November 2007 - chuck-users - lists.cs.princeton.edu

Controling Chuck - building accessible GUI
by Rich Caloggero 28 Dec '07

28 Dec '07

There was a thread on this list back in January about control of chuck via OSC, a Python package. I have a few questions: First, I'm blind and use a screen reader. I want to build something that allows me to control chuck sreds via a GUI. I don't like Python much for programming, and am not sure if OSC would even work with my screen reader (anyone have any quick demos I could try just to see if the screen reader will deal with the UI toolkit at all)? What I was thinking of doing is building something in Mozilla's XUL language. This does have the ability to send network packets, and also can execute shell commands. So, was thinking about writing code in chuck and then pass arguments to each .ck file to change parameters. Of course, this might not work so smoothly if we wanted to change things on the fly. FOr this I guess I'd need to implement something like OSC's message passing scheme in XUL. Any advice, or suggestions? Anyone interested in rewriting audical so it works with a screen reader? There are so many great software synthesizers on the market now that work as both stand alone and/or plugins to popular hosts like Cakewalk's Sonar, but none that I've ever tried will allow the screen reader enough control to do real sound design. With effort, one can usually figure out how to change presets, but in a large number of cases even this is not possible. I was hoping that chuck could be used to build a fully accessible sound designers toolbox that could allow one to do things quickly and easily without having to write too much code. I've obviously never used it because it is very graphically oriented, but think of something like PD "Pure Data". You aparently can build all sorts of neat stuff by just plugging stuff together, without having to write a line of code. Thanx for any thoughts/suggestions... -- Rich

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shreds, namespace, functions, classes, etc
by Kassen 12 Dec '07

12 Dec '07

Dear list, Shreds are objects (of type Shred) and functions aren't objects. This is all good and well but it gets harder when we spork a function and the function becomes a Shred and hence a Object. Consider this; ------------------------ fun void tester() { "boom" => string beep; while(1) { <<<beep>>>; second => now; } } spork ~ tester() @=> Shred foo; 5::second => now; "clik" => foo.beep; //this doesn't work day=> now; ---------------------------------------- It's not so clear to me *why* the offending line doesn't work. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something or making a syntax error but I think that what we are seeing here is a loss of namespace that would be useful and I don't understand why this happens. I also tried stuff along these lines; ---------------------- class Bar extends Shred { //stuff including variables and a constructor } ------------------------------ If I do that I can instantiate a "Bar" but all it does is run it's constructor; I can't manage to spork a Bar or assign a sporked shred to a Bar. I can also make a array of Bar's but all that gets me is the constructor running; --------------------------- class Bar extends Shred { static int number; <<<number++>>>; } //print a series of numbers, no shreds in sight Bar array[5]; ---------------------------------- So, now I'm quite happy I said so many times that there are no "stupid n00b questions" because now it's my turn to ask exactly what a "Shred" is because I'm starting to feel like I have no idea. :¬) Could somebody please explain to me exactly what's going on here? Yours, Kas.

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Sitar, hearing voices, Miniaudicle
by Kassen 02 Dec '07

