PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #40 on: November 01, 2019, 10:48:54 PM »
PXToolkit has been updated to version 1.1.3 to take advantage of the new Prophet X firmware version 2.1.1 currently in beta.  I don't think I've posted release notes for the last few revisions, so here they are:

1.1.3

  • Added support for Prophet X firmware 2.1.1 with up to 32 user groups for samples
  • Holding the alt/option key while dropping samples now prevents PXToolkit from reading metadata or detecting filename patterns to assign sample root keys
  • Export now uses an underscore separator (_) instead of a pipe character (|) on macOS to improve the portability of exported files for Windows users

1.1.2

  • Treat H as equivalent to B in note names for compatibility with SampleRobot's export naming conventions.

1.1.1

  • Recognize upper-case file extension variations (eg: .WAV)

As always, the latest release can be downloaded here.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2019, 11:02:13 PM by Lady Gaia »

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #41 on: November 02, 2019, 01:59:08 AM »
Thank you Lady Gaia for your work, which really makes the PX what it should be.
PT10/12HD, Logic X, Digital Performer, Vienna Ensemble Pro
cMP 5,1 Catalina; MacBook Pro

Shaw

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  • 1185
Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #42 on: November 03, 2019, 06:22:34 AM »
PXToolkit has been updated to version 1.1.3 to take advantage of the new Prophet X firmware version 2.1.1 currently in beta.  I don't think I've posted release notes for the last few revisions, so here they are:

1.1.3

  • Added support for Prophet X firmware 2.1.1 with up to 32 user groups for samples
  • Holding the alt/option key while dropping samples now prevents PXToolkit from reading metadata or detecting filename patterns to assign sample root keys
  • Export now uses an underscore separator (_) instead of a pipe character (|) on macOS to improve the portability of exported files for Windows users
1.1.2

  • Treat H as equivalent to B in note names for compatibility with SampleRobot's export naming conventions.
1.1.1

  • Recognize upper-case file extension variations (eg: .WAV)
As always, the latest release can be downloaded here.
Many thanks!  Great tool for the PX community!
"Classical musicians go to the conservatories, rock´n roll musicians go to the garages." --- Frank Zappa
| Linnstrument | Old VCOs, Older Filters, some LFOs & Envelopes | Suhr | Mayones | Roland TD-50 | Synergy Guitar Amps | Eventide Effects Galore |

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #43 on: November 03, 2019, 07:16:01 AM »
Thanks. Looks a very useful application.
Regards
Derek

----------

Prophet X, Yamaha Montage 7, SY99, TG77, EX5R, AN1x, FS1r, Motif Rack ES (with PLG150-AN and PLG150-VL), Korg Kronos X61, Nord G2 Engine, and way too many VSTis!

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #44 on: February 01, 2020, 10:31:08 AM »
New PXToolkit users should be aware that Apple has a change in their application policy that is due to take effect on February 4th which may result in the following warning: "PXToolkit can't be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software."  This isn't a problem with the app but just a new requirement by Apple that I haven't yet satisfied.

This should only take place on Mojave and Catalina, and only for newly downloaded copies of the app, but there's no easy way I've seen to verify the exact behavior before the policy goes into effect.  I haven't had time to jump through the required hoops to eliminate this warning, but I'll endeavor to find time this month, certainly before the next new version.  If you do encounter this, you can still run the application by control-clicking on the app and selecting Open, at which point you may see the warning once more but can confirm that you do want to run it.  Thereafter you shouldn't see the warning again.

Of course this is true for any app that hasn't been updated so if you see other unexpected warnings on macOS you download after the 4th, you'll know that it's a policy change and not necessarily something malicious.  Smaller developers are likely going to be in reaction mode rather than getting ahead of the issue.

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #45 on: February 09, 2020, 05:06:25 AM »
I'm looking for some help with creating round robin instruments with PX toolkit. I don't follow what I need to do, is it a naming convention for the audio file or something else? Also, technically what happens in the PX when playing it back?
Many thanks in advance for this terrific forum helping me get more from the PX!
Prophet X, Korg Modwave, Wavestate, Novation Summit, Microfreak, B2600, Akai Force, Skulpt, Uno Pro, Polyend Tracker, Ableton Live and some modular

Shaw

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  • 1185
Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #46 on: February 09, 2020, 08:26:19 AM »
I'm looking for some help with creating round robin instruments with PX toolkit. I don't follow what I need to do, is it a naming convention for the audio file or something else? Also, technically what happens in the PX when playing it back?
Many thanks in advance for this terrific forum helping me get more from the PX!
The short answer is Shift + drag for creating Round Robins.  But you should watch the video demo Lady Gaia put together: 
http://www.thinkersnacks.com/px-toolkit.html

