developing a sample slicer plugin - Ninjas

[rghvdberg]

Hi all,

The last few months I've been developing a sample slicer plugin with the DPF framework.

Ninjas
Ninjas Is Not Just Another Slicer
https://github.com/rghvdberg/ninjas

It's still early work but should be just about usable.
Here's what it looks like


Build instructions
Dependencies

• libgl1-mesa-dev
• libx11-dev
• libsndfile1-dev
• libsamplerate0-dev
• libaubio-dev

If you want a standalone jack binary install either libjack-dev or libjack-jackd2-dev

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git clone --recursive https://github.com/rghvdberg/ninjas.git
cd ninjas
make

notice the clone --recursivepart to pull in the DPF framework.

There is no make install, binaries will appear in <source dir>ninjas/bin/, just copy the binaries to a appropiate location.

Usage

• load Ninjas in a suitable host.
• click Diskette drive
• load audio sample
• set slice mode using the slider
• set number of slices using the Slices knob.
• Sample slices will be mapped to C4 (midi note 60) and up
• Change the pitch of slice with pitchbend
• Each slice has it's own ADSR and playmode settings. Use the righthand Slice Selector to select the slice you want to edit

Of course there are bugs and missing features, please file them at github https://github.com/rghvdberg/ninjas/issues .
There's a dedicated Matrix room (#ninjas:matrix.org) for Ninjas which is a good place to keep check on commits, report bugs and ask questions.

I hope people will find this plugin useful.

Regards,

Rob

[Frank Carvalho]

I love the user interface

[ssj71]

congrats on your first pre-release!

p.s. I didn't realize the name was recursive. Double points for that!

[Michael Willis]

I have no idea what this even does, but I love the part of the UI that looks like a floppy drive. I'm pretty sure my kids have no idea what that even is.

[rghvdberg]

congrats on your first pre-release!

p.s. I didn't realize the name was recursive. Double points for that!

Actually you suggested this name.
I had Ninyas : yet another slicer.

[rghvdberg]

I have no idea what this even does, but I love the part of the UI that looks like a floppy drive. I'm pretty sure my kids have no idea what that even is.

Took me 12+ hours to trace that floppy

The plugin is meant to rearrange parts of an audio sample.
Say you got a drumloop of 1 measure, 4 beats.
You set the slicer knob to 4 and then you can play the beats with (midi) keys C4, C#4, D4 and D#4.

There are two forms of slicing.
Raw, slices the sample purely on arithmetic. Length / slices.
Onsets, tries to find the nearest start of a note or beat to the slice.
Let's say my sample is 100 long and I slice it up in 4 parts. Start of each slice 1, 25, 50 and 75.
The onset detection finds notes at 3, 20, 27, 54, 72 and 80
The slices will then start on 3, 27, 54 and 72.
The onset to slices mapping is a bit crude and needs more thought and work.

Each slice has his own adsr and playmode. You can change playmode on the fly. Fun with long samples.
Also midi pitchbend changes the pitch of the samples.
Come to think of it. With some clever automation in a DAW you could even use this to scratch...

The 4 x 4 button grid on the right you use to select the sample you wanna edit. Check how the adsr and playmode reset to each slices.

Hope this explains some more.
I'll make a demo video soon.

[mendo]

This is really great.

Unfortunately, Ardour did not recognise it.

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[ERROR]: LV2: Failed to instantiate plugin https://github.com/rghvdberg/ninjas

In Qtractor, it says:

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lilv_lib_open(): error: Failed to open library.lv2/ninjas.lv2/ninjas_dsp.so (.lv2/ninjas.lv2/ninjas_dsp.so: Fehler beim Mappen des Shared Objects)

What could be the reason?

[rghvdberg]

This is really great.

Unfortunately, Ardour did not recognise it.

Code: Select all

[ERROR]: LV2: Failed to instantiate plugin https://github.com/rghvdberg/ninjas

In Qtractor, it says:

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lilv_lib_open(): error: Failed to open library.lv2/ninjas.lv2/ninjas_dsp.so (.lv2/ninjas.lv2/ninjas_dsp.so: Fehler beim Mappen des Shared Objects)

What could be the reason?

