Hi all,

I've spent the last couple of weeks putting together a Pure Data based streaming radio station and it's finally at the point where I'm happy to let people know about it.

The system is a python script controlling PD and is able to load and fade between patches, the output of which is then streamed over the net. The whole thing is running off a cheap VPS server but it seems to be holding up well.

You can listen to it currently by going to http://radio.rumblesan.com and there are more details available on the technical stuff at my blog, rumblesan.com

One of the things I'm hoping is that I can get some other people involved in this. I have lots of ideas and things I'd like to add in future, but the first thing that really needs doing is making more patches. Lots more patches!

Over the weekend I'm going to write up how the control and interface stuff works and all the info needed for people to create patches. All the code and the patches made so far are up on GitHub if people want to have a look, links are in the blog post.

Hey taste, I was reading your Get Involved post, and it mentions that each patch must have a unique name because of the way Pd handles the close message. There's actually a way around this. If you put a [namecanvas] object in the patch, you can send messages to the [namecanvas] argument instead of the name of the patch. So if you have:

[namecanvas myPatch]

in the running patch, you can close it from another patch like this:

[; myPatch menuclose(

So if you require each patch to have a [namecanvas $0-patch] in it, you can ensure that you close the right one. You just have to make sure you send the $0 to your main patch, which you could do with the [patchComs] abstraction.

hey mnb, i just downloaded the patches and gave them a listen, really really like them, nice work. I'll have a quick check through them just to make sure that everything that needs it has the $0 arguments and then I'll get them up and running.
if it will run on the atom then it should be fine to run on the server. I'll test it out first like I have been with lead's patches and let you know if there are any issues, thanks for helping out. I'll ping you an email so you have my address, i realise that it isn't so obvious on my website heh.

Maelstrom, I was wondering if there might be something like that but hadn't found it for some reason. thankyou for pointing it out to me, I'm testing it out now. will take a bit of rejigging as i realise the namecanvas would have to be in the top layer and cant be in a subpatch or abstraction. pretty sure i've got it tho.
currently the $0 argument of the patchComs abstraction is already being sent to the main patch as this is how the audio is routed between the patches. there are a set of send objects in the patchComs called $0-l and $0-r, python receives the $0 value and then sends messages to the master patch which sets a pair of receive objects to get their audio from those sends. means that i can do the crossfading in the main patch and not have to send too many control messages to the loaded patches.
hopefully I can have this working in the next couple of days.

audiolemon, i figured it was a picture of an old timey radio. i quite like it tbh heh.

mnb, the AddingBlips patch is working fine and is up on the radio now.

for some reason I can get the CloxStrings patch to run fine on my desktop but i'm not getting sound out of it on the server. I think that it's me doing something stupid, not your patch tho. I haveto head out now but i'll do some more digging tomorrow and hopefully get it on there and running.

@tasteforreality said:

for some reason I can get the CloxStrings patch to run fine on my desktop but i'm not getting sound out of it on the server. I think that it's me doing something stupid, not your patch tho.

ok, it looks like this one needs too much cpu. it runs on my atom, but with about
70 percent load. there are some possibilities for optimization, i think i will replace
the fexpr~-filters with pds built in ones, decrease the fft-window size, and maybe
throw out the chorus-effect. i will send you the new version, probably tomorrow.

bis denn!
martin

Great sounding patches!

Great about the CDM article!

As Maelstorm said, hope it leads to more music on there, have enjoyed dipping in for a listen whenever I have a spare few minutes.

I love this. I've been playing it at work for hours on end. I wish I could find the time to get cracking and contribute something.

Just a heads up for anybody wondering what's happening with this.

Currently the radio is down due to the VPS exploding (data centre outage and DDOS attack) I've been rebuilding the server and things should be back up and running this evening.

I haven't been working on this due to a bit of a creative rut but I still intend to keep this running indefinitely. I have another PD/Python Radio station project in the works and I fully expect some of the work on that to bleed into Patchwerk, even if it is just a neatening up of code.

@tasteforreality: Just wanted to give a sign of live again. Had been working really much in the last months, but i think and hope i will be able to finish the wordpress theme in the next weeks.

Will the patches stream ok if they're outputting MIDI data or must it be audio? I could use a soundfont within the patch if necessary.

Hey, I'm afraid the output from the patches must be audio. changing that would be quite a lot of work currently.

I don't actually have any experience using SoundFonts with PD either. I'm guessing there's an external needed, is it in one of the existing PD libraries or would i need to add it separately? No problem if I do, I'm happy to try and accommodate peoples patches if i'm able.

if you can give me some more info then i;m sure we can work something out

Hi,

I'm glad to see the stream's up and running again. Always good for a listen. But one thing that used to be on the site seems to be missing - the "now playing" information. Have I just missed it somewhere, or is this info not accessible at the moment? Was a nice feature.

(also, how often are the patches rotated on the stream? The one currently playing is pretty nice, but it feels like I've been listening to it for some time now....)

Still hoping to submit something for this at some point, by the way.

hey, indeed the now playing part hasn't been re added to the site yet, needs to be fixed.

and yeah, the python script crashed but PD kept going so the same patch has been playing for... quite a while now, someone else pointed it out to me tonight.

I've restarted the stream but I need to improve the logging and error handling.

would be awesome to have you contribute, just drop me a linbe, i have a couple of patches to go on, i'm just being rubbish about getting to it. Might have a code push again over xmas

Hey TFR.

I had this concept as a dream for a few years, and I knew I couldn't make it work, and I always assumed I could never find a person who could. I am super pumped that you have done it. I love it.

If I can help in any way, I would love to. I am probably the worst coder on here, though. But still.

The best.

Hey Tango,

glad to hear you like it. the project has fallen on the back burner a little bit but I still try to work on it semi regularly.

if you want to help out then have a go at writing a patch for it. there's not much to it and the guidelines for how to do it are back up on the site at http://radio.rumblesan.com

cheers for taking an interest

hi,

i have dowmloaded 2 patches but i get many error messages after opening in pd on windows 7.

what could be wrong ?

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/Unbenannt.jpg

Looks like you've downloaded a html file, which pd doesn't really like i guess.

these are the files from the radio and the ending is .pd !?

... yes, html files - but why ?

and how to import. copy and paste doesn't work for me

i have the pd files from here
https://github.com/notesandvolts/Radio-Patches/blob/master/05-TinkerbellsHymn/main-05-Tinkerbell%27sHymn.pd

hey ahs,

a better bet is to download the entire repo of patches from github as a zip file here

https://github.com/notesandvolts/Radio-Patches/downloads

when you want to play a patch as a stand alone version, copy the patchComs.pd abstraction into the patch folder, then start the patch as usual. patchComs mimics the patch startup as if it were played on the radio and handles the audio output

thanks for your help