Hi everyone,

I'm working on a system to automatically generate a vline~ message list starting from a custom envelope shape stored in an array, originally extracted from a .wav file.

I want to build a dynamic vline~ list like this: 0, 1 93.753, 1 0 187.506

But instead of typing values manually, I'd like to generate it automatically based on the shape of an envelope loaded from a waveform (array).

I already convert the array index to milliseconds using: [expr ($f1 / 44100) * 1000]
And I can manually draw or extract the envelope into an array — but I’m struggling to automate the construction of the vline~ list so it correctly represents:

• attacks
• holds
• releases
• plateaus (ecc)

at the moment i Load a .wav file containing an envelope shape, Store it into an array. Detect meaningful breakpoints (e.g. slope changes, thresholds) and Use those to automatically create a proper vline~ sequence.

here the patch and one env wav file
impose-envelope-wavetable-analog.pd
strike-1_6.wav

Is there a way to extract breakpoints or slope changes from an array to build a proper vline~ message?
Has anyone implemented something similar (using an envelope from a .wav as a wavetable)?
Would “wavetable envelope” be a good term for this? Is there a better one in Pd terminology?

Thanks in advance if anyone has ideas or guidance.
Even partial thoughts or pointers would help a lot!

I almost forgot: At the moment, I’m using GPT to convert the vline~ list into the format 0, 1 93.753, 1 0 187.506 (just an example), starting from a total duration in milliseconds — in this case, 2176 ms. This naturally results in very complex lists, like something along these lines:
0, 1 100, 0.6 400 100, 0.3 2000 500, 0.15 3000 2500, 0 10491 5500

I’d really like to find a way to resolve this and automate the process, but since I’m still a beginner, I wonder if I’m just making things unnecessarily complicated?

Emiliano

I am being serious, I have no idea what this is for and what can be done.

Turning a sine into a sawtooth was the only example, but not what I was expecting

I feel AI could really do some quite cool things if it;s OPEN SOURCE and we get to tweak it in interesting ways. Cause most of these new hyped cool things that generate music, for instance, generate very common ground things (which they were trained the most with to be able to generate output). But what if I wanna go crazy and tweak it? I guess we need to be nerds that play with Pd/Max/SC, ok, but for someone who has no idea about it, really, how does it go? And I'm so busy with what I'm doing, I'm not stopping until I see some pretty cool thing going on. Turning a sine into a sawtooth wouldn't be it :/

Like, I know that, in general, I can use AI for "deep fakes", so I can make mike patton with boobs sing carmina burana with his voice, but I guess 'rtneural' can't do that, right? I have "some ideas".... but I don't even know how far off I am on this.

And the actual hype with AI and chat GPT gonna take over the world, for what I've been seeing and reading and checking, it's a hoax. The whole thing it's pretty bad. For reference, I'm hearing what ed zitron has been saying about this and folks like sam altman... seems legit!

Anyway, really, explain like I'm a 5 year old

Ok, the cat is out of the bag --> https://github.com/porres/pd-else/releases/tag/1.0-rc13 I'm officialy announcing the update and uploaded binaries to deken for mac (intel/arm), Win and Linux. It all looks ok but tell me if you see something funny please. There's also a raspberry pi binary but not working 100%yet and we'll still look into that. Hopefully someone could help me/us with it. I might make another upload just for the pi later on if/when we figure it out. Find release notes and changelog below.

RELEASE NOTES:

Please support me on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/porres I'll now try to add special content for subscribers. You can follow me on instagram as well if you like... I'm always posting Pd development stuff over there https://www.instagram.com/alexandre.torres.porres/

It's been a little bit over 7 months since the last update and I almost broke the record for taking too long to release an update (which had happened in my previous update). So yeah, there's just too much to talk about! I guess the delays in releasing updates is because it's been a little tricky and hard to sync the release cycles of ELSE with PlugData, which includes ELSE in its download.

Plugdata 0.9.2 should come out soon with ELSE RC13 and it's supposedly the last update before 1.0.0, so I've heard. And the plans was to get to that still in 2025! This means ELSE could be at its last "Release Candidate" phase as I'm aiming to sync the final release with PlugData. Until then, I'll still make breaking changes and I can't wait until I can't do that anymore as I really feel bad. On the other hand, it's kind of inevitable when I'm always adding new stuff and redesigning and reconfiguring objects to include more functionalities. And I always got a lot of new stuff! So I'm thinking that I will eventually try some mechanism like Pd's compatibility flag or something. I'll try to come up with something like that in the next update.

This update has 22 new objects for a total of 573 and 26 new examples in my tutorial for a total of 554 examples. Let's dive into the highlights (see full changelog below after the release notes).

• Multichannel Support: Last release had 92 MC aware objects, now it's 139! Over a 50% increase that include old and new objects (all the new ones have been coming with MC support). Virtually all oscillators and envelope generators now have MC support, plus some other random ones. Let me highlight the new [lace~]/[delace~] objects that are 'MC' tools that perform interleave/deinterleave in Multichannel connections. My bare minimum number of objects "to start with" would be at least a bit over half the number of signal objects. That was my target for 1.0! ELSE right now has 319 signal objects, so that'd be at least 160. I will definitely pass this milestone in the next update. I guess a good number of MC objects would be around 75% of the signal objects. I will aim for that as soon as I can. Some objects simply can't be MC at all, so 100% will never be the case, but maybe an ideal 90% eventually? We'll see... I am just proud and happy that ELSE is taking such a big jump on MC awareness in less than a couple years.

