Kick Starter for Mac (longer version) - Bounce Metronome, Tune Smithy, Lissajous 3D... on Intel Mac!

Are you a Mac musician, artist or mathematician?.Let's get Tune Smithy, Virtual Flower, Lissajous 3D & Activity Timer on a Mac!
Just launched: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/130375104/bounce-metronome-tune-smithy-lissajous-3d-on-intel

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Closed Caption:

Hello, I'm Robert, and these are some of the
programs I've written for Windows, and the
aim of this kickstarter is to get them all
running on a Mac. Sadly it won't work on an
iPhone or iPad because of the type of processor
you have inside, it's only going to work on
an Intel Mac. And the reward you will get
is an unlock key for all these programs. And
you can use this straight away, for instance
on a friend's computer, or if you have got
a Windows computer. and then once I have got
it ported to the Mac and working and running
fine, then you will be able to download these
programs and unlock them on your Mac.
And these programs, it's a mixture of musical,
and artistic cum geometrym let's have a look
and see what they do.
So first, let's look at one of the geometrical
ones. This is Virtual Flower, and this, I
call a star sphere. There's a kind of underlying
geometry, and on top of that you put these
stars that sway back and forth.
There are many other geometrical shapes you
can explore, so there are star pyramids, and
prisms, anti-prisms, all sorts of complex
geometrical shapes if you are into that sort
of thing, And it's also very good for exploring
four dimensional space, and five dimensional
space as well - geometrical shapes you get
that you don't get in three dimensions. And,
there's a connection there with music, because
there are some musical structurs you can make
in four and five dimensions, and you can actually
use Virtual Flower to output these, and together
with one of my other programs, you can get
it to make these musical geometries which
you can then - you can click on these vertices,
and you get various pitches sounding, and
chords and triads.
Another thing you can do with Virtual Flower,
that is where it's name comes from, is you
can make these geometrical shapes that look
very much like trees or like flowers. You
can just go to the virtualflower.net website
and you can find out all about those.
Now this is the one that musicians are really
excited about seeing on the Mac. I get emails
over and over again from musicians who are
astonished by what this program can do. So
I don't think I need to say too much about
that, just have a look down the page at some
of the rhythms on this page, go over to the
(let's bring this up full screen) go over
to the Bounce Metronome website, and you find
lots of videos there of the rhythms it can
play, and then you can go over to the robertinventor
youtube channel and you can find yet more.
There are well over 600 videos of some of
the very many different rhythms that Bounce
Metronome can play.
Anyway, so I'm going to show you a very simple
thing in Bounce Metronome, you'll find this
on the page, just to explain some of the idea
behind it.
So, I set this running, this is called Sorlo
the funny sorcerer, and you can download this
character to use in Bounce Metronome. It's
an open source character so I can't include
it but you can include it and have permission
to use it in this video.
So, if you follow it, then you get this rather
nice bounce effect. It is very easy to follow
as a human being and it brings a very good
energy into your music practise. Then the
other thing to notice about the bounce is
the way it is following a conducting pattern,
it is going back and forth and goes up higher
just before the first beat in the measure
or bar. Then another high beat there, then
another high beat for the jump across. This
makes it very easy to follow the rhythm out
of the corner of your eye (just stopping it).
Now you can also have it bouncing back and
forth as I have it there, and many other different
ways you can have it bouncing.
It's actually using ideas from conductors,
but it's not trying to exactly copy the way
conductors conduct, but it is using some of
the techniques that are the basis of conducting
in order to present rhythms in a very crisp
and clear way on a computer screen.
Because the visuals are so precise and easy
to follow in that way, you can actually use
it without any sound at all, and substitute
it for a click track, for instance, instead
of the click track, just have the visuals.
Then, this also makes it very good for deaf
musicians, it doesn't matter if you can't
hear the click at all, and it also makes it
very good if you play a loud instrument, for
instance the drums, or piano, it doesn't matter
if you drown the click.
Then, this leads into the accessibility of
my programs. (So, if we return that to its
place, and go back). This is my other program
Tune Smithy, I first got an email from a blind
musician using Tune Smithy many years ago,
saying, how much he appreciated, here was
a music program, finally, that he could use
as a blind musician.
