I just had my mind blown away. I was fortunate to have had a very informative and transformative meeting with one of our customers who is blind.

I think it is safe to assume that many (if not most) of you are just as ignorant as me regarding how visually impaired people use DAWs and plugins. "What? There are blind people making music!? Are you serious? How?"
I think there are far more such people out there than we are aware of, and most of them just put up with whatever is out there, made by us for us. It doesn't have to be that way, and it should not be that way.

So, as we advance, I want to encourage every one of you software developers to build your plugins to be 100% accessible to all. A little more effort on our behalf can make a massive difference to many. I am starting this thread for all of us to get better informed of this entirely different dimension to make better tools for more people.

Here are some things I learned today (edited).

• The text label for each HISE component that usually inherits the name of the element ID actually gets read by screen readers, and that is what blind users navigate by, even though it is not shown on the GUI. So, don't just leave the text as is. Please give it a meaningful name like kick volume, main volume, etc.
• Blind users listen to screen readers at surreal talkback speeds. When naming elements, start with the unique identifier. For example, instead of calling it "slider kick," name it "kick volume" so they can quickly scroll through the elements without waiting and listening to the common word between multiple elements.
• The screen readers detect the element type, so those don't need to be included in the names. For example, there is no need to include the word "button" in the text for such an element. The screen reader will let that user know it is a button when reading the name of that element.
• Most users will navigate through elements using TAB (forward) and SHIFT+TAB (back).
• Values of elements should be adjustable by using the arrow keys up/down and, ideally, also Page Up/ Page Down and Home / End for large increments.
• To test how your plugins function in a screen reader, use VoiceOver on Mac and NVDA for Windows systems. If they work well on those, they will work just as well on other systems.

While I discovered things I could quickly fix in my plugins, some issues will require @Christoph-Hart 's help.

• BUG: Slider values can not be adjusted using arrow keys, nor page up/down, home/end.
• BUG: The defaultValue of a slider (e.g., "0.845") is presented to a screen reader as the element's name instead of the text field value (e.g., "kick slider").
• BUG: Buttons are read as "checkbox" element type. Can you please change this to say "button"?
• Can we have the ability to exclude specific elements from being read by screen readers, such as icons? For example, I have many icons behind buttons that blind users must scroll through to access functional elements.
• A nice touch would be a visual highlight of some sort for the element which has been selected using TAB. I know it is not for the Blind, but it would improve overall usability.

That's it for now. I am excited by the idea of being able to make my products fully usable without even seeing them.

Hey guys,
I want to introduce to you the results of the most challenging work I have ever completed in my life: GoranGrooves Handy Drums. Considering I am one of the world's lamest coders, the fact that I actually managed to accomplish this is unbelievable. This was all sheer determination with countless tiny steps.

Thank you all who contributed directly or indirectly in one way or another.
@Lindon @d-healey @JulissaDantes @Jay @Dan-Korneff

My most enormous thanks go to the brilliant genius, @Christoph-Hart. You are too humble to admit how genius you really are. Not only have you created an incredible platform, but the means for us to bring our ideas and aspirations to reality. Your hard work and creativity enabled me to make my creative dream come true. This is one of my most proud accomplishments, and I managed to do it because you unlocked the doors to the possibilities. I am forever grateful. THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart! :folded_hands_light_skin_tone:

So, here is what I have done so far.
https://youtu.be/bigQutsFbvo

And here is what Computer Music mag had to say about it

Hey guys,

While it is not our duty to educate customers how to use their DAWs, helping them get started using your products quickly goes a long way with customer satisfaction.

We have invested a fair amount of time (=$$$$) in putting together step-by-step tutorials for our customers for most DAWs. I am including the complete list here that may be helpful to you when dealing with your customers or putting your tutorials together. It will save you significant time and agony.

Here they are, courtesy of my brother, Boyan, who must learn to do this in every DAW to put these together!

How To Load Virtual Instrument Plugins In Steinberg Cubase / Nuendo

How To Load Virtual Instrument Plugins In Presonus Studio One

How To Load Virtual Instrument Plugins In Apple Logic Pro

How To Load Virtual Instrument Plugins In Apple GarageBand

How To Load Virtual Instrument Plugins In Image-Line FL Studio

How To Load Virtual Instrument Plugins In Avid Pro Tools

How To Load Virtual Instrument Plugins In Cockos Reaper

How To Load Virtual Instrument Plugins In Reason Studios' Reason

We are still actively producing and posting tutorials, and I will update this list to reflect that as we go. Bookmark this page for future reference.