I don’t know whether Round Robins are played back randomly or in order. 
"Classical musicians go to the conservatories, rock´n roll musicians go to the garages." --- Frank Zappa
| Linnstrument | Old VCOs, Older Filters, some LFOs & Envelopes | Suhr | Mayones | Roland TD-50 | Synergy Guitar Amps | Eventide Effects Galore |

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #47 on: February 09, 2020, 09:47:23 AM »
As Shaw notes, they're defined in PXToolkit by dragging multiple samples with the same root into the same velocity range.  To make this happen, you inform the software that it shouldn't create a different velocity range for each new sample by holding the shift key while dropping the samples.  On the Prophet X round robins alternates are selected among randomly with equal odds for each variant (you can further game the system by dropping the same sample more than once to increase the odds of it playing, and PXToolkit won't duplicate the sample data.)

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #48 on: March 12, 2020, 10:48:50 AM »
Terrific, thanks. I was not aware of that video and missed it somehow.
Prophet X, Korg Modwave, Wavestate, Novation Summit, Microfreak, B2600, Akai Force, Skulpt, Uno Pro, Polyend Tracker, Ableton Live and some modular

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #49 on: May 02, 2020, 01:01:06 PM »
I keep getting this error

" The value of the offset is out of range. It must be >0 and <105129312392312 etc"

Tried uploading screenshot, but having issues with even that lol. Thanks for all you do LadyGaia. I can assure you the exact same settings on other samples have worked, but these which have been sampled with mpc autosampler are giving me this error. Any ideas?

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #50 on: May 02, 2020, 09:32:07 PM »
I keep getting this error

" The value of the offset is out of range. It must be >0 and <105129312392312 etc"

That's a curious one and doesn't ring any bells.  If you can PM me a link to an sample I can use to reproduce this I'll happily look into it.  I haven't heard from anyone else using the MPC multi-sampler so it's also possible there's something unusual about the way it saves .wav or .aiff files (there are already lots of ways these format specifications are violated by other samples I've found - so I keep building in workarounds to make sure as many samples are usable as possible!)

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #51 on: May 03, 2020, 02:48:27 PM »
Its probably the MPC created sample.. Let me look into that. Thank you again

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #52 on: July 24, 2020, 11:45:49 AM »
Hi, new Prophet X user here. I have been testing the user sample import for the last 2 months since I got it.
Thanks for the Pxtool program, great work!
I’ve been adding my own samples and it worked flawlessly (after some trial and error).
But now I’m getting the same error message with a batch of newly sampled files, like the user above mentioned:

The value of “offset” is out of range. It must be >0 and 2627612

I’m using the MPC’s autosampler to record the files, like I did before. I don’t know what happened. Only thing I can think of, is that the latest files were recorded somewhat louder, closer to 0 db.
Anyone got any ideas? I can share some samples if someone wants to test.

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #53 on: July 24, 2020, 11:51:24 PM »
But now I’m getting the same error message with a batch of newly sampled files, like the user above mentioned:

The value of “offset” is out of range. It must be >0 and 2627612

I haven't received any samples that produce this message, so I'd be very interested in looking at an example.  If you can upload any representative sample and PM me a link, I'd appreciate it and will see what I can do to correct the underlying issue.

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #54 on: July 25, 2020, 02:52:26 AM »
Thanks for looking in to this!

I've send you a pm with a link.

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #55 on: July 25, 2020, 04:55:54 PM »
Thanks for looking in to this!

Not a problem.  Thank you for providing a representative sample!  I've sent details about how to get an experimental build in PM, and if it all checks out on your end I'll put it up for everyone.

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #56 on: July 27, 2020, 12:42:37 PM »
The latest build Lady Gaia provide for me fixed the Mpc autosampler issue with pxtools.
All Mpc autosampler files are converted correctly now.
Thanks Lady Gaia!

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #57 on: July 27, 2020, 12:52:29 PM »
The latest build Lady Gaia provide for me fixed the Mpc autosampler issue with pxtools.
All Mpc autosampler files are converted correctly now.

Delighted to hear it.  I've published the update as v1.15 for everyone now, and will get around to updating the Thinkersnacks site to reflect the new version later today.

Quote
Thanks Lady Gaia!

My pleasure, thank you for providing an example of the ill-behaved files to diagnose the root issue!  It's amazing to see the wide range of misinterpretations of the WAV format that are actively used in the wild.

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #58 on: July 29, 2020, 06:01:58 PM »
Hey friends. Just picked up a Prophet X recently after much hesitation (because of soooo many poor demos), but finally executed based on specs and intuition. Anywho I really have been appreciating this toolkit! Thanks so much Lady Gaia.

