Adobe, MAKE SOME NOISE

Correction - Not creepy!

André Michelle — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:23:18 +0000

After the last post some of you may think that we are complaining that everything is bad about the new Sound API. Well, this is certainly not true. The new Sound API works - but unfortunately not as expected. Our reaction may be seen as a bit overreacting cause most of you guys won’t run into the same issues we had when the final Flash Player launched last week.

Again the story, better explained
We ask for dynamic sound and we finally got it. Since Adobe is running a public beta phase, we could adopt very early the new Sound API. We implemented it in the Hobnox AudioTool and we were pleased how good it worked. Then we had some new challenges to solve. There are very CPU intensive tasks every audio application needs to do (creating new plugins, redrawing large areas on the screen). Since we do not have Threads we figured out another way to avoid playback gaps while intensive computation are made by the player. First, you need to pass a bunch of samples when the Sound API asks for them. Speaking for the ‘old’ version before the release, we just passed the minimum number of samples, getting a very good latency time of 46ms on a MAC. When we expect a critical process (CPU intensive), we passed the maximum number of samples. The sound card buffer had more data to play and the player more time to perform the intensive computation. The perfect solution actually.

This however changed
With the new changes it is not possible to go back to the minimum number of samples - or in short - it won’t go back to the minimum latency time. It will stay at 830ms on a MAC. So you can see, that our workaround has become useless. Building workarounds on an API running in Beta might be a bad idea. However we were sure that changes would be passed the beta group. Furthermore passing the minimal number of samples to get the lowest latency is no longer stable enough. So we were forced to switch up to 160ms AND getting playback glitches/gaps when intensive computations occur.

Work is not just work
When spending so much time on a proper audio environment in Flash - it should be comprehensive that we felt really wronged when seeing the new changes in the Sound API, done in the last minute before launch.

Peace! Adobe - but next time please tell us earlier. If there is any chance to revert that behavior in a minor update, we would all appreciate this!

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Adobe made some creepy noise

André Michelle — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:25:07 +0000

What a bummer. Adobe finally released Flash Player 10 including the new sound enhancements this website asked for. Unlike the promising improvements in the release candidates Adobe released in public, the actual Release Player is neither working as expected nor had Adobe told developers that there will come significant changes in the Sound API.

What changed?
The internal sound control asks Actionscript for more audio data, when the sound card is running out of data. The number of samples you provide can vary between 2048 (~46ms) and 8192 (~185ms). For instance in the Hobnox AudioTool we sent 2048 samples to the sound card and it worked like a charm. This is not the case anymore. Furthermore if you provide more samples once, the latency will increase at runtime and there is no way to decrease it again without stopping the playback. We used to send more data, when expecting CPU critical processes like creating plugins or scale the desktop in our application. That way we could reserve some space for intensive computation while the longer audio buffer was playing. Well, this is also not working anymore. Passing 8192 samples also leads to the enormous latency time of almost one second.

The worst part is in fact, that we were not informed about any of these changes. We would have had some time to react and adapt. Right now this is quite disappointing.

It worked before! What are these changes good for?

More information
Joa Ebert blog
Andre Michelle blog
Joe Berkovitz blog
Kai-Philipp Schöllmann blog

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FlashPlayer 10 is making noise (links)

André Michelle — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:12:06 +0000

There is no rush to tear down the side right now. The new sound feature is a big step towards future. However it has just started and there is much left to implement for FlashPlayer11.
But we are very curious what people will do with the new low level API. Here is a (hopefully fast growing) collection of links that deal with the new sound feature in FlashPlayer10.

Keith Peters (Bit-101) - Astro Dynamic Sound!
Joa Ebert - Simple Astro Synthesizer (polyphone!)
Joa Ebert - Astroboy (8Bitboy updated)
Joa Ebert - Astroflanger (Sound.extract)
Simple 3-band EQ with Flash Player 10
Jan van Coppenolle - Atari Punk Console (with Stepsequencer)
Sintepan

Lee Brimelov - Flash Player 10 Beta: Dynamic Sound (Video)

Feel free to write a comment with new links.

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Adobe is finally making some noise!