• Envelope generators ([adsr~]/[asr~]/[envgen~]/[function~]) now have more curve options. For [adsr~]/[asr~] the default is now a new log curve that you can set the curve parameter (and was 'stolen' from SuperCollider). A new [smooth~] family of objects perform the same kind of curved smoothening for alternating inputs - [envgen~] and [function~] also have that but also '1-pole' filtering, 'sine' and 'hann' curves. You can now trigger [adsr~] and [asr~] with impulses.

• The [play.file~] object now supports even more file formats besides MP3 and stuff. Hey, you can even stream the supported formats from weblinks! The [sfload] object (which loads files into arrays) also gained support for more formats and can download from weblinks as well! It also has a new threaded mode, so loading big files won't choke Pd. It now also outputs the file information, which is a way to tell you when loading finished in threaded mode. The [sample~], [player~], [gran.player~] and [pvoc.player~] objects are now also based on [sfload], so they support all these file formats!!! Now [sample~] and [tabplayer~] are integrated in a way that [tabplayer~] is always aware of the sample rate of the file loaded in [sample~] (so it reads in the "correct speed"). A new [sfinfo] object is able to extract looping regions and instrument metadata information from AIFF files (which is something I wanted for ages) - it should do more stuff in the future.

• [knob] has become the ultimate featured bloated creep GUI I always feared and avoided. MAX is envy! but I'm happy with this structure and I want to replicate in other GUIs in the future (yeah, I got plans to offer alternatives to all iemguis). I wanna highlight a new 'param' symbol I added that allows you to remotely set a particular method in an object, so you don't to connect to a "method $1" message and you can even do this wirelessly with a send symbol. [knob] now also acts like a number box, where you can type in the value, which may also be displayed in different ways or the value can be sent elsewhere via another send symbol so you can temper with it using [makefilename] or [else/format]. I've been using this for the MERDA modules and it's really cool.

• We finally have a [popmenu] GUI object! This was in my to do list forever and was crucial to improve the MERDA modules to set waveforms, instruments and whatnot.

• Let's about MERDA, the "Modular Euroracks Dancing Along" subset of abstractions in ELSE. It was first released in the last update and it's been driving lots of the development in ELSE as you can see. I now added a MIDI Learn feature for all knobs that feels great and quite handy! There are many fixes and improvements in general and some new modules. I wanna highlight the new [sfont.m~] module, which loads "sound font" banks and you can just click on a [popmenu] to choose the instrument you want. The default bank has numerous (hundreds) options and also comes with PlugData. The sequencer module [seq8.m~] was rather worthless but it's now a whole new cool thingie. It allows you to set pitches with symbols and even has quarter tone resolution. I added a right outlet to send impulses to trigger envelopes and stuff (there's still more stuff of course, see full changelog below).

• There are newly designed/renamed/recreated [resonbank~]/[resonbank2~] objects that are well suited for Modal Synthesis.

• What actually drives my development is my Live Electronics tutorial, which got a fair upgrade with a new chapter on Modal Synthesis amongst other things, such as new subtractive synthesis examples and a revision of envelope generators with examples on AHDSR and DAHDSR - by the way, there are new gaterelease~/gatedelay~ objects for handling envelopes (and other processes).

• I have to thank some people. Tim added 'zoom' to the [pic] object, as well as an image offset. Tim also implemented a new and better technique for bandlimited oscillators. Ben Wesh gave me a new [scope3d~] GUI object, pretty cool, that plots an oscilloscope in 3 dimensions, which is coded in LUA - and ELSE has been carrying a modified version of [pdlua] because it now depends on it for a couple of GUIs. Tim and Ben made many improvements to [pdlua] (as well as Albert Graef, of course).

• For more new objects, let me also tell you about the simple and cool [float2imp~], that is based on [vline~] and can convert floats to impulses with sample accuracy (don't know why I didn't think of that earlier). A new [tanh~] object has Multichannel support. A bit earlier I made an update to Cyclone that actually "borrows" and includes this one from ELSE instead of its original one (which does not have Multichannel support). PlugData users will load the one from ELSE. This is another tiny step that sort of integrates ELSE and Cyclone, specially for PlugData users.

happy patching.

CHANGELOG:

LIBRARY:

Breaking changes:

