@xenogon@sunny.garden

· 2w ago

Is there an utility application (or maybe a plugin for a DAW) that analyses a midi file and gives statistical data with graphs and histograms and stuff on which notes are used, how often, and when that shifts over the course of the file etc? It could be a really useful aid for music analysis. My specific use case would be deciding on bespoke microtunings for a specific piece. If any music/code/data visualisation nerds want to write such a program I'd love to collaborate on design and function. But maybe something like this already exists? I think it would be fairly easy on the coding side, but there might be some design challenges. #linuxmusic #midi #musictheory #microtuning #datavisualisation

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@alisynthesis@io.waxandleather.com @ercanbrack@mastodon.online @bloognoo@retro.pizza @amadeus@mstdn.social exactly. mac users are a very significant proportion of musicians/producers etc and I think the proportion gets higher amongst pros who spend more on gear and software. For a serious musician or studio owner the cost of the computer is insignificant compared to the cost of everything else and they'll buy what gives them the least downtime and fuss, historically that's been a mac and probably still is. How long that will last as apple enshittifies I don't know, but there's a influential demographic ripe for picking and increasingly dissatisfied with apple. OTOH I'm not sure linux as is will ever be a low fuss option for professionals. To achieve that there would need to be a serious and expensive effort to make a specific linux based OS for music.

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@bloognoo@retro.pizza @alisynthesis@io.waxandleather.com @ercanbrack@mastodon.online @amadeus@mstdn.social IMO linux is still short of fully pro level mixing and mastering plugins suitable for recorded real audio. If you only use synths and especially if they are plugin synths, this is much less of a concern. I use fabfilter Pro-Q, DMG limitless, threebodytech cenozoix comp and kirchoff eq. I haven't been able to match that level of quality on linux yet. This is almost insignificant compared to the driver issue though.

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@ercanbrack@mastodon.online @alisynthesis@io.waxandleather.com @bloognoo@retro.pizza @amadeus@mstdn.social are you talking about total linux vs mac users in the world or actual musicians? actual musicians heavily favour macs relative to the general population.

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@alisynthesis@io.waxandleather.com but you still want it to sound like a real guitar amp? ie not actually all that clean objectively even though it sounds clean? my experience trying to do this without digital trickery is that the limiting factor is finding a guitar speaker that will play that quietly and still sound good, a 5w valve amp is no problem, or even less, but a speaker that will play at acoustic levels without sounding a bit lame is unobtainable or nearly so. ofc if you model your clean sound with an amp model and use a PA style amp that's another whole thing and it will go any level you like, but I've never got on with simulated amps, some combo of latency and subtle wrongness to tone and response always sends me back to my real amps. That said I haven't tried expensive simulators.

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 3mo ago

I'm selling three very nice fountain pens on my personal for-sale website. UK only.

A sailor 1911 with a broad or BB nib.

https://www.epic-attic.co.uk/posts/sailor-1911/desc.html

A MoonMan P136 with a 1.1mm stub nib

https://www.epic-attic.co.uk/posts/FP-MM-P136/desc.html

A Parker 45 Harlequin with etched body and cap

https://www.epic-attic.co.uk/posts/FP-P45-harlequin/desc.html

site home page is (obv) https://www.epic-attic.co.uk

#fountainpen #fountainpens #garagesale

I also have some cheaper fountain pens listed and even more not listed.

epic-attic.co.uk

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@flosillermastering@mastodon.social @ercanbrack@mastodon.online I wrote a midi app in juce years ago. It makes it very easy to support mac and linux though for what i was doing there would have been extra steps for win as well, but this was a while back. however the problem for existing developers is that they are not using juce and may not even be using C++ at all - so porting an existing codebase is a much much bigger job. But yes for anyone writing new plugins now then juce should make it easy. though maybe people are using rust these days? I don't know.

