The latest release of WIDesigner, wind instrument design software, has a number of improvements for modelling whistles and flutes, including:
Simplified single-step calibrators that work with either min/max frequencies or measured playing frequencies.
More powerful optimizers for the bore profile of whistle heads and whistle bodies.
Enhanced tonehole model, with an allowance for the presence of a finger closing the hole.
This new release, available at https://github.com/edwardkort/WWIDesigner/releases/latest, should be installed as a new, full installation. Because of the changes to the tonehole model we recommend you re-calibrate instruments you already have on file.
That’s good news. I really like that the word “simplified” is in the description, if only in one aspect.
WIDesigner looks like a magnificent programme with amazing potential for minimising time spend on making prototypes, but I found it quite bamboozling when I tried to learn it about a year ago. Many unfamiliar terms in each window, with no glossary, and explanations perhaps somewhere in the articles about it, and it was very unclear to me how the different windows communicated with each other.
So for someone who is not a programmer or familiar with a lot of technical acoustic terminology, I found it too steep a mountain to climb in its last incarnation. There are evidently large potential benefits though, so maybe I’ll give it another go.
Good point about the glossary. I’ll see about setting one up. Let me know if there are particular terms or pages you are having trouble with.
Your comment about windows communicating with each other suggests you may be trying out the tuning wizard to create a tuning file. That may not be the best place to start. Better to start with sample whistle tunings and instruments supplied with the release, and play around with them for a while.
Thanks Tunborough. That’s very good to hear re glossary. Been too long since I looked at it to remember which terms were difficult. Sometimes it wasn’t the dictionary meaning of the terms, but how they worked in context, such as the requirement to enter a number but I didn’t understand what the range of numbers represented, so perhaps a glossary could be organised window by window rather than alphabetically.
I like the advice to start with the sample tunings and instruments. I did indeed try to start from scratch last time. Sometime over the next week I should have time to have another look at it, and I’ll let you know how I go.
Here we go, a Glossary. For now, it covers mostly the names we use for instrument dimensions. Let me know if there are any other terms you are struggling with.
I’d love to use this but as it turns out, I am too stupid to run a java app. Every time I click the jar file, nothing happens, except for a split second a window opens, then closes again. I set path variables but I am not sure, I have done this correctly. I installed java in the standard installation path. Do I have to move the WIDedigner to a particular folder? Can I use “Power shell” to open it? I already spent about 2 hrs trying to figure this out. In the video tutorial it all seems pretty straightforward. But the app just never opens.
update:
I got it to run with this command line:
java -jar “C:\Users\Philipp\Desktop\WIDesigner-2.4\WIDesigner-2.4.0.jar”
Would be nice however, if I get it to work directly from the jar file. Or how can I use the above command line as a permanent solution without having to type it every time?
Tunborough could produce the jar file as an executable jar. Then it would execute with double click… @Tunborough: pm me if you need details of how to do this. It will depend upon your build setup but should be easy.
I am thinking I rather did something wrong with the java installation. The jar file should be executable with double click but it seems no to be on my installation. I guess it is a user error.
Probably. I should google how that’s done:D . I don’t know much about that stuff. Rather frustrating at times when the machine once again beat me into sumbission.
DrPhill, thanks for the offer, but WIDesigner is already delivered as a .jar file. For some reason, Sedi, when you installed Java, the operating system didn’t make the association between the .jar suffix and the Java run-time program. To make that association, you could try right-clicking on the WIDesigner-2.4.0.jar file and selecting Open With… If you’re running Windows, it may offer to open it with the Java program, perhaps calling it “Java ™ Platform SE Binary”, or something like that. (If Windows doesn’t find Java on its own, you’ll have to browse your Program Files folders to find java.exe.) There should be a checkbox that says “Always open .jar files with this program”. Once that association is made, a double-click on the .jar file should be sufficient.
That is exactly what I did. Still doesn’t work though. I think I messed up the java installation or the path. But strange that it works with the CMD but not by clicking or “open with”.
This program seems to be quite amazing. Is it based on the PhD thesis of Paul Dickens? I recently started looking into fiddling with designing my own whistles, then started looking into flute/whistle acoustics and thinking about how to simulate it, then found his thesis, then found WIDesigner.
