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

chuck crash
by Steve M. Robbins 01 Jan '10

01 Jan '10

Hi, I've discovered chuck only a few days ago so I'm working through tutorials. Today I tried the following code from Graham Coleman's tutorial http://www.iua.upf.es/~gcoleman/chuck/tutorial/tutorial.html //connect a plucked string to the soundcard out StifKarp inst => dac; [0,2,3,1,4,2,6,3,4,4] @=> int mel[]; //sequence data for (0=>int i; ; i++) { //infinite loop std.mtof( 48 + mel[i%mel.cap()] ) => inst.freq; //set the note inst.noteOn( 0.5 ); //play a note at half volume 300::ms => now; //compute audio for 0.3 sec } This crashes chuck (v 1.2.1.3) at the "for" loop line. The code presumably used to work. Has the language changed or is this a simple bug? Thanks, -Steve

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Chuck-ing SinOsc inputs
by Robert Poor 01 Jan '10

01 Jan '10

What is the predicted effect of: SinOsc s1 => SinOsc s2 => dac; ? I was expecting some form of FM, but instead I'm met with stony silence (*). I understand that the .op parameter controls how the input to a UGen is interpreted, but I don't see any documentation on the effect of chucking to a SinOsc input. If the real answer "go read Ge's thesis", I can handle that, but I was hoping for more instant gratification. Thanks in advance... - Rob (*) Of course, I've also initialized gains and frequencies to reasonable values. The full code is: SinOsc s1 => SinOsc s2 => dac; 330.0 => s1.freq; 1.0 => s1.gain; 440.0 => s2.freq; 1.0 => s2.gain; 1::second => now;

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LiSa duration issue
by Kassen 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

Fellow ChucKists, Dear Dan, Two minor issues with LiSa.duration(). When we set the recording buffer to any size over 100::second a error will be given. However, the error won't make it clear it's coming from LiSa. In larger .ck files that also involve -for example- fft and the like it becomes a minor chore to detect the source of that warning message. This does not match the behaviour of other UGens and is generally inconvenient so I'd like to suggest pre-pending "LiSa; " to it. Though extremely minor I feel this is a issue. The second point is more subjective and open for debate. I feel that 100::second for the max duration made sense back when LiSa could only .record() but these days we can fill her memory using valueAt() and using longer buffers becomes practical. On top of that loading files straight into LiSa has been hinted at. Are there reasons to not extend this max to 10::minute or something in that order of magnitude? Would there be real issues with setting it to 1::hour and leaving people to shoot their own RAM-foot if and when they really wanted to? We allocate and free this memory properly, right? It is already possible to casually have ChucK blow your RAM out the window if you really wanted to; float foo[1000][1000][1000][1000]; //don't actually run this Yours, Kas.

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Issue/bug tracker system?
by Tomasz Kaye 30 Dec '09

30 Dec '09

Would an issue/bug tracker system be useful to ChucK people? Working on the manual sprint got me thinking about the way bugs are currently handled. From a users point of view i think that a web based tracking system has the following advantages: 1. It removes doubt that I might be filing a duplicate bug report (I don't want to needlessly make noise). 2. It would avoid having to pester people to find out what the status of a bug is. As a test I went ahead and registered one with lighthouse which seems like a nice system (free to use for open source projects) http://chuckissues.lighthouseapp.com/ My favourite bug is listed there already ;) Any thoughts, comments etc appreciated. Would devs use this? Thanks, Tomasz

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Hid open by string [bug]
by Kassen 22 Dec '09

22 Dec '09

Fellow ChucKists, Dear Spencer. I was going over the VERSIONS file, looking for more things that are lacking in the manual and found the .open( string name ) member function for Hid and HidIn. As far as I can tell this works fine, provided we know the exact name of the device. The following example will instead crash; HidIn hi; hi.open( "foo" ); ...this is of course assuming you don't accidentally have a device named "foo". The following does work for me; HidIn hi; hi.open("SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"); It seems like the existence of the device isn't properly verified before ChucK attempts to open it. Tested using the latest mini on Ubuntu 9.10 Yours, Kas.

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vista and addressing soundcards (RTAudio?)
by Kassen 19 Dec '09

19 Dec '09

Fellow ChucKists, Are there any known issues addressing the Vista sound system? There was a post about this here; http://electro-music.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38812 and it strikes me that the results of --probe come up with rather unrealistic sample rates for the available outputs. Does this relate to any known issues? I do think that our version of RTAusdio predates Vista's changes to the Windows sound system but I find it a bit hard to imagine that they changed the hooks *that* badly. Any Vista experts who could shed some light on this? Kas.