02 Dec '07

Dear ChucKists, Last night I was fooling around with some STK instruments and it looks like Sitar needs some attention. First of all Sitar.pluck() doesn't.... well, pluck. Sitar.moteOn() does pluck and as far as I can see .noteOn could simply be refered to by .pluck(). Second one is slightly more complicated and turns out to be downright dangerous. I accidentally send Sitar some every low notes (in the bottom octave of the MIDI range) and this results in a error that the delay line is too short. Strangely StifKarp doesn't do the same (that one "plucks" as well). This gets dangerous as I believe Sitar will report on this issue for every sample so that's 44 Kilo-errors per second. This was too much for the poor MiniAudicle to deal with and I had to quit it. If it's intended behaviour that Sitar has a minimum frequency (for example because real sitars don't go into the very low range either) it would be bettter to have a sanity check on the frequency before this happens. I could probably fix these myself tomorow and send in the fixed STK Ugens cpp file if that would be helpfull? Next up; VoicForm's documentation doesn't include any mention of the allowed phonemes (sp?) and the only way that I could find them was read the source. Without those this Ugens is almost unusable for non-random usage so that probably needs a fix. I realise, BTW, that figuring out the parameters is time-consuming and probably boring as well but wouldn't it be a lot of fun if ChucK could say it's own name? I tried to persuade it to do that but I think we are short a few sounds.Generally we don't seem to have any plosives or "C"/"k" type clicking sounds so that"s no "chucK', "spork" or "crash" maybe "shred" would be possible. It's kinda trivial but it would be so much fun for demonstrations. I could submit a sugested addition for the docs to the WiKi as well tomorow, the source is quite clear on this once you know your way around. Finally, I did some more testing and I'm now sure that on XP the Mini affects keyboard settings. More speciffically on startup the Mini switches the keyboard layout in the "langiuage bar" to the default one that XP asumes on startup. This can get anoying; my default setting is the Dutch one so I can use my trusty IBM model M but the laptop itself has a US layout so when traveling lightly ( a Model M clocks in at 2.5KG, roughly 5 pounds) I use the US layout. It gets iritating if the Mini keeps switching this back to NL every time it's started (which can get frequent when hunting bugs), especially as I can't see a reason for that. Note that characters like "=" and ">" are in different places on various layouts, as are all the brackets.... It also looks like the Mini doesn't use XP's clip-board so pasting from the Mini to other aplications is impossible, it's also not possible to use "copy", re-start the Mini (or crash it!), then paste. So, that's it, quite a few issues for a 1.5::hour session but that's how it goes :-) Yours, Kas.

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Question about Routing instruments?
by Alpha Core 30 Nov '07

30 Nov '07

Hello I had A question about routing intsturment and triggering them via keyboard I produce text to midi music And now that I have found and been using CHUCK i think its great.. My question is this Can I say create a Osc with setting that I want which i know how to do But can i say route it to the computer keyboard say trigger it by pressing the letter A or can I just setup a char. variable to trigger it? Thanks for any Help Alphacore --------------------------------- Be a better sports nut! Let your teams follow you with Yahoo Mobile. Try it now.

2 1

Compiling Chuck on Ubuntu 7.04
by Christian Werthschuĺte 30 Nov '07

30 Nov '07

Hello, I'm trying to compile and install chuck on Ubuntu 7.04 with OSS yet have come across the following error message: What have I done wrong? Thanks, Christian christian@christian-laptop:~/Downloads/chuck-1.2.1.1/src$ make linux-oss make -f makefile.oss make[1]: Betrete Verzeichnis '/home/christian/Downloads/chuck-1.2.1.1/src' g++ -D__LINUX_OSS__ -c -O3 -D__CK_SNDFILE_NATIVE__ rtaudio.cpp g++ -D__LINUX_OSS__ -c -O3 -D__CK_SNDFILE_NATIVE__ rtmidi.cpp g++ -D__LINUX_OSS__ -c -O3 -D__CK_SNDFILE_NATIVE__ ugen_osc.cpp g++ -D__LINUX_OSS__ -c -O3 -D__CK_SNDFILE_NATIVE__ ugen_filter.cpp g++ -D__LINUX_OSS__ -c -O3 -D__CK_SNDFILE_NATIVE__ ugen_stk.cpp g++ -D__LINUX_OSS__ -c -O3 -D__CK_SNDFILE_NATIVE__ ugen_xxx.cpp ugen_xxx.cpp:43:21: error: sndfile.h: No such file or directory ugen_xxx.cpp:2075: Fehler: ISO-C++ verbietet Deklaration von »SNDFILE« ohne Typ ugen_xxx.cpp:2075: Fehler: expected »;« before »*« token ugen_xxx.cpp: In constructor »sndbuf_data::sndbuf_data()«: ugen_xxx.cpp:2111: Fehler: »fd« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp: In function »long unsigned int sndbuf_read(sndbuf_data*, long unsigned int, long unsigned int)«: ugen_xxx.cpp:2142: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2154: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2154: Fehler: »sf_seek« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2158: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2158: Fehler: »sf_readf_float« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2168: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2168: Fehler: »sf_close« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2169: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp: In function »void sndbuf_setpos(sndbuf_data*, double)«: ugen_xxx.cpp:2216: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp: In function »float sndbuf_sampleAt(sndbuf_data*, long int)«: ugen_xxx.cpp:2236: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp: In function »void sndbuf_ctrl_read(Chuck_Object*, void*, Chuck_DL_Return*, Chuck_VM_Shred*)«: ugen_xxx.cpp:2457: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2459: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2459: Fehler: »sf_close« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2460: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2588: Fehler: »SF_INFO« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2588: Fehler: expected `;' before »info« ugen_xxx.cpp:2589: Fehler: »info« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2594: Fehler: »SF_FORMAT_RAW« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2594: Fehler: »SF_FORMAT_PCM_16« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2594: Fehler: »SF_ENDIAN_CPU« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2600: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2600: Fehler: »SFM_READ« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2600: Fehler: »sf_open« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2601: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2601: Fehler: »sf_error« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2605: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2605: Fehler: »sf_strerror« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2606: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2606: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2606: Fehler: »sf_close« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2630: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2630: Fehler: »sf_seek« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2643: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2643: Fehler: »sf_close« wurde in diesem Gültigkeitsbereich nicht definiert ugen_xxx.cpp:2643: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp:2647: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« ugen_xxx.cpp: In function »void sndbuf_cget_valueAt(Chuck_Object*, void*, Chuck_DL_Return*, Chuck_VM_Shred*)«: ugen_xxx.cpp:2840: Fehler: »struct sndbuf_data« hat kein Element namens »fd« make[1]: *** [ugen_xxx.o] Fehler 1 make[1]: Verlasse Verzeichnis '/home/christian/Downloads/chuck-1.2.1.1/src' make: [linux-oss] Fehler 2 (ignoriert)

