I just tried controlling my boss dr-770 drum machine with a step sequencer in Pd and when I get it going the audio sounds kinda phasey. It is coming directly out of the drum machine like that, and it only sounds that way when I have the sequencer playing. If I stop it and just hit the pads the sound is normal...

I'm guessing it is some sort of timing issue, but I have never heard of midi control effecting the sound of a device like that. I went through all the midi settings on the machine to see if I could correct it but no luck.

Hi all,

This should be the easiest thing in the world, but I cant for the life of me figure it out.

I need to populate an array with input from four different number streams were the order of appearence of numbers in the stream puts them into an queue to bang messages from 0,1,2 etc.

A brief explanation

I presume is pretty
easy when you know how, but A brief explanation of the project might be in order

The idea is to back project onto a series of screens and give people
IR LED "paintbrushes" so they can paint with procedural graphics and
sound.

We're using "touchlib" blob tracking software (and webcams)to
differentiate between the blobs. the software assigns each blob a
numbered ID for the length of its lifetime, based on the order in
which they come into existence : so the first blob in existence is "ID
0" (until it dies, when it takes its pace in the queue), the second
is "ID 1" etc.

These IDs allow us to assign specific graphics to different blobs in
Processing, and also to give each an individual piece of audio.

Its easy with just one machine sending these messages as each ID
corresponds nicely to the order of tracks to be triggered in the
sequencer,
but we're using four separate modular machines each running touchlib
and we want the sound to be global.

We have networked the machines and each of the four graphics modules
can talk to the machine running the sound. The sound module is running
PD which receives messages from the other machines and then sends MIDI
messages to the sequencer. So PD is getting four streams of numbers -say from zero to three- which correspond to the order in which touchlib blob IDs pop into existence - (each stream local to its own machine)

these numbers trigger a fade in/out of a
mixer track in say for example Reason). Ideally the first person who enters the space will
trigger some pad sounds (fader 1 in reason say) regardless of which
screen they paint on.

that way it will work if there is only one person in the space. The
next person would trigger some percussion, and the full track would
build naturally. The alternative is to have every ID locked to a
sound, meaning it would really only work for four people in the space.

So to the question. There are 4 data streams coming into PD, literally
numbers 0 - 3 in each number box. as you can see in the
"four_machine_dilemma"patch attached.

what I need to do is fix it so that if (and only if) computer A has
sent a message triggering track 1 that computer B, or the next stream,
when it sends its own "ID number 1" is converted to ID number 2 , that
is, it occupies the next position in the global array, triggering
track two (because track 1 is occupied) even though it thinks it is
"ID number 1", and so on down the chain.

is there some way to store a boolean for the track's on state and use
it to reassign a value to the next incoming message?

Or just to fill positions in an array with the incoming messages in
the order they are received. It seems like it it should be
straight-forward but I'll be buggered blind if I can figure it out.

Hope this is not to long winded for a simple question.

Thanks in advance,

wadeorz

nice work yohannes even if i don't have midi stuff. your patch was really inspiring me so i've posted on this forum my own array-drum machine:
http://puredata.hurleur.com/sujet-1726-drum-machine

let me know what you think

@lead said:

Maybe a small Linux distro that auto-boots/mounts PD and the patch from a CD, this would allow it to work on a PC and save CPU for the fft?

He's on windows, so nix that idea.

After some discussion in the Pd irc chan (#dataflow->Freenode) it seems there's some confusion over the 'standalone' aspect of it. Ultimately what you'll likely need to do is run Pd with a flag to automatically launch the patch, and I think there are settings where you can disable certain windows (although keeping the main Pd window visible would probably be a plus for error messages and whatnot).

Might I ask what you're using to run the actual video itself?

If using a third machine is an option, running Ableton on the first one, into 16 channels on the linux box running the Pd patch, into the machine running the video, might be the most efficient way to do this and save processing overhead... however this will require not only another machine but an interface capable of 16 channels in/out [edit: maybe not 16 channels out, but do they make interfaces with multiple ins and no outs?]... But, if you went this route you could use lead's idea with the auto-booting/mounting CD (or even set up a small linux partition and dual boot).

Ultimately what you're trying to do sounds relatively simple to do with Pd, it's just a matter of working out the kinks, and hardoff definitely knows his Pd... I wish I came across this post a little earlier, I would've given it a shot myself

Anyways looking forward to posts on the progress! Always good to know that people are looking to Pd for cutting edge projects, and maybe ultimately this can draw some attention to the development of Pd itself.

