http://www.humbletune.com http://www.humbletune.com/rssFeedThumb.jpg en-GB Sat, 19 Jan 2013 15:33:10 +0100 http://www.humbletune.com Exciting news, shapesynth is now available for android. So it means there is no excuse anymore not to own shapesynth. Well, I am a bit scared of all different hardware running android but hopefully it will run on most. There has already been one crash reported. :( Anyway, that is to be expected from such a fragmented market. As can be seen below I have tested it on my Google Nexus 7 and it runs very smooth. It can be controlled with either touch or connecting an external midi device. Now, midi through usb for me performed exceptional. Connecting midi through network it coped good with at least six voices playing at the same time. So, I would recommend usb for the professional low latency experience. It is not an exact copy of the iOS version but I think most users will feel familiar. As always it is quite minimalistic and retroish sounding. I have tried to avoid text, which I know can confuse some users sometimes but I recommend to just try stuff out and see what happens. I might write a manual. Happy synth playing. ERik http://www.humbletune.com/ashapesynth/ Thu, 22 Nov 2012 12:41:30 +0100 http://www.humbletune.com So there are a few things I have been working on. The first thing is my new website design. I wanted to make it fit a bit better on smaller screens like phones and tablets, which is quite tricky. Most people solve it by having two sites I guess but I did not want that. All in one, css hack. The other thing is the new sinusoid look which has already been released. It is now completely iOS uniniversal and brought many new features. Also coming in a week or so, it is now compatible with iCade 8-bitty. Very retro. :) You might have noticed there is another application coming too, but more on that later. ERik http://www.humbletune.com/index.php?1234 Thu, 28 Jun 2012 23:20:48 +0200 http://www.humbletune.com I am so slow updating, I am ashamed. Anyway, there are some cool new things since last time. Last time I spoke about the shapesynth/brother slave mode. Well, inspiration struck and one version that lasted. The new improved slave mode has now been released and it works between devices on the same network. Pretty cool and it helps spreading the workload between two processors I found. This algorithm does not use midi either so that channel of communication is not blocked up anymore. I found that the quality depended a bit though on my network. My best experience was using my iPhone hotspot and my netgear router however performed less amazing. Well, that being said, below is a little example of it in action. Next thing I have been playing with is some new controls for sphero and shapesynth. This video below shows sphero controlling arpeggio, delay and filter. I am not sure if I will release it like this or do something more. Anyway, here it is. I also decided to take my old flash site down. Have to stick with the times, ey. Well, I never update it anymore so it makes sense. Think this place feels a bit better. Check out my new front page logo too. Hehe, all my favourite things… ERik http://www.humbletune.com/blogtest/index.php?9 Tue, 29 May 2012 23:07:59 +0200 http://www.humbletune.com It is time to write something about brother, which should be out anytime soon. It is an idea that has been around as long as shapesynth almost, only I think I first made it too simillar. Really though it is still a cleaner brother of shapesynth. Like most of my projects it is quite minimalistic, which I really like because that gives me more chance to listen to users and perhaps we can make this a common evolutionary journey if inspiration hits. Even though it looks small it still has some powerful features I think, like audio copy, sound cloud upload and virtual midi. The most distinctive feature of brother is the kind of quirky sequencers, which loads and interprets your twitter feed. At the moment this only interprets the latin character set but if someone from say china, or japan wants to help me with their characters I am very open to do this. Another cool little thing about brother is the shapesynth slave mode. Really I do not want to give the impression that this is the dog's bollocks but it serves its purpose I think. In terms of latency and audio quality I expect to see far greater results from audio bus guys. Whenever that project reaches the world. However it gives you the option of recording your brother creations to the shape tape and utilise its delay and camera filter. Yey, kewl. Well, that is it I think. Hopefully it should be out soon. Happy creating everyone. ERik http://www.humbletune.com/blogtest/index.php?8 Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:24:19 +0200 http://www.humbletune.com Hello. I have now uploaded my None EP to bandcamp. Please feel free to download it for free or you name the price. It is a collection of tunes witten, played and recorded all by me, using among other instruments shapesynth, sinusoid and one