And I really had no idea at that point, I
hadn't done anything special, I had just followed
the Windows accessibility guidelines. But
it turns out that many music programs don't
do that, and they are simply completely unsuable
to blind musicians.
So I've been very careful since then, I've
tested with screen readers, and I make sure
that all my programs can be used by blind
musicians and I have many blind musicians
now who use Bounce Metronome for that reason.
And again I am continually getting these appreciative
emails saying how great it is that here finally
is a metronome I can use as a blind musician,
and explore all these rhythms and things,
which previously was completely locked out.
I also follow the accessibility guidelines
for high contrast visuals. So if you need
high contrast visuals, this is another area
where modern music programs, are almost impossible
to use if you need high contrast visuals,
many of them. And if you have your display
set to white on black or black on white, Tune
Smithy and Bounce Metronome - Bounce Metronome
certainly will automatically come up as black
on white, or white on black.
I'm not sure if I've got a preset in Tune
Smithy yet, because that's the older program
for this, I can work on that. And you can
adjust all the colours in the program, and
textures and everything, so as to fit whatever
your visual requirements are.
And, so ok, I was talking about Tune Smithy,
let's look at Tune Smithy next. The idea of
Tune Smithy, it originally came - this is
back in the 1980s I think, and I am a mathematician,
that's what my background is, and so I just
had this idea, following from other things,
like the mathematics behind Virtual flower
and how you get these trees forming, then
you get trees that form in a geometrical way,
and also in clouds, and running water, and
mountains and things like that, you get details
within details and the details look very much
like the whole thing, and I thought, what
about applying this to music?
Amd so that's what happens with Tune Smithy.
And then years later, just a couple of years
ago, I discovered that there's this, I'll
have to maximise tis to see it, Per Norgard,
he is a Danish composer, and he came up with
an integer sequence as well, very similar
idea, and rather unusual for a composer, his
integer sequence now appears in the Sloane
on-line database of integer sequences. So
he uses this in his music, along with a lot
of compositional technique of course. He's
a composer and he writes symphonies using
his sequence.
Now in Tune Smithy there's no standard composition
going on there at all. All it's doing is just
generating these numbers and making them into
music. And it turns out this automatically
makes a sloth canon, where every instrument
is playing the same melody line at a different
speed. So let's listen to one of these and
hear what happens. So here's the tiny seed
phrase, and everything you hear is generated
from this.
Just that little chirrup. Now if I put this
through the magical Sloth Canon process, this
is what you get.
So, then I wanted to show it to you, how you
can change this very easily. (wrong window,
Seed chart, I should get my glasses probably,
there we go).
So, now if I set that running, and I adjust
the notes here, then you just change one of
the notes, and as you move the notes around,
notice how the whole tune changes.
And so you can just play around with that
until you get something you like the sound
of. And as you can see it is very unlike ordinary
composition, you can't adjust an individual
note in a tune, if you adjust one of these
notes, the entire tune changes.
And you don't have to be at all musically
trained to use this. I was just clicking on
the screen, you can also type in the notes
as numbers, or you can, if you are a musician,
you can play a musical phrase, and you can
play it from your keyboard, or whatever, and
then it will turn into one of these things.
And then you also have a Randomize now button,
and you click the Randomize and it will make
a random tune using a mixture of settings
from various different tunes that come with
the program. Again there are several hundred
tunes that come with the program. So you can
try these out as well, just listen to them,
just play them for enjoyment as well.
Then, another thing you can do with Tune Smithy,
I'll show you, (let's see if I can find it),
Mouse and PC Keyboard music, and if I go here,
now bring up the keyboard, then you can use
it to play music from your PC keyboard, and
using your mouse. And it's microtonal music
so you can put it into any tuning system you
like.
So it's great for the traveling microtonalist
on the plane, and you just want to while away
trying out ideas in different tuning systems,
then you can just get out Tune Smithy, and
get out your keyboard, and start playing away,
this is actually a Pigmy scale, not playing
anything particularly, just showing how it
works. So you can just get that out, and play
it wherever you like.