Cheers,
-Ian Nault (@hotmail.com)

hi

Matt Black of Coldcut here.

as a step towards achieving multitrack audio visualisers, ie video synths which are controlled by multiple simultaneous audio inputs, i am interested in getting the following bit of software built, and think it could be made in PD. Am posting it here to see if anyone is interested. I can offer a fee to get this built.

This is the initial spec. I call it a Multitrack Analysis Module , MAM.

-MAM works with multi input ASIO soundcards eg RME fireface, and supports up to 16 audio ins.

-MAM performs SEPARATE fft /spectrum analysis on EACH AUDIO INPUT , say 16 frequency bands per input . delivers amplitude for each frequency band.

-outputs results of fft analysis as midi data. use cc numbers 1-16, with value 1-127 for the 16 frequency bands amplitudes. use midi channel 1-16 to distinguish the 16 audio inputs. Midi data can be routed to available midi interfaces/ports on the host machine, including virtual midi ports such as Maple, MidiYoke.

-optionally, output could be via OSC/ethernet which would get round possible MIDI data rate problems. (Do people think MIDI could handle this amount of data? it could be thinned)

-the MAM should be a self contained module , a stand alone patch that doesnt require a PD framework to run. As i dont know anything about PD , i dont know how it works, but you probably know what i mean.

-ideally, MAM would also be able to run with Ableton LIVE so that one can route the analysis data off to another machine to do the visuals, and still manipulate the audio on the machine with the audio ins in LIVE. this is not essential but i would like to know if people think it would be possible.

Hope this makes sense. I am looking for a good PD coder who is interested in working on a cutting edge project. A payment to build this initial module can be negotiated...not a huge one, but something. Interested parties can post here initially.

Thanks.
Matt Black

Thanks for all you help guys here is what i have working so far...

However when we start using this to control Gem and audio patches the computer starts to slow down and or act funny. I was thinking we could use one machine to take in the messages and use another machine to make graphics and audio.

I have connected two machines with crossover cable and with osculator open on one and this patch i made open on the other i was hoping it would work the same way when osculator and the patch are open on the same machine. but they don't it appears that osculator only sends messages locally?

does any one know how i would send osculator messages to another machine?

thanks for your help in advance let me know if i can explain this any clearer

oh yea one is a mac and the other is a pc

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/multi_output_success_no_errors.pd

New machines

http://obiwannabe.co.uk/html/toys/machineomatic/machine-o-matic.html

And I was playing about with different short energy impulses for explosions, so

Fresh Guns

http://obiwannabe.co.uk/html/toys/gunsulike/gunsulike.html

Bombs

http://obiwannabe.co.uk/html/toys/bombfactory/bombfactory.html

and Fireworks

http://www.obiwannabe.co.uk/html/toys/fireworks/fireworks.html

I think you need [ead~] for some, sorry.

Andy

OK--here is where I am at....

I am working on three machines

It works (or rather I can't make it error) on a machine with the PD extended.

the machine with the old 3.8 version and the "offcial release" both mess up.

I am experimenting with flags and linked dll in startup because the wonky version have flags for asio midiindev ect and link to gem and some other stuff....

I attached the patch see is anyone can get the same problems, thanks

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/8track_mixer.pd

Space ambiences *HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*

Alberto Zin recently posted a really beautiful space ambience patch that makes some amazing textures using a giant array of bandpass filters. It's a bit hungry on CPU but worth every cycle.

https://puredata.info/Members/AlbertoZ/

Machine-Machine

I posted a new patch for those making machine start-up and power-down noises for games etc. You can grab the it the ob1b toyshop.

http://www.obiwannabe.co.uk/toys.html

New tuts

Lastly there are *three* new tutorials in the practical sound design pages this week. I've been busy completeing some stuff for the "Future Shock" part, all very fanciful but fun stuff

Astromech droid (an R2D2 patch that babbles away making endless droid bleeps)
ii) Laser beam - patches for making forcefields/laser beams
iii) Alien blood - acid boiling/fizzing sounds

at the usual place

http://www.obiwannabe.co.uk/padawan12/onlinetutorials/html/tutorials_main.html

Cheers all,
Andy