Homegrown Sounds

A simple program which soft monitors soundcard inputs on a MAC without having to open a DAW to enable monitoring. I made this for myself because the direct monitoring on a Steinberg UR22 mkII treats them as dual mono and so is no use for listening to stereo input sources. I thought other people might find it useful too.

I’m in the process of implementing code signing/notarization for the Mac versions of apps. On the last few versions of MacOS, it gives a warning and no option to open the file without shift-clicking/open. Code signing means the open option is available on the ‘downloaded from the internet’ warning & Apple verifies that the file was compiled on my registered development Mac.

I haven’t got notarization working yet which is when apple scans files for viruses and attaches their certificates. It’s complex and I haven’t worked out how to work this in to my workflow as yet. It will happen  though.

Kit Creator will also be updated soon.

Batch xFader is designed to accomplish the tedious work involved making sampler instruments out of samples. This process generally involves:

• Creating a sustain loop
• Cross fading the loop so it loops seamlessly
• Trimming any space at the start
• or trimming all/most space at the start
• Creating a short fade in at the start to avoid any non zero-crossing clicks
• Deleting all data after the loop section which is not usually used
• Converting Stereo to Mono
• Converting to multiple formats

Batch xFader can accomplish all of these tasks as a batch process on the selected folder of WAVs very quickly.

v0.992

• TAL-Drum export added.
• Sitali export added with the option of embedding samples into the preset.
• Settings panel added.
• Factors panel for fine tuning the relationship between the various formats, most people should probably leave this alone.
• Templates section in the setting panel. The ability to drag & drop your own presets for use as
• Templates for each format. This opens up the power to make complex presets that use effects etc that Kit Creator can then replace its samples and parameters.
• 3 Template modes introduced that decide how the user templates are used, use the currently selected, cycle through all, randomly select from available.
• Improved Speedrum Volume parameter
• All Factors are now enabled from changing the scaling between the different outputs.
• Further Modularisation of the Scan code.

v 0.991

• Apisonic Labs Speedrum Export added.
• MPC wasn’t always exporting samples.
• Export path Displays now have right click menus with Reveal and Copy path options.
• Internal restructuring of the parameter randomization code.
• Number now starts at 1 when autonumbering exports.
• Numerous small fixes and optimizations.

This is a big update that’s seen a huge amount of work in terms of restructuring into a modular system and refining the small things. I think this really should be v1.0 but I want to see if anyone has any feedback. The formats conversion is still to come but that shouldn’t impact any existing features.

v0.99

• Added a new Pad Screen which shows which allows clicking on a pad and showing/enabling which of the folders are assigned. Pads can also be labelled and saved as label presets.
  • Pads will display folders faded if they do not have any folders assigned. Folders will be faded if they are not assigned to currently selected Pad.
  • Pad Screen allows drag & dropping multiple folders and drag & drop re-ordering.
  • Pad Panel shows which pads a folder is assigned to when hovering over a folder.
• Folder Displays now have a right click menu that provides various options such as remove, clear, copy Path & open in Finder/Explorer.
• Processing Panel added and all previous top controls moved to it, it has a modular design so different inputs, tasks and outputs can be assigned now as they are developed.
• Possibility to randomize Volume, Pan and Release in existing folders of files.
• Added options to enable/disable the numeric/Random name generators.
• Numeric name now counts existing files and starts numbering at total+1.
• Added Folder Size Display to Folders Panel and total at the top.
• Folder Highlight Colour added to themes.
• Folder Border added to themes.
• Added Mouse Over highlight to the dummy folder box on the themes page so that Folder highlight can be previewed on that page.
• Output Amount now displays ‘All’ instead of -1.
• It’s now no longer possible to load the exact same directory twice.
• Folder and Slider Headers were using the wrong Text Colour, should have been Header text.
• Folders now support Drag & Drop to change the order instead of the up/down arrows.
• Slider number labels now use the correct theme colour.
• Slider panel parameter Enable controls moved to processing Panel.
• Rewritten how the messages are used throughout the app, now hovering over controls will display messages at the top instead of through the Tooltip system.
• Right click menu added to file displays with delete file/save etc…
• Preset Table Border now uses the border colour correctly.
• Manual rewritten to reflect the many changes.

v0.961

• Fixed issue with crashes related to aif cache files or other non audio files with .aif + further extension.
• Added Version Number to the Logo Display.

v0.96

• Folder Tooltip now shows full Folder path in case it’s too long to fit and the Folder field truncates the path so you can always see the end Folder. This also applies to the MPC output field.
• Option to disable copying samples for Live Kits so the kit points to their current location instead. Note that this isn’t possible for MPC as Programs and samples have to be in the same folder.
• Boiler Plate code implemented, I’ve hopefully covered all scenarios now.
• Scan logging implemented. Each time process is started log.txt is cleared & created in documents/Homegrown Sounds/Kit Creator.
• Improved the Collection name text editor so that it saves correctly on enter and restores previous name on escape.
• Fixed the scan message not displaying.
• Added Reveal buttons for opening the destination folders in Finder/Explorer.

• Adds a Preset System and Theming:
• Settings storage improved so they can easily adapt to additional settings in future updates and a pathway towards themes and presets.
• Preset System added. Saves Slider, Folder and Export options. You can decide whether the folder paths are loaded as they are only really relevant to the local machine. Presets are stored in /documents/Homegrown Sounds/Kit Creator/Presets and presets need to be created in this folder.
• Info display now shows Slider values as they are edited.
• Added Set All Buttons for each Slider Bank “A” which sets all Slider values to the same as the top slider.
  Each Parameter now has an Enable Button to decide whether those values should be randomized.
• Global Default implemented, click the ‘D’ button. You can overwrite the Default file by using the ‘save default’ button.
• Theme system implemented using all 22 Colours with an in application colour selector and load/save mechanism. Themes are stored in documents/Homegrown Sounds/Kit Creator/Themes.

Kit Creator is a program for Windows/Mac that automatically generates Sample Kits of 16 samples for MPCs and Ableton Live. You can drop up to 16 Directories that contain samples and assign which Pads they will be used for.

Available for an Early Bird Price of $19.99 until the end of the month.