• [adsr~]/[asr~]: now a gate off before reaching the sustain point does not start the release right away (this allows you to trigger it with impulses). There's a new mode just for immediate release. There's a new exponential setting for curve factors, the old 'log' mode is renamed to 'lag' as it's the same as used in the [lag~] object. For [adsr~], a bang now is not "retrigger", but an impulse at control rate, there's a new 'retrigger' message for control rate retriggering (and now it only retriggers if the gate is on). For [asr~] a bang now also works like an impulse.
• [sample~]: no more 'load' message, args to 'open' message changed, size is now only in 'ms'.
• [format]: outputs are now always symbols, before you could get float outputs. Also, we just have a simplified symbol output, no more lists or anythings. Hopefully I'll be able to get the 'list' output back, but it involved some bugs that I couldn't fix so I just removed it. You cannot use bangs and lists in secondary inlets no more (this is cylone/max crappy paradigm we don't want here). Bang method was actually removed as well.
• [pack2]: no more support for anythings, also no more support for lists in secondary inlets and output has a list selector (I wanna make this more Pd like and not a silly clone from MAX's [pak], cause fuck MAX).
• [merge]/[unmerge]/[group]: no more '-trim' flag (again, respecting pd's usual list paradigm), in [merge] now there's no more 'hot' argument and a bang now represents an empty list and inlets initialized with empty lists
• [mono]: 1st argument is now 'glide' in ms.
• [sfont~] now uses 'mma' for bank selection (this alters how CC messages set the bank number).
• [player~]/[play.file~]: 'open' message does not play files right away anymore.
• [tabplayer~]/[player~]: play message without args now play at the default settings (whole file at regular speed).
• [envgen~]: removed the 'maxsustain' parameter, use the new [gaterelease~] or [gaterelease] objects instead. Removed the rightmost inlet just to set envelopes, now a list input only sets the envelope and doesn't trigger it. The 'set' message is then removed.
• [envgen~]/[function~]: simplified and got rid of '-exp' flag and message, also deleted 'expl' and 'expi' messages. A new 'curve' and cimpler message sets exponential factors for all or individual segments, and includes more curve formats.
• [knob]: 'esc' key now deactivates the object. The 'ticks' message is renamed to 'steps' and there is a new 'ticks' message that toggles showing ticks on and off. The 'start' message has been renamed to 'arcstart'. The 'outline' message has been renamed to 'square' for better clarity. Design changed a bit to make it like it is in PlugData (they won), so we now fill the whole background color when in 'square mode' and the knob circle has an 85% proportion in this case inside the full 100% square size (so it grows bigger when not in 'square' mode). Now, by default, the GUI is in a new 'loadbang' mode (I don't think this will influence old patches). I'm afraid some old patches might behave really weird since I added a lot of new stuff. I changed the 'load' message behaviour to not update the object (this can arguably be considered a bug fix).
• [wavetable~], [bl.wavetable~] and [wt2d~]: 'set' message now sets frequencies because of the MC support in [wt~] and [wt2d~], while there's a new 'table' method to set the table name.
• [gbman~]/[cusp~] list method is now for MC, old list method is now renamed back to an old 'coeffs' method.
• [f2s~]/[float2sig~] default value is now 10 ms.
• [op] now behaves like [*~] where the smaller list wraps til reaching the size of the longer one.
• [list.seq] does not loop anymore by default.
• [impseq~] list input removed, use the new [float2imp~] object to convert floats to impulses.
• [resonant~] now has 'q' as the default.
• [resonant2~] has been removed.
• [decay2~] has also been removed ([asr~] much better).
• [vcf2~] has been renamed to [resonator2~].
• [resonbank~]/[resonbank2~] have basically been deleted and replaced by new objects with the same name... [resonator~] is based on a new [resonator~] object which is similar to [resonant~] and [resonbank2~] is now based on [resonator2~] (old [vcf2~] instead of [resonant2~] that got deleted). These are well suited objects for Modal Synthesis.
• [oscbank~] now uses a 'partial' list and not a frequency list. The freq input now defaults to '1' and this makes [oscbank2~] completely obsolete.
• [oscbank2~] has been deleted since it became completely obsolete.
• [sfload] load message changed the behaviour a bit.

Enhancements/fixes/other changes:

• [adsr~]: We have now a new mode for immediate release (see breaking changes above, I'm not repeating it). Fixed ADSR signal inputs (it was simply not really working, specially for linear). Fixed status output for MC signals. There's a new curve parameter that allows you to set the curvature.
• [asr~] I actually just made the new [adsr~] code into a new [asr~] code as a simplified version (as it was before)... so it's got the same impromevents/fixes.
• [play.file~]: added support for more file formats and even weblinks for online streaming!
• [sfload]: added an outlet to output information, added threaded mode, added support for more file formats and even weblinks for downloading.
• [sample~], [player~], [gran.player~] and [pvoc.player~] are now also based on [sfload], so they support more file formats!
• [sample~]: improved extension management with [file splitext].
• [sample~] and [tabplayer~] now are automatically integrated in a way that [tabplayer~] is always aware of the sample rate of the file loaded in [sample~], so it automatically adjusts the reading speed if it is different than the one Pd is running with.
• [numbox~]'s number display is not preceded by "~" anymore (that was just kinda stupid to have).
• [format]: fixed issues where empty symbols and symbols with escaped spaces didn't work. Added support '%a' and '%A' type. Added support for an escaped 'space' flag. Improved and added support for length modifiers. Improved syntax check which prevents a crash. Improved documentation.
• [knob]: added new 'param', 'var', 'savestate', 'read only', 'loadbang', "active", "reset" and 'ticks' methods. Added the possibility to type in number values and also modes on how to display these number values, plus new send symbols for 'activity', 'typing', 'tab' and 'enter'. New design more like plugdata. Changed some shortcuts to make it simpler. If you have the yet unreleased Pd 0.56-0 you can also use 'double clicking' in the same way that works in PlugData. Properties were also significantly improved (I'm finally starting to learn how to deal with this tcl/tk thingie). Yup, a lot of shit here...
• [autofade2~]/[autofade2.mc~]: fixed immediate jump up for 0 ramp up.
• [synth~]: fixed polyphony bug.
• [metronome~]: fixed bug with 'set' message.
• [midi2note]: fixed range (octaves 0-8).
• [pulsecount~]: fixed reset count to not output immediately, added bang to reset counter at control rate
• [click]: fixed regression bug where it stopped working.
• [else]: new 'dir' method to output ELSE's binary directory in a new rightmost outlet. The print information also includes the directory.
• [pic]: added zoom capability finally (thanks to tim schoen) and added offset message (also thanks to tim).
• [store]: added 'sort' functionality.
• [scales]: fixed octave number argument. Added functionality to allow octave number as part of the note symbol.
• [mono]: added 'glide' parameter, as in [mono~].
• [pluck~]: fixed list input.
• [rescale]/[rescale~]: added a "reverse log" mode.
• [limit]: added a new second ignore mode.
• [graph~]: added an external source input for plotting the graph and a 'clear' message.
• [canvas.setname]: added a new argument for "abstraction mode" and methods to set name, depth (and mode).
• [midi.learn]: added a new argument for "abstraction mode", fixed 'dirty' message sent to parent.
• [brickwall~]: fixed initialization.
• [list.seq]: added a loop mode and a 2nd outlet to send a bang when the sequence is done.
• [delete]: fixed index for positive numbers.
• [dust~]: added 'list', 'set' and '-mc' flag for managing the already existing Multichannel capabilities.
• Thanks to Tim we have many fixes and a whole new technique for band limited oscillators. Now [bl.saw~], [bl.saw2~], [bl.vsaw~], [bl.square~], [bl.tri~], [bl.imp~] and [bl.imp2~] have been redesigned to implement elliptic blep, which should provide better anti-aliasing.
• [parabolic~] now uses and internal wavetable for more efficiency.
• [resonant~]: added 'bw' resonance mode.
• [lowpass~]/[highpass~]: added 't60' resonance mode.
• [quantizer~]/[quantizer]: added a new mode, which combines floor (for negative) and ceil (for positive) values.
• [crusher~]: now uses the new [quantizer~] mode from above (arguably a breaking change).
• [envgen~]: fixed a bug (actually a misconception) where ramps started one sample earlier. Fixed 0-length lines. Added a possibility to set time in samples instead of ms. Maximum number of lines is now 1024. Added loop mode. Added many curve options (sin/hann/log curve/lag).
• [function~]: Added many curve options (sin/hann/log curve/lag).
• [The out~] family of abstractions now use [bitnormal~] so you won't blow your speakers beyond repair in edge cases.
• [trig.delay~]/[trig.delay2~]: fixed bug where impulse values different than '1' didn't work.
• Added MC support to: [trig.delay~], [trig.delay2~], [gatehold~], [vca.m~], [gain2~], [decay~], [asr~], [envgen~], [function~], [bl.osc~], [bl.saw~], [bl.saw2~], [bl.vsaw~], [bl.square~], [bl.tri~], [bl.imp~], [bl.imp2~], [imp2~], [tri~], [saw~], [saw2~], [vsaw~], [square~], [pulse~], [parabolic~], [gaussian~], [wavetable~], [wt2d~], [randpulse~], [randpulse2~], [stepnoise~], [rampnoise~] [pink~], [gbamn~], [cusp~], [gray~] and [white~].
• Also added MIDI input and soft sync to [imp2~], [tri~], [saw~], [saw2~], [vsaw~], [square~], [pulse~], [gaussian~] and [parabolic~].
• [wavetable~] and [wt2d~] gained args to set xfading.
• Updated pdlua to 0.12.23.
• M.E.R.D.A: Added MIDI-LEARN for all modules (this is only for the knobs). Replaced some number boxes that were attached to knobs by an internal number display mechanism (new feature from knob). Improved interface of [gendyn.m~]. Preset/symbol name fixes to [flanger.m~]. Now we have automatic MIDI mode detection for [plaits.m~] and [pluck.m~] when no signals are connected (still trying to get plaits right, huh? Yup! And bow MIDI input with monophony and trigger mode has been fixed in [plaits.m~]). Added MC support to [vca.m~]. Increased range of [drive.m~] down to 0.1. Changed some objects to include the new [popmenu] GUI. [vco.m~] now uses the new MC functionalities of oscillators and doesn't need to load abstractions into [clone], I hope it makes this more efficient and clean. The [seq8.m~] module was worthless and got a decent upgrade, it's practically a new module. Added new modules (see below). Note that MERDA is still at alpha development phase, much experimental. Expect changes as it evolves.
• 22 new objects: [float2imp~], [lace], [delace], [lace~], [delace~], [gatehold], [gatedelay],[gatedelay~], [gaterelease~], [gaterelease], [popmenu], [scope3d~], [tanh~], [resonator~], [sfinfo], [smooth], [smooth2], [smooth~], [smooth2~], [dbgain~], [level~] plus [crusher.m~], [sfont.m~] and [level.m~] MERDA Modules.

Objects count: total of 573 (319 signal objects [139 of which are MC aware] and 254 control objects)!

