Starting to use HISE is one of the biggest pains in the neck I've ever had

[HISEuser]

This is coming from the perspective of someone who's never had to deal with compiling from source just to tinker around with samples and put together instruments, to be fair, but I'm at my wit's end here. And pardon me if the title comes off as rude, I just feel frustrated.

Firstly is that the current 'release' of HISE is well out of date, which means, from what I read here, is that it's recommended to compile it from the scriptnode branch. Which is mentioned NOWHERE on HISE's website (except that it's recommended to compile it yourself, with NO mention of which branch to use...) or readme, by the way.

So I go put together the dependencies, which is also slightly unclear; the process isn't exactly lined out for the inexperienced. Apparently I have to put SDKs in tools/SDK or something. And then I install Visual Studio (2019 specifically, because I couldn't find 2017, which is what the JUCE included with HISE asks for? apparently?), though I'd love to avoid literally anything that forces me to sign in to continue using it, because I can't make heads or tails of how to compile it without that despite hours of searching.

And it has to 'retarget solution' or whatever, probably because I was trying to use 2019. Okay, I do that, and all I get are errors no matter what I try changing, so I've pretty much given up now. I can't help but think; are there any like... alternatives? I don't like Kontakt much (and it's a proprietary platform that I consider anti-consumer) and SFZ is relegated to text editors and a single player from Plogue that doesn't allow custom interfaces still.

I'd love to use HISE, but honestly, it's just the complete opposite of user-friendly so far. I haven't even been able to THINK about starting to use it yet, despite additional hours of trying to put things together (not including my search for alternatives to using Visual Studio), and everything documented is obscured - behind having to search this forum - at best, as far as I can tell.

Aside from alternatives for someone like me, is there something I'm missing that'd make my experience much easier, here?

EDIT:
Oh, and it seems that the install process for Intel Performance Primitives is different from what the readme is expecting. Because I ended up installing something called 'Intel OneAPI' or whatever, and selecting IPP from there. And most of the errors thrown at me in Visual Studio are from files titled 'ipp', so that might have something to do with it?

[A Former User]

Every new thing is bit challenging to begin with. Once you will understand how it works you will love to use HISE. If you think it's not yet well documented follow @d-healey and watch his tutorials on Youtube or ask your quarries on this forum. Everybody here is very well behaved and kind enough to help you.
And finally HISE is easier than JUCE. Because in HISE you will get WYSIWYG kinda things which is most wanted for newbies. For example to make a basic Gain plugins you will have to spend 30-45 minutes in JUCE. But in HISE you can make it just under 2 minutes(excluding compile time).
Yet HISE is vast and you can do plenty of things which is required for every plugins developers. And HISE Javascripts makes it outstanding.
So yup it's by far the easiest Framework for Audio Plugins development.

Cheers !!

[A Former User]

Follow Mr @d-healey on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvr9isxq3sSbj-dcKPKyJZA

[HISEuser]

@Rudra-Ghosh said in Starting to use HISE is one of the biggest pains in the neck I've ever had:

So yup it's by far the easiest Framework for Audio Plugins development.

I'm sure... if it were possible for me to start using it, that is.

If you think it's not yet well documented

Pardon me, but my problem is the website and readme (not to mention the release version!) are out of date. As far as I can tell after some searching the HISE player is an abandoned idea, but there it is... still presented on the front page, as one example. It makes entry pretty difficult and confusing, if you ask me, regardless of d-healey's tutorials. Which I wasn't even aware of! Or if they're helpful in trying to compile HISE, which I suppose I'll find out soon enough.

[HISEuser]

@AudioHobbyist
And already d-healey is saying the following:

Download Visual Studio, but NOT 2019, it MUST be 2017, except you can manually link IPP files in 2019 according to the thread shown in the video...? but you have to navigate to some thread on this specific forum to find some obscure link to finally download Visual Studio 2017 without having to jump through Microsoft's hoops to finally maybe compile HISE and-

This really exemplifies my complaint on how much of a pain this is. But we'll see how far I get.

[HISEuser]

I officially give up. Visual Studio 2017 turns up the exact same errors, and I had to complain on a forum to be indirectly redirected to an obscure video to be redirected to an obscure thread on this forum that has an obscure link to finally reach the download.
First of all, right off the bat in both versions of Visual studio, I always got "Windows SDK version not detected, retarget the solution" or something, which I do, which tells me which version I might have, but which doesn't seem to actually change the output... get the exact same errors, so I go into the project properties and manually change it. Fun. That gets rid of that error.
But now on both versions, this is what happens: 20 different errors of 'ipp.h' is missing. I tried disabling IPP, though I'd like to use convolution. Exact same errors.

[A Former User]

..As you see I use VS 2019 with JUCE 6.0.7 (since I develop plugins in JUCE too)
Use the latest Scriptnode..with the Intel Performance primitive.
See the sys requirement for IPP.
https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/articles/intel-integrated-performance-primitives-intel-ipp-2020-system-requirements.html

[A Former User]

[HISEuser]

@Rudra-Ghosh said in Starting to use HISE is one of the biggest pains in the neck I've ever had:

Use the latest Scriptnode..with the Intel Performance primitive.

I appreciate that you're trying to help, but I'm sorry - this doesn't give me any hint as to what's working for you and what's not working for me. I have IPP installed. I have nothing outside of IPP's requirements. I placed the SDKs in the correct folder. I tried using VS 2019 and VS 2017. I am using the latest version of the scriptnode branch. All I can tell is that it works on your computer, for whatever reason.

[A Former User]

@AudioHobbyist show me your error details

[A Former User]

[HISEuser]

@Rudra-Ghosh Like I said, it turns up ~20 'ipp.h' files completely missing. Whether it's 2017 or 2019. I've been trying all day and it's gotten late enough that I should go to sleep, so I can't try again to get another log to paste here.
I have no idea what I can glean from those screenshots.

[A Former User]

@AudioHobbyist use..ipp v2020.3 or 2020.4

[HISEuser]

@Rudra-Ghosh The only way to install IPP now does NOT let me select a version.

[A Former User]

@AudioHobbyist Get a sleep now.....do a fresh start tomorrow. :)

[A Former User]

This is the version working at my end...2021 January version should work too...

[d.healey]

@AudioHobbyist said in Starting to use HISE is one of the biggest pains in the neck I've ever had:

This is coming from the perspective of someone who's never had to deal with compiling from source just to tinker around with samples and put together instruments, to be fair, but I'm at my wit's end here. And pardon me if the title comes off as rude, I just feel frustrated.

This is the first stage of becoming a HISE user. We've all been there.

For the simplest build use Visual Studio 2017 (via the obscure forum link - thanks Microsoft!) and build without the IPP. I haven't been able to get the latest version of IPP to work with VS2017. Unfortunately Intel prevents us from downloading earlier, compatible, versions of IPP.

Once you have Visual Studio 2017 installed and you've removed IPP things should be smoother. If you're still struggling let me know and we can get in a call with screen sharing and I can walk you through it.

You've also got more fun to look forward to with setting it up on a MacOS system.

[DanH]

@AudioHobbyist As @d-healey says start without IPP.

However, if you do want it later here's the last installers I downloaded last year which worked with VS2017 / XCode 10.3:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4gx74wg1jpfnk7r/AACkGmy8SdV-j0qsiw5VFYFza?dl=0

[d.healey]

@DanH That was a smart move! Thanks

[DanH]

@d-healey Yeah I figured I'd keep hold of them just in case!