I have created a standalone GUI for Xpressive expressions
I have created a standalone GUI (with no sound on its own) to generate Xpressive expressions that can be copied and pasted into Xpressive. It allows you to select between the 2021 Alpha parsing and the newer ExprTk parsing format.
These tools contained within the GUI are based on MATLAB scripts which I created earlier, now combined and converted to C++. I have confirmed that the executables compile for Windows, macOS, and Linux, which can be found in the GitHub Actions tab here: https://github.com/ewanp2025/XpressiveT ... #artifacts . However, due to testing, I have only included the Windows build in the Alpha release for now https://github.com/ewanp2025/XpressiveTools/releases .
The PCM Converter: The .wav to PCM converter works to convert samples to mathematical expressions for both versions of parsing. However, it is currently not as good as my previous MATLAB version. It seems to "bounce" between 1, 0, and -1. I will work this out later.
Why I built this? I created these tools originally because I thought there must be a quicker way to write time domain equations in Xpressive's format. I had the idea that a dropdown menu for common models would really speed up the process. Xpressive is great as I have found that it can really model almost any sound that you can think of if you can work out the time domain formula.
One real benefit I see is with SID emulation. I’ve never felt that VST SID emulators were able to recreate the wavetables that SID musicians created on the Commodore 64 (the VSTs that I am aware of). I realised that Xpressive could do this (apart from the filter, as I have had limited success with FIR and last(n) so far), but the process of creating these wavetables by hand took too much time without a tool.
Finally, I have held out on creating any of my own projects using wavetables as the parsing method has changed between the 2021 Alpha and nightly builds (which affects the ternary logic for segment timing). Once the next Alpha is released and we have a consistent parsing method, I really want to get started on using Xpressive as a wavetable synthesiser.
Please check out the GUI if you are interested
GitHub: https://github.com/ewanp2025/XpressiveTools
