PSPSeq 1.00 is now available!

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October 23rd, 2006, 01:45
badplankton

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PSPSeq 1.00 is now available!

edited 10-24-2006 - new revision available - PSPSeq 1.01

there were a few minor bugs in PSPSeq 1.00; they are now patched and the latest version is available for download here. enjoy!

original message below...

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hello everyone - i've just released PSPSeq 1.00, a multitrack software synthesizer and sequencer for writing music on the PSP. some of the features that it has over the last version of PSPSeq (0.20) are:

- editable parameters on instruments
- customizable instrument groupings
- multiple loops/song sequencing for writing entire songs
- tap tempo
- improvements and optimizations to many of the generators and fx, along with new instruments
- configurable loop length
- proper swing handling

the main difference between this program and PSPRhythm and PSPKick is that PSPSeq is solely based on software synthesis while the other two are primarily sample playback sequencers.

billy of PSPRhythm wrote a cool demo song. you can grab that here.

enjoy!

Download and Give Feedback Via Comments
October 23rd, 2006, 02:17
John Vattic

thanks! good to see more music apps!
October 23rd, 2006, 02:37
mavsman4457

Sounds like garage band. If you're good at it, it's awesome. If not, not so much.
October 23rd, 2006, 04:11
mcvader

I'm sure this would be awesome after some time learning how to use it, all I can do is create some REALLY annoying sounds.
October 23rd, 2006, 04:53
badplankton

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcvader

I'm sure this would be awesome after some time learning how to use it, all I can do is create some REALLY annoying sounds.

well PSPSeq is good for annoying and soothing sounds. ;) here's some help on creating more melodic sounds:

1. press START to bring up the menu
2. press X on SYSTEM
3. press X on NEW
4. press the D-pad down to highlight MELODEE
5. press X

this loads up an instrument set with some more melodic instruments, specifically the BAMSVF (a 2 oscillator synth + filter) and KSSVF (a "plucked string" emulator with a filter at the end). trigger some notes there and try modifying the pitches (by pressing triangle and up/down with A-pad or D-pad; hold the L-trigger to cycle through pitches more slowly).

there's -a lot- more controls that exist for modifying the sound of each instrument; take a look through the documentation and the quick reference to learn how to modify parameters (like oscillator type and frequency offset in the 2-oscillator synth). you can definitely create all sorts of sounds from PSPSeq.

ethan
dspmusic.org/psp
October 23rd, 2006, 04:57
RCON

Good Job Ethan!!!!! I have played with this and while it is a little tough to learn at first it makes some incredible sounds!

-RCON
October 23rd, 2006, 04:57
wakeuphater

work with 2.8?
October 23rd, 2006, 05:01
badplankton

Quote:

Originally Posted by wakeuphater

work with 2.8?

sorry man - not yet but hopefully soon...
October 23rd, 2006, 05:12
badplankton

Quote:

Originally Posted by RCON

Good Job Ethan!!!!! I have played with this and while it is a little tough to learn at first it makes some incredible sounds!

thanks! i added a quick reference guide which should make it easier to remember all the button combinations. the most important thing is to go into the SYNTH menu to access all the instrument parameters; there's a lot you can do with a 2-oscillator synth.

oh and billy's demo song is pretty awesome, eh? he's a talented guy. :)
October 23rd, 2006, 05:14
badplankton

Quote:

Originally Posted by mavsman4457

Sounds like garage band. If you're good at it, it's awesome. If not, not so much.

yeah it definitely takes some effort to learn how to tweak the sounds and write music. hopefully the demo song is compelling enough to inspire people to fight the good fight. :)
October 23rd, 2006, 09:22
jaydoo

Great work man,was worried this had died!
Very grateful for your work, thanks.
October 23rd, 2006, 09:33
ACID

thanks for the release. Now hopefully i can go from garage band to rock star.:)
October 23rd, 2006, 12:34
badplankton

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaydoo

Great work man,was worried this had died!
Very grateful for your work, thanks.

no way, i got married instead! some things even take precidence over PSP audio coding. ;)
October 23rd, 2006, 15:34
Briggzy11

Quote:

Originally Posted by badplankton

no way, i got married instead! some things even take precidence over PSP audio coding. ;)

haha your the first coder to admit that brilliant :)

As for the program it is brilliant well pleased this has been produced, PSPKICK and Rhythm seemed a little lacking something, this gains from their mistakes.

anything I could give you for feedback is probabily a similar look to the game music released on the PS1 and the PS2. If you made a interface a little more like that game I think your on for a winner Ethan.

