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

a bit about my chuck live system
by Atte André Jensen 29 Jan '09

29 Jan '09

Hi I posted this deep in the "this doesn't work" thread, thought it might be better to start a new topic. This is in response to those who expressed interest in discussing home-brewn chuck live systems, so here follows a short description of mine. First I must tell a little bit about the kind of music that I'm doing in this particular project. It's obviously electronic, but not very loop based. Although it's not pop it uses to some extend the pop forms like intro, verse, chorus. Also it has chord changes like a pop song, and those changes might be different for each song part. And finally it involves a double bass player and a singer (besides me and a vj). Maybe it's time for some music. These are the first two tracks of the first concert with chuck. They might be representative of what I do live, something algorithmic, something prepared, something weird (for the regular listener) and something poppy. Notes 1) The thing blowing up between tracks is my micron, 2) the muddy sound on the vocals should be better next time, 3) besides the vocal the bass and the blow-up in the transition everything is chuck. http://atte.dk/download/01_train.mp3 http://atte.dk/download/02_holde_pkt.mp3 One of my main motivations was to be able to make something that is flexible like a real band. I want to be able to jam with it, take the dynamics down, repeat a part, stay on a part, and play solo (either with synth, game pad or melodica) over it. With this small band I soon felt it would be a waste of my hands and mind to simply play any single part unless it would be possible to modulate the whole piece dramatically with that specific part. In stead my role is to modulate the whole "band", kind of like a director, deciding in real time which part comes next, taking certain instruments out and controlling the music in more general terms. Everything is controlled from a bcr2000, and I play a little on a keyboard and a game pad. So my system lets me program "patterns" like a synth part, or a drums part, each of which is a single .ck file. They have a degree of either randomness to them or are actual algorithms that spin out eternal variations. Each of them "listens" to the settings of various knobs like dynamic (how loud to play), height (chose notes in either lower or higher register), length (play short or long notes) and activity (play less or more). Each part goes into an eight channel mixer with delay (with controllable delay time and feedback) and a controllable filter. I make some abstractions on time (this was where my segfault occurred), like: Time.wait(4); which means "wait for the next quarter-note" or if(Time.sub(8)%2 == 1) which means "if we're now on one of one-and, two-and etc. Basically the system works very well, but it takes practice. Not only can it be tricky to actually press the right button at the right moment, but it demands alot to be able to shape an eight minute piece from beginning to end with a satisfying structure and a natural climax not only so that the piece itself comes out right but also so that it fits within the entire set, which lasted about 50 minutes (next gig will have more new songs, so we're doing two sets of about 35-40 minutes). I hope this gives you an idea of what I do and why. Of course this explanation leaves out a lot of details, and the systems does a bit more here and there, but that's basically it... -- Atte http://atte.dk http://modlys.dk

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thought everyone might want to check this out
by Alpha Core 28 Jan '09

28 Jan '09

Hello to Everyone, I Have just Beta launched the Rails Text2midi Music Application This site will soon allow complete on line collaboration and more instruments Just trying to get feedback and Ideas of what people like to see in future Updates to this site.. so come by generate a Song or to and share with other fellow musicians http://text2midi.herokugarden.com Thank for taking the time and support Alpahcore

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chuck --probe doesn't find USB midiman keyboard?
by Robert Poor 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

[insert gratuitous ravingly happy chuck comment here] I'm a brand new user, so this may be a simple cockpit error. I've plugged in a midiman "oxygen 8" clavier keyboard into my Mac Powerbook G4. The Mac recognizes the clavier keyboard in System Profiler... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Vendor-Specific Device: Product ID: 0x1014 Vendor ID: 0x0763 (M-Audio) Version: 0.01 Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec Location ID: 0x1b100000 Current Available (mA): 500 Current Required (mA): Unknown (Device has not been configured) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ... but chuck --probe does not: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= [poorbook15-5:chuck-1.2.1.2-exe/examples/midi] r% chuck --probe [chuck]: found 1 device(s) ... [chuck]: ------( chuck -- dac1 )--------------- [chuck]: device name = "Apple: Built-in Audio" [chuck]: probe [success] ... [chuck]: # output channels = 2 [chuck]: # input channels = 2 [chuck]: # duplex Channels = 2 [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]: [chuck]: ------( chuck -- 0 MIDI inputs )------ [chuck]: [chuck]: ------( chuck -- 0 MIDI outputs )----- [chuck]: [poorbook15-5:chuck-1.2.1.2-exe/examples/midi] r% =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Any ideas what's required to get Chuck to honor the USB / Midi keyboard? Thanks. - Rob

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Congratulations => Perry;
by Ge Wang 21 Jan '09

21 Jan '09

Dear all, Perry has been recognized as one of the 44 ACM fellows in 2008, "for contributions to computer music, physics-based sound synthesis and voice analysis/synthesis." http://fellows.acm.org/fellow_citation.cfm?id=4412276&srt=year&year=2008 Congratulations Perry!!! Ge!