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Re: [chuck-users] sitar and voic-form
by Macciza Macpherson 30 Nov '07

30 Nov '07

From memory all the KP style ugens in the STK framework expect a 'lowest freq' at init Voic-form is a 4-band formant synth not actually a speech synth. good vowel sounds though Check the orig STK project at http://ccrma.stanford.edu/software/stk/ index.html for more info

2 1

dac.channels
by eduard 30 Nov '07

30 Nov '07

Hi there, I'd like to use all my soundcard outputs, however dac.channels() reports the wrong number or at least a different number of channels than chuck --probe. Here's the output of the latter for the mentioned soundcard: [chuck]: ------( chuck -- dac4 )--------------- [chuck]: device name = "RME: Fireface 400 (4AF)" [chuck]: probe [success] ... [chuck]: # output channels = 18 [chuck]: # input channels = 18 [chuck]: # duplex Channels = 18 [chuck]: default device = YES [chuck]: natively supported data formats: [chuck]: 8-bit int [chuck]: 16-bit int [chuck]: 24-bit int [chuck]: 32-bit int [chuck]: 32-bit float [chuck]: 64-bit float [chuck]: supported sample rates: [chuck]: 32000 Hz [chuck]: 44100 Hz [chuck]: 48000 Hz [chuck]: 88200 Hz [chuck]: 96000 Hz [chuck]: 176400 Hz [chuck]: 192000 Hz however dac.channels() reports that only 2 channels are available. I've double checked that this soundcard is the default one and also run chuck with --dac4 flag, but no luck. Does anyone know what could be wrong? thanks in advance, eduard

3 2

Unit tests, vm crashes
by Michael Heuer 29 Nov '07

29 Nov '07

Sorry, should have changed the subject line Michael Heuer wrote: > A few more language questions/feature requests: > > I see that NullPointerExceptions are thrown in some situations (but > not always, see below) by the vm -- is it possible to throw an > Exception? > > Is it possible to catch an Exception? > > I could simulate throwing an exception by printing out an error > message with the offending line number and calling me.exit() . . . is > it possible to get the current line number? > > In my attempt at an unit test framework for ChucK I crash the vm where > I would expect it to throw a NullPointerException. See commented out > lines in the attachment at > > http://electro-music.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=154598#154598 > > michael >

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upchuck: a chuck preprocessor
by Scott Wheeler 29 Nov '07

