Chat and questions about the Scala based SuperCollider client. Newbies welcome. @ me if you need fast replies, otherwise I might not see new posts in a few days. Also checkout https://gitter.im/Sciss/Mellite for the computer music environment that embeds ScalaCollider.
good to know thank you!
anyway thank you for the feedbacks it's very nice to be able to talk to you so easily.
i'll ask you for further questions about UGens on the gitter but just to be clear. if we want to add extra UGens to your ScalaColliderUGens project we have to create a .xml configuration file right? i'm not sure that I understood everything on the readme..
We try to add the VBAPUGens to sc3plugin to work with scalacollider but as i said the processus still looks blurry for me..
So we have the .scx generated by supercollider but it doesn't work (as expected) :)
.xml input and generates .scala source code output. I'd say that is the preferred method to introduce new UGens. The "output" in this case is the .scala files; they are not written by hand but by a code generator. So if at some point I change the API, I don't have to rewrite hundreds of UGen .scala files, but just adapt the generator, perhaps make a few adjustments in the XML. However, for quick testing, you can take those generated .scala output files as a clue on how they look, and you could just copy + paste + edit them for new UGens, if you don't want to go through the process of defining the .xml files. If you come up with xml files for the VBAPUGen plugin, I am happy to include it with the project, so future updates will make the classes available. If you have specific questions about the meaning of the XML fields (they are explained a bit in the readme), I can help with that. Basically one xml file = one plugin (.scx file; collection of related ugens), although that organisation is not mandatory. TJUGens is an example for third-party plugins: https://github.com/Sciss/ScalaColliderUGens/blob/master/spec/src/main/resources/de/sciss/synth/ugen/TJUGens.xml
The generated output is not part of the repository. But if you open the published jars, e.g. you open the sources.jar from http://search.maven.org/#artifactdetails|de.sciss|scalacolliderugens-core_2.11|1.14.0|jar - you will see all the .scala files thus produced. If you are using an IDE such as IntelliJ or Eclipse, you can probably also just jump from a symbol, say SinOsc to its source code (if you selected to include library source code in your project). So you get from this:
<ugen name="SinOsc">
<rate name="audio"/>
<rate name="control"/>
<arg name="freq" default="440.0">
<doc>
frequency in Hertz
</doc>
</arg>
<arg name="phase" default="0.0">
<doc>
phase offset or modulator in radians
</doc>
</arg>
<doc>
<text>
A sinusoidal (sine tone) oscillator UGen.
This is the same as `Osc` except that it uses a built-in interpolating sine table of 8192 entries.
</text>
<see>ugen.Osc</see>
<see>ugen.FSinOsc</see>
</doc>
</ugen>to this:
/** A sinusoidal (sine tone) oscillator UGen. This is the same as `Osc` except that
* it uses a built-in interpolating sine table of 8192 entries.
*
* @see [[de.sciss.synth.ugen.Osc$ Osc]]
* @see [[de.sciss.synth.ugen.FSinOsc$ FSinOsc]]
*/
object SinOsc {
def kr: SinOsc = kr()
/** @param freq frequency in Hertz
* @param phase phase offset or modulator in radians
*/
def kr(freq: GE = 440.0f, phase: GE = 0.0f): SinOsc = new SinOsc(control, freq, phase)
def ar: SinOsc = ar()
/** @param freq frequency in Hertz
* @param phase phase offset or modulator in radians
*/
def ar(freq: GE = 440.0f, phase: GE = 0.0f): SinOsc = new SinOsc(audio, freq, phase)
}
/** A sinusoidal (sine tone) oscillator UGen. This is the same as `Osc` except that
* it uses a built-in interpolating sine table of 8192 entries.
*
* @param freq frequency in Hertz
* @param phase phase offset or modulator in radians
*
* @see [[de.sciss.synth.ugen.Osc$ Osc]]
* @see [[de.sciss.synth.ugen.FSinOsc$ FSinOsc]]
*/
final case class SinOsc(rate: Rate, freq: GE = 440.0f, phase: GE = 0.0f) extends UGenSource.SingleOut {
protected def makeUGens: UGenInLike = unwrap(Vector(freq.expand, phase.expand))
protected def makeUGen(_args: Vec[UGenIn]): UGenInLike = UGen.SingleOut(name, rate, _args)
}ok so i came up with a partial xml file for VBAPUgen.
The VBAPUgen contains 3 classes : VBAP, VBAPSpeaker and VBAPSpeakerArray
VBAPSpeaker and VBAPSpeakerArray only have new() method. what would be the equivalent for the generator to understand on the xml.