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@ercanbrack@mastodon.online I'm not a dev (though I've written some midi related code here and there). You might point out that there are musicians just waiting to move to linux when it gets good enough for their musical purposes. I use linux more than mac these days but I still use a mac for music. I tried to move music to linux in 2019 and came away disillusioned, but I'm ready to try again as soon as things improve a bit. The main thing linux lacks for music, from my POV is manufacturer device drivers. They perform significantly better than usb class compliant on mac. But they don't exist on linux. Getting some key plugins I rely on on linux would also really help. If fabfilter, 3body, dmgaudio, TDR would all make linux versions and proper drivers were avail for my interfaces I would switch again for music. OTOH Reaper, Bitwig, Painoteq, and U-he are all linux native already it's a great start!

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@ercanbrack@mastodon.online That's good to know, TDR were the least important to me personally of that list, but they do make some good stuff.

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@pixiecata@apobangpo.space I love mucky green-brown inks. I have little patience for hard to find or expensive inks though. I've been experimenting with mixing inks in the green and brown range, and have has some quite nice results so far, though it requires detailed notes and accurate measuring if you want to be able to repeat a particular result. Mixing is especially useful if you end up with a big bottle of ink that isn't quite right. Just mix in something else to nudge it in the right direction! (in small batches for testing)

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@alisynthesis@io.waxandleather.com @bgm@musicians.today switchable output power is useful for getting low level drive tones, but for clean tones the speaker colouration is more relevant than the amp distortion , and there's no speaker with a switchable loudness sweet spot! Also for clean(ish) you probably want the full 4w anyway - though it depends very much on the part. clean jazzy single notes need way less headroom than funky chord chopping, for example.

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@bgm@musicians.today @alisynthesis@io.waxandleather.com It might be worth looking into what speaker is in that amp, if it sounds good at acoustic levels. I've built several <5w amps and they are great but there's still a minimum level that sounds good with all speakers I've tried and it's louder than an acoustic guitar. I mostly use a celestion G10 greenback with my 5w amp. I never found an 8" I liked for guitar. I know weber makes quite a few 8" models though, which I haven't tried as they are expensive or unobtainable in the UK.

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 16mo ago

In previously unattained levels of wholesomeness I have been baking bread on surplus solar power while listening to a medley of @helenbellmusic@sunny.garden hits* on live piano filtered through the ceiling.

*should-have-been-hits

sunny.garden

Helen Bell (@helenbellmusic@sunny.garden) - Sunny Garden

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 21mo ago

Is there any system on the fedi to facilitate the transfer of physical goods?

For example a secondhand marketplace, freecycle, or anything in between that helps people who need stuff meet people who have stuff. It would need to be localised obv.

I have been cleaning and tidying and I have stuff to give away and maybe some to sell or trade.

please boost! I'm not even sure what hashtags to use.

EDIT: several people have suggested Flohmarkt.

https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/

I have not looked into what it takes to host a flohmarkt instance, but if there were one for the UK, or especially for northern england/southern scotland, then I would use it.

I don't see a UK instance so far, except the one hosted by @neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk which seems to be personal for his own stuff is that right?

codeberg.org

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 34mo ago

I put together this #telecaster style #guitar, because I'm not quite ready to build my own original design, and this gets me a test guitar for my new pickup designs, and some fendery sounds I'd been lacking.

It is finished in shellac applied with a cloth, a basic french polish. It has a lovely silky natural surface texture and is quite resonant in the hands as I play.

It has three of my split coil pickups wired with a 5 position switch like a #stratocaster

The pickups have alnico 5 polepieces and sound very strat-like, though I need to get my hands on a real strat for comparison.

I could post the detailed pickup specs, if anyone is nerdy enough to care just ask.

sunny.garden

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 29mo ago

Thread 1/n Here's some pics of my next P90 inspired split coil #guitar pickup design.

Adjustable polepieces, opposed magnets under the string. These magnets are neodymium since they are readily available and compact and because it's very hard to get alnico in the right size, however I have experimented with breaking longer alnico bars with some success.
#guitarpickup #magnet

sunny.garden

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 36mo ago

Thread: 1/n about guitar pickup design and pickup winding.

I built a guitar pickup winding machine.

More on this topic will follow as I progress and as I have time to post.

