Bosca Ceoil: The Blue Album
A downloadable tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux
[bús-ka kyó-al] — a music box.
Bosca Ceoil: The Blue Album (or Bosca Ceoil Blue, for short) is a simple and beginner-friendly app for making music. Using a step sequencer you can create anything from a simple beat to a complex melodic piece — with huge selection of synthesized instruments!
Bosca Ceoil Blue is a modern port of Terry Cavanagh's Bosca Ceoil (also on itch.io), and attempts to preserve everything that made the original so approachable and intuitive. And just like the original, Bosca Ceoil Blue is absolutely free and provided under a permissive open source license, should you need to modify it.
Features
Playful and intuitive pattern editor
Begin writing music quickly with a playful piano roll sequencer. Create patterns of notes and experiment with timing and tonality to find your unique sound. Adjust the scale to give yourself a constraint that ensures your music always sounds great!
Drag'n'drop-based compositor and arrangement editor
Just as playfully rearrange your patterns on the timeline, create variations and make adjustments. Use up to 8 channels to play multiple patterns and instruments in parallel. Block by block, build your multi-minute song!
Over 300 synthesized instruments
Powered by a versatile software synthesizer, Bosca Ceoil Blue offers you pretty much any instrument you can think of! Don't like how your tune sounds with a piano? Swap it for a guitar with a swift adjustment. If you feel adventurous, make sure to take a look at instrument tuning.
Ready for production and consumption
Export your creations to WAV, MIDI, and XM. Share them with the world, or use them for your next game or video!
Works across all desktop devices
Whether you use Linux, macOS, or Windows, you can create music with Bosca Ceoil Blue. You don't need to install it or accept any license agreement — simply download, unpack, and run!
Works in your browser too
With Bosca for Web you don't even need to download anything to start writing music! If you have Firefox, Chrome, or a Chrome-like browser (Edge, Opera), or if you're rocking a Chromebook from school — Bosca Ceoil Blue is just one click away.
Need help?
Built right into Bosca Ceoil Blue is an interactive guide that lets you get familiar with the way the app works. In fact, there are two guides, and a comprehensive list of all available shortcuts and mouse inputs!
But you can also learn about Bosca Ceoil online, using our official documentation. It contains details about every part of the app, as well as links to community resources, where other users may help you. Best part, of course, is that you can reference it at any time, and share a link with a friend!
Community and support
Bosca Ceoil Blue is an open and community-made project. Your participation is very welcome in any shape and form!
- For bugs, please consider creating a bug report in the project's repository on GitHub.
- For new features, please start a discussion in the same repository.
- For work coordination, and just to chat about the project, please join our Discord server.
You can support the continued development of the project financially by leaving a tip with your itch.io download, or by donating via Patreon! Every dollar helps, so please consider donating even if it's a little. Thank you very much <3
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Hotfix 3.1.2 improves shortcuts on macOS and some Linux configurationsMar 12, 2025
- Hotfix 3.1.1 for macOS users (and a small fix for everyone else!)Jan 27, 2025
- A box full of improvements — Bosca Ceoil Blue 3.1!Jan 20, 2025
- Learn Bosca Ceoil with the new online documentationJan 18, 2025
- Bosca Ceoil Blue 3.1 is now in beta!Jan 09, 2025
- Bosca Ceoil Blue 3.0 goes stable!Jul 11, 2024
- Bosca Ceoil Blue 3.0-beta2 is out!Jul 05, 2024
- Bosca Ceoil Blue 3.0-beta1 has released!Jun 07, 2024
Comments
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Was surprised coming across something Irish here. Really fun to use, hopefully I become more musically talented to use it better.
Thank you! I can’t personally take credit for the Irish-ness of Bosca Ceoil. That’s all Terry Cavanagh’s legacy :)
Those who download my music for use in commercial games will not be bound by the MIT license. If this is true, then who will be bound by the MIT license?
The tool is provided under the MIT license. This means that you can use it for both non-commercial and commercial work, for any kind of project or purpose, without limitations for you and without liability on my part.
