buzz forums

Rejoice, gasp in amazement, have a stiff drink and smoke a big fat one because, after far longer than I care to think about, I have actually decided that this machine can be released into the wild. I can't quite believe it. I think I might pass out.

"What is it?!" I hear you cry. Good question! I think it's a peer/MIDI event sequencer. I do know it's going to melt tinga's mind.

I've included the traditional crappy demo song in the package but that only scratches the surface. I'd need to make a dozen to fully demonstrate it.

There are rough edges and kinks to iron out of course but it seems pretty stable (cue avalanche of crash reports). I REALLY recommend you read some, if not all of the manual. No, really, I mean it and not just because it took me months to get it together. Just read the damn thing. Seriously.

If you make any music with it then please let me know. After all that effort coding the thing, I'd like to know that it's actually being used.

Enjoy!

2019.02.15 - IX Magic 1.09d- x86
+ Machine version 1.09d (still file version 10, yay!)
+ Moved note-off mode into common Event controls
+ MIDI Ctrl/Note Events and Trigger Sequence Events now allow selection of note-off mode.
+ Added options/attributes for default MIDI/Control Event note-off modes
+ Dialog reshuffle
+ Improved random track behaviour (random tracks are now picked when needed)
+ Added random track in range (eg. R:2-6)
+ Improved random seeds for more randomness
+ Fixed a couple of bugs where a random choice would never hit the top of its range
+ Improved auto-assign of Peer Note Event note/velocity params
+ Fixed Peer Note Event handling of global note parameters (ACloud)
+ Added controls for Peer/MIDI Note Event cut mode
+ Improved/fixed handling of track parameter 'Cut' (no longer ends Events that ignore note-off)
+ Messages dialog now shows 100% fewer developer-ish messages
+ Improved Event dialog refresh on velocity layer changes
+ Updated docs

2019.01.19
+ Machine version 1.09c (file version 10)
+ Fixed silent triggering of Sequences on inactive Pages after load

2019.01.18
+ Machine version 1.09b (file version 10)
+ Fixed status bar over-refresh causing flickering and potential freeze

2019.01.13
+ Machine version 1.09a (file version 10)
+ Fixed Pages > 256 bug
+ Added Page combo vertical scrollbar

2019.01.07
+ v1.09 Initial release (x86 only as yet, I hope it actually works on other peoples computers)

You've finally done it!
First downloader. Mesmerizing machine. Looks like stepping into wonderland.
Thank you!!

Edit: two first attempts just scratching the surface

Ok, I did a first look-through of the manual.
Just trying to think of what creative possibilities you have engendered here.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Could I use steps and sequences to put a synth into an endless loop of stochastic random timbre changes through the parameters? Cuz that would be tite.

Way to go man, great job. Warms my heart to see all this hard work. Amazing.

Haha, good work! Love the two first attempts. Seems like you're having some fun!


Oh yeah, endless stochastic random timbre changes are super easy! Too easy!

I'm so glad it works for you both! I was worried that after all the buildup it might refuse to play.

Where's tinga? He's missing the fun!

I have tested in a 32 bit Buzz Installation build 1503 (latest) under Win XP SP3 32 bit, and Win 7 no Servicepack 32 & 64 bit Installation of the System and Buzz 32 bit as before.

The Demo and the two tracks by thOke run fine. I do not get any errormessage.

What a beautiful and creative machine, I'll need some time to discover how it works, but I just wanna thank IX for spending his time and mind on creating and programming this machine. Something that really can make Buzz more and more interesting for soundcreators ....

Thank you IX so far ...

I'm here, I go on this forum every day, but not yesterday,
Impressive, I understand your "uuurgghhh", a new software inside Buzz, great, seems to be a great tool for midi controllers, I haven't tested the beast except yours and thOke's demos. I am reading the help, very good job, reading the help is very exciting, so many things, again a new approach of sequencing, love it!
Thanks for this amazing machine.

tested Win10 x64 1803
Buzz 1503 x86

Demo and thOke's songs
No Errors

thanks for sharing!!!
waiting for a video

I LOVE IT!

Simple usage with complex results .... and still at the surface yet!

Very excited reading al those declerations of love for your new baby.
Will definetly check it out tonight.
Thanks for your stamina.

Ha, that's the response I'm looking for! Loving the experiments so far. Pearl Magic has been playing for about twenty minutes as I composed this message and I'm not finding it boring. I wonder what you'll do when you dig below the surface?

Thanks to those who have tested on different platforms, much appreciated. Good to know it seems to work without any stupid dependency problems.