<ugens revision="1">
<ugen name="VBAP">
<rate name="audio"/>
<rate name="control"/>
<arg name="numChans">
<doc>
the number of output channels
</doc>
</arg>
<arg name="in">
<doc>
the input to be panne
</doc>
</arg>
<arg name="bufnum">
<doc>
a buffer or it's bufnum containing data calculated by an instance of VBAPSpeakerArray
it's number of channels must correspond to numChans above
</doc>
</arg>
<arg name="azimuth" default="0">
<doc>
+/- 180° from the medium plane
</doc>
</arg>
<arg name="elevation" default="1">
<doc>
+/- 90° from the azimuth plane
</doc>
</arg>
<arg name="spread" default="0">
<doc>
A value from 0-100. When 0, if the signal is panned exactly to a speaker location the signal is only on that speaker.
At values higher than 0, the signal will always be on more than one speaker.
This can smooth the panning effect by making localisation blur more constant.
</doc>
</arg>
</ugen>
</ugens>And also i have issue trying to generate from sbt this way :
$ sbt
$ project scalacolliderugens-gen
my terminal says :
project scalacolliderugens-gen
[error] Not a valid project ID: scalacolliderugens-gen
Klang being another one, so I have a hand written KlangSpec. The XML really just has the UGens. Their arguments are either scalar values, e.g. Int for determining the number of channels (In.ar) or they are graph elements GE. So if your custom aux types can be converted to GE then this approach works. It's not optimal in terms of type-safety, but good enough IMO. Let me have a look at the original VBAP source to refresh my memory
VBAP, like you pasted above. The other classes it appears are only auxiliary classes, for example to calculate speaker angles and such, and are never directly used by the UGen class - if I'm not mistaken. So in order to use the UGen, you just need VBAP. If you want to use the functions of say VBAPSpeakerSet available from Scala, you'll have to translate that class. It's independent of ScalaCollider. Let me know if you need help with this.
programming so them i was thinking of recode it in java and use it as a class but i'm not sure it would be compatible to scala classes
// 8 channel ring
val a = VBAPSetup(2, Seq(0, 45, 90, 135, 180, -135, -90, -45))
val b = Buffer.alloc(s, a.bufferData.size)
b.setn(a.bufferData)
val x = play {
val azi = "azi".kr(0)
val ele = "ele".kr(0)
val spr = "spr".kr(0)
VBAP.ar(8, PinkNoise.ar(0.2), b.id, azi, ele, spr)
}
// test them out
x.set("azi" -> a.directions(1).azi)
x.set("azi" -> a.directions(2).azi)
x.set("azi" -> a.directions(3).azi)
// ...
x.set("azi" -> a.directions(7).azi)
x.set("azi" -> a.directions(0).azi)
// try the spread
x.set("spr" -> 20)
x.set("spr" -> 100) // all speakers
x.free(); b.free();if (value == 1) Synth.play(ssa.name)
if (value == 2) {
ssa release(2)
println("recu 2")
}After I created 'transactional' systems based on ScalaCollider, I wanted to remove the plain side-effecting methods from the basic API. The basic API just supports generating the OSC message; when you call a method such as synth.set(...) or synth.free(...), this is facilitated by an additional import de.sciss.synth.Ops._. So when you look at the README, you have this preamble:
import de.sciss.synth._
import ugen._
import Ops._The last import makes the side-effects available. The docs are here: https://sciss.github.io/ScalaCollider/latest/api/#de.sciss.synth.Ops$ - so for release, that is NodeOps: https://sciss.github.io/ScalaCollider/latest/api/#de.sciss.synth.Ops$$NodeOps
server.run(cfg) { serv =>
var synth = Synth()
ssa.recv(serv) //previous SynthDef
receiver.action = {
case (m@osc.Message("/test", value: Int), s) =>
if (value == 1) synth = Synth.play(ssa.name)
if (value == 2) println("recu 2"); synth.release(2.0) //synth.free()
}
}
val synth = play {}
That's the same as in SuperCollider - using play { } will add an envelope that has a control gate that is used by release. release is just a convention for synth.set("gate" -> -1 - releaseTime) (or similar). So if you want to add a similar kind of envelope to a SynthDef you either have to create an EnvGen with a gate argument, or you use the pseudo-UGen WrapOut instead (that's the thing that play {} uses):
SynthDef.recv("test") {
val sig = WhiteNoise.ar(Seq(0.2, 0.2))
WrapOut(sig) // !