Then the other thing you can use Tune Smithy
for is retuning your compositions into any
tuning system. And the way it works is, you
have a composition, and you can turn, for
instance, the octave of the composition, in
Sibelius or Finale say, into an octave and
a half, if you like, stretch it. Or you can
move any of the notes wherever you like in
the entire frequency range on your score.
And this opens the world to retuning it, a
very easy method of composing. So there is
no score in Tune Smithy itself, no editable
score, but you can do it in another program,
and then you use Tune Smithy for retuning
it.
In a similar way, you can also retune your
music keyboard. And so anyway, if you are
into microtonal music, chances are you have
something like this already, but you may well
find that there are some things Tune Smithy
can do that you haven't got in your existing
program, because there are so many different
things you can do in microtonal music, and
it adds to your toolbox of things that you
can do.
And if you are new to microtonal music, then
maybe it can help you get started.
Right so now I'll show you the Tune Smithy
Lambdoma. So this is used for music therapy.
It's an arrangement of pitches that goes back
to the Greeks, to Pythagoras, and Barbara
Hero brought that into the twentieth and twenty
first century. And she devised the colours,
and the Lissajous patterns, and the idea of
using this in music therapy.
And they find that it seems to have healing
properties using it, with various ideas of
how it works. But certainly, you get very
harmonious pitches that you can play, and
these beautiful smooth shapes that you can
make, that appear on the screen as you play
on the keyboard.
So I can well understand why it would have
healing therapeutic properties to do that.
So, let's have a look at the notes. So that's
just a major chord. But go a bit further up
you get an extra note which you just don't
get in the Western tuning system, and it's
actually, what you've got going up that way
is the harmonic series and it goes further
up to the eleventh and thirteenth harmonic,
again notes that you don't get in the Western
tuning system.
And then if you go in the other direction,
then you have minor chords this way, and that
is actually based on the subharmonic series,
and that is a note that you don't get in the
Western tuning system down there.
And so, it's major sounding chords and minor
sounding chords interrelating to make this
matrix.
There's a major chord there, and the same
thing there, and transposed up and up in different
positions.
So, the harmonic series that way, the subharmonic
series that way, and they interrelate together
to make this matrix of pitches.
So anyway you can try this out and do notice,
as I change these notes, that the patterns
here change, and the Lissajous patterns are
changing as I press notes down.
So press a few notes down, and you get a pattern
appear over there. Now, there's a thing that
I've added recently to this, the rhythms capability.
The way this works is that each pitch is playing
at a slightly faster tempo depending on the
pitch. It's an idea that was explored by an
American composer in the twentieth century,
and I used it in the Tune Smithy Lambdoma
because Barbara Hero was asking, can you have
a way of the rhythm depending on the pitch,
and I put that into Tune Smithy Lambdoma,
and this was the obvious way to do it.
So, if you have a listen to what it sounds
like.
And then you can add and remove notes, and
you get a different one sounding.
Now notice how that one at the bottom, that's
a very low pitched one [slower] - and the
other ones are playing polyrhythmically with
it. [NB is rather low, may not hear it on
laptop speakers]. So anyway you can try that
out for yourself once you've got the programs,
and play around, and see if you feel it does
have therapeutic healing properties on your
body.
But whether or not, it is just great fun to
play around with it anyway. And then you always
have the question, where do you put the third
frequency, because you've only got two directions.
So, there are various solutions you can do
in 2D, have both of them in the same direction,
have one of them at a slant, or wahtever,
but a very natural thing, is to have the third
direction into the third dimension when you
have a three note chord.
But I never thought of that, until Charles
Lucy, and he is the composer of the Lucy Tuned
Lullabies, anyway he suggested to me, what
about putting it into three dimensions, and
this is what came out as the result.
So now, what else have we got.
Well, you notice how the visual patterns,
the Lissajous patterns changed, and these
are in two dimensions. When you get to three
notes, then you get these complex patterns.
