New free OpenSource Sysex Librarian - The KnobKraft Orm (with download)

[kris]

Hi friends,

unbelievably, after two years in the making I have been able to polish the software I have written enough to upload it and provide it via github. Please don't expect a shiny pro software as this is a hobby project, but it serves me very well since a year or so, and I am eager for feedback and further improvement ideas.

Thanks to lockdown and my pollen allergy, I even had enough time this weekend to create my first YouTube video ever to show the most basic use of the software:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPoFOVpTANM

The video gives some ideas about the basic operation - storing patches in a local database on the computer, and sending them with a single click into the edit buffer for auditioning. This is not a bank manager, as I tend to not bother about banks using the synth only in the home studio.

The software has several advanced features that I have not found anywhere else in this combination and which I think already now make it a nice package:

• Calculates a fingerprint of the patch excluding the name, preventing duplicates in the database
• Allows you to favorite and hide patches, and show only favorites or include hidden
• Allows you to categorize patches, and filter for one or more types, or filter by patchname
• Supports naming conventions to automatically assign categories to patches based on the patch name
• Supports macros to step through patches, favorite and hide them. Macros are keys or chords on the keyboard you can define yourself, e.g. Fsharp dim in octave 1 to favorite a patch 
• Has a patch diff dialog that let's you compare two patches either in sysex or parameter by parameter, to see what is different

It is great for archiving your own sounds back to your computer, as it will detect which ones were changed and will create only new entries for those patches, so you can just do a full synth download and be sure you have everything backuped (with the Rev2, make sure to use USB as it will take forever via DIN MIDI).

Oh yes, and I promised the download link. Here is the link for the installer download for Windows:

https://github.com/christofmuc/KnobKraft-orm/releases

The source code is available on Github, and I am looking for help to create and test a Mac version!

https://github.com/christofmuc/KnobKraft-orm

[gerardplouf]

Great Job. Thank you so much.

[kris]

Great Job. Thank you so much.

Thank you Gerard! I'll try to make more videos, and main feedback seems to be for now that most people want a Mac version :-(

I also got a version ready that supports the OB-6 in addition, will post here when that is ready.

As I don't have a Mac, I am still interested in getting somebody with a Mac to help a little so we can put up a version for download as well!

[skipgilles]

I didn't find the time yet to say thank you for sharing this. I didn't try it yet, but I certainly will. I like the rather nerdy interface with filters. And your video is really clear.

[kris]

I didn't find the time yet to say thank you for sharing this. I didn't try it yet, but I certainly will. I like the rather nerdy interface with filters. And your video is really clear.

Thank you very much, any feedback is appreciated! I made the software for myself, so can hardly get nerdy enough, but I thought as so much effort has gone into it, it would be a waste to not let others try it!

[synthboy]

Thanks kris, very appreciated! I will test it as soon as possible.

[kris]

Thanks kris, very appreciated! I will test it as soon as possible.

Thank you, let me know what you think - I am willing to help in case there are any problems. This is new software that hasn't been tested on many computers except on my own ;-)

[metasim]

This is absolutely unbelievably fantastic! I got my Rev2 after having a Peak for quite a while, and I find patch management the most unintuitive and frustrating aspect of the Rev2 (followed by the sequencers). You have breathed new life into the instrument! Going to install windows in a VM on my Mac just so I can use this!

[kris]

This is absolutely unbelievably fantastic! I got my Rev2 after having a Peak for quite a while, and I find patch management the most unintuitive and frustrating aspect of the Rev2 (followed by the sequencers). You have breathed new life into the instrument! Going to install windows in a VM on my Mac just so I can use this!

Oh thank you  - let me know how that turns out. A friend promised me to lend me his Mac in a few weeks time when he get's his new shiny one, then I might be able to dig into the Mac build and provide one out of the box. For Windows, there is an executable installer provided on github, I hope to be able to do the same for Mac, even if I know nothing about Mac right now ;-)

[kris]

This is absolutely unbelievably fantastic! I got my Rev2 after having a Peak for quite a while, and I find patch management the most unintuitive and frustrating aspect of the Rev2 (followed by the sequencers). You have breathed new life into the instrument! Going to install windows in a VM on my Mac just so I can use this!

Oh thank you  - let me know how that turns out. A friend promised me to lend me his Mac in a few weeks time when he get's his new shiny one, then I might be able to dig into the Mac build and provide one out of the box. For Windows, there is an executable installer provided on github, I hope to be able to do the same for Mac, even if I know nothing about Mac right now ;-)

Ok, happy to announce that the Mac build now is available on the github releases page. It is still beta, so please give feedback if it doesn't work for you, I could only test it on a Mac with macOS 10.15, where it works nicely for me.

The Rev2 and the OB6 will work from the regular code, but for that adaptions you will also need to install Python 3.7 from the python.org webpage.

The download is here as a DMG image:
https://github.com/christofmuc/KnobKraft-orm/releases

Just open it and drag the KnobKraft Orm to the Applications folder, then use the CTRL-Click "Open" to run it despite the warnings (I don't have a certificate to sign it so the Mac shuts up, if you're worried about my code, don't run it or compile it on your machines, instructions are in the readme).