I have some unusual pickup designs in the works.

#guitar #guitarpickup #magnet #induction #humbucker #fender

sunny.garden

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 45mo ago

Here's a thread about the instrument that I now think of as my main instrument.

I originally built it in early 2003 so it is coming up to 20 years old.

It is a solid body #electricGuitar like instrument, but it originally had 5 courses (pairs) of strings tuned CGDAE (although DGDAD and DADAD also work well)

When I built it I would have called it a 10-string electric irish #bouzouki.

Here's what it looked like in 2003.

sunny.garden

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 17mo ago

Scroll for poll. Please boost if you have UK followers who like re-using stuff.

I'm having a clear out of years and years worth of accumulated Stuff-That-Might-Be-Useful-Someday.

Most of it is probably going to end up at the tip / recycling center.

I'm extremely averse to throwing stuff away that works or could be repurposed or salvaged. That's why I have so much of it.

I'm in NE England near Durham.

But really, does anyone want my box of DVI cables? Some are 5m long and decent quality!

What about desktop computers from 2009? Capable enough in their way I made whole albums on them!

An old CD player that probably needs a lens clean? A small midi keyboard? A door lock? More likely maybe.

You get the idea. There's LOTS more. But in many cases the postage cost might be an obstacle.

So poll:

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 8mo ago

When deciding on a domain name for a micro-business where the name of the business is two words, would you run the words together or separate them with a hyphen?

Is there another possibility?

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 10mo ago

Is there a plugin (ie vst/clap/lv2) that's a sort of arpeggiator with some sequencer-like and possibly logic features?

It should take simple live polyphonic input and apply some sort of rules, maybe play a predetermined sequence of notes based on the input notes, but possibly with extra notes, complex rhythms, and or logic rules about how to interpret the input.

It should be easy to use with a visually clear GUI, and it should work on mac and linux.

I'm sure something like this MUST exist, but I'm not sure where to look or what to search for. Recommendations please!

#daw #sequencer #arpeggiator #midi #linuxaudio #vst #plugin

sunny.garden

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 14mo ago

A poll for guitarists:

How do you usually create your guitar tone?

I can't cover all the options in only 4 choices, but still.

#guitar #electricGuitar #vacuum_tubes #guitarAmplifier

sunny.garden

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@bgm@musicians.today @alisynthesis@io.waxandleather.com yeah it's a custom made for vox speaker. Celestion 10" speakers are not all the same by any means, I'd be a bit surprised if the Celestion vox custom VX10 is better than a Celestion G10 greenback - but it would be worth a try. The G10 greenback is my default to get close to what you want, with the caveat that it still sounds better a bit louder than acoustic levels. That said acoustic piano is usually louder than acoustic guitar so it depends which acoustic levels you are matching.

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xenogon @xenogon@sunny.garden

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@bloognoo@retro.pizza @alisynthesis@io.waxandleather.com @ercanbrack@mastodon.online @amadeus@mstdn.social My experience has been very much the reverse, on mac my audio stuff just works. Very few pain points with the music making. OFC apple and macos have been getting steadily worse in many other ways the last 15 years, but so far that has had little effect on using it as a music appliance. On linux I was spending more time making it work than making music, though things have improved since then , I'm not sure they have improved enough for me to want to switch back. When I did get a working linux system, I recorded a load of stuff only to discover that the unreported and therefore uncompensated latency *varied* between jack restarts. So there was a random error in overdub alignment not noticeable to the naked ear but still unacceptable to me. I agree so much about drivers though. Do loopback tests to measure real world latency, and check it stays the same across reboots. Last I checked (2025) linux had improved massively since 2019 in this area, but still couldn't match my RME FF800 with proprietary drivers on mac which is 100% sample accurate. In fact the perfection of the proprietary RME drivers had lulled me into the false sense that this was a normal and expected engineering standard, when in fact it's an outlier of exceptional excellence. There's a tendency in the linux world for devs to think that "passes clean audio" = "working" which may be the case for music playback, but is far from true in a recording studio.

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