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--callback&--blocking (RTAudio?)
by Kassen 18 Dec '09

18 Dec '09

Fellow ChucKists, Dear Gary, I'm currently working on extending the manual section on the comandline flags for starting the VM and ran into --callback and --blocking. While mentioned in the online docs (which I'm basing my text on with some additional notes) these flags aren't explained in any depth beyond them being related to buffering. I suspect they relate to the interaction between RTAudio and the host-system/ soundcard but the way in which they do so isn't at all clear. Is there a place where more info could be found? Yours, Kas.

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Documentation Sprint
by Adam Tindale 17 Dec '09

17 Dec '09

Hi All, We have finished our documentation sprint and I'd like to sum up a bit. Sorry for the thread going a bit nuts, it was necessary to get organized. Thanks for your patience. We have migrated the documentation to FLOSS manuals. You can see the results of the day here: http://en.flossmanuals.net/ChucK/Introduction We had a few very active people working very hard today. I'd like to thank Tomasz, Kas, Scott, and Michael. They did a great job. The good news is that we were able to port all of the docs over. We have a few things that need some touch ups but it is complete. We have added some new sections to the docs about user submitted libraries. We have fixed many small typos, errors, and errata. We have also initiated four more people into the documentation system so that I can get some ongoing help. The bad news is also plentiful. The current web style cannot be changed. We require deeper access to the css files in order to make our documentation clear. The PDF output provided by FLOSS manuals is insufficient. We have established a relationship with the founder and main dev of FLOSS manuals who is excited to help us. We have also created a number of new bugs in their system. Truly ChucKian. I plan to spend the next month in contact with the FLOSS manual dev list to figure out our issues. In January I will organize another sprint to integrate the solutions we develop across the whole manual. Basically, we are making a tradeoff: greater user contribution for lesser control of layout and formatting. I hope to work with the ChucK team to migrate our web documentation to FLOSS manuals as we centralized to that system. We made it a lot farther than I hoped today. We were able to develop new documentation and not just rehash the old stuff with a new skin. This is a major win for the community and I invite you to sign up for an account and help us to continue building the documentation. --art

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Scale
by Hans Aberg 16 Dec '09

16 Dec '09

I've updated scale.ck - it now contains close to 50 measured gamelan pelog and slendro tunings, plus a few others, available here: http://www.math.su.se/~haberg/tuning_systems/ Hans

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Integer divisions
by Hans Aberg 15 Dec '09

15 Dec '09

I find the integer divisions C rule is problematic when working with intervals. Suppose I have [8/7, 7/6, 7/6, 8/7] and implement it as [Interval.r(8/7), Interval.r(7/6), Interval.r(7/6), Interval.r(8/7)] Then this is the same as: [Interval.r(0), Interval.r(0), Interval.r(0), Interval.r(0)] One has to add ".0" one of the numerator/denominator: [Interval.r(8.0/7), Interval.r(7.0/6), Interval.r(7.0/6), Interval.r(8.0/7)], One possible rule might be converting 32-bit int to 64-bit floats, and then only back to int when needed. The question if it then affects some ChucK legacy code. Hans

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banshee
by David Loberg Code 15 Dec '09

15 Dec '09

Any suggestions on how to create a scraped string effect in ChucK? (like in Henry Cowell's Banshee) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Cowell-The_Banshee.ogg thanks david David Loberg Code School of Music Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, MI 49008 code(a)wmich.edu

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mini shortcuts mistery
by Kassen 14 Dec '09

14 Dec '09

Fellow ChucKists, dear Spencer. For me the mini on Linux, using the Gnome desktop, has lately been acting up. Shortcuts like ctrl-c, ctrl-v, ctrl-x stop working after a while, so do the ones for adding and replacing shreds. Strangely ctrl-d *does* work in this state. No other programs have shown this behaviour and it's not consistent; they disappear after a while and so far I haven't seen them return. I think only the latest version does this. I'd like to document under what conditions this happens but it's quite inconsistent. Yours, Kas.

