#41

Are there limitations on the tapes which work with Buoys? I’m finding most of my tapes are unavailable despite conforming to 48khz/24bit. Length doesn’t seem to be the variable here, but I didn’t explore the issue deep enough to say for certain.

Tried Crow outputs for the first time today and found them so useful!

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#42

When you are in the menu to select a sample folder, and you select a specific sample in that folder/directory, it actually doesn’t matter which sample you pick - buoys will try to load that whole folder in (I think) alphabetical order. This is probably a bit non-intuitive but it’s a shortcut I took in order to be able to use a particular helper library for navigating the file structure (I will very likely try to improve this experience in future versions). The total sample length that can be loaded into buoys is currently ~349 seconds. So I suspect what is happening is when you try to load a particular tape file, the other tape files that came before it alphabetically in that directory are filling up the available space in the audio buffer. If that doesn’t jibe with what you’re seeing, please let me know.

Sorry for the suboptimal experience. Until I find a more elegant in-app approach, a solution would be to connect to the norns filesystem (https://monome.org/docs/norns/fileshare/) and create a new folder in the audio directory, and just move the tapes you’d like to use with buoys into their own folder. If you don’t want to move the existing files, you could also create aliases/symlinks and just put those into their own folder.

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#43

Hi all - I recorded a series of six video walkthroughs totaling about 45 minutes, for the interested (also now linked in the first post). They cover a lot of the same ground as the README but with real audio examples, as well as a few new topics.

I apologize for any A/V issues, I’m a beginner when it comes to making videos. Enjoy!

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#44

what if there was a folderselect param ??

#45

Thanks for these! Really helpful.

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#46

Thanks, this makes sense. I’m loading from my root tape directory, so I’m certainly exceeding 349 seconds. I’ll try making a folder specific to the project and see if that helps.

#47

thank you so much for this script! i’ve really enjoyed watching all the tutorial videos this morning and playing with the 606 samples. i’ve tried to load my own folder of buoy samples, but no matter what i try i keep getting the warning about non-48k files. i read the comments above about total length and i’m way way under that. wondering if you can clarify how i should prepare my samples so they are 48k?

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#48

Amazing! It does so much more than I initially thought. Guys, check the video manuals :slight_smile:

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#49

you reminded me to watch these! so cool. particularly want to highlight the 4th one which really clarified for me what’s actually happening:

(amazing work lylem!)

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#50

@andrew - not sure what exactly you’re suggesting, care to elaborate?

@instantjuggler - good question, it’s definitely not as easy as it should be to convert things to 48K. I know some DAWs have ways of doing it but they seem like kind of a pain, especially in bulk. The best tool I know of for converting sample rates is ffmpeg. The documentation isn’t the friendliest but it’s actually fairly easy to use - not sure what OS you’re on, but here’s a basic guide for Mac (I assume it would be similar for Windows, etc. but I don’t have anything else to test with)

  1. download ffmpeg
  2. put it on your path (something like mv ~/Downloads/ffmpeg /usr/local/bin in Terminal)
  3. convert your files. I just tested this out with some of the files that get preloaded with norns, e.g.
    ffmpeg -i drumilk.wav -ar 48000 converted/drumilk.wav. Note that the output path has to be different than the input path, so I had already created a converted directory. That approach is one file at a time though - here’s a super quick bash script that converts a whole directory (just replace the SAMPLE_DIRECTORY path at the top).
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#51

I used the SoundConvertor tool on Linux - which is a gui front end for various convertors such as ffmpeg - and a version may exist in some form or other for Mac OS. Then it was simply a matter of dropping a folder of samples into the window and selecting the right sample rate and destination.

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#52

On that subject you got me searching around a bit and I just found this one for Mac and tried it out and had a good experience: https://amvidia.com/to-audio-converter

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#53

I’m looking forward to trying this!

On the topic of samples, after reading and watching I don’t recall if it was mentioned whether it prefers/accepts stereo or just mono.

#54

All samples are loaded in mono for now, this may change in the future.

2 Likes
#55

@lylem
is there a limit on how many files Buoys can see in a folder?:slight_smile:

i have a folder with 22 items in it and they all display when i go to Meta Mode to choose a folder.

when i go to assign a sample to a buoy it is only seeing 15 files.

#56

i think you’re running up against the time limit for samples mentioned above…

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#57

oh…
i thought the time limit was for what could actually be loaded not what could be selected.

#58

buoys 1.2.0

  • NEW midi: midi note outputs with velocity.
  • NEW buoy editing: buoy parameters displayed are better limited to the ones relevant to your current uses. Namely sound parameters aren’t displayed unless any sounds are loaded, and the display of midi parameters can be toggled on or off from the main app params page.
  • NEW buoy display: buoys now light up (the middle square) not only when sounds are actively playing, but when midi notes are active or crow gates go high.
  • FIX buoy playback: when switching from one-shot playback to looping, sounds sometimes wouldn’t start playing.
  • CHANGED buoy playback: the nadir volume is now set to 1.0 (maximum) by default. I had initially set this to 0.0 to help nudge people get the idea of the app, but having it set to maximum by default is more consistent vis a vis other params and less prescriptive in terms of how the app should be used, sonically.

The overall theme of this update is better support for using the app with just midi (or crow), as opposed to playing back samples loaded from a folder (though using it that way, or multiple ways at once, is still very much supported). For instance it’s now possible to trigger external drum samples or other sounds with midi note on messages.

@SPIKE I’m pretty sure @fourhoarder’s explanation is correct - you’re running into the limit for total sample length.

9 Likes
#59

ok…
so the limit is for the sum total time length of samples in the chosen folder.
not the total length of samples in use.

thanks for the clarification!

so…
(please pardon my lack of programming understanding) :slight_smile:
is it possible to have Buoys ignore the total time of files and only limit the user from adding and using more samples that go beyond that time limit?

reason why i ask…
if, for example, i have a folder with 10 files in it.
Buoys will let me use 8 of those files.
but i can never use files 9 and 10 unless i delete or remove a few files from the folder.

so i can’t normally share audio folders between apps as usual.
i will have to build a series of Buoys folders.

i guess i’m trying to minimize the amount of audio file housekeeping and duplicates of audio files.
:stuck_out_tongue:

#60

There’s definitely a better way to do this, I just need to spend some time building a custom UI for it - I’ll try to get to that in the next update.

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