Vriareon - 0.001

This is an application that has the purpose of expanding the capabilities of software and hardware synthesizers. It uses the Midi protocol to communicate with synthesizers .

The first goal of Vriareon is the introduction of multipoint envelops.

An envelop is automation of a parameter, which is a sequence of parameter changes. For example a sound may raise its volume when a note is pressed (Attack aka A) then it may lower the volume immediately after the note is pressed (Decay aka D) then it may rise the volume when the note is kept pressed (Sustain aka S) then it may lower the volume when the note is released (Release aka R) . This a ADSR envelop and thus it permits only 4 changes on a parameter as volume or any other parameter. ADSR envelops come on board of all synthesizers but what if the user wants to make more than 4 changes in parameters ? Vriareon solves this problem.

Multipoint envelopes of Vriareon are unlimited , thus allowing unlimited changes to one parameter which result to unlimited complex sounds. Vriareon use midi to communicate the multipoint envelope and because midi comes as a standard to all synthesizers this makes all synthesizers software or hardware able to access vriareon's multipoint envelops. I will support the Alesis Andromeda A6 synthesizer, with preset templates for its parameters, but of course anyone will be able to use Vriareon for any synthesizer

INSTALLATION

You will need Python 2.6.6 programming language which you can download for windows and mac from here

Python 2.6.6 Release

and the python library pygame 1.9 . Dont download the source, only distribution and it will have to have "-py2.6" inside its name to work with your version of python. 

Downloads pygame - python game development

First install python and then install pygame. Windows user just double click the vriareon.py . Its the same thing for mac users but they need to first right click on vriareon.py then go to Get Info and change open with to use the 2.6.6 launcher (you will find it in your application folder) or else it will try to run the app with the version provided inside the OS from Apple and thus the app wont run (python comes preinstalled with macos but the highest version is 2.6.1 for snow leopard). The right click process will need to take place only once, from there on like windows user you will be able to launch vriareon with double click. 

Ubuntu users will need to install only through synaptic, so the above links are not needed for them except the download of Vriareon.

Currently , only the gui of the multipoint enevelope is working. With the ability to pan, zoom, add points , remove points and reset view.

• Click on the lines to add points,
• right click on the point to remove it,
• click and drag on the point to move it,
• click and drag on empty space for zoom in and out ,
• right click on the empty space to reset the view
• click anywhere on the empty space to pan.

I dont have a full release for you to test yet, cause I still work with the GUI and I am seriously thinking moving the project to python 3. Currently you will need python 2.6 and the latest pygame.

The app is tested on win xp, win 7 and macos tiger and snow leopard and ubuntu 9.10 and it seems to work with no problem.

There is no code for midi yet included, however the code I am working right now does send multipoint envelopes to my synthesizers (via pygames's pyportmidi implimentation). I am not realeasing it yet cause its not finished. If you find any bug with the gui please inform me.

What does display in the console is the time and the average time it takes in milliseconds to finish one loop. MIDI messages are transmited each millisecond (maximum resolution allowed by midi protocol), so I try to keep the resolution as close to 1ms as possible.