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pitch tracking in ChucK
by Robert Poor 13 Dec '09

13 Dec '09

I need a low-latency pitch tracker for real-time performance work -- has anyone implemented one in ChucK? I'm ready to write one if need be -- it would be fun to start playing with the UAna objects -- but I don't feel the need to replicate work already done. Thanks in advance. - Rob

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Mixed Object Lists and Hierarchy
by mike clemow 12 Dec '09

12 Dec '09

Hi list, Why can't I make an array of a parent type with objects of a single type, which is a child of the parent? class Foo { int foo; } class Bar extends Foo { int bar; } class Spam extends Foo { int spam; } Bar bara, barb, barc; Spam spama, spamb, spamc; Foo fooa, foob, fooc; [ bara, barb, barc ] @=> Bar bars[]; // okay [ bara, spamb, fooc ] @=> Foo foos[]; // mixed children okay [ bara, barb, barc ] @=> Foo morefoos[]; // incompatible types for assignment? best, Mike -- http://michaelclemow.com http://semiotech.org

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Cloning
by Hans Aberg 11 Dec '09

11 Dec '09

ChucK does not have cloning for reference object, right? That is, the semantic equivalent of an this explicit copy-constructor pseudocode: class A {...} A a0; ... new A(a0) @=> A a1; That is, instead of merely setting a1 to the same reference as that of a0, create a new independent copy, and set its references to that of a0 (shallow copy). It is a problem in the program I wrote, scale.ck: if modifying tuning data, one actually manipulates the data of the original tuning loaded into memory. This is cool, but if I want to be able to reload the original data, I will have to write my own cloning operator. The difference is illustrated in the code below. First I make a shallow copy of a to b, which means that I can change b without changing a. Then I set a reference of a to b, after which changing b also changes a. Hans ---- clone.ck ---- class A { string s; } A a; "a" @=> a.s; A b; "b" @=> b.s; chout <= "a.s = " <= a.s <= ", b.s = " <= b.s <= ".\n"; "c" @=> b.s; chout <= "\"c\" @=> b.s; a = " <= a.s <= ", b = " <= b.s <= ".\n"; a.s @=> b.s; chout <= "a.s @=> b.s; a.s = " <= a.s <= ", b.s = " <= b.s <= ".\n"; "d" @=> b.s; chout <= "\"d\" @=> b.s; a.s = " <= a.s <= ", b.s = " <= b.s <= ".\n"; a @=> b; chout <= "a @=> b; a.s = " <= a.s <= ", b.s = " <= b.s <= ".\n"; "e" @=> b.s; chout <= "\"e\" @=> b.s; a.s = " <= a.s <= ", b.s = " <= b.s <= ".\n"; ---- run ---- $ chuck clone.ck a.s = a, b.s = b. "c" @=> b.s; a = a, b = c. a.s @=> b.s; a.s = a, b.s = a. "d" @=> b.s; a.s = a, b.s = d. a @=> b; a.s = a, b.s = a. "e" @=> b.s; a.s = e, b.s = e. --------

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eChucK Update
by Les Hall 11 Dec '09

11 Dec '09

Hey fellow ChucKists, In the last eChucK update I made a joking reference to ChucK and eChucK going out on a date together because I was interfacing the first working eChucK prototype to ChucK. Dropping the silly personification here, I am happy to report that the experiment was a success. I added code to an existing Boolean Sequencer program so that it sent control signals to the eChucK board via the left and right channels of the headphones out jack. With a little bit of added circuitry, the eChucK board properly responded to the ChucK output signals. The result was nice enough that I injected vocals into the eChucK board and controlled the buttons and sliders to create guitar and percussion sounds with interesting musical qualities. I then did a couple of one-hour internet radio shows (called "Inventor's Inventions) on the electro-music station. These two shows are available for listening in the electro-music radio archives which reside in the "Streaming Radio Station" sub-forum of www.electro-music.com (nearby where the ChucK forum is). The very latest news is that the board house (E-TekNet) has manufactured the first run of eChucK Karplus Strong circuit boards and UPS is scheduled to deliver them to my door tomorrow. Nine of the ten boards are spoken for and I expect to sell the last remaining one sometime soon. Some of the boards are sold bare, and some are to be assembled by myself for the customers at a reasonable cost. The bare boards sold for $21 + shipping ($5 US, $10 International) each. Also in the works is the companion circuit board, a Boolean Sequencing board which creates complex musical sequences from a simple logic matrix of 6x8 DIP switches. The designs are such that the BS board attaches to the top of the KS board with standoffs, forming a battery-powered eChucK "brick" suitable for use by a performing artist or studio artist. In addition to the stand-alone brick-style operation, both boards are designed to be used in a modular synthesizer either separately or in conjunction. Overall, the response from the community has been quite positive. One modular synthesizer customer said that it would require three to five modules to do the job of a single KS board, so if you want to do guitar or percussion sounds via Karplus Strong on a modular synthesizer the value is significant. Some people have voiced interest in eventually (as the design evolves) purchasing four or more KS boards or BS+KS board pairs so that they can create songs with multiple voices (ie: 2 guitars and 2 drum types). Another person would like to create guitar chords by using a few KS boards, one for each string of a chord. So anyway, that's the update. Progress continues and it's a really fun thing for me to be doing, so I'll keep at it. Your comments, suggestions, and questions are welcome as always. Les

