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Pluto is a digital audio workstation demo implemented in a web browser - based on the raw audio capabilities of Microsoft Silverlight. In a nutshell:
- 16 tracks with 32 voice polyphony plus 6 fx/track
- Granular synthesizer, Karplus-Strong guitar synthesizer or drum-machine per each track
- Highly optimized, multithreaded audio pipeline
- MIDI import/export, WAV export
View the application
The synth could be launched HERE along with demo songs (check 'File' -> 'Load demo song' menu).
What is this synth?
- Demonstration of the raw audio capabilities of Silverlight and our Silverlight competencies.
- Implementation of highly-optimized audio pipeline in .Net (with some GUI).
- Primarily a hobby project from Balint Pfliegel, CIO of Grape.
What is this synth not?
- This is by no means a commercial application or a finished product (at least yet), there is still a lot to do!
Notes
- You can import and export MIDI files or export your whole song as a .wav file from the file menu. No direct MP3 export support, sorry. Maybe the best jumpstart with the application is to import a MIDI file and play around a little.
- Each track is 32 voice polyphonic. You can choose between a synth (2 oscillator granular synth), a guitar (a simple Karplus-Strong guitar) and a drum machine. All tracks have 6 different effects assigned that could be programmed, and the devices itself could be programmed as well (the synth and the guitar as a whole, and the drum machine per each drum track).
- A synth program includes the parameters for the synth itself, but also the parameters for the effects. You can save/load your own instruments to a file. In case you load them, the original settings will be restored for the effects as well. Currently there are no guitar or drum programs, could be added later.
- The guitar could be augmented with effects like chorus - sounding a lot better.
- The drum machine accepts ZIP files as drum kit patches. The ZIP file must contain at most 16 wav files (uncompressed WAV, 16bit, 44,1khz, mono and stereo are both okay) and a manifest.txt describing the order of the samples (without the extension '.wav'). See a sample ZIP file here: TR909.zip. The drum machine could be also used as a very basic sampler - voice recordings or loops could be loaded and used.
- Volume and pan is a must, but there is also a stereo widener for each track - the default setting does nothing. Move the slider left for a more narrow (mono) sound, and right for a wider one.
- Set locators/markers by clicking in the marker lane (hold CTRL for left and ALT for right marker) - no drag yet, just click :)
- Recording from keyboard: 1) make sure the song is playing and recording is on, 2) make sure the keyboard input icon is on (default), 3) set the proper transpose, 4) the input is based on the Silverlight standard notation syntax set by Charles Petzold :), check it here.
- In the track editor, when the song is not playing, press CTRL+C for copy and CTRL+V for paste. There is no cut and undo yet. Selections could be dragged, length and velocity of notes could be adjusted. If you wish to select velocity of certain notes just select an area of notes and adjust the velocities - only the velocity of the notes that are included in the selection will be changed. This is quite useful for adjust velocity for separate drum tracks, where notes frequently overlap. Some features are still missing (no grouping, no individual note move [only as a selection], no autoscroll when selecting, no autoscroll when playing), I plan to add them soon.
Demo songs
- 'Frozen' from Madonna
- 'Equinox 5' from Jean Michel Jarre
- Theme from Star Wars by John Williams
- Second reality (Scaven part)
- 'Final countdown' from Europe
- 'If I ever lose my faith' from Sting
- 'Popcorn' from Jean Michel Jarre
- 'Water from a vine leaf' from William Orbit
- 'The last ninja (wilderness)' from Ben Daglish
- Theme from 'ER'
- Theme from 'Love story'
Drum kits
More drumkits will be added in the future.
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Blog
You can read the full blog about Pluto
here.