@@ 1,81 1,74 @@
#+TITLE: PolarPlayer-Studio
#+DESCRIPTION: Introduction PolarPlayer-Studio
#+SETUPFILE: ../../config.org
-#+DATE:<2022-06-17 Fri 10:30>
+#+DATE: <2023-01-30 13:00>
* Introduction
-
-I've owned a ROLI Seaboard for over 3 years now
-and when the news that ROLI would retire the seaboard got to me
-I was somewhat disappointed
-\- I was probably one of the last people wait for a linux native version.
-
-But then I realized that I'm a software developer
-which means that I can build my own MIDI synthesizer software.
-And this is how PolarPlayer was bord.
+I've owned a ROLI Seaboard Block for over 3 years now,
+and I think that ROLI is a perfect example for proprietary hardware & software:
+Ever since ROLI released Equator Player, people have been asking for a Linux version [fn::https://support.roli.com/support/discussions/topics/36000004475?sort=popularity],
+but that never happened,
+and given that ROLI is sunsetting the Seaboard and rebranding itself as Lumi[fn::https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/2/22653749/music-startup-roli-administration-reform-luminary-lumi-keys-app]
+this probably won't ever happen.
+
+I've experienced with the idea of writing my own synth before,
+but the fact, that there won't ever be an official Equator Player version for Linux,
+motivated me to finally go through with it.
+
+So I made some design mockups and started working on a prototype web app,
+but gave up pretty quickly, because webmidi lacked availability in browsers.
+Additionally, I was learning rust at that point in time,
+and honestly preferred it over JavaScript.
* The rise and fall of PolarPlayer
-Acctually I have had plans to write PolarPlayer ever since I got my seaboard
-as 5D-touch[fn:1] gives you so many oportunities for gestures.
+This gets us to the beginning of 2022,
+when I started working on what has become my first working version of PolarPlayer.
-I designed a couple of web-based UIs
-but never acctually wrote code for them
-because I came to realize that webmidi support
-is not as widespread as I hoped.
+Actually, I originally intended PolarPlayer to become a command-line application,
+that you had to run from the terminal.
+But supercollider, the audio processing engine, I relied on,
+didn't provide the features I was looking for.
+And having to start two applications just to make music got really annoying,
+really quick.
-So in January this year (2022)
-I started working on what has become my first working version of polarplayer.
-This version is written in rust
-and was supposed to be run from a linux terminal,
-where one was able to specify the MIDI port and the supercollider instance.
-Yes, you heard that correctly,
-this version did not include it's own audio processing engine
-but instead relied on supercollider to do the work.
-In the end the supercollider library did not provide enough functionallity
-to control the synths in the way I wanted to.
-So I stopped working on this cli version and archived it.
-You can still check it out over on [[https://codeberg.org/comcloudway/polarplayer][codeberg]].
+This led to me sunsetting the PolarPlayer CLI version,
+but if you want to take a look at it,
+you can still check it out over on [[https://codeberg.org/comcloudway/polarplayer][codeberg]].
* Setting sail
[[https://codeberg.org/comcloudway/polarplayer-studio/media/branch/main/screenshots/popups.png]]
-#+DESCRIPTION: A screenshot of PolarPlayer Studios patchbay
+#+DESCRIPTION: A screenshot of PolarPlayer Studios patch bay
#+NAME: PolarPlayer Studio Screenshot
-After retiring polarplayer,
-I got into rust gui libraries
-and started experimenting with [[][egui]].
+After retiring PolarPlayer,
+I got into rust GUI libraries
+and started experimenting with [[https://www.egui.rs/][egui]].
-This led to me forking my old polarplayer version
-and rewriting it as a gui application.
-The first three alpha versions used sdl as the backend
+To indicate that PolarPlayer Studio was an extended version of PolarPlayer,
+I forked my own repo and rewrote most,
+if not all the existing code.
+The first three alpha versions used SDL as the backend
(They can also be found on [[https://codeberg.org/comcloudway/polarplayer-studio/src/commit/b418e851c3ee72f5a63f32699801f82d74edcde7][codeberg]])
-But I later switched to [[][miniquad]] because I had one goal in mind:
-Build a cross platform MIDI synthesizer.
+But I later switched to [[https://github.com/not-fl3/miniquad][miniquad]] because I had one goal in mind:
+Building a cross-platform MIDI synthesizer.
-And because this new version featured a gui
+And because this new version featured a GUI
I called it ~PolarPlayer Studio~
* Current status
-Most of the work on PolarPlayer Studio has been done.
-At least it is usable and I released the first stable version.
+Most of the work on PolarPlayer Studio is completed.
+At least it is usable and I released the first stable version,
+titles [[https://codeberg.org/comcloudway/polarplayer-studio/releases/tag/0.3.0][Arctic circle]].
-Additionally I've had problems with the current graph library
-as I would really like to have different connection types,
-so I'm able to map the notes to generators
-instead of only being able to play with one generator at a time.
+I've also added support for connector-types,
+allowing for fine-tuned configurations.
+Additionally, one can now save and load presets,
+although, the positions are currently not persevered.
-Even though I released the first version,
-PolarPlayer Studio is still missing some important features.
-For example I would really like to be able to save the node layout as preset
-so I can build instruments and reuse them.
+Unfortunately, university is currently taking up a lot of my time,
+which is why PolarPlayer Studio hasn't seen updated in over 4 months now.
+Hopefully I'll be able to get back to it at some point.
-As of right now I'm taking a break from PolarPlayer Studio
-as I'm working on my own MIDI instrument,
-which is supposed to be compatible with PolarPlayer Studio.
-I will probably publish a blog post one I get it done.
-
-For now you can track PolarPlayer Studio's progress
+For now, you can track PolarPlayer Studio's progress
over on [[https://codeberg.org/comcloudway/polarplayer-studio][codeberg]]
-
-[fn:1] Not really 5D but you also have preassure sensitivity like with a piano