The MIT license’s only requirement is that you credit the tool, i.e. mention that it has been used in your work. This is typically done in some credits or description section. For example,
In case you sell, or provide for free, your music to the general public, that’s none of my concern at that point. What kind of license, limitations, and requirements you put on your work is up to you and is between you and your customers.
TL;DR: If you draw a picture in Photoshop and then sell it to someone, that someone doesn’t enter into relationship with Adobe. Likely, they won’t even know that you’ve used Photoshop. Same here.
A better example would be if you make your own version of Bosca. I don't think that the MIT license (nor any free software license for that matter) covers use of a program but only direct derivatives of it.
Yes, you are correct that the MIT license text only explicitly covers full copies or copies of significant portions of the software, for the purposes of including the MIT license text itself.
I’m sorry if my original post appears misleading in that regard. I had to answer this person several times (though those messages are now gone for some reason), and this was my attempt to summarize everything that I have explained before. That is to point out that:
Their main concern is whether I put any restriction or claim any partial ownership over their songs, and the answer to that is NO. The rest is just elaboration.
this bosca is very ceoil
As far as we can tell from the tutorials theres no way to have longer patterns? That would be extremely useful for anything with longer notes. The default pattern size is so small that just three or for long piano notes fills the whole box.
The maximum pattern length is currently limited 32 units, with the longest possible note being 128 units. How long of a pattern would you like to have, hypothetically? Keep in mind that the pattern length is universal for the song and cannot be adjusted per pattern or per instrument.
It seems that right clicking a timeline section sometimes just doesn't delete the section. Same thing with adding a section with middle click/shift + left click. (on windows 64-bit)
Other than that though this is great! I'm excited to mess around with it.
Hmm, I would hazard a guess that the area is just too small and you slightly missed it those few times. That can easily happen, and I should make it more reliable to hit.
Thanks for the feedback!
I messed around a bit more and found out that even when it fails to delete/add a section, the "action" is still added to the undo stack.
So like, if I place a note and then try and fail to add a new section 5 times, if I want to undo the note I have to ctrl+Z 6 times to get back to it. So I'm pretty sure it's registering something.
Also, whenever it does work, it keeps working as long as I don't do any other action and I can add/delete as many as I want. But doing literally anything else (including undo's and redo's) often break it again. Not sure what unbreaks it.
Thanks for looking more into this! That’s curious and definitely not expected. I’ll have to try and replicate it during the next round of improvements.
Thanks again!
Why it sounds like GEMS? (in a good way)
I don’t know what GEMS is but the synthesizer used by Bosca Ceoil is designed to emulate sounds of old Yamaha chips, commonly used in retro consoles!
I have been waiting years for an updated version of Bosca Ceoil - thank you so much for developing this!!
You are very welcome :)
Hi, Yuri! How are you? Remember I said you were making a mobile version of Bosca Ceoil? What happened with that version? Last time you said you'd release it in 2025, so I decided to wait until June of this year to ask.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hey! I’m currently working on another project! Work on Bosca Ceoil will continue once that project is released. Currently there are plans for 3 different things:
I don’t have specific deadlines for these, and priorities might change (e.g. I might drop the 3.2 version in favor of moving directly to 4.0). While I’d love to dedicate more time to this, Bosca Ceoil doesn’t put food on my table right now so I need to put my efforts elsewhere as a priority. Hope you understand.
ohh ok, I understand take your time :D.
hi there! is it possible i could get a link to an icon to use on linux? it has it while running, I just need something to pair with the .desktop file :) a PNG or regular image file is perfect (a .desktop is the config file I make that makes it show up in my app launcher / etc)
thanks for your amazing work!
Hey! Of course, the project is open source and you can find all of its files on GitHub. Here’s the project icon, for example:
https://github.com/YuriSizov/boscaceoil-blue/blob/main/icon.png
As I understand, I cannot provide a .desktop file for everyone to use myself, since at least the path needs to be edited, correct?
Yeah that is the case unfortunately! However I bet it'd work well enough for folks to toss the icon in with Linux downloads, I've seen some other stuff do that (like Pico-8). Thanks a bunch!