When it's just two notes, then it's a very
simple one where it is just going back and
forth one way, and back and forth the other
way, this is a geometrical way of showing
the way the two frequencies are related to
each other. When it's just two, you've got
one frequency that way and one that way.
But when you get to a three note chord, you
always have the question, where do you put
the third frequency. So there are various
solutions you can do in 2D, have two of them
the same direction, have one of them at a
slant, or whatever, but a very natural thing
is to have the third direction into the third
dimension. when you have a three note chord.
But I never thought of that until Charles
Lucy, and he is the composer of the Lucy Tuned
Lullabies, anyway he suggested to me, what
about putting it into three dimensions, and
this is what came out as the result.
So, as you can see, I've now added transparency
and textures, and you get these rather lovely
patterns, I was very surprised at how well
it turned out, and how beautiful the results
were.
And you can run the patterns as a screensaver,
certainly you can on windows. I'm not sure
how that works on the Mac but that obviously
one of the things that I can investigate and
find out, with it changing from one to the
other as the screensaver keeps going.
And then you can also use it to make animations
if you are into artistic animations, just
like with virtual flower, with these more
like curves, curvy animations.
So, that's what Lissajous 3D does. Now I think
I've gone round most of my programs, but there
is this one left. And this one is, Activity
Timer, just a little utility that keeps track
of how much time you spend on various projects.
And so it can say, for instance, I have spent
so much on kickstarter, so much on Tune Smithy,
so much on Bounce Metronome, or whatever.
Now, I've just done this for demonstration,
because I don't actually need to know how
long I've spent on projects at the moment.
But if you do need to then this is a useful
program.
Then the other thing it can do, if you find
you tend to get rather square eyed, if you
sit at a computer, you tend to find, there
is something a bit hypnotic about the computer
screen, I think most people would agree, and
it also tends to - there is something it does
to your eyes. It's probably something to do
with the frequency of refresh of the display,
maybe not so much now as it was, but still
a little bit of an issue, you can't focus
quite so clearly on a computer screen, as
you can on other things, because of the refresh
rate, at least, so some people think.
So, your eyes get very tired with a computer
screen, if you look at it continuously for
long periods of time, anyway, whatever the
reasons, technical reasons why, many people
do find their eyes do get tired, and it is
good to have a reminder, and every twenty
minutes, you get a little musical reminder
that pops up at whatever time you want, whatever
time interval you want to set, and this is
just a reminder to move your eyes away from
the screen, look into the distance, and relax
your eyes. just for a few seconds. And that's
a very good practise to do that, every twenty
minutes or so when you are using a computer.
And then there's also the thing that just
sitting at your computer all day, is bad for
your health, and definitely recommended that
you get up and walk around, at least every
hour and a half or something like that, even
if you want to continuously work on the computer,
and of course it is good to take a break as
well, it refreshes you. So you can set up
to have a reminder, after an hour and a half,
just to get up off your seat for a few minutes
at least before you continue working again.
So, that's what Activity Timer does. So I
think I've now gone round all of my programs.
So, I'll talk now about porting them over
to the Mac, and what that involves. So first
of all, I'm extremely optimistic that it's
going to work. If you look over here, this
is Bounce Metronome, and you've seen it running
away all through while I'm talking probably,
then that is running, actually, not on Windows,
that is running on the Linux operating system.
And the technique I used for that is this
thing called Wine, you can read later in the
page, I'll put in the FAQ, about how this
all works. But the long and short of it is,
that it is very high performance. That there
is almost nothing between my code and the
native hardware. The code that I write runs
exactly as is on an Intel Mac. That's why
it won't work on an iPad or iPhone, because
the code is Intel Code. But it will run exactly
as is, on an Intel Mac, and then all the things
like drawing in circles and so on, there is
a very thin layer between my program and the
native code that draws circles on your computer.
So this means it is vry high performance potentially,
and there is no virtual machine in between
my program and the hardware.
And also the 3D graphis I'll be able to do
directly onto your hardware with Open GL,
so that will be very eaccelerated and fast
as well.
