
Fixed zero width selection problem
Fixed zero height selection problem
Fixed Freehand Drawing tool altering first data point
Fixed metronome not stopping at the end of recording
Fixed Time Warp tool graphics initialization glitch

Build number seven has been posted! Click here to go to the Turntable Surgeon site

GUI Updates:

Instead of only text, all tools have icons now

A vertical bar shows the current playback/recording position in the editor

Other Updates:
More efficient code layout (yawn)
Better Play/Stop/Record logic
Blue “normal speed” guide line loads correctly on opening

For those interested in the DJ software that I’ve made several video posts about, it is now called Turntable Surgeon and the site is here.

It is entering alpha testing so that I can get some feedback on the general concept. It has all kinds of bugs, and is missing many features, but gets most of the point across. It works well enough to record a scratch, do all kinds of editing, and play it back. It also has some drawing functions for creating a scratch without needing a turntable.

Alpha builds should start showing up as soon as tomorrow, so be on the lookout. The main development platform is PC, but I will make sure to get something up for Mac users also.

I started an FAQ (currently online) and an official bug list (currently on my computer)

The last two weeks have been quiet, but not without progress. Sadly, most of the progress is relatively uninteresting for the sake of blogging. It has been a fortnight of bug fixing, PCB footprint making, vector graphics learning, part sourcing, simulating, and etc. Instead of talking about all the gruesome minor details, here are several pictures from that span of time that may or may not mean anything.

An Ancient Army Prepares for Battle

Medusa

Vectorizing

A Gentle Hammer

Click the picture to watch

This is a little preview clip showing real-time scratch recording into my software. The crossfader and record motion are both captured accurately. I am still stream-lining the video creation process, so this is a very rough draft. My software can easily handle MUCH faster (and better) scratching, but right now I am focusing on clarity in showing how things work.

The video is to show proof-of-concept for a two-dimensional drawing method of oscillator waveforms.

How does it work?

A pattern is drawn into the window and becomes a “trace.” The oscillator is formed by re-tracing the mouse movements periodically at an audio rate. Since the final audio output can only be one-dimensional, it is taken from the projections onto the x and y axes. These projections are displayed, in addition to basic operations with them.

The example picture shows a straight line drawn from left to right. As this is traced, the x projection (ie the horizontal position) increases from -1 to 1.  The process then jumps back to the beginning and repeats ad nauseum, creating a sawtooth wave in the x projection.

This method of sound generation allows two dimensional graphics functions, such as image rotation, to create novel filtering and processing.

UPDATE: Check here for a standalone application version (Windows only right now)

Another UPDATE: Check here for the Max/MSP files

Here is how the new smoothing tool works.

…and this is how the crossfader tool works.

After trying for a week to get Camstudio working with Adobe Premier to no avail, I downloaded the 30 day trial of Camtasia Studio. The goal now is to make as many videos as I can of tools and features in my scratch editing software. After 30 days I’ll have to start begging for money to pay for the full version.

The first test video shows zooming in action, recorded in real time. Notice how smooth the response is thanks to Jitter data handling.

Check it out here

I have been very quiet about the scratch editor I am developing, mostly because there are still hundreds of tiny details to finish before mass consumption. Here is a quick screen capture of the ever-expanding GUI:

Normal Program View

The layout is very similar to Scratcher, but there are many key differences in this screenshot alone. The most important is that the squiggle and gray combination shown was not drawn, it was recorded in real-time. The squiggle shows the movement of a Ms. Pinky record (substitute your timecode vinyl of choice), and the gray boxes show where the crossfader was “off.” I hope to put up some videos soon.

For those interested in Max/MSP, here is a screenshot of what the main patcher looks like:

A Filtered Blend of Organization and Chaos

Most of that is for the user interface, which uses many stacked semi-transparent objects for functionality. It is more organized than it looks at a glance. Contrary to anything I have ever made in Max/MSP, the bulk of the DSP for this goes on inside Jitter.