Best of luck to the rest of the future for you development :)
October 23rd, 2006, 18:59
doverkiller

cooool.. :D
Keep up the good work!
October 23rd, 2006, 21:21
badplankton

Quote:

As for the program it is brilliant well pleased this has been produced, PSPKICK and Rhythm seemed a little lacking something, this gains from their mistakes.

thanks! i'm not sure i'd say that kick and rhythm are lacking, but they didn't connect with how i want to write music. the important things for me are:

1. synthesis not samples
2. display as much information on the screen as possible
3. provide as much control as possible

it's definitely more daunting and less sonically pleasing for beginners, but hopefully enough PSPSeq demo songs will show up to convince beginners that they should work to not be beginners any longer! :)

Quote:

anything I could give you for feedback is probabily a similar look to the game music released on the PS1 and the PS2. If you made a interface a little more like that game I think your on for a winner Ethan.

hmmm, do you have a particular interface in mind? i've only played around with one or two music making apps for the PS2 and i was seriously underwhelmed. they definitely felt more like toys than anything you could really compose interesting music with.
October 24th, 2006, 00:05
Briggzy11

Quote:

Originally Posted by badplankton

hmmm, do you have a particular interface in mind? i've only played around with one or two music making apps for the PS2 and i was seriously underwhelmed. they definitely felt more like toys than anything you could really compose interesting music with.

well with the music 2000 interface, it had a very easy way to make music.

You would have 24 lines of blank blocks and you could fill the blocks with different tunes, if blocks overlapped on each line the tune would play together. You could also have almost 100 minutes of music to make as well and almost 2000 different sounds coming from ranges and genres such as Rock, Pop, Armonic, techno, trance and indie. Heres a picture of the interface:-

http://www.halifax.it/best/music2000/screen1.jpg

As you can see, the blue blocks (empty) have been filled with green blocks that each play a different sound but some play at the same time and others do not. I always wanted PSP Rhythm to use this interface but when I contacted the coder he was not interested because apparantly he wanted it to look complicated :S strangest thing i ever heard lol.

Hope that is a good idea for you :D
October 24th, 2006, 13:14
Hungry Horace

no offence Briggsey, but there's nothing complex about the psp-rhythm interface!

it's a step-sequencer, that's all, and a very powerful one too considering its on the PSP. Its also the best piece of music software i've seen released on anything in the last few years.

i've yet to try this out, but as a professsional producer, i hope it wont get taken in the direction of the Playstation music programs, which are far too basic to be taken seriously.

if you want a "block" system, model it on pro-tools, not on Music 2000! but as i gathered this thing was more about using internal synth generation than it was about laying down blocks of samples, so i cant see why you would want the block system?
October 24th, 2006, 13:24
Briggzy11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hungry Horace

no offence Briggsey, but there's nothing complex about the psp-rhythm interface!

it's a step-sequencer, that's all, and a very powerful one too considering its on the PSP. Its also the best piece of music software i've seen released on anything in the last few years.

i've yet to try this out, but as a professsional producer, i hope it wont get taken in the direction of the Playstation music programs, which are far too basic to be taken seriously.

if you want a "block" system, model it on pro-tools, not on Music 2000! but as i gathered this thing was more about using internal synth generation than it was about laying down blocks of samples, so i cant see why you would want the block system?

Lol none taken Horace. I would just like to see something basic out for a change really, im no noob when it comes to a music program (I have several) but I hate programs like PSPRhythm when it takes far too long make 1 note of a song lol
October 24th, 2006, 14:16
Hungry Horace

i think kick is the easiest to use, and is very creative as a result.... it's just not functional enough for me! i'm surprised you dont favour that?

i have given this a very very quick go now, and it does look nice, although i really need to nnot be working so i can read the documentation!

i think it's gonna be very hard to make it really simple to use, because of what looks to potentially be an excellent synthsound generator.

out of interest Briggz which music programs do you use? just interested to know which style of sequencer you favour. (persoanlly i rather like the step-styles of rhythm!)
October 24th, 2006, 17:48
badplankton

hey thanks for the pics and description.

i'm going to have to agree with horace here, that sort of interface is really just eye candy. and honestly, it's not that much different from PSPSeq; it just looks like a step sequencer where you can graphically see how long samples are played. pretty similar to sonic foundry's ACID, or whatever it's called these days.

