juce-AudioParameterTest

This code is obsolete as of JUCE v5.3.2 and is preserved here for historical/educational purposes only. See juce-AudioProcessorValueTreeState for an improved approach.

This is a very simple JUCE-based audio plugin illustrating a first approach to handling parameter automation. (See juce-AudioProcessorValueTreeState for the second one.) It consists of a single oscillator driven by four parameters, accessible either via its own custom GUI, or via the host's (e.g. DAW) generic GUI and automation interface. For simplicity, it ignores MIDI and outputs sound continuously; it is thus a generator plugin rather than a synthesizer. (For examples of true JUCE synthesizers, see my VanillaJuce and SARAH projects.)

As simple as this code may be, it is not a toy example. I have attempted to produce code which can be used as a template for realistic plugin projects with many more parameters. An important aspect of this is that all of the parameter-related code is encapsulated in a single PluginParameters class.

Background

JUCE provides a nice set of classes for handling communication of parameter-value changes between a plugin (VST, AU, etc.) and its host program (e.g. DAW). All derive from a common parent AudioParameter, and are specialized for the four most common kinds of plugin parameters as follows:

• AudioParameterFloat represents a floating-point value, e.g. a value set by a knob or slider. This is the most basic kind of parameter, because floating-point parameters are supported by all plugin hosts, regardless of the specific interface technology.
• AudioParameterInt represents an integer value, e.g. something like a MIDI note-number or velocity.
• AudioParameterChoice represents a discrete choice among a defined set of values, e.g. an oscillator waveform type chosen from the set { sine, triangle, square, sawtooth }. You could think of this as a specialized form of integer parameter, where the range is restricted to [0, number_of_choices-1].
• AudioParameterBool represents a logical value (true or false), e.g. whether a certain effect or function is enabled or not. You could think of this a limited form of choice parameter where the available choices is { false, true }.

I had difficulty finding code examples showing how all of these classes ought to be used, so I decided to create my own. My goal was to verify what is called automation in audio-recording parlance, which requires true bi-directional communication of parameter values, i.e.,

• Plugin to host: user manipulates GUI controls, changes are recorded by a host DAW.
• Host to plugin: DAW recreates user's manipulations automatically using playback.

I have fully tested the Audio Unit (v2) build under Logic Pro X on the Mac, and the VST (v2) build under Reaper v5.52/x64 on Windows 10, including automation with all four parameters. I do not have the means to test other plugin types.

Warning: deprecated approach

While AudioParameter and its descendants are still supported in JUCE 5.1.2, but the critical member function AudioProcessor::setParameter() is marked as deprecated, so this approach is likely to become obsolete in some future JUCE release. It's being replaced by a quite different set of classes built around AudioProcessorValueTreeState, which offers the possibility of more streamlined code as well as built-in support for undo/redo functionality. See juce-AudioProcessorValueTreeState.

I chose to use the older AudioParameter-based classes for my first foray into parameter automation, for three reasons:

1. I found it fairly straightforward to understand, unlike the newer approach.
2. Deprecated or not, it works, and should work with at least some older versions of JUCE as well.
3. It supports the four kinds of parameters listed above; AudioProcessorValueTreeState seems to support only float parameters at this time.
4. Now that I have something fully working and testable in various DAWs, I have a basis for comparison for when I build an AudioProcessorValueTreeState-based version. I am hopeful that at least the overall structure of my code will be useful for this.

Detailed description

I intend to write a more detailed description of this code soon, which will be available at http://getdunne.net/wiki/doku.php?id=juce_and_parameter_automation.

Note that the SynthWaveform and SynthOscillator classes are taken directly from my VanillaJuce synthesizer-plugin code; they are not new to this project.

This plugin has exactly four parameters, corresponding to the four AudioParameter subclasses:

1. Waveform is a choice parameter, with options sine, triangle, square, and sawtooth.
2. MIDI note number is an integer parameter, in the range [0..127].
3. Level is a float parameter, in the range [0, 1.0]
4. Loud is a Boolean parameter. When true, the level setting is effectively doubled.

(The loud parameter is not very realistic. I originally defined a Boolean parameter to invert the phase of the oscillator, but this was difficult to test by ear.)

Code licensing terms

This code is licensed under the terms of the MIT License (see the file LICENSE in this repo). To compile it, you will need a copy of the JUCE framework, and the resulting combined work will be subject to JUCE's own licensing terms, and under certain circumstances may become subject to the GNU General Public License, version 3 (GPL3).

I am grateful to Julian Storer of Roli, Inc. for clarifying, via the JUCE Forum, that this code will continue to be freely usable under the terms of the MIT license, because

1. The MIT license is "GPL3 compatible" according to the Free Software Foundation.
2. Clause 5(c) of the GPL3 specifically states that it does not invalidate less restrictive usage permissions explicitly granted by a copyright holder.
3. The JUCE license does not affect copyright status of MIT-licensed code in combined works.

In light of these considerations, and for maximum clarity, I have added my copyright notice and the full text of the MIT license to every one of the source files in this repo.

Shane Dunne, October 2018