This is a original software or remake ?
Hey there! As stated in the description:
It’s remade from scratch using all new technology, but it’s functionally the same. Current version is fully compatible with the original Bosca Ceoil, backwards and forwards. There are several usability and UI improvements.
And you can read here why I decided to port Bosca Ceoil.
ok thanks and both are same creator or different one :)
I am not Terry Cavanagh, no. Terry fully supports this project though, as you can see on his itch.io page and on the old Bosca Ceoil website.
Ok bro
Hello! I really enjoy using Bosca Ceoil, but I’d like to kindly ask if it’s possible to add a feature that allows for custom sound sources. I’m not a big fan of the built-in guitar sounds, so it would be amazing to have the option to use custom instruments. Thank you so much in advance!
or even just to replace existing sounds—because I really need a specific kind of guitar.
Hey there! A future version will have support for custom instruments. You’d need to configure it with the synthesizer, just like existing instruments are defined. Sampled instruments are also possible, but in a longer term.
What you can do now is compose that specific guitar part in another application that has it and then mix everything together with something else. I’ve seen people doing this with drums!
Thank you for your response!
I truly appreciate the efforts you've put into this and excitedly looking forward to the next iteration of your product!
This is my first time using this software.
I would like to give you some suggestions for improvement: I would like to have different bpm in one project, so that I can have different speed clips of the same song.
Hey there! It’s certainly possible to have BPM change during the song in the future. I’ll have to think of a way to expose such functionality though. But it’s been asked about before, so there is a good chance we will include it at some point!
While more features are be cool, I'm aware open-source projects like this can get out of hand. If the plan is to add a lot more, may I suggest an "expert toggle" like Logic has to ensure that the first time experience is as friendly as possible. The original was my first successful attempt at making game music precisely because of how much simpler it was than other DAWs
I appreciate your concerns, but it’s a bit early to sound the alarm I think. My goal is to preserve the beginner-friendliness of Bosca Ceoil throughout this project’s existence. I will not be adding anything that makes things too convoluted or is detrimental to user experience. It’s never just about whether something can be added, but also about how it can be exposed to users in a non-threatening manner.
I definitely do not want to have an “expert mode” toggle, because developing features which aren’t targetting Bosca’s main audience is not worth my time. I’m working on this alone and for free, so I’d rather not spend time on things which are of no use to people who are using Bosca Ceoil Blue.
first time is good :)
Thank you so much to you and the original developer for all of your hard work on this. It is the closest thing that I have found to Korg Gadget that isn't tied to iOS, Mac, Switch platforms only. Looking forward to seeing where this goes. The SION drumkit works perfectly for sketching out any rhythmic ideas and all of the other instruments are just melodic icing on the cake. THANK YOU!
Is there some specific requirements for the web version? I downloaded it and when I upload to my web server and try to access it's just a black page with this error showing in the inspector console. Was going to make a bug report but didn't want to waste anyone's time if it was my issue. Also I can access/use the web version in the browser via the link here without issue so I know that it should be supported ok. It's just when I upload and try to access it via my own server. Issue exists in all browsers I've tried (Brave, Edge, Firefox)
Hey there! Yes, there are indeed some special conditions that must be met. SharedArrayBuffer is required for the application to work because it’s multithreaded. Browsers require secure context and cross-origin isolation for SharedArrayBuffer to be available. To establish secure context and cross-origin isolation your server must serve the following headers:
Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy: same-originCross-Origin-Embedder-Policy: require-corporCross-Origin-Embedder-Policy: credentiallessMDN covers a lot of this: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/SharedArrayBuffer#security_requirements
I also wrote an article about creating the web shell for Bosca Ceoil Blue and some of the challenges, where I also discuss parts related to the secure context: https://humnom.net/thoughts/676e811c-bosca-for-web-better-landing-page.html
Note that Bosca Ceoil Blue doesn’t have any server-side logic, so it doesn’t really matter where it’s hosted from. So if you just want to use it, the version that I provide is fine. But of course feel free to spin up your own, and if you have any more questions, let me know!