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miniAudicle Installation Error
by Les Hall 10 Dec '09

10 Dec '09

Hi folks, I just tried to install miniAudicle 0.2.0 (gidora) on my eMac and got the following error: The following disk images failed to mount miniAudicle-0.2.0a.dmg no mountable file systems I'm running OSX 10.3.9, which is kind of old. I cannot upgrade my OSX because the SuperDrive failed (for the second time), and besides I'm not to keen on paying Apple "rent" to use my eMac. I say "rent" because their OSX upgrades cost $129 and come out every 18 months or so, resulting in a "rental" payment to Apple of $7 per month. This is unacceptable to me so I cannot and will not upgrade my OSX. Is this decision also locking me out of miniAudicle upgrades? Thanks for your reply. Les

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Problem with mixed float int lists
by Hans Aberg 10 Dec '09

10 Dec '09

ChucK does not admit explicit lists with numbers bot having and not having the decimal point, as in the example below. The problem is really that I made a program that writes tuning data to a file, which then should be pasted back into a .ck file. If the float value has not fractional part, 'chuck' writes it without decimal point. For example, it writes 440 Hz not 440.0 Hz. The first idea would be have 'chuck' always writing floats with a decimal point. But if the tuning data comes from some other source, it may not have a decimal point. One then ends up editing this data by hand, which is cumbersome. So I think 'chuck' should be able to convert explicit mixed float-int lists to float[]. There might also be some floats formatting capabilities. Hans ---- float_int_list.ck ---- [0.0, 1.0] @=> float as[]; // OK. [0, 1.0] @=> float bs[]; // array init [...] contains incompatible types... fun void f(float xs[]) {} f([0.0, 1.2]); // OK. f([0, 1.0]); // array init [...] contains incompatible types... f([0, 1]); // argument type(s) do not match: --------

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initialization of static variables
by Robert Poor 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

Gang: I now understand a bit more about initialization of static variables -- more accurately, about execution of top-level code -- and while it's not earth-shattering, I thought I'd pass it along. It may avoid some astonishment. The rules are simple, but are different than I thought: -- top level forms INSIDE a class definition are executed every time an instance of that class is created. -- top level forms OUTSIDE of a class definition are executed once when the file loads. To see the implication on initializing a static variable, consider the following: ===== file: t1.ck public class Statix { // UNO is set with to new value at every call to 'new Statix' static Object @ UNO; (new Object) @=> UNO; // DUE is set once after the first call to 'new Statix' static Object @ DUE; if (DUE == null) (new Object) @=> DUE; // TRE is set once when the file is loaded (see below) static Object @ TRE; <<< "at a: UNO=", Statix.UNO, "DUE=", Statix.DUE, "TRE=", Statix.TRE >>>; } <<< "at b: UNO=", Statix.UNO, "DUE=", Statix.DUE, "TRE=", Statix.TRE >>>; (new Statix) @=> Statix.TRE; <<< "at c: UNO=", Statix.UNO, "DUE=", Statix.DUE, "TRE=", Statix.TRE >>>; ===== file: t2.ck <<< "at d: UNO=", Statix.UNO, "DUE=", Statix.DUE, "TRE=", Statix.TRE >>>; new Statix @=> Statix @ _t1; <<< "at e: UNO=", Statix.UNO, "DUE=", Statix.DUE, "TRE=", Statix.TRE >>>; new Statix @=> Statix @ _t2; <<< "at f: UNO=", Statix.UNO, "DUE=", Statix.DUE, "TRE=", Statix.TRE >>>; ===== the output: % chuck t1.ck t2.ck at b: UNO= 0x0 DUE= 0x0 TRE= 0x0 at a: UNO= 0x5e5aa0 DUE= 0x5e5af0 TRE= 0x0 at c: UNO= 0x5e5aa0 DUE= 0x5e5af0 TRE= 0x5e6670 at d: UNO= 0x5e5aa0 DUE= 0x5e5af0 TRE= 0x5e6670 at a: UNO= 0x5e6ba0 DUE= 0x5e5af0 TRE= 0x5e6670 at e: UNO= 0x5e6ba0 DUE= 0x5e5af0 TRE= 0x5e6670 at a: UNO= 0x5e6c00 DUE= 0x5e5af0 TRE= 0x5e6670 at f: UNO= 0x5e6c00 DUE= 0x5e5af0 TRE= 0x5e6670

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background music
by Tom Lieber 08 Dec '09

