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Messages - Robert Fraser

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61
Announce / Soundshaper 4.5 released
« on: June 13, 2017, 09:26:14 PM »
A new version of the Soundshaper interface (4.5) is now available (www.ensemble-software.net). This introduces the new Cell-Patch feature, in which an existing patch can be run within one cell. A patch containing one or more of these sub-patches can be saved and re-run as normal.  (Full details are in the supplied Release Notes.)

Parameter Files (.prm) can now be dropped onto the Main-Page patchgrid. This opens a parameter page with the appropriate parameters and values, so it's a quick way of selecting and running a preset. Parameter files are simple text files which can be saved from a parameter page (as 'snapshots') and are also produced as temporary files in the normal course of running Soundshaper.

62
General Board / Re: Gotta drop some love for this documentation
« on: May 05, 2017, 09:38:12 AM »
Oops! I'll get that link changed right now. 
The correct link is: http://www.ensemble-software.net/CDPDocs/downloads/CDPDocs_PDF.zip
This is also accessible from the updates page (http://www.ensemble-software.net/CDPDocs/html/updates.htm).
Sorry about that.

63
General Board / Re: Gotta drop some love for this documentation
« on: April 29, 2017, 09:42:02 AM »
That's good to hear, though we still haven't got the revised docs into the distribution yet...
Make sure you're accessing the latest stuff, online at http://www.ensemble-software.net/cdpdocs.html or you can now view or download printable pdfs for offline use.

64
Announce / CDP Documentation available as printable PDFs
« on: April 04, 2017, 06:45:20 PM »
The CDP reference documentation (excluding tutorials) has now been converted into printable PDF format and can be accessed here:
http://www.ensemble-software.net/cdpdocs.html

This page has links to download the PDF docs as well as the HTML docs as zip files, and also to view individual PDFs online. There is a link to the online HTML docs, which is also duplicated in the menu (CDP > Online Documentation > CDP Docs Home Page).

(Various charts and a couple of papers were already online as PDFs and are included within the HTML zip.)

65
General Board / Re: TMP folder causing crashes in Soundshaper
« on: November 03, 2016, 10:35:23 PM »
Sounds good. It's quite possible that the scripting for a particular class of processes has a minor fault -- you'll appreciate that because of the sheer size of CDP, a bug might go undetected in tests.  Another (more likely?) possibility is CDP's own reaction to certain inputs: lengths, levels, number of windows, even frequency ranges. (A simple example is FILTER VARIBANK - a wonderful program if you do the work to ensure no harmonic will crash the Nyquist boundary.) Some comments in this forum about defective documentation have to be seen against this background. 

Anyway, do report any specific malfunction and we can get it sorted.

66
General Board / Re: TMP folder causing crashes in Soundshaper
« on: October 24, 2016, 10:21:16 AM »
Thanks for your replies.  The count sound should be OK. The warning message "<filename> not found" is just Soundshaper's message that the CDP program appears not to have worked. For most processes, a CDP error message will also normally be displayed, provided there is one.  Roomverb is working on my Win10 machine, both with mono and stereo inputs, and it does produce error messages (e.g. for room size= -1).

Have you checked the paths in Settings, as I mentioned above?  -- especially the temp folder and more importantly that the CDP programs folder is correct? Also that you actually have rmverb.exe in there? (note the spelling, not roomverb). [I know these checks sound obvious but they're the cause of most problems that have arisen in the past.]

It is possible to set up a terminal (command window) in Windows to run either single command lines or a batch file, including the one Soundshaper assembles (e.g. ~A_1.bat in your rmverb example; this should be in your TEMP folder.)  For the command line, the Soundshaper batch files currently name the in/outfiles in a non-friendly way (e.g. rmverb  %2_%3.wav  %n%_%o%.wav 1 0.5 0.5 0 0 0 5),  but you can amend this to something more obvious like count.wav (in) and countvb.wav (out). (You can't run these batch files "as is", unfortunately, without knowing the arguments that are being passed to the batch.)

There is more than one way of setting up a CDP terminal, but mine is to copy CMD.exe from the Windows folder to the TEMP file and then write and run a simple batch file (CDP.bat) which I also place in the TEMP folder:

REM cdp.bat for Release 7.0
echo off
PATH E:\CDP\cdpr7\_cdp\_cdprogs
SET CDP_SOUND_EXT=wav
cls
echo ***********************   COMPOSERS   DESKTOP   PROJECT   **********************

The PATH statement should lead to your CDP programs folder; mine is on drive E:, but yours may be somewhere else. In fact this folder can be anywhere unless you're running Soundloom, which expects the directory structure \_cdp\_cdprogs.

To run this, launch the terminal from the taskbar (right-click on the CMD.exe icon and select Pin to Taskbar) and type "CDP" (for "CDP.bat").