Looking forward to your feedback!

[metasim]

Wooo hooo!!!  Hats off to you, sir!!

[metasim]

Due to older (but perfectly functional) MacBook Pro, I'm stuck on macOS High Sierra (10.13.6), and it looks like the build you posted requires Mojave (10.14) or later. Thinking of installing a build tool change to see if it will build on 10.13... any reason that might be a waste of time?

[kris]

Due to older (but perfectly functional) MacBook Pro, I'm stuck on macOS High Sierra (10.13.6), and it looks like the build you posted requires Mojave (10.14) or later. Thinking of installing a build tool change to see if it will build on 10.13... any reason that might be a waste of time?

I don't think there will be a problem building for 10.13, but I gave up building on an old MacBook with Mavericks as the latest possible OS...

I tried to change the target API version with the appropriate Flag and uploaded and rebuilt version to github, can you give that a spin? https://github.com/christofmuc/KnobKraft-orm/releases/tag/1.6.2

Sadly I have no way of checking if the flag has any effect, the log mentions nothing. What I did was to set

    set(CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET "10.13")

[90shayden]

Due to older (but perfectly functional) MacBook Pro, I'm stuck on macOS High Sierra (10.13.6), and it looks like the build you posted requires Mojave (10.14) or later. Thinking of installing a build tool change to see if it will build on 10.13... any reason that might be a waste of time?

I don't think there will be a problem building for 10.13, but I gave up building on an old MacBook with Mavericks as the latest possible OS...

I tried to change the target API version with the appropriate Flag and uploaded and rebuilt version to github, can you give that a spin? https://github.com/christofmuc/KnobKraft-orm/releases/tag/1.6.2

Sadly I have no way of checking if the flag has any effect, the log mentions nothing. What I did was to set

    set(CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET "10.13")

I attempted this install on my Hackintosh with High Sierra 10.13.1 and still got the "The application requires MacOS 10.14 or later." I would love it if this worked with high Sierra. Upgrading my hackintintosh is unfortunately not a viable option. I did however install your software on another computer  with Catalina and its works like a charm.

[kris]

I attempted this install on my Hackintosh with High Sierra 10.13.1 and still got the "The application requires MacOS 10.14 or later." I would love it if this worked with high Sierra. Upgrading my hackintintosh is unfortunately not a viable option. I did however install your software on another computer  with Catalina and its works like a charm.

Ah, a Hackintosh! Well, I would recommend a build on your own, the instructions are on the github page, and mostly go like this:

• Make sure to install the prerequisites, ideally via home brew. What I do on the cloud build machine is: "brew install gtk+3 glew boost cmake icu4c python3"
• Clone the code and it's dependencies via "git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/christofmuc/KnobKraft-orm"
• From inside the KnobKraft-orm directory, run "cmake -S . -B builds/release -G "Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release && cmake --build builds/release "

And that should produce an executable application suited for exactly your machine.

Happy to hear it works for you on the machine though! Let me know when you need help with this!

[dizzy]

Very nice, thank you for making this

[grauhaus]

Hey Kris,

Thank you for making this! Such an intuitive interface. And forgive me if I am missing something crazy obvious - I've favorited a bunch of patches from a few banks I have purchased and want to send them to my Rev2. But I just can't for the life of me figure out how to do that. Haha. I am sure I am missing something here.

Oh this is on a mac!

Thanks for the hard work! Super awesome.

[kris]

Hey Kris,

Thank you for making this! Such an intuitive interface. And forgive me if I am missing something crazy obvious - I've favorited a bunch of patches from a few banks I have purchased and want to send them to my Rev2. But I just can't for the life of me figure out how to do that. Haha. I am sure I am missing something here.

Ah, uhm, no, actually - currently the software only sends to the edit buffer. So either you press write and select the storage place one by one, or you need to wait for the "bank management" feature I am working on. The reason I haven't build that yet is that it wouldn't be obvious in which program slot you'd like to store it, with the danger of overwriting existing sounds (which you of course have backuped to your computer using the "retrieve from synth" function).

Maybe, without building a full bank management with drag and drop of patches and creating full banks, it would be nice if you could set a "current target slot" and then each send increments that by one?

Like, you would select "persistent" mode for sending patches to the synth, select e.g. storage place 40. Then each button press would send the patch not into the edit buffer but into the program buffer of the selected storage place, and increment the storage place number so the next patch will go into the next slot. Add to that a "send all" button, and off you go.

That might actually much easier to do and quicker to implement that a full bank management feature. Question is if it is as obvious ;-)

[grauhaus]

Ah. I see! Ok, I am glad that it wasn't me. Haha.

I was basically going through all my sounds and favoriting them, that was like "man if only I can make this a whole bank" Kind of creating a master bank combo.

Thanks for the reply tho and still - thank you for making this!

[apeirophobe]

Very impressive.  Just received my Rev2 and I can tell this is going to be very helpful.  Thanks for your efforts.