• 323 coded objects (210 signal objects / 113 control objects)
• 227 abstractions objects (87 signal objects / 140 control objects)
• 23 MERDA modular abstractions (22 audio / 1 control)

TUTORIAL:

• New examples and revisions to add the new objects, features and breaking changes in ELSE.
• Added the MERDA modules into the examples for reference.
• Revised section on envelopes.
• New subtractive synthesis examples.
• New chapter on Modal Synthesis.
• Total number of examples is now 554! (26 new ones)

I'm new to PD and don't really understand how it works and I need urgent help with a practice, it consists of the following:
a. Design and implement an envelope.
b. The envelope should work as a subpatch.
c. Test the envelope using an LFO and some kind of signal generator. You can use any kind of synthesis.
d. Show at least two practical examples of the use of the envelope.
Expected results
You should have a patch showing the use of the envelope. This should show:
• The envelope as a subpatch.
• The LFO as a subpatch showing the main controls.
• A patch demonstrating the usefulness of the low frequency oscillator and the envelope. This demonstration should be clear and well-founded.
o Sound generation
o Drum synthesis
Please, someone help me

I've written a VST3 plug-in using Camomile+Pd to output groups of control change messages in response to OSC commands. The CC messages are used to turn channels of a Yamaha 01V96i mixer on and off.

On Windows, everything works fine, but on my M2 Mac I'm having strange issues. The plugin receives OSC fine but the MIDI CC it generates is zeroed-out, e.g. when I ask it to send B0 48 7F, the mixer receives B0 00 00. I can run the Pd patch standalone on the Mac and it works fine.

The AU version of my plugin doesn't output MIDI at all and I get an OSC error message in the Camomile console. I tested a different CC generating Pd/Camomile/VST3 plugin on my Mac and its CC messages are also being zeroed out. In contrast, I've written two other plugins that work fine on the Mac: one is a side-chained envelope follower with adjustable release time and the other generates 5 channels of audio in response to OSC messages.

I saw a somewhat old discussion on the Camomile Github site referring to some issues with MIDI CC under VST3 (https://github.com/pierreguillot/Camomile/discussions/260), but I don't recall having issues like this on my old Mac with my CC-generating plugins hosted in REAPER circa late 2020, and I don't see any similar complaints in discussions about PlugData, which I believe uses Camomile under the hood. In case the issue was REAPER, I tried to load the plug-in to Audacity, but Audacity complains that the plugin is incompatible.

I think there's probably a better way to achieve my end goal but wanted to check in with Pd brain trust because I'm sad to think that I've lost this capability. What would you try next?

I'm using REAPER 6.81 as the VST host, Camomile 1.0.7, Pd 0.54.0, and MacOS 12.6.7 on last year's M2 MacBook Pro.

@seb-harmonik.ar said:

The rationale is that the behavior of a patch SHOULD be completely reproducible if desired (and that's the intent).

@jameslo said:

How could you reproduce them (in order to study them) if the pseudo-random number sequence wasn't deterministic?

There might be exceptions, but in every pseudorandom number generator I've ever heard of, the sequence does repeat, provided that it's been seeded with a consistent value first.

SuperCollider seeds the random number generator at startup based on some value calculated from the system time. If you want replicable behavior, you do thisThread.randSeed = /* some value explicitly under your control */ at the moment of your choosing.

Pd [random] does implement a "seed xxx" message, so it isn't correct to suggest that Pd's constant initial seed is the way to get a replicable sequence. That's lucky if that's what you want, but it isn't necessary, and it may not be ideal either.

The problem with the counterargument here is that the [random] behavior depends on factors outside the user's direct control. If you really want a replicable sequence, the way to be certain of that is to send a "seed xxx" message to the random number generator at a moment that is under your control. Otherwise, you have no control over other components that might be pinging the random number generator. (Suppose, for instance, your patch depends on an abstraction which pings a [random] from a [loadbang]. Then, later, the abstraction author thinks, no, I shouldn't do that, I should get that first random value only on demand. Then you move your patch to another machine, re-download the abstraction from its source, and bang the behavior is different.) edit: that's a bad example, never mind.

Viewed from that perspective, one could say that the current Pd behavior misled the OP to believe that it wouldn't be necessary or desirable to control the seed... and then something changed somewhere in the system. That's actually quite a bad situation -- OP relied on happenstance for a mission-critical sequence of notes, and it isn't clear how to recover the original behavior.

Now this part is interesting, from whale-av: "There seems to be a shift......... the 2nd 3rd 4th etc. created are the same as the 1st 2nd 3rd etc. used to be." One possible explanation could be that, in the old version, something was consuming one random value before the user patch did (so the user patch never saw the true first value) -- so in the old system, the "first" random value would have been the second to be generated. Then, in the later case, the first value to be seen is the real first value. (But that might be -- or, is probably -- something in the test scenario and not in Pd itself.)

hjh

@KMETE said:

One reason I needed to use the loop 1 message is that the track was always paused for some reason before it ends when no in loop mode.

Ohhhhhh... now I see what it is.

When you ask sf-play(2)~ to play a timed region, it also runs a timed envelope. When you pause / resume, the playback timing doesn't match the envelope timing, so the envelope closes before the end of the source audio.

I'd rather not complicate sf-play(2)~ to allow the envelope to be disabled. But you can back out of one layer of abstraction and use play~ directly.

play~ doesn't take "start end rate" lists like sf-play~ does -- but I have a translator object for that. Since there's already a [pd] subpatch to translate "start/resume" messages, I'd just stick the play translator in there:

Now there's no timed envelope and you should get the play~ native pause/resume behavior without interference (I hope ).

23-0219-play-control.pd

hjh

HEY!!! I'm really proud of this one.