Couple noob questions:

1: How can you apply samples to just one key easily? It automatically spreads them across the keys. It generally will only let me drag them (closed) one way or another and not both, and when I try to type in the key value, it often doesn't take and is underlined in red.

2: Can you layer samples in this editor? I see you can round robin (which I love!) but sometimes you want to layer them. If not, do you guys know of an editor that can easily layer sounds and spit them into a wav?

3: I spend a ton of time trying to get the volumes of samples even and often they still are not. Any tips for evening the volume across the board? Doesn't seem like you can edit the volume individually on PX.

4: Can anyone point to some groovy threads? What have you all been coming up with in the PX lab? I'd love to see what kind of cool experimental soundscapes people have come up with. This machine seems deceptively expansive. I'm still honing in my prowess and then I'd love to share some stuff too.
Sound Vision

Re: PXToolkit 1.0 Available Now
« Reply #59 on: July 29, 2020, 08:07:42 PM »
Hey friends. Just picked up a Prophet X recently after much hesitation (because of soooo many poor demos), but finally executed based on specs and intuition. Anywho I really have been appreciating this toolkit! Thanks so much Lady Gaia.

I'm always happy to hear from someone who has discovered the instrument - and found PXToolkit intriguing.  I was excited by the potential of the instrument from the day it was announced, and got mine (serial #40!) just as soon as I could arrange it.  The six-month wait for the official user sample import tool wasn't a surprise, but the state it showed up in was disappointing to say the least.  It didn't take long for me to start thinking about how to put together something more complete for my own use, and sharing it with others seemed like a natural next step.

Quote
Couple noob questions:

1: How can you apply samples to just one key easily? It automatically spreads them across the keys. It generally will only let me drag them (closed) one way or another and not both, and when I try to type in the key value, it often doesn't take and is underlined in red.

The red underlining or inability to drag the top or bottom of a range beyond a certain point usually indicates that you're trying to move the bottom of the key range higher than the "root" note of the sample, or the top of the range below it.  If you want a sample to be on a particular key you need to make sure this root note is on the key in question.  There are a few ways to accomplish this:

  • Create the .wav or .aiff tool using software that correctly sets the original root note, which is hidden inside the file itself.
  • For files that don't have the root note set internally, name the file with the desired note as part of the filename (eg: "Drum Hit A#3.wav"
  • For files where you want to override the internal note, you can name them appropriately and then hold the Alt or Option key down while dropping them to force PXToolkit to respect the note in the name.
  • If you don't do any of the above, you can still change the root note after importing the sample.  Select the sample in PXToolkit and you'll see descriptive information on the left which will show the top and bottom of the range as well as the sample length and root note (eg: 1.7s @ A#3.)  Edit this root note to be the key where you want the sample to play back at its original pitch, and PXToolkit will move the sample and reset the top and bottom of the range to cover adjacent keys where possible.

Generally speaking, you shouldn't need to tweak the sample's range.  As you add other samples to adjacent keys the range will automatically adjust to divide up space evenly across the keyboard.  If you want you can change the range, but the original root note must always be inside the range you select.  That's probably the "rule" you're violating that results in the red underlining to suggest that you're trying to do something you can't do.

Quote
2: Can you layer samples in this editor? I see you can round robin (which I love!) but sometimes you want to layer them. If not, do you guys know of an editor that can easily layer sounds and spit them into a wav?

The Prophet X doesn't support single instruments that trigger two samples at the same time, so you'll have to combine them before importing, as you suspected.  I focused on tasks that are Prophet X specific rather than general waveform editing tools, so you'll have to use something else for this task.  It should be pretty easy to drop two files into a DAW on different tracks and export the combination, however.

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3: I spend a ton of time trying to get the volumes of samples even and often they still are not. Any tips for evening the volume across the board? Doesn't seem like you can edit the volume individually on PX.

It can be tricky.  You should generally normalize sample volumes before importing them into the Prophet X as it doesn't offer any tools to help.  I've used SampleRobot to do most of my sample editing, and it includes normalization tools.  Note, however, that in human hearing "volume" is a complicated subject and just having the same peaks doesn't mean your samples will be the same perceived volume.  Having a good set of analysis tools and an understanding of how to use compressors and expanders may be more ambitious than you had in mind, but if you want to go down that rabbit hole I can't recommend FabFilter's plug-ins enough.  The videos on their YouTube channel are also a gold mine for understanding a variety of subjects and a great way to spend a few hours.

Quote
4: Can anyone point to some groovy threads? What have you all been coming up with in the PX lab? I'd love to see what kind of cool experimental soundscapes people have come up with. This machine seems deceptively expansive. I'm still honing in my prowess and then I'd love to share some stuff too.

I'll leave this to others who have posted a lot more demos here than I have.