Thanks for that info, I eventually got it working!
To simplify things for anyone else trying to do this with a server running Plesk this is how I got it working:
1. From the Plesk administrator page (not logged in as client) go to: Domains -> Yourdomain.com -> Hosting & DNS -> Apache & nginx
2. If using nginx add the following to the Additional Nginx Directives section at the bottom of the page and hit apply:
add_header Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy same-origin;
add_header Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy require-corp;
2b. I didn't have to do this step but I think if you're using just Apache you can instead add the following to Additional Apache directives mid-way down the page both in the HTTP and HTTPS sections:
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header always set Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy "same-origin"
Header always set Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy "require-corp"
</IfModule>
Alright, this is really a beautiful little sequencer! I found that I can make quintuplet patterns? Holy cow.
May we please have a rudimentary envelope for the sounds? That sine wave would sound lovely with the capability of having its tone fade out OR remain short. Really beautiful sounds.
Thank you :)
In a future version you’ll be able to tune the existing instruments by adjusting their ADSR envelope!
great! Here’s what three short loops can make with proper processing!
What Rough?
I hope one day we can export instruments individually, also that the amount of layers we can stack on top of each other could be increased.
Alt + Click to duplicate makes this completely unusable on some OSes because they already do their own thing with the Alt key. Can we at least get an alternative shortcut to duplicate? Thx!!! ❤️❤️❤️
Hey! Can you give an example of the Alt key being captured by OS before it reaches the application?
On Linux Mint if you click Alt + Mouse button, it goes into drag window mode. And yes, I am sure there is a fix for this, I am just too lazy to dive through Linux docs right now. 😅 So it's kinda my fault ... still it'd be nice to have a workaround. Thx!!! (By fix I mean, I am sure there is a setting to disable that in Linux Mint, but I cannot find it right now.)
Ah, that’s curious. I’ll have to think of something. Thanks for the report!
Thx 2 u !!!! ♥️
Hey again! In the next version you’ll be able to create a pattern variant by hovering over it in the grid and pressing Ctrl + D instead of Alt + Click.
Also note that when dragging a pattern you can press Alt at any point to drop it as a variant instead. So if click and dragging, and then pressing Alt works for you, that is something you can use now already!
And lastly, maybe this can help if you’d rather disable this behavior on the system level: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/18wlx8i/disabling_alt_click_hotkey/
I’ve just uploaded version 3.1.2 which has the aforementioned change. Let me know if it works for you :)
When loading this up on a Linux machine, it gives the startup screen and crashes right away. I tried everything and nothing's happening. Do I need to install Godot before this starts working or?
Heres some screenshots
Tried loading the web version on ChromeOS, it just showed up blank
Hey, that’s unfortunate! What Linux distribution do you have, and what is your hardware? If you can capture the command line output from the beginning that would also help. It seems like the shared library is not loading on your device for some reason.
Regarding Chrome OS, is the whole landing page showing up blank or does it turn blank after you try to load the application? I ask because you should see at least the landing page itself, since it’s just a regular web page, and if it breaks at that point, this is not about the application itself. Could you open the devtools and see if there are any messages there?
Edit: Also you mention that the web version doesn’t work on Chrome OS, but what about Linux? Have you tried it on your Linux machine, in either Chrome or Firefox?
For ChromeOS, it just straight up loads a black screen. I cant open devtools on it because my school blocked it.
For the Linux machine it's running Debian 12 on a pretty standard laptop from 2018 ish. 8 GB of RAM.
The wifi on my Linux machine doesn't work at all.
Thanks for more info!
So I assume there is some JavaScript error on your Chromebook that prevents the page itself from functioning correctly. Unfortunately, without any knowledge what that problem is I wouldn’t be able to address it. Maybe somebody else will face it as well and will be able to poke deeper.
Your Linux setup seems fine from that description. It would be nice to see the entire error log though, could you show me what it prints from the top? From what you’ve already shown, it’s clear that the Godot runtime is operational, but the synthesizer library is not loaded for some reason. That’s very strange, and the only thing I can think of immediately is that it’s some permission issues.
