A full day of programming, recompiling and checking the last of the 120 audio plugins. In the end, the files are about the same size and about the same speed, so there was little point in doing it. There is always the risk of accidentally adding new bugs, but now all plugins should support a change of master frequency. I'll probably never do this. I hope never to, but sometimes technology forces and change and I am reliant on this software for all of my music.
One thing that will/would need tweaking are the time slopes for things like compressors and gates... those are based on multipliers eg. multiplying the level with 0.999 every sample. This means that a different sample rate will create different timings. There's no easy way to change this (apart from to recalculate this value for a new rate, but this may not be a perfect conversion, at these tiny levels, the floating points can sometimes spiral into strange values). I'll worry about that when needed. When someone decided on 44100hz for compact discs, he may have set an audio standard for centuries to come, and I will hope and assume this is true.
Other changes include a change to the white noise generation. The old version, for nearly 20 years, had effectively generated a number from -1 to 0.999979999 rather than -1 to +1; and its seed was reset at the start of every play of an instrument so it wasn't as 'random' as it could be. Small changes. Part of me was hesitant to change this above all else, as the sound of the noise is a key part of the sound of the system. It's odd that every instrument, even software and digital electronics, sounds different, unique, and Prometheus has a unique timbre that I don't want to harm.
All of the other changes were essentially adding defined constants to the code rather than using numbers. In all cases, the output result should be identical to the old versions, and a simple test of rendering an 'old' plugin song vs new one shows them to be identical. So far so good.
I find this nerve-jangling, as the ideal is that it's the same as before. Programming causes a strange nervous illness in me, a quest for unattainable perfection which the computer demands. It's a horrible illness and one that, ultimately, was the cause for me giving up programming for the joyous life of art. Still, the power and control that comes from programming my own musical instrument is good to have. One of my main motivations for programming Noise Station (and then Prometheus) was lack of money for music software, but now my creation is priceless.
I can get back to music tomorrow... and therefore testing.
I'm full of ideas and potential music. I am reminded that my last album (Remembrance Service; Heart Of Snow was the most recent release but that was finished last January, before I'd started Remembrance Service) was nearly a year ago. I have about three albums worth of music already! This is getting a bit too much... I listened to the old Harlequin Kings songs yesterday and I realised just how much my singing has improved since then, and also notably since a year ago. I could re-record songs like Incomplete Version of the Writer, and many others... but why? All it may do is overwhelm anyone who might like my music, but at the same time, it would be a shame if these songs remained unheard forever, and, of course, no matter how much music I made, I'd run out of energy and growth soon enough.
So, new work must at least be a certain step-up from previous work, technically if not saying something new; or I must focus more on other aspects, like videos, the sheet music, and book publication work. For now, I'll complete The Golden Age. It began as exactly that need to share songs that it would be 'a shame to remain hidden' - but that's a weak ambition and I've changed the album, added more, tried to push for some new artistic unity or creative progress. I've certainly made a few technical production, as well as performance, improvements, but those things should be an incidental benefit, not the purpose for art.
Well, I need at least an opening track, and I penned a few words last night about art and its course, which may suffice.
Tonight; a nice meal with Deb to celebrate Chinese New Year. Onwards we charge.