I was able to run it under Linux but it won’t run on my Mac (Mojave 10.14.6). Any suggestions? I installed the latest version of Java from Oracle. When I try to run WIDesigner, I get the following error message:
$ java --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports java.desktop/com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports java.desktop/sun.awt.shell=ALL-UNNAMED -jar WIDesigner-2.4.0.jar
WARNING: package com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows not in java.desktop
WARNING: An illegal reflective access operation has occurred
WARNING: Illegal reflective access by com.jidesoft.app.framework.JDAFUtils (file:/Users/gilbreth/Downloads/WIDesigner-2.4/lib-2.4/jide-jdaf.jar) to method com.apple.eawt.Application.getApplication()
WARNING: Please consider reporting this to the maintainers of com.jidesoft.app.framework.JDAFUtils
WARNING: Use --illegal-access=warn to enable warnings of further illegal reflective access operations
WARNING: All illegal access operations will be denied in a future release
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: UI Failed to start.
at com.jidesoft.app.framework.gui.ApplicationUIManager.startup(Unknown Source)
at com.jidesoft.app.framework.gui.plaf.macosx.MacOSXApplicationUIManager.startup(Unknown Source)
at com.jidesoft.app.framework.gui.GUIApplication.initRun(Unknown Source)
at com.jidesoft.app.framework.DesktopApplication.run(Unknown Source)
at com.wwidesigner.gui.WIDesigner.main(WIDesigner.java:144)
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/apple/eawt/ApplicationListener
at java.base/java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
at java.base/java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:332)
at com.jidesoft.app.framework.gui.plaf.macosx.MacOSXApplicationMenuBarsUI.installOSXMenuBarSupport(Unknown Source)
at com.jidesoft.app.framework.gui.plaf.macosx.MacOSXApplicationMenuBarsUI.createMenubar(Unknown Source)
at com.jidesoft.app.framework.gui.ApplicationWindowsUI.installMenubar(Unknown Source)
at com.jidesoft.app.framework.gui.ApplicationUIManager.startUI(Unknown Source)
at com.jidesoft.app.framework.gui.ApplicationUIManager$2.run(Unknown Source)
at java.desktop/java.awt.event.InvocationEvent.dispatch(InvocationEvent.java:303)
at java.desktop/java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:770)
at java.desktop/java.awt.EventQueue$4.run(EventQueue.java:721)
at java.desktop/java.awt.EventQueue$4.run(EventQueue.java:715)
at java.base/java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(AccessController.java:389)
at java.base/java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:85)
at java.desktop/java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:740)
at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:203)
at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:124)
at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:113)
at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:109)
at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:101)
at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:90)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.apple.eawt.ApplicationListener
at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:583)
at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoaders.java:178)
at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:521)
... 20 more
Sorry, I missed this when you first posted it. WIDesigner has similarities to the model Paul Dickens built. The WIDesigner tonehole model comes from the work of Antoine Lefebvre, and WIDesigner uses a more explicit model for the headjoint and excitation mechanism.
I don’t have access to a Mac, so I can’t offer much help. WIDesigner 2.5.0 comes with a new release of the JDAF user interface classes; it’s worth checking whether you still have a problem with 2.5.0. There’s also this issue reported, https://github.com/edwardkort/WWIDesigner/issues/89. If you’re still having a problem, please open an issue on GitHub, and maybe Edward will have some ideas.
I’m trying to use this software to help keep the voicing similar across my instruments, but I can’t find any documentation beyond the videos for NAF. How does one use this to model whistles?
At the moment, WIDesigner deals only with tuning, and can’t say much about tone colour or playability. To me, “voicing” is about shaping the windway and window specifically for tone colour and playability, so WIDesigner may be of limited help with that.
Hi Tunborough, thanks for getting back to me - I’m unable to find anything beyond the brief wiki articles, which don’t describe things like ‘fipple factor.’ In the Feadog Mark 1 study, it’s blank, and it keeps returning the error, “fipple factor, if specified, must be positive.” Is there lengthier documentation anywhere?
Ah, by voicing I meant only what this tool can asses - the tonehole optimization. I was hoping to create and validate through experimentation a preferred design (i.e. larger holes, or flatter Cnat, etc) and from that derive a correction factor I can apply to optimization schemes in other keys.
At any rate, Bracker’s calculator (which has worked well for me in the past) seems to hate this new headjoint design, and I’m having a hell of a time trying to produce a well-tuned body tube.
Mention of “fipple factor” tells me your WIDesigner options are still set to use the NAF study model, when you want to be using the whistle study model. From the menu bar, select Edit → Options… to bring up the Options dialog. On the General Study Options tab, select Whistle Study instead of NAF Study. While you’re there, you may want to check the values for other options. For whistles, I generally use a temperature of 27 C and 100% relative humidity; on the Whistle/Flute Study Options tab, I use 40,000 ppm CO2 (appropriate for exhaled air), and an absolute air pressure suitable for my altitude.
Close any files you have open, then re-open the Feadog file. You should no longer see a mention of fipple factor. What you will see instead are “beta factor” and “window height”. Like the NAF study model’s fipple factor, these are magic numbers we use to help the mathematics in WIDesigner model a real whistle. We start out with them set to values that worked for a similar whistle, and use the whistle calibrator to adjust them to match the tuning of the whistle under construction.