Back to your specific issues, I'd still like to know if VIBRATO runs OK or not! Also, I feel you may be better pursuing this directly with me by e-mail (rob@ensemble-software.net). I'll be happy to post the solution here when we find it: there is one!

67
General Board / Re: Extracting and repitching wavecycles
« on: October 21, 2016, 01:14:09 PM »
Have you tried packet mode 1? It's for extracting short snippets and I understand it's also based on zero-crossings.

68
General Board / Re: Modify Loudness Issue
« on: October 21, 2016, 11:46:00 AM »
As far as I know, modify loudness 4 is the correct command. For example, -l0.707946 will give -3dB output, whether the input is lower or higher than this (just tested both).

69
General Board / Re: TMP folder causing crashes in Soundshaper
« on: October 21, 2016, 11:30:56 AM »
It may be a Windows admin issue,  but I notice that the TEMP folder on this computer (Win10, 64-bit) is also marked as Read-Only ("Only applies to files in folder" -- whatever that means!) and Soundshaper works fine on this system (the outfiles are not read-only, incidentally).

I'd recommend some standard checks:
1) Check the SETTINGS, especially the paths for the TEMP folder and the CDP programs folder, and update as necessary.
Make sure there are no spaces in either path.
2) Use a bog-standard 16-bit source wav (there are some .wav varieties that CDP doesn't recognise), and maybe mono, just to be sure.
3) After selecting the source, check that it was copied OK to the TEMP folder and is playable (either in Soundshaper or another program).
4) Run a simple command like VIBRATO (Modify Speed 6), using 'normal' parameter values.
5) If this hangs, did the batch file get written to TEMP OK? (Should be ~A_1.bat if source was ~A_0.wav in row A).
6) Did the outfile get written (~A_1.wav), as a playable file? (CDP first creates a file and then writes to it, so a file of 0 bytes might have been created).
7) If the process runs OK, then Soundshaper/CDP is basically working on your system. We would then need to find a specific instance of a hanging/crashing CDP program, which could indicate a flawed batch script or CDP issues.

70
General Board / Re: TMP folder causing crashes in Soundshaper
« on: October 20, 2016, 10:29:25 AM »
Soundshaper writes a batch file to run a CDP command; if the CDP process hangs (as opposed to generating an error message -- its normal response) there could be an apparent freeze (although there is a workaround for this). Another possible reason would be if you were not running the program as Administrator -- Windows then doesn't seem to allow any files to be written so there would be a hang. You say "crash" and "all the time": can you expand on these at all?  Is the outfile actually being written (as a complete playable file, not an empty shell)?

71
Announce / Re: Revised CDP Documentation Online
« on: September 05, 2016, 05:56:17 PM »
I've now added a downloads page (Documentation Updates) for CDP Docs and their updates.
You can find this here:
www.ensemble-software.net/CDPDocs/html/updates.htm

The link to CDPDocsNew.zip is correct from there and replaces the previous link posted here.

A new update today includes the utilities Getcol, Putcol and Vectors, undocumented in the last release.

Robert F.

72
Announce / Re: Revised CDP Documentation Online
« on: September 04, 2016, 03:07:49 PM »
I've now followed up Logan's lengthy list of documentation errors posted on the General Board (see "Inconsistencies..."), and have updated a number of the online docs:
cgropsow.htm  cgrohous.htm  cgromody.htm cgroenvl.htm cgroedit.htm  cdistort.htm   ccombine.htm  alphindex.htm
I've also updated the zip file.

For those who might have already downloaded the new docs, you need only download the above .htm files: replace just the .htms and discard any associated "_Files" folders.

Robert

73
Announce / Re: Revised CDP Documentation Online
« on: September 03, 2016, 07:49:34 PM »
Logan,
I found your Inconsistencies post and have posted a reply. Thanks for picking up on so many documentation anomalies. Many of these have been sitting around for years unnoticed!
Robert

74
General Board / Re: Inconsistencies in Processes and Documentation
« on: September 03, 2016, 07:45:03 PM »
Hi Logan,
Thanks for your many observations - very helpful!
You're quite right about multi-output processes; the inconsistencies in output-naming can be a pain. I've found it helps to precede the command line with COPYSFX: you can set the copy name so that the multi-output process will give a more consistent naming. See for instance the HOUSEKEEP EXTRACT example below.

First of all, thanks for your points about the documentation for:
Housekeep Extract 1, Modify Radical 3, Modify Radical 7, Topantail2, Sfedit Join, Shrink, Combine Cross, Distort Pulsed.
You're quite correct and I'll get these changed.

HOUSEKEEP COPY / COPYSFX
CDP output is normally to the current directory, if an alternative directory is not specified in the path.
For example:
  copysfx E:\SNDS\TMP\AE\count.wav copycnt.wav
puts the copy in the current directory, but
  copysfx E:\SNDS\TMP\AE\count.wav E:\SNDS\TMP\AE\copycnt.wav
puts the copy in the source directory.

