New to flowstone and this forum

[Chregg]

hi all im new to flowstone, folowed a you tube tutorial on how to make a basic synth which i did, but cant figure out how to add colour to the plug-in, when i render it exe i cant get any midi to it, but it is cool as a vsti, another question, i dont have any experience with writting code and im wondering the best route to take to learn ruby, is there any literature on the subject to follow, any help will be most welcome, cheers in adavance, chris

[trogluddite]

Hi Chris, welcome to the forum.

when i render it exe i cant get any midi to it, but it is cool as a vsti

Ah yes, if it's the tutorial I'm thinking of, it doesn't really cover .exe synths, and there are a few differences in how you have to wire things up...

For a VST synth
Audio and MIDI input/output primitives (e.g. ASIO, DS, MIDI In select) go outside your export module, leaving it with just the little round connectors for the audio and MIDI. When the VST is loaded, the host latches on to those connector, and it is the host that sorts out which MIDI port to talk to etc.

For an .exe
As there is no host, the .exe has to sort out soundcard/MIDI communication for itself.
So, in this case, the MIDI and Audio primitives have to go inside the export module. You then need a little user interface, so that the end user can make whatever soundcard setting they want (e.g. choose a driver, set the sample rate etc.)
Assuming you are using an ASIO soundcard, there's a solution in the toolbox - just include the "Audio Menu" module inside your design. It will appear on the front panel as a menu bar with selectors for MIDI In, Audio driver, sample rate etc. The Audio driver settings are automatically picked up by the 'ASIO In', 'ASIO out' primitives - and it has a MIDI output that connects to whichever MIDI port has been selected.
Here's a little template file, to give you a clearer idea...

EXE template.fsm

(2.64 KiB) Downloaded 1153 times

ruby, is there any literature on the subject to follow

There's a selection of useful Ruby resources on this thread...
Which book is best for learning Ruby?
Ruby is pretty new to all of us here, so most of the stuff there is aimed at beginners. There are a few things that work a little differently when Ruby is inside Flowstone, compared to a regular Ruby program - so if you come across anything that doesn't work as expected, just ask on the forum, and we'll point you in the right direction.

Hope you enjoy using FS, and the forum.
Best wishes
Trog.

[Chregg]

Trogluddite thanx very much, thats a great help, looks like i have a steep learning curve here, gonna take a while to get my head round this, whole new world from just being a vst user, thanx again

[Chregg]

one other thing i figured out how to add colour to the exe, but dont know how to do it for the vst version ???

[Drnkhobo]

Im assuming you mean the colour scheme for the VST?

There will be GUI elements in the VST for each module.

Click on one and the click the little "P" button (Bottom right of module)

It will open and you can do some basic colour changes in there. . .