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parent and children classes
by eduard aylon 21 Jan '09

21 Jan '09

Dear chucklist, I have a question regarding parent and children classes. I'm building a patch with operators that may have one or anoother user defined envelope (i.e. gaussian like, percussive like, etc.). I want to avoid to have to define each operator with 4 different envelopes and then connect-disconnect-reconnect. What I would like is to define a parent class EnvelopeClass from which the rest can inherit. I remember from the past that in chuck inheritance is not very "handy", so if children have different functions or members than its base class, these cannot be accessed. Does anybody have good recommendations to this problem? So the idea is: EnvelopeClass -> this is the base class GaussEnvelope -> children class that inherits from EnvelopeClass PercussiveEnvelope-> children class that inherits from EnvelopeClass now I'd like to have class Operator { SinOsc s; EnvelopeClass @ env; } and be able to assign different envelope types and be able to access their members. Maybe the example at the bottoom of the email is more explanatory. Operator op; GaussianEnvelope gaussEnv @=> op.env; Operator op2; PercussiveEnvelope percEnv @=> op2.env; and even later be able to change the type of the envelope for any operator: GaussianEnvelope gaussEnv2 @=> op2.env; From what I remember, the trick would be that parent and children classes have EXACTLY the same member vars and functions although the implementation contained in it may differ. However, a gauss envelope or a percussive envelope have very different demands, and the best would be to be able to have diffferent implementations for each but inherit from the same base class. any thoughts are very much appreciated, thanks eduard Another example could be: class operator { UGen @ ugen; } Operator op; SinOsc s @=> op.ugen; // this is fine so far but none of the functions of sinosc can be accessed 220 => op.ugen.freq; // this throws an error, as far as I remember....

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Fwd: hotswapping UGens
by Kassen 21 Jan '09

21 Jan '09

Dear all, I just noticed that I accidentally send this to the DEV list instead of the users one. That was of course a mistake. I hope this didn't bother anyone, I'll try to pay more attention on the future. Sorry, Kas. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kassen <signal.automatique(a)gmail.com> Date: 2009/1/21 Subject: hotswapping UGens To: ChucK Developer Mailing List <chuck-dev(a)lists.cs.princeton.edu> Fellow ChucKists, Inspired by Scott's explanation of casting I thought I'd try a new trick that may be quite interesting for livecoding. first run this file; ----------------------------- new UGen @=> Foo.instrument; public class Foo { static UGen @instrument; spork ~attach(); fun void attach() { while(1) { if(!instrument.isConnectedTo( dac )) instrument => dac; second => now; } } } Foo foo; new Sitar @=> foo.instrument; //your melody goes here while(second => now) 1 => (foo.instrument $ Sitar).noteOn; -------------------------------------------- Then run this to hot-swap the UGen while the original code runs; -------------- new Shakers @=> Foo.instrument; ----------------------- Sadly this does need that "attach" function as assignment breaks the link to the dac. I'm not sure I feel that's desirable behaviour but at least we can now hotswap UGens without crashing. I don't think I succeeded in that before. Yours, Kas.

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Communicating with external processes
by Andrew McPherson 21 Jan '09

21 Jan '09

Hi all, What are the ways to communicate between ChucK and external programs? Specifically, my code has a lot of parameters to adjust in real time, and a GUI would be a nice way to do that. I could put the GUI together in PD or Cocoa, but how can I transmit the data to ChucK? The two ways I have found to receive external data are MIDI and OSC. MIDI control changes can be a little coarse in terms of resolution (even with 14-bit values), and for most programs it'll need some sort of loopback driver to handle the routing. OSC seems closer to a generic way of interchanging data, but it looks like I would have to spork a different thread for each parameter I want to receive (since they'd have different addresses), and that I can only receive one value per OSC event. If I wanted, say, to receive 3 floats as part of one message, is there a way to do that? Is there a way to read directly from a pipe to another process? I'm thinking of a setup where an event is signaled when new data is available at the input. Any other thoughts on how to approach this task? Thanks much, Andrew P.S. Semi-related to the above: is there a way to wait on 2 events simultaneously? Thinking of something like these: midiEvent || oscEvent => now; // wait for whichever comes first midiEvent || 200::ms => now; // wait with a timeout

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Get the value of an Envelope
by Andrew C. Smith 20 Jan '09

20 Jan '09

I've got some flawed code here, and that's because I'm stuck. I want to dynamically change Gen17's coefficients using an Envelope to get a smooth sample-rate transition, but I can't figure out how to use the last value from an Envelope and put it into the array to assign to cheb.coefs. How would I do this? Would I need a sample rate for() control? Thanks. Andrew SinOsc drive => Gen17 cheb => dac; [1., 0.5, 0.25, 0.125, 0.06] @=> float coefs[]; 0.2 => cheb.gain; while(true) { Std.rand2(0, 4) => int coef_changed; Std.rand2f(0., 0.99) => float dest; coefs => cheb.coefs; Envelope change => coefs[coef_changed]; change.target(dest); change.duration(50::ms); 50::ms => now; }

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best way to read from HID device
by Robert Carter 20 Jan '09

20 Jan '09

Hi everyone, I'm running chuck under linux and I want to play sounds using a plastic drum pad USB HID device. Here is an article with the technical details I have assembled so far: http://www.organicdesign.co.nz/USB_human_interface_devices_with_Linux I can read data from the /dev device and this data seems to be giving correct drum hit information. The hardware appears as a HID device but i've been unable to get the chuck joystick functions to use it. I thought perhaps I could use file IO to read blocks from the device and trigger sounds from that, but I can't see how you might achieve this in chuck. I have found a small C program that reads the usb device and translates this into JACK MIDI signals but this does not seem to be a good match for chuck. Another idea was to modify this program to send OSC messages instead of JACK messages, and feed into chuck that way. Any suggestions, tricks or hacks most welcome. Rob

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Using e
by Kassen 20 Jan '09

20 Jan '09

Sorry, list, no chemicals here. I just couldn't resist the title. Last night I was answering a question on the forum that involved the constant "e". To get e in chuck we go; Math.e => float value; However to get pi we go simply; pi => float another_value; This isn't exactly a major issue, compared to some of the other issues that we have but it does strike me as somewhat inconsistent. Is there a good reason for this? If not should we consider making this consistent, for example by stuffing pi in the Math library as well? Yours, Kas.

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