i tried to make PSPSeq only as complicated as it had to be, but i wasn't going to sacrifice features for ease of use. i just did my best to make it obvious how to trigger a few notes and have fun but still provide complex synthesis and sequencing capabilities under the hood (along with keypad shortcuts for accessing them efficiently) for people who really care. this is the first time i've built a GUI, so it's really fascinating to see what people think of what i've made. i think there's a stronger perception of complexity/difficulty because of the color scheme (looks retro), font, and usage of numbers everywhere.
October 24th, 2006, 17:58
badplankton

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hungry Horace

i have given this a very very quick go now, and it does look nice, although i really need to nnot be working so i can read the documentation!

cool, definitely find the time to read the documentation (or at least the quick reference sheet). there's a lot of features and shortcuts that aren't readily visible but really make the composition process much less painful. in particular the ability to modify the rate of change when modifying parameters by using L-trigger and R-trigger (along with using the D-pad with the triggers to modify params) is key.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hungry Horace

i think it's gonna be very hard to make it really simple to use, because of what looks to potentially be an excellent synthsound generator.

i tried to at least make the sequencer easy to use, but yeah, the controls for the synthesizer are going to be confusing unless you know how synths work. if you don't, the best thing to do is trigger some notes and then modify its GEN and FX parameters (pressing the triangle button to force all parameters across a loop to stay locked in step). after a while i think it becomes pretty intuitive in terms of what parameter to modify to create a particular type of sound.

curious to know what you think!

ethan
dspmusic.org/psp
October 24th, 2006, 19:26
Briggzy11

Well Horace I am a big user of the Digimax Studio, I have used it multipul times and made a few songs for a few psp homebrew games...

...& i heard of you quite a lot horace, winner of the PSPRhythm contest :)

I understand you dont want to use the Music interface and I respect that decision :) make it unique to your program :D
October 24th, 2006, 19:47
Hungry Horace

tried to find out about digimax, but all i can find is a studio in the US!!

amusing that my reputation preceeds me... although i have plastered it on my sig.! (along with anything else i am invovled with!)

i am kinda lucky in that i've studied a Masters in Audio technology, i hope Briggzy you dont think i am being rude in disagreeing with your want for a music2000 type thing, it's just my preference given my background! Having used ProTools, Logic and Cubase primarily, and now having really got into the creativity of PSP-Rhythm, i like to think i have developed something of an understanding about suitable GUIs for such a program.
Creativity i believe is the key to a portable sequencer, rather than hig-end functionality (although the later is a *big* bonus!) - you only have to look at the success of Garageband to see this in action, apparently even Trent Reznor starts his songs on there, before multi-tracking it up with ProTools.

i will definately be giving this a proper go over the next few weeks, and will do my utmost to break it (as with all the homebrew i use.... lol ) and to give some feedback that might actually be of use (unlike certain patrons - no names!)

i gotta admit, i kinda like the retro / simple look... if only the colours "glowed" slightly, i would look very techno / Tron! hahah - what a waste of psp power that'd be!

(god damn i go on.. lol)
October 24th, 2006, 20:45
Briggzy11

haha horace its totally kewl and from your rep you are brilliant with music...I have taken no offense from anything you have sed horice I mean afterall everybody has their own opinions :)
October 24th, 2006, 20:45
badplankton

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hungry Horace

Creativity i believe is the key to a portable sequencer, rather than hig-end functionality

what do you mean by that? that a portable sequencer should focus more on providing unique features rather than try and emulate what's possible with the more complicated and full featured programs on a PC?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hungry Horace

i will definately be giving this a proper go over the next few weeks, and will do my utmost to break it (as with all the homebrew i use.... lol ) and to give some feedback that might actually be of use (unlike certain patrons - no names!)

yeah definitely try and break it. :) it needs the stress test + some of the most interesting sounds are found at the borders of what tools are designed to do.

i've found feedback from people of all skill levels to be useful; beginners give me ideas on how to make PSPSeq easier to use, and experts flesh out the features and find bugs. it's all good, though i'd really like to have more expert opinions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hungry Horace

i gotta admit, i kinda like the retro / simple look... if only the colours "glowed" slightly, i would look very techno / Tron! hahah - what a waste of psp power that'd be!

hey that's actually a good idea; especially if it's synced to the beat and helps indicate where the current step is. shouldn't be -too- processor hungry either. hmm!
October 25th, 2006, 00:28
Hungry Horace

Quote:

Originally Posted by Briggzy11

haha horace its totally kewl and from your rep you are brilliant with music...I have taken no offense from anything you have sed horice I mean afterall everybody has their own opinions :)

:D cheers man, it's just awkward on these forums, as sometimes its easy to come across as a tool, even though you really dont have anything against the person you are disagreeing with!