Make sure that the
.sofile that comes with the Linux version is accessible by the same user who runs the Bosca executable. A library file like that normally doesn’t need an execution permission, but maybe it does in your case? Worth checking this as well. The ZIP already should have correct permissions otherwise (sans the user, of course), but if you unzip it on one machine and then copy to another these permissions can get lost in the process.I’ve just uploaded version 3.1.2, which should improve compatibility on Linux. Let me know if it resolves your issue!
I'm on a system on Ubuntu 22.04, and I get the error:
which causes it to crash shortly after startup.
Ubuntu 22.04 uses glibc 2.35. After looking into it, it seems like Godot's default export templates should support glibc 2.31. Does the most recent Linux version happen to use custom export templates?
Bosca doesn’t use custom export templates. But, this error points to GDSiON, a synthesizer library that Bosca uses, which may be compiled against a different version of glibc. I’ll look into it, thanks for the heads up!
I’ve just uploaded version 3.1.2 which is compiled against Ubuntu 22.04 instead of 24.04. Let me know if this resolves the issue for you!
Works on my machine now, thanks for the update!
Cheers! Thanks for checking <3
Saving doesn't seem to work on Linux
All file-related errors look like that actually. Loading, saving, importing and exporting
EDIT: Figured it out, on my system I have masked out the XDG portals because it's broken. Now I know I might be asking for a lot, but it would be nice if Godot's FileDialog was used instead (or even better, to fall back to it if the `dialog.open_centered()` errors out).
Hey! Bosca already uses Godot’s FileDialog, the last log message in your post is a native error in the engine. We use the native version of the file dialog so you have all expected features that your system provides.
I’m not a Linux user, so I don’t understand what you mean by “masked out the XDG portals”. Could you explain it, so I can think of a workaround, if one is possible in Godot?
Edit: I assume you meant using a non-native version of Godot’s FileDialog as a fallback. That could work, though I’m not sure I can detect the failure from scripting to react to it in any way. I think Godot should do it automatically by checking if portals are enabled to begin with (it has infrastructure for such a check too).
Could you explain to me why would someone be in a situation where these portals, which as far as I can appreciate are a security feature to safely work with sandboxing, are disabled? How common would that be?
Before I get to any point, I just want to let you know that I've fixed the problem on my end, so you don't have to worry anymore xd
First I will write what I did explaining the FileDialog thing, then under that will be the XDG related stuff. But as I said, no need to worry anymore
---
When I cloned the project from GitHub, running it would give me this error:
E 0:00:18:0957 Controller.gd:237 @ show_file_dialog(): Failed to send DBus message: Could not activate remote peer 'org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop': activation request failed: unit is masked <C++ Source> platform/linuxbsd/freedesktop_portal_desktop.cpp:460 @ file_dialog_show() <Stack Trace> Controller.gd:237 @ show_file_dialog() IOManager.gd:122 @ load_ceol_song() IOManager.gd:136 @ <anonymous lambda>() WindowPopup.gd:161 @ <anonymous lambda>()What I meant with "Godot's FileDialog" is to use the in-game node. So what I did first was make the node via code (`FileDialog.new()` and so on), and wrote some basic logic. At the moment the function only tries to use the native file picker and does nothing if popup_centered() errors out (now, I haven't read the rest of the code related to file dialog, there might be better place of coding the fallback thing xd)
XDG portals are just this "new" standard that helps applications access resources:
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Desktop_Portal
- https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/
"Masking out" is essentially stopping the systemd service from ever starting (either on boot or by an application)
I had problems with XDG portals for a while not on my system and never got around on fixing them — until now! You pretty much don't have to do anything really... but a fallback would still be nice tho
I appreciate the details and you sorting it out on your end! I still logged in a report based on your comment to GitHub so it can be referenced and perhaps addressed at some point. I also noticed that some XDG backends don’t support file pickers, so perhaps there are affected users who’ve never even disabled the service explicitly.
