StefTD, perfect! thats exactly what it is..
I'll go a bit further though for those who want more in depth information. If you don't then StefTD's description pretty much nails what Head Case is..
Head case has been in development for nearly a year and a half and is comprised of multiple plugins, external Executables, DLL files, as well as scripts and HTA apps.
The mainstay of head case is its ability to allow you to almost completely control the inner workings of the head. This is done with an application VST plugin callled the Head Case builder. The goal was to open up the head for you to edit in a very simple way that did not require knowledge of electronics.
Early on in development it became painfully obvious that making head editing schematic based would drastically add to the complexity for people when they wanted to edit a head. So instead we decided to make head editing based on a guitarists strongest asset.. their ear. So, why not allow them to make changes to the head and immediately hear and equally important, feel what those changes do.. So with that, we designed an interface that llows you to make changes to a head by simply moving a few parameters, turning a knob, etc..
Now because Head Case is not model based, we had to come up with, or use existing terminology. So for example, There is no 'Tubes' reference in head case, instead we call them curves. A curve essentially represents the dynamic characteristics of a tube model. ie, the behaviour of that tube when a given signal level is applied. This same ideology applies to the tonestacks. We could not find an existing terminology to describe head case's tonestacks, and we were not able to come up with a different name for them. Some are tempted to call them EQ's but in fact that terminology does not represent them either. So, we had to settle on calling them tonestacks. In trying to describe behaviours that can be applied to them in an easy way, we came up with Tonestack formulas. This is not the same as a typical tonestack behaviour in that the filter network functions differently and is defineable by you. Formulas like Bass + Treble - Mids, this means that as you turn the bass or treble knob up, something happens in the mids. We could go into a lot of depth explaining what happens, but this is probably not the place to do it.. for now, we can just say that at the crossing point between the subtraction frequency cutoff and the other frequencies cutoffs, there is a notch created that moves based on your bass, treble, and mid knob settings. This is also why it cannot simply be called an EQ..
So, once you have your head designed and skinned, and you have your stomps designed, distributing the head is very simple. Once its saved, simply click the Make button..
The make button runs an external program we called Freud. Freud takes a screenshot of your head and then packages all its elements together. It puts those elements into the screen shot. So all your custom curves(tubes), knobs, head graphics, scripts, description file, cabinets, etc. Everything that head case uses to create the head is all packaged inside the Freud JPEG.
One correction on StefTD's description about the JPEG's is that it does not use meta data, instead it simply applies settings in between the EOI character and the EOF character in the JPEG. Using the meta data caused a lot of false positives and in fact a lot of forums would not display the image. So we did a ton of research and found that doing this worked on pretty much every forum, however, one notable exception is Face book. Face book seems to strip everything after the EOI character. So downloading a Freud head image file from face book will NOT work..
One of the questions we get a lot is, why did we make this freud "thing", it delayed release...
Going back to the original design idea behind head case was that we wanted a suite that would always be changing, and we wanted to put head design into a users hands. Personally, I get really annoyed when I wait for an upgrade, it costs me a hundred dollars, and I find out that I get a couple new heads and a couple effects. I also think that the best people to be designing these heads, ARE the people who will be using them...
So, to allow for the suite to always be changing, we needed to have a mechnism whereby a user could make their heads and distribute them easily. So, the Freud idea was the best mechanism to do that. Sure it added to production time, but frankly, we ABG have only distributed 4 heads, yet there is something like 60 available right now, and Head case is not yet officially released. This took us quite by surprise and has lead to a minort challenge. With the beta release of HEAD CASE1.53 LITE, and the existence of Head Case COMPLETE 1.53 ... Some of the heads were made in different versions. Thats a beta hiccup but all heads will be normalized between version before release. Obviously i future that won't be a problem because everyone will be using the same identical version.
Once a user has posted their head and someone downloads it. They simply drop the head onto the Install head icon, and it gets installed. The install also generates an uninstall script for the head. There is a third party browser made available by VirtualAmpStash.com that allows you to see the head, and install it at the same time. We might do something similar for our amp site which will be calld the Asylum.