This took kind of a while so there's lots and lots of new stuff and breaking changes. This is the 1st release to reach and exceed 450 objects (459 in total now, next milestone, 500 objects?). Total number of examples in the tutorial is now 477. Here are the release's highlights:

• MOST ESPECIALLY, WE FINALLY HAVE DECENT COMPILED BANDLIMITED OSCILLATORS ([bl.saw~], [bl.tri~], [bl.vsaw~], [bl.square~],[bl.imp~], [bl.imp2~]) thanks to Tim Schoen from PlugData, who has become a great partner in the development of ELSE, since ELSE is part of PlugData This was one of the last milestones for a proper final release, so maybe we're close. BTW, I have to say that the oscillators from ELSE are the only ones I know out there that have BOTH hard sync input AND phase modulation input. I don't know any other not only in Pd, but in MAX, SuperCollider, Csound, Chuck, Reaktor, whatever...
• Now we have a new [numbox~] GUI compiled object for monitoring and generating signals (this replaces [diisplay~], which was removed). This is thanks to Tim Schoen again.
• The [bicoeff] object has been renamed to [bicoeff2] and [bicoeff] is now a new GUI object based on the "filtergraph" external (this one is still very experimental and not really acceptable yet).
• All objects with random generators have been revised to take a seed value and generate unique seeds every time you open the patch. I made a PR to Pure Data so we have something similar for [random], [noise~] and [array random].
• [brown~] has an impulse signal input to generate random steps now as well.
• There are 13 new objects, most importantly and not yet mentioned: [brown] (control browninan motion), [bl.osc~] (a band limited oscillator based on wavetables), [blip~] (a bandlimited impulse generator) and [scala] (for importing tunings in the Scala software format).

Complete changelog is here: https://github.com/porres/pd-else/releases/tag/v1.0-rc3

It's up on deken, have fun.

I wanted to build PD on Windows 10 to get ASIO support. I failed when I used the "Source" files from the PD website. I succeeded when I used source that I cloned from Github. I followed the same instructions from the wiki both when I failed and when I succeeded. (They are the same as in the manual, just a little more concise.)

I am sharing below my terminal output from the failed build attempts from the downloaded source code (the tar.gz file). Some of these messages suggest that there might be errors in the makefiles. I don't know anything about makefiles, so I can't really interpret the errors. But I did want to pass them along, in case a developer might find them useful. Here you go:

bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ ./autogen.sh
libtoolize: putting auxiliary files in AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR, 'm4/config'.
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/config/config.guess'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/config/config.sub'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/config/install-sh'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/config/ltmain.sh'
libtoolize: putting macros in AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS, 'm4/generated'.
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/generated/libtool.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/generated/ltoptions.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/generated/ltsugar.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/generated/ltversion.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/generated/lt~obsolete.m4'
configure.ac:166: warning: The macro `AC_LIBTOOL_DLOPEN' is obsolete.
configure.ac:166: You should run autoupdate.
aclocal.m4:8488: AC_LIBTOOL_DLOPEN is expanded from...
configure.ac:166: the top level
configure.ac:166: warning: AC_LIBTOOL_DLOPEN: Remove this warning and the call to _LT_SET_OPTION when you
configure.ac:166: put the 'dlopen' option into LT_INIT's first parameter.
../autoconf-2.71/lib/autoconf/general.m4:2434: AC_DIAGNOSE is expanded from...
aclocal.m4:8488: AC_LIBTOOL_DLOPEN is expanded from...
configure.ac:166: the top level
configure.ac:167: warning: The macro `AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL' is obsolete.
configure.ac:167: You should run autoupdate.
aclocal.m4:8523: AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL is expanded from...
configure.ac:167: the top level
configure.ac:167: warning: AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL: Remove this warning and the call to _LT_SET_OPTION when you
configure.ac:167: put the 'win32-dll' option into LT_INIT's first parameter.
../autoconf-2.71/lib/autoconf/general.m4:2434: AC_DIAGNOSE is expanded from...
aclocal.m4:8523: AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL is expanded from...
configure.ac:167: the top level
configure.ac:168: warning: The macro `AC_PROG_LIBTOOL' is obsolete.
configure.ac:168: You should run autoupdate.
aclocal.m4:121: AC_PROG_LIBTOOL is expanded from...
configure.ac:168: the top level
configure.ac:182: warning: The macro `AC_HEADER_STDC' is obsolete.
configure.ac:182: You should run autoupdate.
../autoconf-2.71/lib/autoconf/headers.m4:704: AC_HEADER_STDC is expanded from...
configure.ac:182: the top level
configure.ac:213: warning: The macro `AC_TYPE_SIGNAL' is obsolete.
configure.ac:213: You should run autoupdate.
../autoconf-2.71/lib/autoconf/types.m4:776: AC_TYPE_SIGNAL is expanded from...
configure.ac:213: the top level
configure.ac:235: warning: The macro `AC_CHECK_LIBM' is obsolete.
configure.ac:235: You should run autoupdate.
aclocal.m4:3879: AC_CHECK_LIBM is expanded from...
configure.ac:235: the top level
configure.ac:276: warning: The macro `AC_TRY_LINK' is obsolete.
configure.ac:276: You should run autoupdate.
../autoconf-2.71/lib/autoconf/general.m4:2920: AC_TRY_LINK is expanded from...
m4/universal.m4:14: PD_CHECK_UNIVERSAL is expanded from...
configure.ac:276: the top level
configure.ac:168: installing 'm4/config/compile'
configure.ac:9: installing 'm4/config/missing'
asio/Makefile.am: installing 'm4/config/depcomp'

bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ autoupdate
configure.ac:182: warning: The preprocessor macro `STDC_HEADERS' is obsolete.
  Except in unusual embedded environments, you can safely include all
  ISO C90 headers unconditionally.
configure.ac:213: warning: your code may safely assume C89 semantics that RETSIGTYPE is void.
Remove this warning and the `AC_CACHE_CHECK' when you adjust the code.

bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ ^C

bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ ./configure
configure: loading site script /etc/config.site
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a race-free mkdir -p... /usr/bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether make supports nested variables... yes
checking build system type... x86_64-w64-mingw32
checking host system type... x86_64-w64-mingw32
configure: iPhone SDK only available for arm-apple-darwin hosts, skipping tests
configure: Android SDK only available for arm-linux hosts, skipping tests
checking for as... as
checking for dlltool... dlltool
checking for objdump... objdump
checking how to print strings... printf
checking whether make supports the include directive... yes (GNU style)
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.exe
checking for suffix of executables... .exe
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to enable C11 features... none needed
checking whether gcc understands -c and -o together... yes
checking dependency style of gcc... gcc3
checking for a sed that does not truncate output... /usr/bin/sed
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /usr/bin/grep
checking for egrep... /usr/bin/grep -E
checking for fgrep... /usr/bin/grep -F
checking for ld used by gcc... C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe
checking if the linker (C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe) is GNU ld... yes
checking for BSD- or MS-compatible name lister (nm)... /mingw64/bin/nm -B
checking the name lister (/mingw64/bin/nm -B) interface... BSD nm
checking whether ln -s works... no, using cp -pR
checking the maximum length of command line arguments... 8192
checking how to convert x86_64-w64-mingw32 file names to x86_64-w64-mingw32 format... func_convert_file_msys_to_w32
checking how to convert x86_64-w64-mingw32 file names to toolchain format... func_convert_file_msys_to_w32
checking for C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe option to reload object files... -r
checking for objdump... (cached) objdump
checking how to recognize dependent libraries... file_magic ^x86 archive import|^x86 DLL
checking for dlltool... (cached) dlltool
checking how to associate runtime and link libraries... func_cygming_dll_for_implib
checking for ar... ar
checking for archiver @FILE support... @
checking for strip... strip
checking for ranlib... ranlib
checking command to parse /mingw64/bin/nm -B output from gcc object... ok
checking for sysroot... no
checking for a working dd... /usr/bin/dd
checking how to truncate binary pipes... /usr/bin/dd bs=4096 count=1
checking for mt... no
checking if : is a manifest tool... no
checking for stdio.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking for vfork.h... no
checking for dlfcn.h... no
checking for objdir... .libs
checking if gcc supports -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions... no
checking for gcc option to produce PIC... -DDLL_EXPORT -DPIC
checking if gcc PIC flag -DDLL_EXPORT -DPIC works... yes
checking if gcc static flag -static works... yes
checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... yes
checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... (cached) yes
checking whether the gcc linker (C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe) supports shared libraries... yes
checking whether -lc should be explicitly linked in... yes
checking dynamic linker characteristics... Win32 ld.exe
checking how to hardcode library paths into programs... immediate
checking whether stripping libraries is possible... yes
checking if libtool supports shared libraries... yes
checking whether to build shared libraries... yes
checking whether to build static libraries... yes
checking for gcc... (cached) gcc
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C... (cached) yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... (cached) yes
checking for gcc option to enable C11 features... (cached) none needed
checking whether gcc understands -c and -o together... (cached) yes
checking dependency style of gcc... (cached) gcc3
checking for g++... g++
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C++... yes
checking whether g++ accepts -g... yes
checking for g++ option to enable C++11 features... none needed
checking dependency style of g++... gcc3
checking how to run the C++ preprocessor... g++ -E
checking for ld used by g++... C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe
checking if the linker (C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe) is GNU ld... yes
checking whether the g++ linker (C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe) supports shared libraries... yes
checking for g++ option to produce PIC... -DDLL_EXPORT -DPIC
checking if g++ PIC flag -DDLL_EXPORT -DPIC works... yes
checking if g++ static flag -static works... yes
checking if g++ supports -c -o file.o... yes
checking if g++ supports -c -o file.o... (cached) yes
checking whether the g++ linker (C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe) supports shared libraries... yes
checking dynamic linker characteristics... Win32 ld.exe
checking how to hardcode library paths into programs... immediate
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... (cached) yes
checking whether ln -s works... no, using cp -pR
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... (cached) /usr/bin/grep
checking for a sed that does not truncate output... (cached) /usr/bin/sed
checking for windres... windres
checking for egrep... (cached) /usr/bin/grep -E
checking for fcntl.h... yes
checking for limits.h... yes
checking for malloc.h... yes
checking for netdb.h... no
checking for netinet/in.h... no
checking for stddef.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... (cached) yes
checking for string.h... (cached) yes
checking for sys/ioctl.h... no
checking for sys/param.h... yes
checking for sys/socket.h... no
checking for sys/soundcard.h... no
checking for sys/time.h... yes
checking for sys/timeb.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... (cached) yes
checking for int16_t... yes
checking for int32_t... yes
checking for off_t... yes
checking for pid_t... yes
checking for size_t... yes
checking for working alloca.h... no
checking for alloca... yes
checking for error_at_line... no
checking for fork... no
checking for vfork... no
checking for GNU libc compatible malloc... (cached) yes
checking for GNU libc compatible realloc... (cached) yes
checking return type of signal handlers... void
checking for dup2... yes
checking for floor... yes
checking for getcwd... yes
checking for gethostbyname... no
checking for gettimeofday... yes
checking for memmove... yes
checking for memset... yes
checking for pow... yes
checking for regcomp... no
checking for select... no
checking for socket... no
checking for sqrt... yes
checking for strchr... yes
checking for strerror... yes
checking for strrchr... yes
checking for strstr... yes
checking for strtol... yes
checking for dlopen in -ldl... no
checking for cos in -lm... yes
checking for CoreAudio/CoreAudio.h... no
checking for pthread_create in -lpthread... yes
checking for msgfmt... yes
checking for sys/soundcard.h... (cached) no
checking for snd_pcm_info in -lasound... no
configure: Using included PortAudio
configure: Using included PortMidi
checking that generated files are newer than configure... done
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating asio/Makefile
config.status: creating doc/Makefile
config.status: creating font/Makefile
config.status: creating mac/Makefile
config.status: creating man/Makefile
config.status: creating msw/Makefile
config.status: creating portaudio/Makefile
config.status: creating portmidi/Makefile
config.status: creating tcl/Makefile
config.status: creating tcl/pd-gui
config.status: creating po/Makefile
config.status: creating src/Makefile
config.status: creating extra/Makefile
config.status: creating extra/bob~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/bonk~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/choice/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/fiddle~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/loop~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/lrshift~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/pd~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/pique/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/sigmund~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/stdout/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating pd.pc
config.status: executing depfiles commands
config.status: executing libtool commands
configure:

