New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Multi-platform modular music creation studio
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queries
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New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by queries »

Inspired by this thread ... https://www.facebook.com/groups/sunvox/ ... 039180932/

I've started a new project: "The Complete Guide to SunVox". It's Creative Commons licensed, and its vision is to provide organized resources for a wide range of SunVox users, from beginners all the way to advanced users and software developers.

I wrote the first draft of the first "page" today; it demonstrates the publishing tools I created to help produce the book, and also gives a practical tip for the Loop module.

https://sunvox-guide.readthedocs.io/en/ ... ssion.html

It features auto-rendered module graphs and patterns, and auto-generated WAV clips of patterns, so that you can create pages with lots of embedded goodies that are always guaranteed to be accurate and in-sync with any source material used.

I have some table-of-contents ideas in mind and will flesh that out in the coming days.

If anyone has suggestions or requests, or would even like to help write/edit, please let me know here or via private message. I'd love to help convert some of the communal SunVox knowledge into an ever-expanding resource.

(I'm also interested in eventually translating, since I know there's a large Russian user base for SunVox... but I have never managed a translation project for something like this. Any advice or help on that front is much appreciated as well!)
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met
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by met »

Sounds like a neat idea that will help explain some of the more ambiguous module parameters.
I'm down to contribute with some elementary topics.
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queries
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by queries »

met wrote:Sounds like a neat idea that will help explain some of the more ambiguous module parameters.
I'm down to contribute with some elementary topics.
Great to hear!

Here is a proposed table of contents that I put together tonight: https://sunvox-guide.readthedocs.io/en/ ... d-toc.html

I know not everyone is a GitHub user, so I'm willing to work with potential authors to accommodate whatever writing tools they're comfortable with.
Koekepan
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by Koekepan »

I have some experience writing materials that are intended to be translated.

As a general rule, the idea is to avoid unusual phrasings, keep each sentence as simple as reasonably possible, and avoid regional colloquialisms that won't translated well.

If someone wants to hand me topics to write for, I'll be happy to add to the collective store. I can confirm operations on android and linux (my two platforms for sunvox) and I can provide explanations of how to do various things, or suggestions on sound design.
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queries
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by queries »

Thanks for the tips Koekepan. There's a variety of subjects we can write about, for sure. :)

I'm putting together some contribution guides over the next few days, and have also converted the table of contents into files ready to edit.

Will post here again once those guides are ready.
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queries
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by queries »

Koekepan
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by Koekepan »

Just a quick contribution. Let me know if this meets your needs.

Adding and Connecting Modules

Open sunvox, and look at your screen layout. You can see that it is divided into two, three or four panes, separated strips. You can tap and drag, or click and drag these strips to resize the panes. Make sure that none of the panes are hidden, by dragging the strips around so that you can see all the panes.

If you can see three panes, you may have your interface set not to show the timeline pane by default. On small screens, this is efficient but on larger screens it does not help you much. If you want to change this, go to the main menu -> preferences -> timeline, and change the Show Timeline setting.

If you see four panes, look at the middle two. The one one the right hand side, that contains small oblongs (at least one called Output) is where we will work.

If you see three panes, it's the one in the bottom right hand corner. If you see two panes, then the bottom one is the timeline, and is not what we need right now. You should see an icon at the top right hand corner of the timeline pane, which looks like two boxes connected by a dogleg line. Touch or click that icon to get to the three pane view with the module pane.

Let's get a clean start. Open the main menu, and select new project. This should open a little box that lets you choose Template, Empty or Cancel. Select Empty.

You should now see a module pane that is blank, except for an Output module. We will create a basic module setup in this space now. Double-tap, or right-click in the pane, on a blank spot. You should have a menu.

If you used a mouse, you should have a menu that offers you the chance to add a module. Select this, and you should see a list of modules you can add.

If you used your finger, it should jump straight ahead to where you see a list of modules to add.

Select the Generator module, and hit OK. You should see a new Generator module in your view, marked with some blinking brackets at its corners.

Let's do that again, and this time add an Echo module.

We want a signal to go from the Generator, to the Echo, to the Output. This will give us a sound from the Generator, that echoes inside the Echo module, and will end up in Output so that we can hear it.

Touch or click on Generator so that you see flashing brackets at its corners. Then click or touch the module link button in the upper right hand corner of the pane (it looks like two boxes connected by a dogleg line), then click or touch the Echo module. You should see a line running from Generator to Echo, with little lights travelling in that direction.

Now do the same again, highlighting Echo and drawing a line to Output.