The possibilities this machine offers are pretty overwhelming. I'd come up with an idea, test it a bit and then have another cool idea and then test it a bit and then another idea and test it etc. for an embarrassingly long time. I still have a pretty long wish list of additional features too but I decided it was time to just stop and release the damn thing because it will probably never be actually "finished". Even the process of writing the manual led to improvements and new features which is why it took so damn long!

Thanks everyone for all the kind words and enthusiasm! I'm looking forward to seeing what you all do with it.

Thanks a lot IXix!! This new machine seems awesome.
All the examples files here worked fine and are amazing.
You have done a lot of work but yes, it's Magic

Thanks!

@thOke I was worried for a few minutes because Buzz crashed every time I tried to load another Magic song after Pearl Magic.bmx but it seems to be coming from the Pearl Drum, not Magic. Phew!

@Everybody, please try not to find any bugs!

Ooops, sorry for the extra-urggghhs.
Here is a pearl-free version.




Hard to know if something is a feature, a user error or actually a bug yet!

And another tester

Yeah, I know about that. A couple of times I've wasted half an hour or so chasing a bug only to realise that I've either forgotten how it's supposed to work or just made a stupid mistake.

Like the latest test and the pearl free. I can tell you're having fun!

Two days I turn around the machine, Magic is a great sequencer, a mix of Chahur's pattern XP and Snowglobe's ScaleWalker, with many IX goodies, Accumulator (threshold increased to 3024), the "page state" is a killer feature, chord system is very musical with the inversions system and the total customisations possibilities, editable labels for everything, very useful, I like the concept, we can write the structure before music, very important, multi tempo, a sequencer with "do loop", for n=1 to x repeat, goto line or page, (for the random, as you can see in the bmx rondo, I have to write a second C7#9, the probability for the last step fire =0), also a sort of Schrödinger's cat paradox, after 256, pages return to 1,2,3,4... but I receive a message when I want to erase these shadow pages, "do you want to remove page 260", so this page exists and doesn't exist at the same time, strong, so take care after page 256, we enter in the quantum world , but who will create more than 256 pages.
I like so much the chords system, and chords are scales, C7/9/11#/13 is seven notes chord (very sexy), many chords are missing in the list so I will be proud to add some, anyway I started, I can't survive without a 9# or some 9/13, several label for a same chord is a good idea, we can make copy paste from pdf method or web site, its what I've done for "giant step" chords change.
Thank you thOke for your example, good drum and good music.
Magix in all my futures bmx, you can be sure of that!
Magix, a giant step in Buzz, Happy 2019.
First test with Magic
Bmx "rondo" doesn't work correctly, just set the threshold parameter of the second track of the external "accumulator" on 8, and sounds change.

256 Pages?! I should have known!

I'm glad you like it. I can't investigate the problems you mention just yet but I'll try to look at it later. I'm looking forward to seeing what's inside that zip file.

More chords would be welcome and it would be good if someone could check that the currently included chords are actually correct (I think they are but...)

Any suggestions for improvements to the documentation would be welcome too.

I *think* that it's not working as you expect because both tracks of the accumulator are targeting Magic track 0 and one track is blocking the output of the other. There may be a problem with Accumulator or Magic or there may be no actual bug at all, just unexpected but technically correct (though not necessarily desirable) behaviour. I'll try to figure out what if anything is going wrong as soon as I can but debugging this kind of thing melts my feeble brain.

For now, if you select Sequence 2 and look in the Magic status bar, you'll see it's not being triggered (the counter should count down). If you then change the the second Accumulator track target to 1 instead of 0, you should see Sequence 2 start to count down and it seems to work as I think it should.

Going to investigate the Page numbering now...

edit: There can technically be 65535 Pages (although whether a combo box could actually list that many is questionable) and the numbering is correct. The problem is that the machine uses a byte to store the index of the current page, so when you try to select Page 257, it overflows and the combo shows Page 1 as current instead instead of the actual current Page which is 257. Fix coming soon.

edit edit: Also noticed that the Page combo doesn't have a scrollbar. I've never had more than about six Pages so I hadn't noticed.

Okay, tiny update. Fixed the Page problem tinga reported. New file in the first post.

Old files will load fine in the new version but new files won't load in the old version (IIRC it should issue a warning telling you what version created the file and abort the load.)

Yes Of course, and I'm stupid because I did this in another file (but without really knowing why), sorry, its a new machine

I have to use more than 256 pages, if not I'm just a pain in the neck.
Thank you for the update.