I'm trying to get pitch from a piano with fiddle to control a synth (kind of).
First try/test is the attached file. Problem is it only works for high keys. I think this is due to lower amplitude in lower keys. Input comes from a cheap casio keyboard via a cheap microphone and is not very strong. What is the best way to amplify this signal within PD?

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/fiddlepiano1.pd

Ok, i can see how substituting the osc~ with adc~ can get PD to recognize A440 when i play it on my piano. Here are a few more questions:
1. How can i get PD to actually print (send the typed characters) to an external application, like Powerpoint?
2. The patch seems to continually send the text string. Is there a way to limit the keystroke repetitions? Perhaps some sort of timing variable requiring a certain amount of time to elapse before "re-firing" the text string?

Thanks so much for your help! This is exciting! PD is so cool!

Just to clarify - i'm hoping i can have PD emulate a keyboard with the text outputs. Does that make sense? Is that even possible?

GEM can display text I believe. text2d or something like that, look in pd reference

I don't think you emulate a keyboard could directly in PD. I would think PD->external hardware->back to computer e.g. PD sends signal to microprocessor(basic stamp, arduino) to throw switch on typing keyboard (or emulation device).

On windows you could use VBScript to look at a text file and output the contents as keystrokes. PD could write the textfile. However, this would probably be somewhat clunky.

Also, if you just want to display the text, you could send it to flash using [flashserver]. For that matter any program that can read in OSC, TCP, or UDP messages and can display graphics might work.

Anywho, that's the brain dump for now

argh! so close, and yet so far! i'm using a presentation program called Liquid Media that has the visual programming simplicity of Powerpoint. i was hoping to be able to use PD to trigger assignable keystrokes to activate visual events within Liquid Media...can anyone come up with a simple way to have PD emulate a keyboard? Even if it means rigging up a second computer to "talk" to the other via an ethernet cable? I guess i'm showing my reluctance to dive into GEM, given how complex it looks...

so liquid media seems to be windows only. so see attached.

i wrote an object called [openfile] that is windows only. has worked for me so far but use at you own risk.

the file launches a vbscript in the background that sends keystrokes to a window of your desire.

open the included text file (not minimize but open(can be in the background)
open pd and turn on the metro by hitting the toggle box. the textfile will pop to the front and starting printing "Test"
The script works by calling the window by name in title bar, then sending keystrokes

in case no one wants to open the script:

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''SendKeyToApp.vbs
'May 8, 2008
'JonGrant
'Send text string to desired open window
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Option Explicit

'On Error Resume Next

Dim objWshShell

Set objWshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

objWshShell.AppActivate "Test"
objWshShell.SendKeys "Test"

'figure a way to do command line and the command is
'sendkeystoapp.vbs windowTitle string
'e.g. sendkeystoapp.vbs Test.txt Test
'This will send Test to a textfile call Test
'Just replace above with these
'Option Explicit
'On Error Resume Next
'Dim strAppWindowTitle
'Dim strSendString
'Dim objWshShell
'Set objWshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
'strAppWindowTitle = WScript.Arguments.Item(0)
'strSendString = WScript.Arguments.Item(1)
'WshShell.AppActivate appWindowTitle
'WshShell.SendKeys strSendString

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/sendKeys.zip

This new vbs app is very, very cool - thanks so much, jon2211! Is there any way to modify this so that the script can accept variable text/strings printed from within PD, instead of a defined text within the vbs script? i'd like to be able to create multiple parameters within PD sending different text strings for different conditions - perhaps sending "A" for a 440 pitch through fiddle~ and then a "C" keystroke if the pitch changes to 523.25 (C above middle A). Sorry for all the hand-holding, this Newbie REALLY appreciates all the help he's getting

Ok - here's what i've been able to come up with so far, thanks to everyone's help! I used bonk~ and moses to help distinguish loud and soft audio inputs, and then sent the resulting signals to two variations of the sendkeytoapp.vbs scripts. Overall it works well, but i'm noticing a significant delay from PD to the external app.

I'm still trying to get my head around using sendOSC and somehow calling the python version of SendKey directly from within PD - i have the sendOSC apparently successfully opening a socket, but i don't know how to follow through and send keypress text to another application. Any additional help to explore this option would be greatly appreciated! I'm learning so much from everyone here - thanks a million!!

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/loudsoftsendkey.zip

you mentioned python in your last post,
I just remembered this

http://grrrr.org/ext/py/

never used it but it looks like a way to use python scripts in PD

Hello there,

I'm trying to get the signal from a piezzo mic stuck to a cello to send a midi note to an instrument. So, needless to say I've learnt quite a lot from this thread. Thanks for that!

Now, I'm having some trouble : fiddle seems to send a bang, and therefore a new noteout, every time it's trying to pick up a frequency. I don't know if I'm being clear, but the problem is that when I play a note on the cello, the patch sends A LOT of noteout, making something like a "swarm" of notes that becomes really chaotic in no time.

I tried to bypass this problem by sending a bang (and therefore a note) regularly, but that's obviously not a good way to do it.

What I would need is a patch that would detect the beginning of a note played by the cello, send the "noteout", wait for the beginning of another note to send the corresponding "noteout", and so on.

Any idea on getting this happening?

Here's the code, it's obviously very similar to what has been shown here

Cheers.

Rodolphe

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

rodolpheg: if you round off the midi note values you could probably use [change], i'm not on my pd computer but there's definitely a vanilla pd object that takes a numerical inlet and drops the decimal, then [change] will take that value and not output again until it gets a different integer (read: different semitone), hence working around all the bangs from fiddle~
also about 4 months late to the party but if it doesn't help you it'll help someone

rudolpheg: too elaborate on slvchn's method, something like this:

[fiddle~]
|
|<----------only taking the pitch info.
|
[+ .499]
|
[int]
|
[change]

the [int] truncates the midi float to an integer, and the +.499 is there so it rounds to the nearest note, rather than simply truncating the decimal off.

alternatel, you could use the attack bang inlet on [fiddle~] (the 3rd or 4th outlet?) to send a stored [float]. check the helps for [fiddle~] and [int]. and for your low cello notes, you want a bigger fft hanning window. try [fiddle~ 1024] perhaps.