About the Project

KSynth aims to be (someday) a small software (using Qt) for composing songs using e.g. samplers and synthesizers using MIDI-Integreation for external devices like keyboards, a Launchpad, etc. Additionally the code should work on several operating-systems such as Linux, Windows or maybe Mac OS.

Screenshots

Structure

The code is distributed among two parts:

• KSynth is the backend (mainly header files) which can be used on its own. The backend contains samplers, synthesizers, generators, midi specific classes, audio outputs/exporters etc.
• KSynthGUI is the corresponding GUI wrapped around the backend for a userfriendly interface for composing songs.

Besides some well known libraries as tinyxml2 (https://github.com/leethomason/tinyxml2) and RtMidi (http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtmidi/) the project also uses KLib which provides some helper functions for e.g. accessing files, streams, etc.

External Dependencies

the external dependencies differ by your needs and your operating system. Currently the Qt-Project file accepts some parameters as additional QMake parameters to compile optional code using external libraries, providing additional functions:

• linux:
• ALSA: alsa sound-output and midi support (needs libasound)
• PULSE_AUDIO: PulseAusio sound-output (needs pulse / pulse-simple)
• windows:
• WAVE_OUT: windows WaveOut support (needs winmm)
• other:
• ZLIB: load/save compressed workspace files (needs libz)
• FLAC: load compressed audio samples (needs flac)
• FFTW3: spectrum analysis (needs fftw3)
• LAME: mp3 audio export (needs mp3lame)

Compiling

For those who are very impatient:

mkdir target
cd target/

# checkout main project
git clone https://github.com/k-a-z-u/KSynth.git

# now you need to checkout the dependendy "KLib".
# you have several alternatives:

 # alternative 1) checkout KLib as project
 cd KSynth/lib/
 git clone https://github.com/k-a-z-u/KLib.git
 cd ../../

 # alternative 2) checkout KLib as submodule
 cd KSynth/
 git submodule add https://github.com/k-a-z-u/KLib.git lib/KLib
 cd ..

# open project in qtcreator
qtcreator KSynthGUI/KSynthGUI.pro

you may then choos additional libraries (sound-outputs, export-formats, etc..) to adjust the compilation:
"Projects (Symbol)" -> "Build" -> "Build Steps" -> "qmake" -> "Details" -> "Additional arguments"
An example might look like this:
CONFIG+="ALSA ZLIB FLAC LAME FFTW3"

For a full list of all available flags and necessary external libraries see "External Dependencies" of this readme.

Details

• If you simply need some way to e.g. load MIDI files and play them using synthesizers while adding some pattern-based drum loops within your code, simply go for the KSynth subfolder and add it to your project's include path.

• If you want to compose songs using the GUI, you ned booth, KSynth and KSynthGUI while the latter is just a Qt-Project and can be built using the qtcreator

Some parts of the code depend on my KLib library (https://github.com/k-a-z-u/KLib), currently providing some streaming APIs or file-access methods. While most of those methods were intended for another project, i decided to combine them within a single library to re-use them for other projects in the future.

The directory structure for compiling the GUI version should look as follows:

 |--ROOT
    |--KSynth           # backend (mainly header files, standalone)
    |--KSynthGUI        # Qt-Project, using above component
       |--lib
          |--KLib       # some helper functions. clone from https://github.com/k-a-z-u/KLib
          |--rtmidi     # accessing midi devices
          |--tinyxml2   # (de)serializing workspace, etc

Then just open the KSynthGUI/KSynthGUI.pro, hit F5 and have fun ;)

ToDo

• As i just started working on this project a few weeks ago, there are still many things todo like fixing some horrible race-conditions in some areas ;)
• Most important parts are Widgets for displaying and modifing MIDI events (or, lets say: notes), adding the missing parts for loading/saving workspace, exporting your beautiful tracks to MP3 or Wave.
• Additional sound-outputs like Pulse, Core-Audio.
• More and Better Synthesizers
• Probabliy many glitches or other audio issues due to my limited knowledge
• MIDI Integeration for event-binding between MIDI-Devices and the elements within your workspace
• And many many more :)

As I just started working on audio related stuff, my knowledge is very limited. Thus I appreciate any help / hints / etc. to improve audio rendering in both speed and quality :)

License

Apache License Version 2.0 http://apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt