Happy Accident
==============

Roll the cube and it picks a plug-in you already own at random, loads it, and
opens it on a random preset. Roll Again does it all over.

Universal build - runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel. Signed with a
Developer ID, notarized by Apple and stapled, so Gatekeeper lets it through
without argument.


WHAT THIS INSTALLER DOES
------------------------

You choose which formats you want on the next screen. Each goes to the shared
folder its host actually scans:

    VST3 plug-in            ->  /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3
    Audio Unit              ->  /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components
    Standalone application  ->  /Applications

Logic Pro and GarageBand use the Audio Unit. Reaper, Live, Cubase and Bitwig
use the VST3. The standalone is optional - it runs Happy Accident on its own,
with no DAW at all.

macOS asks for an administrator password once, because those first two folders
live inside /Library and are shared by every account on the machine.

Afterwards, open your DAW and rescan plug-ins - look for "Happy Accident".


WHAT IT ROLLS
-------------

Happy Accident picks from the VST3 effects already installed on this machine.
Instruments, synths and generators are left out, and so are Happy Accident and
Rack themselves - nesting one wrapper inside the other is not a roll anyone
can make sense of.

The first roll on a new machine is the slow one: Happy Accident has to open
each plug-in module to see what is inside it. The answers are cached in

    ~/Library/Application Support/NEAP Happy Accident/

so you pay that once per machine rather than once per session. After a roll
lands it quietly picks the NEXT one in the background, which is why the second
roll and everything after it are quick.


PEAK LEVEL MATCH
----------------

A rolled plug-in can be far louder than the signal going into it, and the roll
is blind, so this measures how much the hosted plug-in moved the peak level
and applies a plain trim that cancels it out. It is not a compressor - one
number multiplies every sample equally, so the dynamics are exactly as the
plug-in produced them, and it only ever attenuates. Switch it off from the
faceplate if you want the raw result.


THE INTERFACE NEEDS INTERNET
----------------------------

Happy Accident's interface is a web page, loaded at
https://neap.cloud/happy-accident/ui/index.html - so the interface can be
improved without shipping you a new plug-in. The machine running it needs
internet access for it to draw. If the panel comes up blank, that is the first
thing to check.

In Logic, an AU running in Apple's sandbox may be refused that network fetch.
If the panel is blank there but fine in the standalone, that is what happened.


IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG
-----------------------

Happy Accident keeps a log of what it loaded and when:

    ~/Library/Application Support/NEAP Happy Accident/logs/happy-accident.log

Third-party plug-ins run in the same process as their host, so one badly
behaved effect can stall it. Every step is written to the log before it runs,
so if things freeze, the last line names the plug-in and the stage it stalled
in.


LICENCES
--------

The two typefaces the interface is drawn with are licensed under the SIL Open
Font License 1.1. The licences are included with this installer and are also
available from https://neap.cloud/happy-accident/assets/fonts/


NEAP Plugins