As for your investigation in the codebase, yes, as I noted disabling the native flag on the FileDialog node is possible as a fallback, however this particular error is not reported by the engine to the script.
popup_*()methods don’t return error codes or anything at all. So the only way to detect any problem would be to do it by some secondary tells.So far I’m thinking about adding an app setting to disable native dialogs as a solution. But I won’t rush for it for now.
Thanks for your report and efforts, and hope you don’t have any more annoyances like that using Bosca :)
Oh the problem isn't if the backend supports the file picker or not, portals just weren't working for me properly. I had this problem when using Chromium for example, where the file dialog would never open. XDG portals should, if the backend doesn't have a file picker, fall back to the system's default one.
In my case I have moved `.Xauthority` file to a different place (AGES ago), and the portals backend would just refuse to work because it couldn't find the file (and it woulnd't fall back to the default one). I just had to tell the portals where the file was and it started working XD
Also I didn't notice the edit you made, or the fact that `popup_` methods didn't return anything for an exception. My bad on that xd.
I would also probably close or rewrite the github issue you left to something simple like "backup file dialog if system's file dialog breaks". It's not the issue with Godot or the game, but the OS's.
Sorry for getting this lengthy yet again, just trying to explain what's going on so there's no confusion xd
Hey, just wanted to let you know that your report reached the engine team, and the case with disabled XDG portals should be properly handled by a future version of Godot:
https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/101812
For Bosca Ceoil I’d still need to do some work to properly support it, when it’s ready, but that shouldn’t be hard.
Thanks again!
Very cool, nice work
Hello, I really like the simplicity of this tool. By the way, how can I use this tool to place notes of less than eighth note length?
Hey! In terms of musical timings the note length is fixed at quarter notes (1/4th of the beat). There is currently no way to change that (the setting that allows you to adjust the size of a bar is, unfortunately, purely visual), and I cannot change that until the next major release because it would break compatibility.
If you want effectively shorter notes you can use higher BPM for now.
Thank you for reply! I see.
Hello Yuri, I come to report an error.
Yesterday I made some music and today I decided to open it to be able to listen to it again and when I see everything it was disordered, parts deleted and instruments changed
I saved the music as .mid
Hey there! MIDI is not a save format, it’s an export format. While Bosca tries its best to convert to and from MIDI, it’s impossible to do this flawlessly as its capabilities are different from Bosca’s. Generally export to MIDI should result in a valid MIDI file. Import from MIDI is available, but it’s far from perfect and not every MIDI file can be reasonably imported into the app because.
You should use Bosca’s own format for saving your work, and use export formats when you want to take your music out of Bosca somewhere else.
Oooh ok, i see, thanks
Edit:Sorry, I realized that there is the option to save and load .ceol, I didn't realize that, my apologies😓
No worries!
Yuri could you add in this update that allows having more than 16 instruments? Thanks!😀
Sorry, this is a minor update, so it cannot introduce any breaking changes. Original Bosca Ceoil and current version of Bosca Ceoil Blue do not support more than 16 instruments, so that has to stay for now. I’ll revisit this limitation in the next major update.
Ok thx!
hey when the next update coming I would love to see more, also where did you post all the short cuts, for the Mac version?
Hey! The new update is pretty much ready and the first beta will be out early next year. But for now it’s a holiday break. Do you have some suggestions, though, for what you want to see?
All shortcuts are listed in the app itself, in the help section.
hey yuri!! this is amazing! keep the updates coming <3
can i ask what REC at the bottom does? I can't seem to find any recording directories or support page.
Hey! It allows you to record different filter and volume values for the instrument that the pattern uses across the duration of that pattern. It’s explained in more detail in the “Tips and Tricks” guide in the Help section!
thanks for the quick reply! i'm an idiot haha
Ah, don’t worry about it! It’s a bit of a confusing feature to begin with :)
Hellooooooooooooo!!!! yurisizov how long until they launch the web version and the mobile version??!! I'm already looking forward to finally being able to try my beloved music tool!!!! (=θωθ=)!!!!!
