ARGURU

We were informed today June 5th, 2007 about some bad news related to Arguru, Psycle's father and author of many other good audio applications like Aodix as well as some VST plugins.

He died yesterday in a car accident near Benalmádena (Málaga/Spain). The car slipped out of the road, on a cliff.

From here, we want to extend the condolences to the family and relatives, and want to thank him for the good things that he gave to all us.

Rest in peace.

News taken from here (in spanish) : http://www.hispasonic.com/noticia2192.html

HI again psycle peoples. I'm super happy because I have finally interviewed the psycle's father: ARGURU. he's still active with new projects and he's working on some cool stuff right now...

...photo coming soon...

1 )Q:hello guru,introduce yourself please!

A:Hi !My full name is Juan Antonio Arguelles Rius,I was born on 1978 and i'm from Malaga, located at south part of Spain.I'm musician since I had Spectrum and specially with the Commodore Amiga, in wich I spent years using several soundtracker programs.Started coding software with PC after using Jeskola's Buzz, in 1997, my first programs were small Buzz machines, then moved to start coding standalone apps and learned Win32, in 1998 I created my first own soundtracker, called Noisetrekker (formerly "Tracker With No Name" ).Released lot of stuff since that time, Psycle came some time later, wich was developed between 1999 and 2001. Time after, I joined DiscoDSP as lead coder, and nowadays I'm working running my own shareware company and developing 3rd party stuff for Image Line (FLStudio).

2 )Q:when and why have you started psycle project?

A:I started the project in 1999, soon after releasing sourcecode of Noisetrekker to the public. This was my first true 'Win32' standalone application, because Noisetrekker was really using a 3rd party library (called " libcon ") to manage user interface, gfx rendering and sound. I just wanted something like Jeskola's " Buzz " clone but without the multichannel sequencer.It was a project in wich I learnt the basics of C++ and Win32, so it was a quite draft code.

3 )Q:hmm ,and why have you abandoned it?

A:Well, I consider myself a mix between musician and coder. Several ppl asked me this same question but not only with psycle, but with other programs (ie: noisetrekker, traxvox, etc). My answer is: for the same reason a musician finish a song and dont work on it anymore, otherwise one would be working on the same track always, improving it, etc. This is definitivelly not good analogy of course, as it's not comparable examples (a music track is nothing to do to a music program). Note that psycle was a project developed by a newby coder. I felt I was over / bored with it then I decided to release source and move to other things.

4 )Q:ok!did you tryied the new stable version of psycle?if yes,what do you think about the work that the current devs are doing?  A:Yes, I try it from time to time, in fact I wrote a small house track today. It's amazing how it has been improved these years, considering the amount of job I left to the developers wich spent most of the time fixing old things.The good thing is that the concept of the program didnt changed at, but every aspect of it had been enhanced.I hope they wont introduce a " buzz-alike " multichannel sequencer =)))

5 )Q:Aodix!probably your best product..talk about it a little bit,please!

A:Sure, in my opinion, is my best piece of software / code. The concept behind it is simple, you have a modular setup of VST instances (effects or instruments) in wich you can rout audio or midi events chaining them, you can also rout ASIO inputs, etc, and it has "multipin" handling. In the other side, the sequencer is based on "events"midi events or automation events, wich are timestamped, so there's way much more quantization resolution than traditional tracker. It's quite powerful, as combines a special type of events called 'pattern events', wich are used to play a pattern block, like "play a pattern inside a pattern".We have a new version to be released soon, but I'll take this oportunity to announce I wont be writing own VST host projects myself anymore, (this dont include 3rd party works =) as I dont think it could be done better than Aodix do. I'm quite tired of VST's.

6 )Q:have you something new ,that is work in progress right now?

A:Nowadays i'm quite busy / happy with Aodix, DirectWave / working for Image-Line, wich leaves not much spare time, but I have something new coming. I think it will be something that " oldschool " tracker users will enjoy a lot. I would define it like " Protracker-on-steroids " =).It's progressing slow, but solid. It will surpass any sound quality achieved in a soundtracker before.

7 )Q:that's nice!your new project”direct wave”inside fruity loops ,I was surprised…that’s a good thing..is it a new marriage with image line?

A:Yea, DirectWave is the new FL's native sampler bundled with FL Studio, and it's a great thing. The VSTi version is also coming very soon, btw: is a VSTi sampler wich tracker users will find quite useful as it has some features wich " big-samplers " dont have and I took it from soundtrackers, in example: user could configure it to make the sampler bundled all the needed sampledata along VST host project file, it would transform your vst hosts in something like a mod file.About " marriage with imageline " =), well, my experience working with them is just great and I look forward to collaborate in their future projects of course.

8 )Q:have you a favourite psycle artist?or is there someone that you consider a good composer?

A:I have no idea,as I didnt heard tracks made with psycle people.To be sincere, I hardly listen music nowadays =/, only when I go out by night,etc (so most what I'm listening nowadays is crap).My brain is flooded with reaggetom and other stupid genres. Sometimes I listen some music,but mostly comercial released stuff (Daft Punk, Jamiroquai, some french house / disco, etc), and I hardly look at scene music.It was good before, when you took the mod file from somebody and listen it in the application, so you see what's really going there. =) The last scene track I heard was an Amiga 4ch mod by " Dizzy ", the guy is called Juha Kuyampaa or something liked that, dont remember, called " Coltris ", plain awesome.