08 Dec '09

could you guys make this a little better for me? one file max tho. thx 100::ms => dur d; Step s => dac; 0.1 => s.gain; Moog w => dac; 0.1 => w.gain; 1 => w.noteOn; Moog w2 => Envelope env => dac; .2 => w2.gain; 1 => w2.noteOn; d => env.duration; 1 => env.keyOn; fun float warble() { return Std.rand2f(2.5/1.01, 2.5*1.01); } fun void sweep(float freq, dur d) { w.freq() => float start; for(0 => int i; i < 10; i++) { (i / 10.) * (freq - start) + start => w.freq; w.freq() * warble() => w2.freq; d / 10. => now; } freq => w.freq; freq * warble() => w2.freq; walk(env.target(), .0, 1, .3) => env.target; 1 => env.keyOn; } fun void yay() { d * 4 => dur e; while(true) { Std.rand2(1, 2)::e => now; spork ~ sweep(Std.rand2(60, 70) => Std.mtof, Std.rand2f(1/60., 1/10.)::e); } } spork ~ yay(); while(true) { Std.rand2(1, 2)::d => now; 0.1 => s.next; Std.rand2(1, 2)::d => now; -0.1 => s.next; d => now; 1 => s.next; d => now; -1 => s.next; } fun float walk(float current, float min, float max, float step) { Std.rand2f(current - step, current + step) => float n; if(n < min) min => n; if(n > max) max => n; return n; } -- Tom Lieber http://AllTom.com/

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Bouncing .ck to audio files
by Ryan Wieghard 08 Dec '09

08 Dec '09

Hey all, I was wondering if there is a way to make the output of my .ck file an mp3 or wav file. Thanks Ryan. -- "Le savant n’étudie pas la nature parce que cela est utile ; il l’étudie parce qu’il y prend plaisir et il y prend plaisir parce qu’elle est belle." - Henri Poincaré

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FormSwep
by Robert Poor 07 Dec '09

07 Dec '09

Is FormSwep available in ChucK? I see it in the source code, I see it described in previous STK docs, the Moog UGen makes mention of it, but attempting to compile: FormSwep fs => blackhole; errors with "undefined type FormSwep in declaration" - Rob

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chuck 1.2.1.3 weird debug messages and aggregate devices
by mike clemow 06 Dec '09

06 Dec '09

Hi, chuck version: 1.2.1.3 (dracula) exe target: mac os x : intel I'm having trouble getting Chuck to not segfault using aggregate devices (only when trying to use more channels than in the first device) in Mac OS X 10.6. Has this always been an issue? Working around this for now, however, I'm curious what others' experiences have been with aggregate devices. Also, what's with the malloc messages in my newly compiled-from-source 1.2.1.3? Again, curious... Best, Mike -- http://michaelclemow.com http://semiotech.org

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Local-static bug
by Hans Aberg 05 Dec '09

05 Dec '09

For some reason, 'chuck' does not admit different type argument overloading on local & static class functions. The example below works as long as one does not call the static function. So either it should complain that it is illegal when encountering it in the class or admit this kind of overloading. Originally, I used a function "add" on intervals - not as artificial as the example below. Hans ---- local-static.ck ---- class Test { fun void print(float x) { chout <= "Local fun: " <= x <= "\n"; } fun static void print(float x, float y) { chout <= "Static fun: (" <= x <= ", " <= y <= ")\n"; } } Test.print(1, 2); // This call causes the run error. //Test t; //t.print(2); ---- run ---- $ chuck local-static.ck [local-static.ck]:line(11): cannot access member 'Test.print' without object instance... ----

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the novice chucKster trying to navigate the Event class
by Ryan Wieghard 01 Dec '09

01 Dec '09

Hello! So I am trying to design a data structure that is a list of musical events that are composed of duration, amplitude, and a list of four pitches to be assigned to SinOsc's . When I was constructing the idea, I called the atomic units of the lists "events" not knowing that there existed an Event class in chucK. When I researched the Event class, however, I become confused as to whether or not extended that class would be appropriate for what I am trying to achieve. I was wondering if someone could advise me the easiest way of going about creating a list of lists of two ints and a list: ["Event"Object1, "Event"Object2, ...,"Event"ObjectN] where "Event"Object[i] = [int amplitude, int duration, [pitch1,pitch2,pitch3,pitch4]] The idea is that one can simply iterate across the above list of "Event"Objects and assign a bank of four SinOsc's the pitchs 1 through 4; assign an envelope's gain to the amplitude, and advanced time by duration. I apologize if the above is an ugly articulation of my idea. Sincerely, Ryan. -- "Le savant n’étudie pas la nature parce que cela est utile ; il l’étudie parce qu’il y prend plaisir et il y prend plaisir parce qu’elle est belle." - Henri Poincaré

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