Dev log #32 - Refactoring hell (Patreon)

I am pretty happy with the progress I have made with the refactoring so far though it turned into a much bigger job than I anticipated. The second stage of refactoring (modularizing the sample playback engines) is probably going to be rolled into the first stage because it is easier and more efficient to do them both together.

This is because I am changing the way all project data is stored and manipulated and this includes the modulation system which interacts heavily with the playback engines. I could technically keep the playback engines as they are while I finish the first round of refactoring but this would involve spending unnecessary time integrating with a lot of old code which I know is eventually going to be replaced.

In the past I have been able to release regular-ish incremental builds to give everyone a clear idea of what progress I am making  but that is not really possible right now so please bear with me!

I started work on designing an API and library to allow other developers to add their own playback engines to Blockhead. The existing Classic and Fudge modes will be reimplemented using this API once I finish figuring out how it should work:

https://github.com/colugomusic/blkhdgen

I have been talking a bit with Marek from elf audio who has a very nice sounding time stretching algorithm up his sleeve which hopefully we can add as an alternative to Fudge.

On Christmas day I decided to give myself a break from refactoring hell to do something more fun and I started messing around with implementing a sine bank oscillator based on some concepts I was experimenting with years ago in Reaktor.

At the end of the video I turn on a weird scale-snapping mode which manipulates the individual partials of the sine bank to make them morph into a chord.

I plan to add a lot of different synthesis engines to Blockhead in the future most likely including some kind of additive engine like this.