@d-healey XChange is good to have to be able to conduct business with 3rd party sellers. It definitely cuts on extra BS you would need to deal with if doing it directly, so it is a preferred method.

In my experience, it has not been a major source of revenue. "Best Service" must have done a feature on us, as we saw some sales from them when they added us. Most sellers just add the content to their catalogs, and that doesn't do anything, really.

One approach would be to work with resellers one-on-one through XChange to get them to do a limited-time promotion of some sort. Without them making some kind of additional effort to push your products, just adding them to the catalog is pointless.

I think what we'll end up doing is seeing who is willing to do product pushes and offer some extra incentives, then evaluate the results. We'll probably rescind listings from resellers who haven't made any extra promotional efforts. I don't see any benefits to be listed in some massive catalog. Nobody really needs a sales platform. What we, brands, need is access to customers and a spotlight. If a seller can't provide that, they are of no value to us.

Having your own store and doing your own marketing is absolutely essential.

Regardless of where someone may purchase our products, they always must come to us to download them and get the license keys. That will never change.
Don't feel shy about emailing customers. Don't bombard them with offers, but rather provide some value or entertainment in emails.

I also think that more beneficial efforts would be strategic partnerships with brands that align with your approach, are not inundated with products, and have a good existing customer base.

An affiliate program is another good thing to have in place.

Thanks so much, all of you, guys! I apprecaite it very much. You really make this a special community.

Hey guys,
I want to share with you an awesome installer-creator for PC that has given me great results: Paquet Builder.

It is a highly flexible and extremely powerful installer builder that allows for so many customizations of the way your package is installed and the way it looks. Here are some things I love about it:

• A ton of variables built-in
• Custom variables for any element you create (eg. custom install paths) that you can reference in custom actions
• Being able to allow users to choose a location where they want each component installed
• Modern interface
• Custom installer icon
• Custom poster during installation
• Software signing
• Custom actions using IF, THEN, IF-ELSE conditional logic referencing variables and custom variables
• Pre and post actions (eg. check computer configuration, launch a program or a webpage)
• Support for custom scripts
• Uninstaller with custom icon
• Registering your installed software in Windows programs

I was able to create a custom action that notes the location of the sample library install path, then writes that path to the WindowsLink file. So, when a user starts the plugin for the first time, they don't have to waste time connecting the samples. I've done all of this without actually coding anything.

There are many more options and functionalities. It is really awesome, I am very happy with it and that's why I am highly recommending it.

They have a full-featured trial version (not time-limited) that allows you to test everything, but the final installer displays a popup that the package is not meant for distribution. The paid versions are $100 for Professional and $180 for the Ultimate (the one I got). I looked at other installers on the market and this is by far the best value for money.

I wish there was something as awesome as this for Mac.

One functionality that I feel is badly missing and adding serious labor when re-organizing modules is the ability to grab them and move them around in the hierarchy simply.

The only way to currently accomplish this is to copy and paste existing modules into the location of choice, then edit their names after deleting the originals. Another way is to open the project XML in an external text editor, locate a section of code for a particular module, and then cut and paste into another portion of code. While this works, it is very time-consuming, with a high likelihood of messing up the project.

If we could please have the functionality to move all components around on the fly, that would be a huge time-saver.

Yes, what @orange said.

@Christoph-Hart What you have created here is bigger than any individual or the software itself.
You've empowered so many of us and, with it, provided opportunities. I hope you realize the significance of it.

I follow some security updates for WP, and in the latest one today, I found out that FS License Manager, which a few of us use, had a security vulnerability that was fixed in v 5.3.2.

However, the developer has not pushed the update to the plugin, so you wouldn't know by looking at your WP-installed plugins.

Go to your Code Canyon account, download the latest version, and manually upload it now.

Not a joke or a clickbait. My little GoranGrooves brand is in legally binding contract with the tech behemoth AVID. Yesterday was the GoranGrooves day, and what started as an exciting, peaceful morning had literally left me in tears by the late afternoon, looking for the nearest rock to crawl under.

I've been working for the last 3 months without a single day off, right through the holidays, to try to wrap up v2.0 of Handy Drums, at least for the NAMM and Avid partnership, which was coinciding at the same time. As part of the Avid promo, we are giving away Studio Standard to their entire subscriber base (200k licenses). We postponed the launch because of NAMM, and yesterday was the big day.

The day prior, in anticipation of the traffic increase, I boosted the server to 16x Premium Intel CPUs with 64GB RAM. You would expect that to handle anything. Then, the crowds came crashing into my door.

