Helio Project: libre music composition software | Hacker News Reader

Helio Project: libre music composition software

helio.fm

183 pointsdanbolt41 comments

Really cool project! I really liked the UI of this app. It feels very smooth and looks amazing.

Also, I went to poke around the source code:

https://github.com/helio-fm/helio-workstation

It looks to be a really well written and maintained C++ project. It's built on top of the JUCE framework [0]. Builds super easy on Linux with minimal dependencies. The coding style is C#-like - very easy to read.

I can't say anything about the main functionality though, as I have zero understanding about music composition.

[0] https://github.com/juce-framework/JUCE

"Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing. "

Classy.

And like sex, there are a lot more people talking about it than actually doing it ;-)

Haven't tested this app yet but the chord feature and microtonal capabilities look intriguing!

Embarrassing. Obnoxious. Really hope the devs remove it.

Or you could just ignore it and move on. Life would be so boring if everything was so bland; corporate and HR approved

Open source is everyday getting more corporate-like. In the old times people would create open source as a hobby, nowadays they're just thinking on how this will appear on the resume.

It’s also wrong. Bad documentation is worse than no documentation because bad documentation can be intentionally misleading

I think the sentiment it was trying to get across is that many projects don't have documentation because the task of creating great documentation may seem daunting, so in a sense just saying at least have something. I'm taking it to mean it's a work in progress, but it could have been worded better, of course.

He’s Russian

"- Yo, I don't think we should talk about this

- Come on, why not?

- People might misunderstand what we're tryin' to say, you know?"

Salt'n'Pepa

When documentation is bad it leads to wasted time, wasted money, buggy software, and angry customers.

Sex is the same if you're selling it (although buggy software will most likely not play a part)

Some popular music production software are skeumorphic aberrations with practical but dated UI. They are very reliable but clunky. It is a shame that FLOSS has very a weak tradition with regard to UI.

Music production software looks right now like an unexplored avenue needing new residents.

> FLOSS has very a weak tradition with regard to UI.

It was not true on macOS pre mac app store. Open source apps extracted as much as possible of what was provided by Cocoa and guidelines, it was working very well. Mac app store, Swift, electron and the general advent of apple killed the appeal for the native app on macOS to open source developers.

Some popular music production hardware are skeumorphic aberrations with practical but dated UI. They are reliable, but clunky. It is a shame that hardware designers have a very weak tradition with regard to UI.

Just installed it. This is great. I wish there were more instruments and built-in sample library. Like a full blown DAW. The composing experience is not as simple as fruityloops or other platforms. Also, I was wondering if I could add midi controller. Could not find much info on that.

>I was wondering if I could add midi controller. Could not find much info on that.

All four of my MIDI controllers show up. Look for the 'gear' icon in the lower right corner.

> I wish there were more instruments and built-in sample library.

That's costly and time-consuming. Think of all the licenses. There are enough free VST plugins to get you started, though. Here's a starting point: https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/instruments/free/newest. Change the search to match your platform, and don't forget to look at the effects (although I couldn't see if Helios supports them).

Hey thanks!

If you are into this, you might be interested in this IDE for music composition I’ve been working on. It’s not out yet, but I’m hoping to launch soon http://ngrid.io.

I'm into it. Just checked out the page and sent an invite request. Any info on your release plans?

I’m hoping to do it by the end of the year. I had to build my own GUI framework and such which complicated things.

Any plans for releasing on iOS?

Probably not since my whole workflow is not well suited for iOS.

No worries, thanks for replying!

It’s very refreshing to see a DAW putting the entirety of its focus on host UI and core features like microtonality support, rather than maintaining built-in banks and instruments.

Yes, Helio is nothing without your plugins; but it also implies that your source project is more easily portable to another platform capable of running AU/VST. (Especially if things like tempo automation can be exported, to be confirmed.) Built-in stuff like Bitwig’s modular grid are great, but I know I can’t recreate that exact sound in another DAW.

I was able to connect Pianoteq and create a few seconds long, very simple arrangement using just keyboard & touchpad in about 10 minutes. Helio’s editing interface and approach to patterns and arrangement seem a bit idiomatic and will take some getting used to, but its unique orchestra pit approach to managing instruments jives with me perfectly.

The sequencer looks slick, but for an amateur like me it’s hard to beat the instruments and samples that come with Logic. Maybe I can route the midi output from Helio to Logic through a virtual midi device and try it out that way. Otherwise I’d need to drop tons of cash on a plug-in and sample collection.

No need to drop tons of cash on anything, there are enormous amounts of samples and plugins availlable for free. You just need a little time and stop yourself from searching for more <edit>to actually</edit> start making music ;)

(edit) formatting

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/labs/

https://bedroomproducersblog.com/free-samples/

https://bedroomproducersblog.com/free-download/

https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2020/10/30/free-retro-synth...

https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/instruments/effects/hosts/f...

What a breath of fresh air, finally somebody not using Electron. Great job.

Would be nice if it can import/export Lilypond files. Export is probably the more interesting part because of the rendering to PDF.

Lilypond and MusicXML would both be nice export options. I think there would have to be quite a bit of thought put into configuring what the export would be. Would you map the audio plugins you are using to instruments then represented as staves?

Given that for this sort of project, there's a more or less completely 1:1, deterministic mapping between a MIDI representation and anything else, you can just insert a MIDI->Lilypond (or vice versa) filter and you're done.

I actually found out about this software a couple of ways ago, when searching for sequencing software for Android, preferably with midi support. Though it seem quite capable and polished, the Android version was a bit annoying to use.

So is it just a piano roll based DAW-lite?

Haven't played with it yet, but yes. Its strengths are: free, oss, multi-platform, and a different way of interacting with the notes. It probably has good handling of micro-tonality, too.

It can load scala tuning files, that makes it worth it for me to at least try.

Update: The UI was unusable for me on an iPhone SE 2020. Lots of buttns cut off, labels overlapping. May look into the issues for this later to make sure there hasn’t been one created yet.

Looks cool will try it out on the weekend. Interested in trying to get a microtonal sequencer/midi output and this is that.

I see a lot of very promising ideas!

But frankly this is light years away form usable.

I wish that project luck and a lot of endurance.

Awesome project. Really nice interface work.

Whoa, it supports VSTs?

SOLD!

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