Anyways, I'm igoing to give a quick synposis here of what the programs are that make up head case. If not I could go on for pages describing things..
Head Case Builder
This is used to create and edit heads
Head Case suite
This is used to play the heads, it contains stomps, rackFX, and three Cabinet modelers. MIMIC, Filter Cabs(aka blue shift), and iFace for redwirez..
Head Case Loner
This is a stand alone head player. Its a single head that does not contain any other elements other than the head. You would use this as you would use any single head, so the cab sim of your choice must follow this, and the stomp of choice goes before it.
Head Case RackFX
This is the stereo rack
MIMIC
This is one of the cab sims available
iFace
This is another cab sim available
Filter Cabs
This is yet another cab sim available
Consolidated Cabs
This is all three cab sims combined. The idea behind this was to allow you to preview each cab sim until you decided which one you wanted to use.
Cab EQ
This is the eq that is available in Consolidated Cabs, and the Head Case suite
Install Head
This is used to insrtall heads
Freud
This is the program that makes the head case head distributions
Not available outside of head case builder unless you pass the path to the head you want to distribute.
Curve designer
This is a program that lets you design your own curves, however, this needs to be upgraded as it is very difficult to get a curve's exact centerpoint defined. The new Curve designer will address this.
Scripts, apps, and BUC.
Head case builder supports various third party scripts, and HTA apps. Some like the asset manager allow you to easily move and adjust head case assets. The VAS browser allows you to browse for heads and install them from the Virtual Amp Stash website, The generate curve script allows you to generate perfect zero centered curves by using VBScript, etc..
There is a "bunch" of commands already available, and more to come. I think once some guitarists that want head case to do something specific get an understanding of the scripting interface, we'll start to see some really interesting commands and functions come out.
The last bit of this description is for the more technical people, or in general anyone who knows about scripting using VB or Javascript.
BUC.ABG and BUCAPP.ABG are custom script preprocessors we wrote to allow direct easy access to the head case parameters. They each contain 535 custom functions that you can use in place of variables to gain access, or change head parameters.
So for example, Say you wanted to return the current state of the boost switch.
The BUC command for doing that would be..
@VLEAD;
To use it in a script, you might do something like
If @VLEAD; = 1 then
k = k + 2
end if
When the script is ran, BUC or BUCAPP replaces all the buc commands it finds with the proper value from the current head. Replacing values is equally as easy.
If @VLEAD; = 1 then
VLEAD; = 0
end if
To replace a parameter value, simply drop the '@' sign..
Head Case itself decides on what pre-processor to use and its decision is based on security. For internal operations, like operations where a script is always ran, for example the after save script, the BUC preprocessor is used. This is because those scripts are not to be editable by any process other than head case itself. It basically plugs up a hole whereby someone could inject a malicious script into it and cause damage. Unless you are capable of breaking two fish(has never been done) and then know the proper compilation technique, you will not be injecting anything. Instead, the script will just appear like garbage to the windows scripting host and as such will not run.
For exrternal third party scripts BUCAPP is always used. BUCAPP does not contain any ofn the scripting security that BUC does. So, the simple rule applies, only run scripts from a known source, but internal heasd case scripting operations remain secure...
You can easily find parameters to change by either opening a head case .hcb file and looking at the parameter names, or here is a file with their descriptions. Just add the '@' sign to the parameter name in your scroipt followed by ts closing delimiter a semicolon.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7630363/Releases/HeadCase/152Manual/Head%20Case%20Preset%20Parameters.pdf
The above document is a work in proress and the only commands that apply to BUC or BUCAPP are head specific. The above file is for the head case suite which has something like 980 midi automateable parameters. Its a start though.,.
Anyways, there is a lot more to describe, but this is just not really possible in one post here. As it is the simple description here is too long.
Anyways, I hope that helps. There's something to be said for a guitarist who is in total control of their sound, so, I enourage you to open a head and play around inside the builder.
One more note as well. The 5 head limit in head case lite has been removed and head categories enabled....That will be out shortly in version 1.54(hopefully the last beta).
