theslowgrowth/vcotuner

A JUCE based multi-platform tuner for VCOs, VCFs and other analog gear.

VCOTuner

A JUCE based tuner application for VCOs, VCFs and other analog gear. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Overview

How tuning usually works - Tuning is usually a tedious ping-pong game between adjusting a fine tune pot and adjusting one or multiple tuning trimmers. Whenever a trimmer has been adjusted, the fine tune pot has to be adjusted as well to bring the pitch back to a specific note.

How tuning works with the app - The app spits out midi notes and measures the frequency. This is done for multiple notes in a user selectable note range. At first the note in the center of the range is selected as the reference pitch. All other measurements will be compared to this reference. This removes the need to adjust the fine tune pot. Tuning the oscillator is just a matter of tweaking the trimmers and looking at the screen. Takes no longer than a few minutes. See the video below.

The application can also produce a report that features measurements in the highest accuracy and over a very wide pitch range. Reports are saved as a *.png file including information on the device under test and the CV interface that was used.

This video shows how to use it:

Download

Head over to the "release" section of this repository to download the latest release.

Help to improve it

If you find bugs, please raise an issue here!

Are you on Muff's?

Here's a thread on MuffWiggler. Post your tuning reports here, if you like

vcotuner's Issues

Audio input selection only shows output devices

The Audio Settings only list output devices in the selection menu for an input device.
The standard selection is:

Default ALSA Output (Currently PulseAudio Sound Server)

Another option is:

iO4, USB Audio; Front Speakers

But there are no input devices available.

I also get the following assertion failure repeating while running the program:

JUCE Assertion failure in juce_AudioSampleBuffer.h:91

This stops when I select "None" as an input device.

The line of code it points to reads:
jassert(dataToReferTo != nullptr);

I am running the tool on Arch Linux and tried using PulseAudio and Jack as a soundserver, without change.
Compilation did not raise any warnings or errors. MIDI Device Selection seems to work, but so far I couldn't get the tool to output any MIDI messages.

Improve X-axis in charts

Ideas:

1. Add midi note values to the chart.
2. highlight the note that is the reference pitch

No input level meter for ASIO devices

For some reason, the juce::AudioDeviceSelectorComponent doesn't add a level meter to ASIO input devices. It should be considered to add a dedicated level meter somewhere on the audio settings panel.

Add a simple tuner

It would be cool if the app would have some sort of simple tuner. It's already there in the report window, so why not make it a stand-alone function?

Crashes when trying to save the report on linux

The application crashes when the user tries to save the report on a linux OS. The Projucer also hangs when trying to open a file dialog. Apparently this is related to the bug mentioned in this thread.

A workaround could be to disable the native file chooser on linux hosts and use the Juce builtin file chooser.

Graph: Add Indication, if measurement is out of visible range

If a measurement is out of the on-screen range in the graph/report, the software currently displays a blank column in the graph. A small arrow should be displayed instead to show that there's data off the screen. The arrow could be placed on the top, facing upwards, for measurements that are too high to be displayed. Or on the bottom, facing downwards, for results which are too low.

Moving window creates measurement errors

It seems that sometimes when moving the windows around with the mouse, large errors are introduced in the measurement. Why? It's hard to reproduce but it happens.

Linux (Debian Jessie x86_64) Build Fails

I followed the instructions in the file CompileOnLinux and installed the needed packages.

At first the compile failed at:

In file included from ../../JuceLibraryCode/juce_audio_devices.cpp:9:0:
../../JuceLibraryCode/modules/juce_audio_devices/juce_audio_devices.cpp:107:30: fatal error: alsa/asoundlib.h: No such file or directory
#include <alsa/asoundlib.h>
^
compilation terminated

So I did:

sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev

^^^ This probably needs to be added to the CompileOnLinux doc

Compile proceeds past this point now, but then stops again at:

Compiling juce_graphics.cpp
In file included from ../../JuceLibraryCode/juce_graphics.cpp:9:0:
../../JuceLibraryCode/modules/juce_graphics/juce_graphics.cpp:93:24: fatal error: ft2build.h: No such file or directory
#include <ft2build.h>
^
compilation terminated.

Searching http://packages.debian.org, it seems libfreetype6-dev is what is needed, but even with that installed (per the CompileOnLinux instructions), it's no joy.

I made sure to apt-get update/upgrade and try again, but it still fails.

It looks like the file moved to:

/usr/include/freetype2/ft2build.h

I tried editing JuceLibraryCode/modules/juce_graphics/juce_graphics.cpp and prepending 'freetype2/' on the include line for ft2build.h but that lead to other problems (the config/ftheader.h path wasn't right). I know just enough to know I don't know how to properly fix this, but would like to help.

Compiling prequisites on Linux (Ubuntu)

Before getting it compiled under Linux (Ubuntu for example) you have to at least install:
sudo apt-get install build-essential libxcursor-dev libx11-dev libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev libfreetype6-dev
You may add this to some readme for linux compiling
Then it compiles and starts. I haven't however tested if everything is working as expected. At least it detects sound cards.
It throws some
JUCE Assertion failure in juce_AudioSampleBuffer.h:91
however... but maybe that's normal before having started any audio processing...

increase accuracy in reports

when the temperature has not yet settled, the frequency drifts during the creation of a report.
possible solutions:

A) decrease the number of periods in one measurement. This makes individual measurements more inaccurate but also makes the report complete faster - yielding lower temperature drift.
B) After the report has completed, measure the reference frequency again and see if it has changed. If so, ask user to repeat the measurement.

Improve range selection

The current way of selecting the ranges is easy to use but not very flexible. How can it be improved without making it tedious to use?

Crash on first start

When doing the first measurement, without changing any of the settings, the program crashes. See this post on MuffWiggler

Add graph scaling options to the main window

possible options:

• auto adjustment
• auto adjustment ignoring the uncertainty bands
• manual adjustment

Add support for DC-coupled audio interfaces

Instead of using MIDI, it would be cool to be able to drive the VCO with a DC-coupled audio interface.
Problems:

• Unknown relation between sample-value and corresponding voltage on the output.
• Adds the need to support different voltage-to-frequency standards like 1V/Oct, 1.2V/Oct, Hz/V, etc.

No line break in "notes" section of the report

The title says it all

Flip Y axis in charts

The y axis is upside down.

Reapply user selected measurement settings after report creation

After creating a report, when the user clicks the start button, the setings from the report are still applied and not corresponding to the values set on the two dropdown menus

MacOS Monterrey (M1) won't run

Hi, after downloading the application and granted security access to run in MacOS, I still get "The application “VCOTuner” can’t be opened.". Not sure if this is an issue on Monterrey?
Thanks

Lots of Lines in Big Sur

Just moved to a new machine running Big Sur, having this issue:

Overwriteing an existing report image file doesn't work

When clicking the "Save Report" button and choosing an existing file, the old file is kept and is not overwritten.

OK button in the "Audio Settings" view

When app is opened for the first time the Audio settings view is launched. When you've done the correct settings there is no obvious next step. An OK button that closes the view might help, but might be remedied in some other way as well!

MIDI output not working

see this post