29 Nov '07

Since I do a lot of OO-ish stuff in ChucK and tend to reuse my standard classes a lot, the lack of an import mechanism or preprocessor was getting on my nerves. I hacked up a (not-entirely-so-) quick one last night in Perl. The only preprocessor command supported at this point is "include". The syntax is: #include(Something.ck) or, to make things prettier: #include(Something) It will automatically search the current working directory, check to see if appending a ".ck" helps, and then do the same for every directory in the colon separated $CHUCK_DIRS. Extra credit is that it: - Checks to avoid double includes, recursive includes, etc. - Automatically passes all non-file arguments on to ChucK - Translates error messages back to the original files (rather than the temp file that ChucK actually executes; this was a pain since ChucK uses stderr for output and errors) So, let's play with it a little. I've attached a couple of small files to be put in ~/ChucK. I've got upchuck in ~/bin, which is in my path. Then from the shell: export CHUCK_DIRS=~/ChucK upchuck Quux "Foo" : (string) "Bar" : (string) "Baz" : (string) This won't work on Windows, but I suspect the only thing that needs to be reimplemented is the tempName subroutine (which you could just write in Perl in about 2 minutes -- I just don't know what the standard temp dir is on Windows). -Scott #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use IPC::Open3; use Cwd 'abs_path'; use File::Basename; ################################################################################ # addOutputLine ################################################################################ our @lineMap; our @fileMap; sub addOutputLine { my $file = shift(@_); my $line = shift(@_); push(@lineMap, $line); push(@fileMap, $file); } ################################################################################ # tempName ################################################################################ sub tempName { my $temp = `mktemp -t chuck.XXXXX`; chomp($temp); return $temp; } ################################################################################ # findFile ################################################################################ sub findFile { my $file = shift(@_); (-e $file) && return $file; (-e "$file.ck") && return "$file.ck"; my @dirs = split(":", $ENV{"CHUCK_DIRS"}); foreach my $dir (@dirs) { (-e "$dir/$file") && return "$dir/$file"; (-e "$dir/$file.ck") && return "$dir/$file.ck"; } return ""; } ################################################################################ # include ################################################################################ sub include { our %includes; my $file = shift(@_); my $found = findFile($file); if(length($found) == 0) { die "Could not include \"$file\""; } $file = $found; if(++$includes{$file} > 1) { return ""; } my $output; open(INCLUDE, $file); my @lines = <INCLUDE>; close(INCLUDE); my $count = 1; foreach my $line (@lines) { $output .= &preprocessor($line); addOutputLine($file, $count++); } return $output . "\n"; } ################################################################################ # preprocessor ################################################################################ sub preprocessor { my $input = shift(@_); if($input !~ /^\s*#/) { return $input; } chomp($input); my $command = $input; my $argument = $input; $command =~ s/^\s*#(\w+).*/$1/; $argument =~ s/.*$(.+)$.*/$1/; if($command =~ /include/i) { return include($argument); } die "Unhandled preprocess command, \"$input\""; } ################################################################################ # errorAdjuster ################################################################################ sub errorAdjustor { my $temp = shift(@_); my $error = shift(@_); if($error =~ /^\[$temp\]:line/) { chomp($error); my $lineNumber = $error; $lineNumber =~ s/\[$temp\]:line$([0-9]+)$.*/$1/; $error =~ s/$temp/$fileMap[$lineNumber - 1]/; $error =~ s/line$$lineNumber$/line($lineMap[$lineNumber - 1])/; return "$error\n"; } return $error; } ################################################################################ # main ################################################################################ my $temp = tempName(); open(OUTPUT, ">$temp"); my $command = "chuck"; while(my $arg = shift(@ARGV)) { if(!findFile($arg)) { $command .= " $arg"; } else { print OUTPUT include($arg); } } close(OUTPUT); $command .= " $temp"; if(fork() == 0) { sleep(1); unlink($temp); } else { local(*WRITE, *READ, *ERROR); my $pid = open3(\*WRITE, \*READ, \*ERROR, $command); if(fork() == 0) { my $file = basename($temp); while(my $line = <ERROR>) { print errorAdjustor($file, $line); } } else { while(my $line = <READ>) { print $line; } } waitpid($pid, 0); wait(); } wait(); #include(Foo) <<< "Bar" >>>; #include(Foo) #include(Bar) #include(Baz) #include(Bar) <<< "Baz" >>>; <<< "Foo" >>>;

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[off-list] parab0xx in Wired News
by AlgoMantra 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Hey Guys, We didn't use ChucK in this one, but you can using OSC! I have used Python, and released the source too. Check out the story, and please feel free to embellish and improve upon the code for your own evil purposes. I'm also happy to look at collaborative opportunities/ideas. The code is at my website (see below). We made it to Wired! Yay! http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/11/video-prototype.html ------- -.- 1/f ))) --. ------- ... http://www.algomantra.com

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