i have seen much of your posting though, and just didnt want you to think i was just trying to have a go! at least your one of the ones with constructive comments ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badplankton

what do you mean by that? that a portable sequencer should focus more on providing unique features rather than try and emulate what's possible with the more complicated and full featured programs on a PC?

yeah, that pretty much the jist of it. psp-kick's one major pro-point, is how quick and easy it is to start laying stuff down. it takes literally seconds to start putting notes in, and as a result, you get this kinda "flow" going with writing on it. Rhythm has the same, but i confess, does take a little longer on the first few goes, but it is much more powerful once you break that early-step.

the trick i think is that once you know how to go about writing on it, it should be very easy to repeat the process quickly. A program which gets bogged-down in forcing details from you upon every entry (as a bad example, if say, velocity needed adjusting on every note entry) is not intuitive or creative to the user, and doesnt create good productivity imho. the key i think is to find a balance, where you learn how to use a program, can then repeat the functions quickly there after, and then take yourself to new depths later on (at your own pace)

i think i should maybe add, (since i'm straying from your point!) is to always bare in mind what the user is using, i.e. a d-pad, analogue and few buttons. whilst it would be feasible to have full musical notation for your compositions, is it really practical on a psp? of course not, you simply want to hit a few buttons and adjust things until it sounds right! the same goes for many other possible functions. whilst full-reverb FX may just-about be possible, you will eat up processor power limiting yourself from using the program further!

these are just my own thoughts on the matter. they arent law or anything! i hope my after-pub ramblings on the matter are legible!

Quote:

yeah definitely try and break it. :) it needs the stress test + some of the most interesting sounds are found at the borders of what tools are designed to do.

hehe... definately the case. limitations can be the key to good creativity from the user. just look at the old Amiga .mod scene! have no fears, i am good at breaking homebrew... heh (just ask pSpectrum author hexDump!)

Quote:

i've found feedback from people of all skill levels to be useful; beginners give me ideas on how to make PSPSeq easier to use, and experts flesh out the features and find bugs. it's all good, though i'd really like to have more expert opinions.

oh of course, i didnt meant to insult anyone who as actually given you feedback, (anyone of any skill level) but rather the "one line commenters" who frankly contribute nothing to the scene. you've gone to the trouble to make a good bit of homebrew, so the least you deserve is some constructive feedback.... even if if it's as little as "it crashes, i did this...." - surely that's much more favourable than "ooh this looks great, thanks i'll try it out!!" or "sequencing is for n00bs, there's already psp-kick"... excuse me there. little bit of a rant.

Quote:

hey that's actually a good idea; especially if it's synced to the beat and helps indicate where the current step is. shouldn't be -too- processor hungry either. hmm!

lol... glad you like it. it was only the colours made me think of that!

keep at it man, i'll try to give you some proper feedback once i've really hammered into it.
October 25th, 2006, 16:40
badplankton

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hungry Horace

the trick i think is that once you know how to go about writing on it, it should be very easy to repeat the process quickly. A program which gets bogged-down in forcing details from you upon every entry (as a bad example, if say, velocity needed adjusting on every note entry) is not intuitive or creative to the user, and doesnt create good productivity imho. the key i think is to find a balance, where you learn how to use a program, can then repeat the functions quickly there after, and then take yourself to new depths later on (at your own pace)

definitely agree here - i tried to add in as many time saving measures as i could. for the most part they are computationally cheap so it's just a matter of thinking of what would make process X faster to accomplish.

a good example is the ability to modify a parameter across an entire loop in two ways; either locking every step to the same value or forcing the absolute distance between the values in each step to remain constant. that way you can quickly make chords by creating a synth line, copying all the parameters to another synth, and then shifting the frequency of one synth as needed (for example up/down a 5th).

Quote:

i think i should maybe add, (since i'm straying from your point!) is to always bare in mind what the user is using, i.e. a d-pad, analogue and few buttons. whilst it would be feasible to have full musical notation for your compositions, is it really practical on a psp? of course not, you simply want to hit a few buttons and adjust things until it sounds right! the same goes for many other possible functions. whilst full-reverb FX may just-about be possible, you will eat up processor power limiting yourself from using the program further!

funny you bring up the musical notation thing; the first version of PSPSeq only allowed absolute frequencies and -everyone- wanted 12-tone. so i put it in there along with absolute freqs and i'm so glad i did.

but yes, the interface & display do often dictate what you should/shouldn't try to do. sadly the analog pad is crap on the PSP, so it's really only good for registering a few states/values.