    pd 0.51.4 is now configured

    Platform:             MinGW
    Debug build:          no
    Universal build:      no
    Localizations:        yes
    Source directory:     .
    Installation prefix:  /mingw64

    Compiler:             gcc
    CPPFLAGS:
    CFLAGS:               -g -O2 -ffast-math -funroll-loops -fomit-frame-pointer -O3
    LDFLAGS:
    INCLUDES:
    LIBS:                 -lpthread

    External extension:   dll
    External CFLAGS:      -mms-bitfields
    External LDFLAGS:     -s -Wl,--enable-auto-import -no-undefined -lpd

    fftw:                 no
    wish(tcl/tk):         wish85.exe
    audio APIs:           PortAudio ASIO MMIO
    midi APIs:            PortMidi


bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ make
CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd . && /bin/sh '/c/Useras/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4/m4/config/missing' aclocal-1.16 -I m4/generated -I m4
configure.ac:170: error: AC_REQUIRE(): cannot be used outside of an AC_DEFUN'd macro
configure.ac:170: the top level
autom4te: error: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
aclocal-1.16: error: autom4te failed with exit status: 1
make: *** [Makefile:451: aclocal.m4] Error 1

bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ make app
CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd . && /bin/sh '/c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4/m4/config/missing' aclocal-1.16 -I m4/generated -I m4
configure.ac:170: error: AC_REQUIRE(): cannot be used outside of an AC_DEFUN'd macro
configure.ac:170: the top level
autom4te: error: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
aclocal-1.16: error: autom4te failed with exit status: 1
make: *** [Makefile:451: aclocal.m4] Error 1

Amplitude modulation of any sort, including envelopes, always distorts the spectrum to some extent.

Normally we don't notice because typical sounds have a complex spectrum, which masks the distortion.

But here, you are applying it to an artificially simple spectrum, containing only DC offset. DC offset is silent, and the spectral distortion is not, so there is nothing to cover it.

I generated an audio file with a 30 ms ramp up and 50 ms ramp down. For comparison, I applied this envelope to a sine wave in the right channel. Then I opened this file in Audacity and looked at the spectrogram.

I think it's pretty easy to see here why the envelope might be audible in the case of DC * envelope, but not perceptible in the case of the audible signal * envelope.

Bottom line is, just because you hear spectral distortion in an artificial scenario which you would never encounter with audible signals, doesn't mean that it will be noticeable in real world scenarios.

(Carrying it further: If there is no envelope, there's a risk of an instantaneous transition from non-zero to zero or vice versa. Instantaneous transitions require a lot of high-frequency content, which we hear as a click. A linear transition effectively lowpass-filters the instantaneous transition -- there are still artifacts, but they are relatively low amplitude, and in a frequency range normally occupied by musical tones at a much higher amplitude. A ramp-enveloped sound will never be perfect, but it's better than a rectangular envelope.)

"replaced by something better" -- A sinusoidal envelope shows a smoother spectrogram. You might try that: cos * 0.5 + 0.5 -- from pi to 2pi is your ramp up, 0 to pi is the ramp down.

Edit: You can eliminate the +0.5 by squaring the cos and halving theta, because cos^2 x = cos(2x) * 0.5 + 0.5. Actually cos~, IIRC, scales radians down to 0 .. 1, so you could do line~ --> cos~ --> [*~] (cos~ to both inlets) and drive it by "0.25, 0.5 30" for the ramp up, and "0, 0.25 50" for the ramp down. Haven't verified this at the computer but I think it's right.

hjh