Hey! I’m working on the 3.1 update right now, and as a part of it I plan to release the web version. A version for Android will come at a later date.
Yepiiiiii!!! :D!
Hey there! While Bosca 3.1 is still in development, I’ve now completed the web version support, and you can give it a try here:
Note that this is not the final version of Bosca Ceoil Blue 3.1, and there may be bugs, inconsistencies, etc. But if you can give it a go and let me know how it works for you, that’d be appreciated!
I had someone test it with a Chromebook, and it seems to work fine as a web app.
Man thx!!! :D.
I'll try it and I'll let you know of any errors ^_^✌️.
Is it normal that when you enter the arrangement section, the music start lagging? since the previous version this was already happening, I say this because I used Bosca Ceoil on a computer and also when entered that section start lagging.
No, that’s not normal. There is nothing unique about the arrangement view that would make the music lag. So it’s likely that the whole app is having performance issues on your device in the arrangement view. Can you tell me more about your hardware? Your CPU, GPU, RAM? Could you also check in the task manager, or your system’s alternative for that, if Bosca is stressing your system too much?
weird problem where I can't launch the program. I downloaded the latest stable 64-bit build for windows and unzipped it, then ran the exe. But it sort of gives up and idk what to do now. I've tried the 32-bit version in case that for some reason works but it doesn't. I do still have the original Bosca on my computer, would that cause a problem?
Hey there! No, old Bosca doesn’t affect the new version in any way. Are you familiar with the command line/terminal for your operating system? Could you open it from the folder where you unzipped to and run Bosca Ceoil Blue this way? This should show some errors if the problem is with the app.
I will try and report back with my findings.
EDIT: okay so yes this works, but trying to run the program from the .exe unfortunately still doesn't work. It's cumbersome, but I'm honestly just glad it works.
Hmm, there shouldn’t be any difference whatsoever whether you start the .exe from the File Explorer or from a terminal. Can it be that it’s your antivirus/antimalware software blocking it, perhaps? Not sure what else to suggest here, because that’s a pretty unusual circumstance.
If there aren’t any errors when running from the command line, we can only guess about the source of the issue. I guess you can try making a .bat file in the same directory to execute the same command line operation with just a click, so it’s less cumbersome.
Sorry if I can’t be of any more help, but I’m really confused by your findings.
I love this program! A great revival of an already great creation, super happy to see you furthering Terry's work. Do you think this will ever be available on mobile devices in the future? Not a necessity, just curious! Making beats on the go would be super cool.
Yes, I definitely have plans to release on Android :) It’s all just a matter of adapting the UI and input handling for small touch-sensitive screens. The synth itself works perfectly fine on Android already.
For iOS I just don’t have the hardware to develop on. I can kind of just build for macOS blindly, trusting the engine’s support, as it is just another desktop application, but I don’t think this will work well for iOS/iPadOS releases, unfortunately.
Nonetheless, that's super cool to hear! I wish you the best of luck dude
Hey, thanks for the offer! The project is open source, so if you’d like to contribute just drop by the repo anytime and see if there is any bug that you’d like to fix:
https://github.com/YuriSizov/boscaceoil-blue
For features, please open an issue or a discussion first if you have some ideas, so we can arrive to the solution together before committing to anything.
Exporters and importers are just classes coded in GDScript, which create either a string or a binary buffer according to the format specification, and write them to disk. You can find them in the
iofolder, and the GUI hooks are in theIOManagerclass.That’s why I mentioned the
IOManagerclass. That’s where the GUI is connected to the logic behind the export process. That’s where user interactions are handled, and then an exporter class handles the rest.It wont let me use any of the buttons? Is this an issue for anyone else, or is it my computer?
Hey, can you give me a bit more details? What operating system do you have? And what steps specifically do you attempt to take which don’t work? Would be very helpful if you could record a short clip on it too.
I couldn't get the video to work, but when I open bosca coeil on my computer, which is a good computer, it opens; then, no matter what version I use, it doesn't actually display the place to MAKE the music, and just shows a gray box below. Clicking buttons does nothing!.