So given that it is completely impossible,
it would be ten years of someone's work to
rewrite everything for the Mac, then this
is the, it would be immensely expensive, quarter
or a half million pounds probably to pay someone
to do that, if you could find someone to do
it, but this is a way you can do this very
easily and quickly compared to that. And probably
within a week or two, or months at the most
you can have these programs all running on
the Mac.
The reason that they won't probably run straight
away is just because Wine is not Windows.
Wine is developed as a free source, open source,
completely from scratch, and they follow the
documentation for Windows, but they don't
use any of the microsoft source code. This
means that there can be very subtle differences
between the two.
This is also the reason why it can be completely
free, and legal to use it. So there will be
no additional cost for my program once I have
wrapped them around this. Of course you are
getting the programs anyway, but later when
people are buying the programs, then they
won't need to pay any extra for the Wine.
Amd you don't need to install anything on
your computer. Now you do need to install
Wine on Linux if you wish to use my program
on Linux, and then you also have to set up
these other things to make it produce sounds.
But on the Mac the way it works is very different.
On the Mac you have what is called a Wine
Skin. And I have to install Wine on my computer,
and I use that to wrap Wine around my program.
And I use that to make it into something which
looks exactly like a Mac program. And you
just need to download that and use it on your
computer. and inside of it, it's actually
got the whole of Windows wrapped around it,
but Wine luckily it hasn't got any bloat,
it hasn't got all the fancy extra add-ons,
that they use in Windows, in the full multi-gigabyte
operating system, so it's only 140 megabytes,
maybe it will be 150 megabytes once it's got
my program in it, I may be able to cut it
down to less than that.
That's quite a reasonable size for a modern
program. If you are on a very slow connection,
you will also be able to get it on CD.
So you don't need to install anything extra
on your computer, you will download this big
program, which will have the whole of Windows
inside of it. Also any techy configuring I
need to do to get it to work inside of Wine,
and if I need to install extra things, like
these extra programs to make it work, then
you don't need to do that, it is all wrapped
up in this bundle. You download it and it
just looks like a single program to the Mac,
and you just run it, and when you run it,
you don't see all this stuff either. It will
just look like any ordinary Mac program. And
you will see Bounce Metronome, or Tune Smithy
or whatever it is, just running on your desktop
like any other Mac program.
I had no idea until last year when I ported
this to Linux, how seamless and how good it
is, this Wine method. Now there will be a
lot of work for me to do to make it work like
that, because of these subtle differences,
just like debugging and improving the performance
of my programs on Windows, which I've done
for many many years, but there will be some
differences, which means, there might even
be bugs where it doesn't even start at all,
those usually are very easy to fix. and then
there might also be some kind of performance
issues.
Anyway you can read through the challenges
section if you want to know the techy details
of that. The long and short is, I am very
confident that I should be able to deal with
all those things as they arrive, especially
as I have already got it running on Windows.
There's a minor technical thing if you are
a musician, I'm not sure if I'm going to be
able to get midi timing working perfectly
on a Mac. I have ways of dealing with that
if it does prove to be an issue. I am cautiously
optimistic about that, but if the midi timing
turns out to be an issue, because of the interface
from Wine to the Mac, then Bounce Metronome
will be able to also use, you've got the beep
smetronome, and you've also got drumn samples
and so on. This is a new feature I'm going
to add next week. So that will mean we will
ahve a very precise metronome, and playing
very precise sounds, no matter what.
So, I am extremely confident we are going
to get all of this workingon the Mac. I can't
totally say, 99.99% certain. I can't totally
say because I simply haven't done it. Many
programs have, including many games. And games
of course put a lot of demands on the Mac,
and they run just fine, so I am very confident
I am going to get Bounce Metronome running
find on the Mac.
And so, that's it, I'll talk a little bit
about the pledges and the reward. It's a bit
unusual (I'll just get over to that screen
somehow, where am I, oh I'm using the wrong
mouse) then if you have a look at the kickstarter
page, then you'll find on the right hand side
all these pledges.
To find out what you get which I've already
explained, then go to the £12 pledge, where
you get a long explanation of the reward,
it is basically an unlock key for all the
programs. And the deadline december of this
year, but it could actually be long before
that, that I get the program for a Mac, but
you get the unlock keys 14 days after the
end of the kickstarter.