unreleased iOS app experiment. ERik None by humble http://www.humbletune.com/blogtest/index.php?7 Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:48:34 +0200 http://www.humbletune.com Hey. Shapesynth has been whitelisted with sphero and a release is coming very soon. This week I think. I am a bit nervous, hope I have not missed anything now that other parties are involved. Here is another litttle sample of what is coming: I also had a little recording session the other day. I think this will complete the none ep: I think also, I will upload a high res version on bandcamp really soon. ERik http://www.humbletune.com/blogtest/index.php?7 Thu, 05 Apr 2012 22:44:33 +0200 http://www.humbletune.com I want to apologise again for the slow update for shapesynth. I am still waiting for the sphero whitelisting. Today I decided to resubmit it for review and release everything in one go instead of spread over two, which I was going to at first. Also, I have been working on this envelope step filter using the camera and uploaded two samples earlier today at soundcloud. It is not my most amazing idea I do not think, but without experimenting no new ideas will be born, I guess. I have also reworked the software keyboard to multitouch instead of the previous stylophone style keys. Now it is possible to create chords without a midi keyboard. Yey! :) I also made an iOS image uploader for my server the other day, to make it easier for me to upload images. No more computer in the middle. Well, as you can see I have already uploaded a few new ones. ERik http://www.humbletune.com/blogtest/index.php?6 Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:08:48 +0200 http://www.humbletune.com Hello. Easter time. Yey. I am quite sleepy so I will be short this time. I just wanted to write about two new updates. Sinusoid the other day got virtual midi, midi channel settings and background audio. Kewl ey. The video below shows it in action with shapesynth and soundprism. Also kinetic got virtual midi last week and midi out, as an alternative to samples. I made a little video to show that too. Shapesynth will be a bit longer because of the whitelisting process for sphero. It is taking way longer than I thought it would. Anyhoo, I will keep you guys posted. ERik http://www.humbletune.com/blogtest/index.php?5 Sun, 18 Feb 2012 19:21:00 +0000 http://www.humbletune.com Two new updates for shape synth are coming soon. The first one integrates the very amazingly awesome robot ball sphero. However, if you do not have one, it is cool, you do not have to. You can either us the built in iDevice accelerometer or sphero to control frequency modulation. Below is a little example. I was very excited the other week to see so many views on this one had, well for one of my videos at least. This update has been reviewed and approved already by apple, only thing now is to get the external accessory whitelisting to go through. Should not be to long I think. I have also been looking at virtual midi and background audio, which will be in the release after the next, but more on that later… What else is new, hmm. Yes, MAPI audio copy and sound cloud upload was in the latest release of shapesynth too, it is not just sinusoid anymore. ERik http://www.hubmletune.com/blogtest/index.php?3 Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:33:00 +0000 http://www.humbletune.com I saw this question in a mailing list about dsp and I thought I would try to answer it, for my own amusement. First I want to make some things clear though. I will use the term bit crushed instead of 8-bit, because 8 bit is I think quite high resolution and a lot of the time I want much lower bit numbers. Second I would not call my love for bit crushed sound for a hype, when I think this sounds very negative and I also have probably been chasing the dream of a perfect bit sound for at least 6-7 years now. Third and most important, I am not going to claim to be clever. So, what is it with this sound, that makes me go wowiimama?! Well, these sounds come from a the time of synths, the 80s. In my head this is a really horrible time, together with the 90s, where everything had to be perfect, people did plastic surgery and so did the musicians on their tracks. Now hold that thought. Why do I love a bowed string on say a cello? The answer is because of its imperfections. What characterises a cello and makes me understand that it is a cello, I am listening to, is its timbre. It has not just the single frequency of the note being played. No, there are many really unwanted frequencies created by the friction of the bow and the shape of the wood and grain will also manipulate and shape the sound. That is what I love really, a non perfect sound with character and that is what the bit crushed sound gives me. It really sparks something in my brain and heart. Imperfection and character! It is everything a synth has the potential of not being. If I got to decide I would put the old nes in a symphony orchestra. Hehe... :) ERik http://www.humbletune.com/blogtest/index.php?2