}
val x = Synth.play("test")
x.release(10)WrapOut creates controls "out" (for bus) and "gate" (for release)
WrapOut which when expanding adds the envelope. https://github.com/Sciss/ScalaCollider/blob/master/src/main/scala/de/sciss/synth/ugen/HelperElements.scala#L196
exception in GraphDef_Recv: UGen 'VBAP' not installed.
val a = VBAPSetup(2, Seq(Polar(-60,0), Polar(60,0), Polar(110,0), Polar(-110,0), 3.35))
val b = Buffer.alloc(serv, a.bufferData.size)
b.setn(a.bufferData)
SynthDef.write("synthTest.txt", MySynths.load(b), 1)
synthDefs = SynthDef.read("synthTest.txt")
val ssa = synthDefs.find(_.name == "soudscape-1").get
ssa.recv(serv)MySynths.load(Buffer) loads a Seq[SynthDef]to store
write will always write in the standard binary format of SuperCollider. Therefore, this is not a "text file".val sd = SynthDef("test") { ... }
sd.write(dir = "my-dir")
SynthDef.load(path = "my-dir/test.scsyndef")
// ... synchronise! then
Synth.play("test")It is stored - the synth definition - but not the contents of buffer. If you want to store this, you should also never hard-code the buffer id. This is just an integer number associated with a live buffer on the server. If you load a synth def with a hard-coded buffer id (here it will be just the constant that you happened to have received by the allocator at the time you created the synth-def), it will be pure luck that you get to have the same buffer again. And it will not be allocated unless you do so.
So in SuperCollider, for buffers it's always advisable - except for quick live coding - to use a control instead:
SynthDef("test") {
val bufId = "buf".kr
VBAP.ar(4, sig, bufId, ...)
...
}
val b = Buffer.alloc(...)
b.setn(...)
val x = Synth.play("test", args = Seq("buf" -> b.id))That way the buffer-identifier becomes a parameter of the synth def.
Is there a particular reason you want to store the synth-def, anyway? I have stopped doing this at all, it's quick enough to generate it ad hoc.
Phasor and press Ctrl-D, you should see help file for the Phasor UGen. This saves you time to navigate to the scaladoc file on http://sciss.github.io/ScalaCollider/latest/api/
you may have noticed, I pushed a minimal update to ScalaCollider 1.19.0; this (and ScalaCollider-UGens) relaxes the license from GPL to LGPL, allowing to link to it as a library without having to worry about applying the GPL to your own projects.
I also wanted to share some thoughts on a research I have started to conduct...
I have started to map out some directions of development for our sonification platform SysSon -- which you may know uses ScalaCollider at the bottom level. One thing that is interesting to explore is the possibility to decompose complex synth graphs with expensive optional "branches" into actually different synths. Here is a simplified model:
// ---- Unit result ----
If (freq > 100) {
Out.ar(0, SinOsc.ar(freq))
}
If (freq > 100) {
Out.ar(0, SinOsc.ar(freq))
} Else {
freq.poll(0, "freq")
}
// ---- GE result ----
val res: GE = If (freq > 100) {
SinOsc.ar(freq)
} Else {
WhiteNoise.ar
}
Out.ar(0, res)
val res: GE = If (freq > 1000) {
SinOsc.ar(freq)
} ElseIf (freq > 100) {
Dust.ar(freq)
} Else {
WhiteNoise.ar
}
Out.ar(0, res)Currently we can do something like this of course using signal comparators, like
Out.ar(0, SinOsc.ar(freq) * (freq > 100))or
val freqGt = freq > 100
val res: GE = {
SinOsc.ar(freq) * freqGt
} + {
WhiteNoise.ar * (1 - freqGt)
}
Out.ar(0, res)But these imply that all UGens compute at all times. So for expensive mutually exclusive branches (as they can occur in SysSon), it might be great to decompose this into sub-trees that end up in different synths:
// ---- tree 1 ----
val freq: GE = ???
// ---- tree 2a
val res = SinOsc.ar(freq)
// ---- tree 2b
val res = Dust.ar(freq)
// ---- tree 2c
val res = WhiteNoise.ar
// ---- tree 3 ----
Out.ar(0, res)This poses multiple challenges, of course. The most basic one, the syntax with which to declare this If, ElseIf, Else structure.
Then how to automatically partition the graph into connected trees.
We would need to inject bus-controls between shared signals.
Imagine that tree 3 also made use of the freq parameter, so there
might be actually quite a bit of wiring going on. And then the
correct real-time control. I am currently thinking of pausing the
synths for the inactive branches, this would still allow theIf conditional expression to run at control rate. An even
smarter UGen graph builder could try to parse the conditional
to see if the graph can be decided already at building time
(scalar condition that can be decided on the client).
So if you have any thoughts on this, I'd like to hear them. The Gitter channel might be the best place for this. At this stage it is not clear whether this branching mechanism will be feasible at all.