9 )Q:yes,kujanpaa:really cool composer!I remember I heard some cool music from you ,are you still composing?

A:Only a bit, I wrote my last tracks with Aodix, some of them quite cool, mostly house/disco. I -try- to compose when I have time, but now spent all the time coding, sleeping or getting drunk.I think I lost some of my music-making skills =), I hope to recover them when I finally have my " dream " app ready to write music again, so I can compose again without getting frustrated by evil plugins and other nightmares.

10 )Q:eheh,what do you use for your composition,do you prefer samples or you prefer virtual synth like VST?

A:Definitivelly samples.I hardly use VSTi's, and when I do, is because I rendered/re-sampled them so I can mangle them in the sampler.I also like to have the my tracks without too many external dependencies, usually i use just 1 or 2 DirectWave sampler instances, and just eq + compressor. I oftnely also rip loops / stuff from old " spaguetti-disco " tracks and other hilarious sources =), and trigger them with offset commands, slicing loops, etc. With a proper bassline and drums, it's easy to get nice house stuff.I was kinda psy/trance freak, but it's a style that requires way much more skills to achieve something good.I guess that depends the style, you use realtime synthesized sources or samples.

11 )Q:which program do you prefer for your song,and why?

A:I'm using aodix lately and a few plugins only, I like simplicity. It's just open the program, loads the plugs and start writing events. I cant stand piano rolls and the lame " step sequencing " abilities modern DAW's has. Sometimes I consider myself retarded when I listen a great track then someone shout 'cool, I did it with SX3'. I wonder how the heck anyone can do such things with Sx3, etc.Probably it's my extremelly limited knowledge about big DAW's.or than I'm just excesivelly used to trackers.or than I'm just excesivelly used to trackers.ops..Note than Aodix is a exclusivelly VST host, and VST plugins are MIDI controlled, you cant do things like per voice pitch slides, etc, wich limits a lot of things. This and the stability issues coming from VST's, project-recall problems and performance drops are the reasons i rejected VST or any external plugin support in my next soundtracker.

12 )Q:have you a favourite musical style ? ( to listen to and to compose)

A:Nowdays, disco / french house.It's funny to listen and works great on clubs.

13 )Q:talk a bit about what you like to do on your free time?

A:During week i hardly went out my bedroom, spent most of time coding for work, coding for fun, watching 80's/90's scifi movies and the same " the simpsons " episodes over and over again.On weekends thing change, I switch off computer and go out with friends, playing indoor soccer, dj'ing in some friends parties, going out, well. It's like most ppl at my age does really. Nothing out of the normal.Sunday's is the perfect day to try to compose something, one is hangover like hell.From eon to eon I met gf a few times, as we dont live in the same city, this is good when u get used to it, so u have best of both worlds and none of the disavantages, dont know if you understand me =)

14 )Q:of course!now that you are into business with your stuff ,what are your future plans?

A:Inmediate future plans are DirectWave maintenance and updates and writing a mp3 dj-player software, both for Image-Line. With " Arguru " software, future plans are release a Aodix update supporting latest VST SDK (2.4) and release a new VA synth called 'Voyager',it was released before, but this new built will feature a brand-new gui and some other features. These are all 'business' projects. My own soundtracker project evolves slowly but is at 70% completion for a first " releaseable " beta. It will probably shareware, but just restricted to a minor limitation (ie: resampling interpolation quality, etc)

15 )Q:really cool!...I also heard that you are the master of “cutted voices”on a song I mean,talk about that trick,please ”how to do it “?

A:I think you mean 'loop slicing' =), I mentioned it above. It's an easy trick I like to do with vocal or even full mix loops.In DirectWave sampler, when you load a wave file, it automatically stimates the number of 'ticks' (like tracker ticks) that wave length represents, ie: 4 ticks = 1 beat.You can change this manually. Ok, then you switch on an option for this sample, called 'Slice' mode. When this option is checked, the sample gets triggered at X ticks offset from start,X is given by the number of semitones above root key. So if you press midi note 64 (Midle E5) and root key is 60, the sample is played beginning at first beat With this technique is easy to rearrange a loop in the sampler, creating nice variations, this works a bit like recycle but I find this method more natural to compose.In the tracker I'm working this would be more easy, as there's a command called 'Oxx' (relative offset), like protracker '9xx' command, but with the difference that offset is given in relation to sample length instead a fixed offset so O80 would play the sample beginning at 50% (middle) OFF would play a bit before the end of the sample O20 at 1/4 of the sample, and go on the slicing technique I do also fits the sample to match a certain number of sequencer ticks so it will play the loop always " on-sync " to sequencer tempo Sometimes I do this with vocal loops,I just start pressing keys randomly and sometimes it popups something interesting

16 )Q:nice trick!well,it's finished...something more to add juan?

A:Long live to hexadecimal notation.

-yeah,pretty nice interview Juan...I'm really happy,thanks!cheers :P

made by MfM on 08/02/2006

some old tracks of arguru, some of which made with psycle: http://psycle.free.fr/arguru