I could see the traffic, which didn't seem like too much, but I could tell only a small number of people were redeeming the rewards. Then, emails started coming in. I couldn't access the admin of the website. Horror and panic kicked in.

For a couple of hours, I worked with an IT buddy to remedy the situation by turning off a grid plugin that normally displays all of our products in many locations throughout the website. The server specs are both overkill (utilizing not more than 25% CPU and only 8% RAM), and yet not enough, it seems. So, the situation is ongoing. Things are moving, just not in the way we would like them to. Can't really do much until the storm passes.

We are all used to dealing with bugs and issues when developing software. It is a completely different beast when you are trying to resolve something in real time as hundreds of people are surging your way.

The moral of the story? Not sure. Perhaps be careful what you wish for? You can never be too prepared?

@d-healey said in New feature: Release Start:

Wouldn't you just disable the release entirely for legato transitions and use a scripted fade?

You should still have release samples on the legato. That is actually a giveaway that an instrument is virtual and not real. Think about what happens in real world if you were playing a note, say in a concert hall, then played another one legato. As you are transitioning to another note, the initial note would be ringing around at the same time. So, if you want to keep the realism, you must include release notes when playing legato.

@Simon oh, sweet! Thank you for that. Then, the feature is truly wonderful

Stopping by to say hi! It's been a while.

@Christoph-Hart I'd like to point out one crucial detail regarding release notes, which I tackled in my software with the hi-hat open/closed release notes.

It is not enough to just have a release note for a sample. For the playback to sound natural, the gain of the release sample must match that of the main portion of the sample at the moment when a note is released.
So, if you release a note when the peak is at -15db, the release note gain should not be the same as when you release the note with a peak at -30db.

When I say that "it should match," I do not mean necessarily that the release note must be played at the same gain value as the main sample when released (eg. -15db sample peak with -15db peak of release note). I think that the overall balance (main sample/ vs release) needs to be adjusted by ear, as I have done, but a simple formula can get a good ratio between main sample and release note. Adjustment by ear is to get an overall loudness of all release notes in the sampler.

When done properly, any released note sounds natural.

@Christoph-Hart said in iOS Export:

@weezycarter yes iOS is pretty much abandoned.

I find the above statement highly concerning @Christoph-Hart .

If I may, I want to make a prophetic statement here so we can refer to it months and years from now.

iOS and mobile music production is the new frontier. Platforms and developers who seize on this shift early on and adapt will reap the riches. Others will either be left in the dust or play catch-up.

I've had countless interactions with customers and potential customers that strongly indicate this. Most people here have not yet caught on to that, but they will eventually. I think it is a terrible idea not to actively maintain the iOS support, and I urge you to please dedicate some time to keeping it up to date. It would be far more valuable to successfully port to iOS all the amazing things HISE currently offers than to keep adding new things to the current platforms. Now is the perfect time to enter the new frontier.

@Lindon Is it playing samples? I've experienced this when I accidentally had 2 samples (of the same sample) layered on top of one another. So, if you are using samples, double check all your sample maps. It would explain the 6db increase, as that is the double gain of the same sample duplicated.

@clevername27 Sick!

@Christoph-Hart Thank you very much! I will check this out.

@Christoph-Hart said in CC controller data delayed slightly when coming from the MIDI player:

// 2. if they have the same timestamp, prefer notes over CC

Did you mean to comment, "prefer CC over notes"?

@Christoph-Hart Good point. I checked it: in the MIDI file, the notes are written before the controller. When the MIDI file plays on a MIDI track connected to the plugin in Cubase, the controller and note play at the same and thus, the controller affects the note. But, when the MIDI is loaded directly into HISE MIDI player, that is not the case.

So, I guess a solution would be to sniff out if a note is artificial and if so, delay it by a sample, right?

When a CC controller value change happens precisely at the same time as a note is played, everything works as it should when played from a DAW.

However, if the same MIDI performance is exported from DAW as a MIDI file and played in the HISE MIDI player, the CC data is delayed slightly, causing the note played simultaneously not to be affected by the CC value change.

This is problematic in instances of using CC to control hi-hat openness.

If I move the CC by 1pp earlier (so that it happens a hair before the note) and re-export the MIDI file, then import it into the HISE MIDI player, the CC plays in time to affect the note.

I am using HISE from January 10, 2024. @Christoph-Hart, is this something that may have been fixed since January 10th?

@Dominik-Mayer Wow, man! That's brilliant, and it's a really great concept. I am sure this will be hugely helpful to a lot of folks. Thank you!