Now the unusual thing is that all the pledges
have exactly the same rewards. So I'd like
to say a bit about why that is. It's because
the users of my programs come from so many
diverse backgrounds. And for instance, if
you are an Indian musician, and you get paid
in rupees, and you convert your rupees into
US dollars in order to buy software, then
you will find that your rupees get turned
into very little in terms of US dollars. A
huge amount of rupees can turn into very little
by way of US dollars, just because of the
way the exchange rate works. And there is
no reason at all for it.
I don't know why it happens, I am no economist,
as to why that is. But there is nothing, you
are just a musician, an Indian musician, why
should it be like that?
Well I've done it so that my programs, you
can just choose whatever price is appropriate
depending on your situation. So if you are
in India, then you can go for the one pound
pledge. or the one pound version of Bounce
Metronome. And the same thing can also happen
if you are in the West and in Europe or in
the States or anywhere else where there are
very high incomes, in Japan or whatever, then
you still might be in the situation where
you have a lot of income coming in, but you
have a lot of outgoings as well, things that
you absolutely have to pay, for one reason
or another.
And then at the end of the month, can be very
little between the two. So you get people
who are quite hard up in Western countries
as well, or in European countries, and the
United States and all these other places.
So if you are in that situation, and you have
to save up for a month, or two months, in
order to find twelve pounds, then please don't
do that. Please just go and choose whatever
level you can find straight away.
So that's how I do it with my programs, that's
how I do it with Kickstarter. And if you find
yourself hesitating, can I find this amount,
then go for a lower price level.
The standard level - and even though I reassure
everyone about this - to start with I was
rather scared, about doing this, I thought
that everyone would just go for the one pound
level. But in practise it doesn't work like
that. In practise, most people go for the
full price. And the equivalent of full price
for the kickstarter is the £12 level. And
the equivalent of educational is the £6 level.
and for retired is the £3 level. these are
quite a bit lower proces, especially if you
are buying all the software, but obviously
you are not going to get it until 14 days
after the end of the kickstarter. and the
chances are you've got a Mac anyway. I've
put higher pledges as well, so if you feel
you want tosuppport it at a higher level,
than you can go all the way up to £100, and
you have exactly the same reward.
And, very much appreciated if you want to
support it at whatever level.
Then the other way you can help, as well as
pledging, is by telling people about it. In
many ways this is as useful, or more helpful
than pledging for it. So people you think
would be interested in it,
Of course you owuldn't for instance post about
it to the Linux musician's forum, or something
like that, so be careful not to spam, but
in any place where there are people who are
likely to be very keen and interested in seeing
Bounce Metronome for the Mac, then, your friends,
social media, anything like that, that's a
great help.
So thanks, anyway, let's hope that one way
or another we can get all these programs running
on an Intel Mac, and if we hit this target.
Oh and one thing, I must explain, why I am
doing it, why I have to get an Intel Mac for
myself, and why I can't just test it on Windows.
That is what I do with Linux. It is a free
operating system, it is very easy to put it
onto Windows, that is no problem at all.
with the Mac operating system, you can buy
it certainly, that is no problem, you can
go and buy the Mac operating system, and technically
there is no reason, it is pretty much the
same chip or exactly the same chip, you'd
think there is no reason why you can't run
it on Windows.
But of course, Apple Mac are a hardwre company,
and they are interested in selling Macs, and
the operating system will not run on any hardware
except an Apple Mac.
It checks to see if it is runnning, and what
it's running on, and it will just refuse to
start if I try to run it on these computers.
So that is why - it is quite understandable,
I mean obviousy they probably wouldn't have
had the success and been able to reach the
stage they are now if they hadn't done that.
so that's why I have to get an Intel Mac in
order to do this. Any one will do so long
as it runs the latest operating system, there
is no extra requriement apart from that.
So that's it, that's what this kickstarter
is all about. And if you want to help in any
way, then that's very much appreciated, and
thanks very much. And if you have any questions
at all please contact me about that too. And
thanks for listening and hope you enjoyed
this video.