List of Frequently Asked Questions about Psycle
-----------------------------------------------

- Usability -
-------------

Q) 	When Psycle loses focus, the music stops. Why?
A) 	The "Exclusive" mode is selected in the Directsound Configuration.
	Go to Configuration Menu, settings option and there the "Input/output" folder, to
	press the configure button.There you will see the option.

Q)	I've put my xxx VST plugin in the "plugins" dir and Psycle doesn't show it. Why?
A)	Psycle uses a different paths for Native plugins and VST plugins.
	By default, Native Plugins go under "Plugins\" and VST's go under "Vst\".
	If you want to change it, go to Configure-Settings, there the "Directories" tab,
	and select your VST plugins' dir.

Q)	Why doesn't/Can't/won't Psycle support buzz machines?
A)	Oskari Tammelin, Buzz author, declined us the right to develop a Buzz Plugins' Host
	for Psycle. It's up to someone to develop a plugin that can load buzz plugins.
	(It won't be allowed by Oskari either, but many users would like it)

Q)	I Have Pro52 VSTi and it is shown as an Effect Machine. How come?
A)	There are two Pro5 dll's, one called pro-52.dll and the other called pro-52fx.dll
	The first one is recognized by Psycle as a generator while the other is recognized
	as an effect and it allows to use the Pro52 Effect engine separatedly from the synth

Q)	I can't enter notes into the Pattern Editor. What happens?
A)	The Edit Mode is Deactivated. The default key to switch it on/off is the "Space" key.
	Also, now you have a Red Dot next to the "Undo/Redo" buttons, which allows you to change it
	as well.

Q)  Why Bohan's plugins don't work under Win 95/98 (Me?)?
A)  We've found that the reason of this is the lack of a .dll in the system. We don't know why
    it isn't there. Its name is  msvcp60.dll . Get it from someone who has it, and put it in
    your windows\system directory.


(There are some more, but I forgot about them)


- Developement -
----------------

Q)	How can I develop a Psycle Machine?
A)	There's no SDK yet, and format will change in Psycle 2, but right now,you can download
	Psycle plugins' sourcecode and using one of them as a template for your plugin.
	You can download them from Psycle's Source Forge Site at:
	http://sourceforge.net/projects/psycle

Q)	How can I port a Buzz machine to Psycle?
A)	I've just developed a little SDK to do this. Find it on SourceForge Site as well:
	http:www.sourceforge.net/projects/psycle
	Note: Not tested.
	Note2: You can check the sources of the M3 Psycle machine, which is a port of the
	original M3 buzz machine.

Q)	When will Psycle 2 be out?/ In which stage is Psycle 2 developement? What do you
	plan for Psycle 2?
A)	"History" Part one:

	Psycle 2 has been in a few stages since it was first talked about. On December 2000
	Mats (the one that made the 1.1 versions ) started developing what was called Psycle 2.
	When he had to left, Psycle 2 stopped, and Psycle 1.5 was done by [JAZ].
	After some months, it was clear that Psycle needed a change to be improved further more
	so it was time to think with Psycle 2 again, but instead of continuing Mats's work,
	[JAZ] started to think on a newer design.
	This design has been codenamed PsyClean, but has never really started to be
	developed.

	Then, There was a version that was temporarily called 1.9. This was started by Dan,
	but left it because of work.
	This version had some Data structure changes which aimed to give more tracks, volume
	column (panning too?) , more lines per pattern, new song fileformat, and so on.


	"History" Part two:

	One guy called Dilvie contacted with the Psycle team, interested in developing a
	tracker with similar aims to what Psycle had, and expand on his own ideas.

	To make this a reality, Psycle was branched in Psycle 1 and PsycleII

	Psycle 1 continued to be maintained by [JAZ] and pooplog. The aims where to continue
	offering a version which was simple enough, stable and still powerfull, and to
	fill the gap until PsycleII came out.

	PsycleII wanted to be an audio studio (audio and video mixing, mastering...)
	It was initially coded by Majick_ / MJK. He had most of the core ready, but left
	for work too. Dilvie, on the other hand, started working on the GUI,
	trying Mozilla XUL language as a start. Unfortunately, he was busy with work too
	(yep... one more).
	The latest news, unluckily, are that this branch is vapourware.


	"Nowadays"

	And here we go again. What's up?

	In the last year there has been something called "freepsycle". This is nothing more
	than yet another rewrite of it, with two aims: portability (multiplatform), and
	more importantly (and hence the name), developped entirely with free tools (from
	compilers to libraries as well as OSes).

	Bohan is the main person under this version, who has been in colaboration with
	Psycledelics since early 2004.

	Psycle 1 has undergone many internal changes, most of them thanks to Bohan aswell,
	others, by [JAZ] and several other contributions by alk, sampler, zealmange and others.

	Psycle 1.8 is released. This is mostly a maintenance version. It contains internal
	code changes to a more standard way of coding, bugfixes and small additions in
	several places. Also, some new machines are on the way, with Sampulse as the big name.
	So there is, at least, some toys to play with.

	"A step further"

	So, what now? Well, these are the paths:

	* Psycle 1.8.x : Of course, there will be several minor versions, with bugfixes and
	small improvements on the vsthost and Sampulse. (since they are not finished for 1.8).

	* Psycle 1.9 : This is the key branch. It consists of two big changes:
		a) Engine moved to a librarly, allowing 3rd party players to be coded relatively easy.
		b) Gui changes.

		from a), there are the following subtasks:

		a.1) Add multiIO ability, both in the sense of more than two channels (ex: surround) and
				in the sense of multi outs ( like a mixer table ).
		a.2) Add event based playback engine. (efficiency with memory handling and playback),
			as well as adding multipattern playback.
		a.3) Change the VSThost. Use a new implementation which is avaible as GPL, which outperforms
				Psycle's one. This needs work to adapt to psycle's internals.
		a.4) change the native Host. Allow upgrade paths, as well as adding optional user defined GUI.
		a.5) And the obvious changes to the fileformat.

		and b) could be divided in these tasks:

		b.1) Move out of MFC ( at least of GDI, which is painfully slow ).
		b.2) New editing views : sequence editor, multipattern view (sort of playback view), changes in
				the machine editor (for multi-io wires), etc.
		b.3) Tools : several import/export features.