André Michelle — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:35:03 +0000

Tinic Uro, a Flashplayer engineer at Adobe posted overall three posting addressing the lack of dynamic audio support and how they will change this in the FlashPlayer 10 release. We are so pleased that Adobe finally gives us the option to pass runtime generated sound samples to the sound card. This was one big key issue our campaign has addressed.

To be more detailed, you won’t get a high-level API to transform sounds, but with some Actionscript you can do almost everything you can imagine. As a bonus we will be able to extract encoded MP3 audio data on the fly! The only thing we are not satisfied is the very long latency (200-500ms). Tinic describes in details why this isn’t possible to enhance in FP10.

This is nevertheless a big step towards future - audio applications within the FlashPlayer.

Read Tinics post part 1
Read Tinics post part 2
Read Tinics post part 3

Thanks Tinic, we owe you something for being so strongheaded.

Adobe, MAKE SOME NOISE @wired.com

André Michelle — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:32:34 +0000

There is a blogpost on wired.com about the Hobnox AudioTool. Fortunately they linked to this campaign, which is also a great accentuation to our request to support dynamic audio within the FlashPlayer.

UPDATE: Eliot from wired.com was so kind to write a second blogpost especially about our campaign.

The site currently requires Java, although that could change soon. The developers at Hobnox who made AudioTool would prefer to use Flash entirely, but say its support for dynamic audio is lacking. They suggest that those who want to support online virtual instruments should join the Make Some Noise campaign, which hopes to convince Adobe to add sound manipulation features to Flash and to shore up one specific unstable audio feature, allowing Hobnox and other developers to push the envelope with more evolved online music tools.

Read the entire post | If you have not yet, go vote!

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The rise of online music software

André Michelle — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:41:50 +0000

I took the title from a blog post that linked to us and entirely points out what we expect from future Flash applications. Online music applications are not just a niche existing - it will be widespread in a few years and music composers worldwide will share and develop their compositions in the net. Well, it won’t if Adobe will not MAKE SOME NOISE.

Read Chris Wickett Blog Entry | Register and vote for the official feature request

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Official feature request to Adobe

André Michelle — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:43:13 +0000

We created an official feature request on the new Adobe public bugbase.

Please register and vote for the request. They will listen!

http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/ASC-3298

(more…)

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Response to a bunch of questions from Adobe

André Michelle — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:48:35 +0000

Adobe: You had mentioned that the vista issue was fixed in a minor version and then broke again. Was there a version of player that had the complete event occur correctly on Vista? If so, what version?

This is really hard to comprehend, cause it was months ago. Let me give you a rough approximation when what happened. I simple don’t know exactly what version was up-to-date at the time. I encountered the issue myself on Windows Vista in spring 2007 (9.0.0.28?) and it was completely broken. Joa Ebert installed Vista in autumn and reported no problems (9.0.0.45?). The last minor update however (9.0.0.115) broke it again. I am sorry, that I cannot recall it more precisely.

Adobe: If you encounter the issue, can you describe what happens?
The onSoundComplete event isn’t running stable anymore. Read more in my explanation below.

Adobe: Does the event fire at the wrong time?
Yes.

Adobe: What is the range of the innaccuracy?
A few milliseconds (varying), enough to get audible gaps, shaky playback. It runs a few times stable, then a gap occurs and so on.

Adobe: Does the event always fire (even if at the wrong time)?
It doesn’t appear for me, that it is sometimes missing. So yes, it seems to be fired every time but of the time.
(more…)

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New domain name

André Michelle — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:34:57 +0000

Adobe wants us to remove their name from our domain since this would probably cause legal issues. We are thankfull for the warning and hopefully anticipate further problems.

The new domain name is http://www.make-some-noise.info

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We care

André Michelle — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:03:47 +0000

Welcome to Adobe, MAKE SOME NOISE.

We address two issues with the current Flash Player. The general lack of sound manipulation features in Flash and more urgent the current unstability of the SOUND_COMPLETE event, which is the base for a lot of workarounds.

So, in the first place we are just asking for backwards compatibility.

Naturally we want more and we like to force a discussion of possible options to improve the Flash Player with better sound handling soon. You are welcome to contribute your ideas and hopefully support us.

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