Housekeep Copy 2 is no different:
  housekeep copy 2 E:\SNDS\TMP\AE\count.wav 3
outputs count_001.wav, count_002.wav, and count_003.wav to the current directory.

HOUSEKEEP EXTRACT 1 (Gate Extract)
The documentation is wrong/out of date. The last character of the infile is replaced by a series of output numbers, e.g. count.wav outputs coun0.wav, coun1.wav etc.  A workaround is to include a COPYSFX, e.g.:
 copysfx count.wav count_X.wav
 housekeep extract 1  count_X.wav -t0.2    [outputs count_0.wav, count_1.wav etc.]
 erase count_X.wav

HOUSEKEEP EXTRACT 6 (Gated onsets)
>I cannot get this process to open the output file.
It just writes a text file, e.g.:
  housekeep extract 6  mysound.wav onsets.txt 0.035 0 0 0 1 0.05 0
Documentation seems correct.

HOUSEKEEP RESPEC 3
>The documentation lists a flag "-t" which the process does not recognize.
Tried -t and it crashed the program. Will need to consult with Richard D. about this.

DSHIFT
>This process is listed in the documentation
It's listed correctly as just dshift. Dshift.exe should be in your _cdprogs folder.

MODIFY SHUDDER
I'm getting inconsistent results too. Will investigate further and alter docs as necessary.

REVERB (Multi-Channel Toolkit)
>Flags coming before parameters
In Richard D's programs, the flags come before the parameters. Just the way it is, but there are only about twenty programs.

SFEDIT RANDCHUNKS
As in my solution for HOUSEKEEP EXTRACT 1:
  copysfx copycnt.wav copycnt_X.wav
  sfedit randchunks  copycnt_X.wav 2 1 -m3
This will output copycnt_0.wav and copycnt_1.wav.

SHRINK
>This is listed in Extend and in Sfedit, seems like it should only be in one of them?
Agreed. It shouldn't be in sfedit and the name is wrong there, too.

ISOLATE Mode 3
I think this mode may need further investigation. In a test, it produced two files, one the same as the original, the other silent!

SNDINFO DIFF
>This is listed twice in the documentation.
?? You may be right, but I can only find it under SNDINFO DIFF.

SUBMIX INBETWEEN2
I have the following in my notes:
inbetween: mono or stereo inputs but both files must be same
inbetween2: mono only
The documentation currently has nothing about the channel requirements. Will look into this.

SYNTH SPECTRA
I can't get this to work these days: always get MEMORY ERROR. Will investigate further.

SPECGRIDS
Definitely .ana output. It's a standalone (specgrids specgrids), not part of specnu, though documented there alongside Specnu Slice.

CERACU
>I always get "Cannot open output file"
Infile must be mono. Despite the weird name, it produces polyrhythms: the "cyclecnts" data file gives x against y against z etc. Try, for example, 3 against 4:
  ceracu ceracu any.wav anyacu.wav cyc.txt 0.5 2 10 0 0
where cyc.txt is:

4

ITERLINE
>The documentation and the exe help are missing 6 parameters
I don't think so. The params are:
  infile outfile transposition-data out_duration delay rand_delay pitch_shift amp_cut gain [-sseed]
However, the exe help (and hence the documentation) gives flags for optional parameters, which I think are wrong. Will investigate further and correct docs. If you treat all params as compulsory (with no flags), except for seed, it works.

MADRID, SHIFTER, TEXTURE DECORATED, PTOBRK
Can't reproduce the problems, sorry.
PTOBRK. This works OK:
  ptobrk withzeros asnd.frq asnd.pch 20

Can't comment for now on:
gate gate 2, abfpan, extend scramble 2, modify (modify what?), madrid, shifter, texture decorated, ptobrk

Robert F.

75
Announce / Re: Revised CDP Documentation Online
« on: September 03, 2016, 01:12:41 PM »
As the docs are not a Wiki, just email any suggestions to me - email address as in the announcement. (I don't think this is something for the Forum, unless absolutely necessary). Simple changes can be implemented straight away in the online version. Anything involving a serious re-write I would run past Archer, as he is still the editor and author of most of the docs' content. (But even Wiki articles go through a discussion process, so that's not unusual.)

I'm aware that some parameter ranges are better documented than others; this is something I'll look into. Also, some processes have example command lines, while others don't. Again, I'd like to get examples for all transformations, and also build up sound examples in the online docs. If you've got a good sound example, why not send it in (provided the source sound doesn't breach copyright)?

It would also help if we had translations into other languages. This would have to be done by the membership. If anyone is a native speaker of a language other than English and would be willing to collaborate with other speakers of that language to translate some of the reference docs, please e-mail me.

Robert F.
 

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