In the top pane, do you see the keyboard? It looks like a piano keyboard. Touch that, to hear your sound. Can you hear it echo? That means you did this correctly - this is the basic groundwork of adding modules to design your own sounds in sunvox.
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queries
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by queries »

Definitely. Thank you! I'll get it in this weekend. I have a plan for adding images and GIFs as well, so I'll also incorporate those at certain points.
Koekepan
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by Koekepan »

Exporting to a WAV file

Sunvox can render your music to a .WAV file so that you can copy it, add it to other mixes, transcode it or whatever else you want to do.

Select the main menu in the upper left hand corner, then choose Export/import. This should open a little box with two options:

Export to WAV
Export to MIDI

What we want here is to export to WAV, so select that one.

This opens another window called Select export format.

You can choose your bit depth. There are two options: 16 bit (integer) and 32 bit (floating point). If you don't know which to choose, 16 bit is not going to get you in any trouble. That's CD quality. 32 bit is overkill for most purposes.

You can also choose your export mode:

One file (Output)
One file (selected module)
File per module
File per module (effects)
File per module (connected to Output)

If you just want to hear your song, choose One file (Output).

Next click the Export button. This will open a window in which you can name your file, and sunvox will render your file for you. Once this is done, you can copy it, listen to it - whatever you like!

The other export modes meet other needs, and are a little more advanced.

One file (selected module) lets you just get the sound that came from one module in your song, rather than just all the sound that emerged from Output.

File per module is kind of like selected module, except that it will generate a separate WAV file for every single module. Careful, on a big project this can take a lot of storage! Each filename will start with a name that you gave, then the module's number, then the module type, for example:

MySong_01_Generator.wav

File per module (effects) is like file per module, but only creates the output of each effects module. This can make sense if you're only interested in the post-effects output of every sound, rather than saving the raw sounds as well.

File per module (connected to Output) lets you save the output of every module that is linked to the Output module. This can make a lot of sense if you want the final sounds that reached the Output module, but you want them broken out.

In general, the other options are for musicians who want to extract stems from a sunvox song so that they can apply another stage of mastering. If you use sunvox as your end-to-end musical solution, you probably won't need these. Just save one file, from Output, and show the world your music.
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samrai katt kovboy
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by samrai katt kovboy »

Yes!
I am happy to see that there already are a lot of information and I hope this grows into a fully fledged manual!
Keep on and thank you for your work and everyone contributing!
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MANY CIRCLES
Koekepan
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by Koekepan »

Adding a new pattern to the timeline

Make sure you have the timeline pane open at the bottom of your interface. If you are running sunvox on a small screen, you may have to switch from the module view to the pattern view.

On a touch interface, double-tap on the timeline where you want the new pattern. You should see it appear right where you double-tapped. It will have an automatically generated new icon on it, so that you can differentiate it from other patterns.

On a computer with a mouse, right-click on the background of the timeline, and when the menu opens, select New pattern.

In each case, you may want to tweak the pattern's appearance and length, so while your chosen pattern is highlighted, select the menu icon for the timeline (horizontal bars, near the top right-hand corner of the timeline pane) and select Pattern properties. On a computer with a mouse, you can also right-click to get the menu.

In the Pattern Properties menu, you can give the pattern a name (I like to make it something useful, like: Bassline A Major), change the pattern's length and the number of tracks, and alter the icon.
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Mendi64BM
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by Mendi64BM »

Hello Queries, your project is great!
I'm a French user of Sunvox (and Virtual ANS), and i will be happy to translate your Doc in my language!
Koekepan
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by Koekepan »

Excellent, Mendi64BM! This will help for the international reach.

I'm hoping that a few of NightRadio's russian friends will help with translation there - and I'm pretty sure we have a couple of users who can handle German and Spanish.
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by Koekepan »

Arranging Patterns in the Timeline

The timeline is where you arrange your music. As the music plays, you can watch the playhead bar moving along the timeline. If you want to get your sounds happening at the right time, you need to move the patterns that play those sounds to the right place in the timeline.

You can use a mouse to click and drag a pattern around the timeline, or your finger to touch and drag them the same way.

Vertical positioning of a pattern in the timeline does not matter. This means that you can put a few patterns next to each other, vertically arranged, and the music in them will play at the same time.

Horizontal positioning of the pattern affects when in your music the sounds in that pattern will play. This is also why longer patterns are horizontally longer in the pattern display.
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queries
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Re: New project "The Complete Guide to SunVox"

Post by queries »

The book has some first-draft content now. Thanks Koekepan! :)

(Screenshots, audio samples, etc. to come in the coming days and weeks...)

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