HourGlass

Category Audio Production / Experimental
Version 1.3.0
Format App
Compatibility HourGlassMacOS X Intel
Licence Freeware
Price Free
Rating
Updated On Feb 21, 2013
Total Downloads 441
Mac Downloads 297
Category Audio Production / Experimental
Version 1.3.0
Format App
Compatibility HourGlassWindows XP
Licence Freeware
Price Free
Rating
Updated On Feb 21, 2013
Total Downloads 441
PC Downloads 144

Granular synthesis

HourGlass is a granular/textural synthesis/sampling sound processor.
OS-X 10.6/10.7/10.8 (Beta, requires Intel 64 bit processor)
32-bit executables that run on 32/64 bit Windows Vista or Windows 7 or on 32 bit Windows XP SP2/3. SSE2 capable processor required.
HourGlass HourGlass v 1.3.0 Feb 21, 2013 MacOS X Intel
Download
  • Added triggable parameter gestures system. While you can operate it from the GUI 8×8 grid by clicking with the mouse (with the middle button, sorry Mac users, I think it doesn’t work there) or by assigning keyboard shortcuts or toolbar buttons to trigger the gestures, it probably works the best via MIDI or OSC remote control. This feature may be rather complicated at first to understand and use and probably warrants a separate Youtube video or blog post to explain it better. If you don’t plan to use HourGlass in a performance oriented way (live or by recording the audio output into a file), this feature likely isn’t going to interest you. (It might be developed later so that it’s possible to trigger the gestures from an editable timeline but at the moment it has no useful purpose when offline rendering the textures.)


  • MIDI/OSC Remote control system was reworked. The scriptable value mapping system was removed (hopefully nobody misses that) and instead the incoming control values can be mapped using a visual envelope editor.


  • The source sounds offline processing system can now remember audio peaks for all the intermediate processing steps, so that the envelope editors for the offline processing modules can now show the proper guide audio peaks. Note that when zooming in enough, the peaks or a waveform is not shown as that data is not available. (Because that would require storing the whole audio data for each processing step, which might be a bit too much memory wise for this…)


  • Source sound buffers handling was improved. If the same audio file is loaded into HourGlass several times, only one real copy is kept around. Offline processing no longer makes a redundant copy of a file if the processing chain has all processing modules bypassed.


  • Envelopes/parameters lifetime management was improved, hopefully eliminating many bugs (including crashing ones) relating to adding/removing the envelopes.


  • Envelope editors can be locked to show a particular parameter envelope.


  • When plugins are scanned, a visual indicator is shown that the scan is going on and if errors were encountered, a log is shown. On Windows the plugin scanner process won’t show the usual Windows crash dialog, to allow the scan to go faster if a plugin crashed. A solution for OS-X seems to also exist to not show the crash report dialog, but it’s more complicated to properly disable that, so it wasn’t yet implemented.


  • Lots of more minor changes that will be added to this blog post later. Now I just want to get the new version out into the world after so much delay…
    • Xenakios HourGlass HourGlass v 1.2.9beta Nov 8, 2012 MacOS X Intel
    Download
    HourGlass HourGlass v 1.3.0 Feb 21, 2013 Windows XP
    Download
  • Added triggable parameter gestures system. While you can operate it from the GUI 8×8 grid by clicking with the mouse (with the middle button, sorry Mac users, I think it doesn’t work there) or by assigning keyboard shortcuts or toolbar buttons to trigger the gestures, it probably works the best via MIDI or OSC remote control. This feature may be rather complicated at first to understand and use and probably warrants a separate Youtube video or blog post to explain it better. If you don’t plan to use HourGlass in a performance oriented way (live or by recording the audio output into a file), this feature likely isn’t going to interest you. (It might be developed later so that it’s possible to trigger the gestures from an editable timeline but at the moment it has no useful purpose when offline rendering the textures.)


  • MIDI/OSC Remote control system was reworked. The scriptable value mapping system was removed (hopefully nobody misses that) and instead the incoming control values can be mapped using a visual envelope editor.


  • The source sounds offline processing system can now remember audio peaks for all the intermediate processing steps, so that the envelope editors for the offline processing modules can now show the proper guide audio peaks. Note that when zooming in enough, the peaks or a waveform is not shown as that data is not available. (Because that would require storing the whole audio data for each processing step, which might be a bit too much memory wise for this…)


  • Source sound buffers handling was improved. If the same audio file is loaded into HourGlass several times, only one real copy is kept around. Offline processing no longer makes a redundant copy of a file if the processing chain has all processing modules bypassed.


  • Envelopes/parameters lifetime management was improved, hopefully eliminating many bugs (including crashing ones) relating to adding/removing the envelopes.


  • Envelope editors can be locked to show a particular parameter envelope.


  • When plugins are scanned, a visual indicator is shown that the scan is going on and if errors were encountered, a log is shown. On Windows the plugin scanner process won’t show the usual Windows crash dialog, to allow the scan to go faster if a plugin crashed. A solution for OS-X seems to also exist to not show the crash report dialog, but it’s more complicated to properly disable that, so it wasn’t yet implemented.


  • Lots of more minor changes that will be added to this blog post later. Now I just want to get the new version out into the world after so much delay…
    • Xenakios HourGlass HourGlass v 1.2.9 Nov 8, 2012 Windows XP
    Download
    Xenakios

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