Hey!
Since my last post I have been working on visuals, mainly the look and feel of the "drum machine" pads. Previous look has not changed at all since I started the development, so beside the OKLab color implementation there was no texturing or shaders used at all.
Unity is a perfect environment to play with the shaders, so after deciding on the look and feel I started with the implementation of shaders for the drum/note labels and grid pads. This seems like a pretty straightforward job, but when you are combining colours with note velocity - manually changed by user, things get a bit trickier.
For the Beat tab I tried to get that drum machine rubber pad feel with LED underneath. The drum note labels are meant to be a bit tuned down and matte, so they are not drawing too much attention from the grid.
Melodic tabs are a bit different, because I wanted to have piano key look and feel. I am still deciding if I should use the tab accent colour on the white keys, or go with black/white version. Overall I am very happy with the result so far, it has added a lot of the character to the interface.
The second thing I have been working on is the Multiplayer. Multiplayer was part of DAWG since beginning, but I have not developed or checked it for a few months, since main focus was on DAW core and CPU optimizations (Burst, workers).
Since the DAW core has solidified enough I decided to test the MP again and I was surprised everything was still working even after few months of not testing it at all. I have reliable connection between two players over local Wi-Fi, where a change on the grid from a first player is replicated in real time to the second player and vice versa.
The sync is working for all tabs and their patterns and some of the control functions (play, clear, ...), while the BPM is currently synced only via play button press.
Next step is to get reliable and simple (no user config needed) MIDI clock sync between the players, so the clock is not drifting at all. This should improve the clock sync between the devices and enable the goal of the MP - up to three players all connected to the same session and sharing same MIDI clock. Still in experimental phase, but the hard work of getting stable connection and sync between the players is completed.
The goal was to have up to three players sharing same session, so one player can control drum patterns, second player controls the instruments while 3rd player can play with FX - or any combination. The Multiplayer could be used for a couch session between friends or maybe even a group of street musicians.
See ya soon!