I'll check. Thanks for the heads up.

[rghvdberg]

I can't reproduce the error mentioned above.
Could you post the output of

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ldd ninjas_dsp.so

TIA

[rghvdberg]

Another thing. Currently it won't run in Ardour. Crash as soon as you load a file.
Probably has to do with dynamic linking.
I'm a noob, so I have to figure out how to link statically.
This is not a problem in qtractor btw.

Found a second bug when slicing and setting all slices to loop forward. Gonna have to dig a bit in the code what's going wrong. Seems the loop points (slice start and end) aren't set up perfectly.

[simonvanderveldt]

Another thing. Currently it won't run in Ardour. Crash as soon as you load a file.
Probably has to do with dynamic linking.
I'm a noob, so I have to figure out how to link statically.
This is not a problem in qtractor btw.

Found a second bug when slicing and setting all slices to loop forward. Gonna have to dig a bit in the code what's going wrong. Seems the loop points (slice start and end) aren't set up perfectly.

Please at least keep the option to link dynamically. or preferably don't do static linking at all.
I'm guessing the issue is caused by a binary download (Ardour in this case)? Don't understand why projects keep building those instead of letting the distro's do it properly.

[rghvdberg]

Please at least keep the option to link dynamically. or preferable don't do static linking at all.
I'm guessing the issue is caused by a binary download (Ardour in this case)? Don't understand why projects keep building those instead of letting the distro's do it properly.

You guessed right
First lemme learn how to link statically please

[rghvdberg]

Update

1. fixed the slicing / looping bug
2. plugin is linked statically now BUT this only works on kxstudio
   I edited https://github.com/rghvdberg/ninjas/blo ... akefile.mk
   
   I replaced

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    $(shell pkg-config --cflags --libs aubio)

   with

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   $(shell PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/kxstudio/lib/pkgconfig pkg-config --static --libs aubio)

   This requires the installation of 'aubio-static'

For now I'll keep it this way.

Next up is displaying the onsets detected by aubio in the lcd display.

[rghvdberg]

I think it's pretty usable at the moment. I'd like people to test it.
Comments welcome

I've set up a github release page where you can download binaries and source.
https://github.com/rghvdberg/ninjas/rel ... re-release

The binaries are compiled on Ubuntu 16.04 with KXStudio repositories added.
You'll need libsamplerate and libsoundfile to run the plugin.

The tarballs contains:

• ninjas (jack app)
• ninjas.lv2
• ninjas-vst.so

Copy the files to an appropriate location. Typically the ninjas.lv2 folder (as a whole) goes in ~/.lv2 and
ninjas-vst.so goes in ~/.vst. You can copy the ninjas binary to ~/bin.

Usage

• load Ninjas in a suitable host or use the ninjas binary
• click Diskette drive
• load audio sample
  note : file handling is done by libsndfile, for all file formats supported by libsndfile refer to http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile/#Features
• set number of slices using the Slices knob
• set slicing method using the slider
• Raw: slices up the sample in equal parts
• Onsets: snaps the slice start and end to the nearest detected onset
• Sample slices will be mapped to C4 (midi note 60) and up
• Change the pitch of a slice with pitchbend
• Each slice has it's own ADSR and playmode settings. Use the righthand Slice Selector to select the slice you want to edit

Ninjas looks like this:


Build instructions
Dependencies

• libgl1-mesa-dev
• libx11-dev
• libsndfile1-dev
• libsamplerate0-dev

If you want a standalone jack binary install either libjack-dev or libjack-jackd2-dev

Note : when you download the sources, you'll notice the dpf folder is empty.

Code: Select all

cd ninjas
git clone https://github.com/DISTRHO/DPF.git dpf
make

There is no make install, binaries will appear in ~ninjas/bin/, just copy the binaries to an appropriate location.

[stanlea]

Thanks