Are you familiar with the command line/terminal on your system? Could you try running Bosca from it and let me know what the output is?
thank you for making bosca ceoil, i learned in this program, and its so simple, so easy to learn yet so effective, thank you
Is there any way to have more than 8 tracks at a time?
No, this is a hard limitation of this app. For the synthesizer that the app uses this handling more tracks in polyphony is not a problem, but this might not be the case for various external formats like MIDI. So for now I don’t have plans to allow for more tracks, 8 seems like a good middle ground for the target audience of Bosca.
You can, however, download audacity (another free audio software) and layer exported wavs from bosca ceoil to achieve the same end.
oh cool! Maybe I'll try that out
Is there any documentation on this software? For example, are there any keyboard shortcuts to do certain actions? I was wondering because it'd be neat to be able to select and copy notes and paste them in a new arrangement piece.
Hey! All documentation is available in the app itself in the “Help” menu, including all the shortcuts available to you. There is, though, no shortcut to copy notes between patterns, because there is no way to select notes in a pattern. Adding such behavior is a bit of a problem, as the click and drag behavior in the pattern editor is already rich with functions for mouse buttons and modifier keys.
When will there be an apk version? I've been waiting for one for a long time... Bosca ceoil is one of my most beloved tools for making music, I love it, thank you very much for reviving it!♡
Hey there! Thank you for your support :)
The Android version requires some rethinking of the UI, so it will take some time. I’m working alone on this, plus I have other projects going on, so my plans for the Android version are for some time next year.
Omggg ok! amazing!
Could there also be a version for Chromebook? because I'm using one and it's very limited... practically an apk but with the same PC controls. Thanks! ;D
I’ll be working on the web version soon, which should be fully compatible with Chromebooks! Unfortunately, I don’t have a way to develop and test a native Chromebook app, so I can’t make any promises about that. But I guess we’ll see if maybe the Android version just works :)
Oooooh ok thanks a lot! I trust you and good luck! (>‿◠)✌.
Custom instruments can come in a lot of different shapes and sizes, and Bosca aims to be simple and beginner friendly. So it’s a conscious choice to not have a way for importing new instruments, because that can get complicated very quickly.
Instead, I’d rather we fill in the gaps in the presets that the tool provides, if there are some instrument types that are missing. Do you have any particular suggestions?
Probably 1 customizable synth instrument that more advanced users could use to make their own sounds
If there's eventually an android version that's similar to Caustic, then I'm sold.
Feature-wise, a release on any platform will be the same! So I wouldn’t expect a pocket DAW like Caustic out of Bosca :)
That's cool. I'm just looking for something affordable to play with, so I'll take what I can get.
Would u ever consider adding the ability to add effects to individual tracks, I would say it's one of the only major issues with the software cos a lot of the time i wanna add delay to my lead but I have to add it to my drums as well and it messes up the sound.
I like the idea of more advanced effect/filter setups. I think that they were added as they are for simplicity, to test it out. There are code comments in the original Bosca that suggest some unresolved issues, which leads me to believe there was a plan to do more with them.
That said, I can’t promise this any time soon. This kind of change would require modifications to the file format, which makes it a breaking change. So I’ll have to revisit it later when I consider the next major release (4.0).
a godsend for linux users!!! finally i don't need a 1gb wine folder
AND it uses godot for the port, amazing!!! the DEFINITIVE bosca ceoil experience
this is revolutionary!!
I might be mistaken, but it looks like clicking the notes on the left doesn't play the note as a preview? Would that be able to be implemented in the future? I usually prefer that over placing a note to see how it sounds. Thank you for keep this updated!!
Yeah, I didn’t know about that feature in the original (or perhaps I had forgotten about it). But kind folks at Bosca’s subreddit reminded me about it, and I’ve already implemented it for beta 2 which should be out some time next week!
Thanks for adding this feature. However, there appears to be a bug where the notes will not play if the playback line is at the start of the song. Speaking of which, it would be handy if there was a keyboard shortcut to move the playback line back to the start.