Composers Desktop Project Forum

Great find!

The GATE process crashes for me, too.  The process starts up, but no matter the mode, choice of input file, or gate level I apply, it bails a few seconds into the process.  (It worked fine when I last used GATE in Release 6, so should hopefully be a simple fix if the process works as expected in OS X.)

Sorry for your difficulty!

For the core CDP tools, I'd love to see a source code repository agreeable with git as well as cvs & svn.

In the documentation example for GATE GATE, "count" is the infile and "countgate" will be the generated outfile.  In CDP, you can often omit the extension (e.g., .wav) when typing sound & analysis filenames at the command-line.  (And yes, "-9" is the gatelevel.)

By "nesting" FOR loops, it is possible to iterate through more than one loop.

Mention of this possibility is made here:
http://www.robvanderwoude.com/for.php

Using your example with DISTORT REPEAT, we might do something like this to generate a lot of files:
FOR /L %A IN (1,1,10) DO FOR /L %B IN (1,1,128) DO FOR /L %C IN (1,1,20) DO distort repeat input.wav output%A-%B-%C.wav %A -c%B -s%C


Remember that within a batch file, there must be two "%" for each variable substitution (e.g., %%A).  Entered directly from the command-line, one substitution character is fine.

While not a whole lot more complex, techniques like this make it easy to generate more files than you will possibly need (or bother listening to).  It might be better to take one or two parameters at a time, stepping through with larger increments--as 1 will be very fine for some processes--and try to systematically identify "zones" of interest.  Having identified a zone between, say, 350 and 500 for a process, you can step through with more precision with a single loop and audition the results.

A batch FOR loop might be what you need.  Take a look at this bit of documentation:

http://ss64.com/nt/for_l.html

So for an incremental run of BLUR BLUR with windowing from 1 to 100, you could run this directly from a CMD box or batch file:
FOR /l %i in (1,1,100) DO blur blur input.ana output%i.ana %i

I know you're a command-line user, but I'll mention that Sound Loom integrates similar functionality with "Suck It & See".

Within Sound Loom, make sure the .ana file you want to operate on is selected in CHOSEN FILES, and choose PROCESS > PVOC & select "Synthesis" from the CURRENT MENU.  Note that the PROCESSes available to you will depend on the kind of file(s) in the CHOSEN FILES list, so empty this out before adding your file or at least make sure only analysis (.ana) files are in this list.

There may be a Mint package out there for you somewhere.  But I've always compiled straight from source.  A quick overview of how to do this is in the file "README.Snd".  "configure" takes a few options, but the defaults are probably just fine.  On Linux, the build should proceed smoothly, and once completed, just "sudo make install" to switch to root user to install snd in your file hierarchy.

As a sound editor, Snd is not so hard to use.  The initial impediment for me was just learning the key bindings for common operations.  (Opening files, jumping to the nearest "zero-crossing", trimming regions, saving files, etc., etc.)  Once learned, however, you can really breeze around files without your hands much leaving the keyboard.  The author isn't kidding that virtually every function can be customized or extended, so you can even remap all the key bindings if you think they suck or add new ones for functions that don't have a keyboard shortcut.

As just a sound editor, Snd would be pretty great (imho).  And it would be just fine to stop there.  But a typical install includes the Scheme listener and CLM.  The syntax of Scheme is quite simple and remarkably consistent compared to even Python.  (Don't let all the parenthesis intimidate!)  If you only learn to set variables and call functions in Scheme from the listener, you can do an awful lot in Snd without having to know much else.  (That's all I learned, initially.)  It's not really advertised as such, but you really have a very capable (non-realtime) audio processor/synthesizer under the hood!  A lot of functions have equivalent functionality in CDP.  In absence of a proper GUI for CDP on Linux, you may find using Snd preferable in the interim for some operations (e.g., imposing envelopes on sounds).  It's a rather unusual tool.  It probably tries to do too much by including CLM, but--like CDP--allows for a lot of precision.  I think a lot of the reason it seems overwhelming is really all this "extra" functionality built in--the author really gets carried away in the documentation describing all of it!

Taking a gander at CLAM, it seems almost like a heady fusion of concepts taken from Perry Cook's STK and Pure Data(/Max) with the capabilities of SMS tied in.  (Not having tried it, though, I don't know if that impression is actually accurate.)  Looks primarily geared for your developing your own audio applications, but the Network Editor does look mighty powerful.  Having not used Mint or its package management system, I wouldn't even know where to how to advise installing it (short of building it from the source).

As for me, I think a lot of my interest in CDP comes from having relatively simple & direct ways of working with sound.  I've "had my fill" of of complex software ecologies complete with plugin systems and large supporting libraries/frameworks just from working with Windows & conventional DAWs.  I'm ready for a change of pace . . . CDP, maybe Snd, and I'll probably pick up Tcl scripting to tie it all together.  Hopefully, not much more than that.

I haven't!  In fact, I hadn't heard of it until you mentioned it.  This does look interesting.

On the topic of neat tools that run on Linux, I've always been a fan of Bill Schottstaedt's Snd.  Apart from being a very capable sound editor, it has the core generators of CLM (via SndLib) built right in.  But the default language binding is Scheme, and I don't think a Python binding has been developed yet.

As SL is concerned, my laptop also runs a small screen (1366x768).  Even with the options to reduce window size enabled, some dialogs (e.g., help and keyboard shortcuts dialogs) are still too tall for my screen, ditto for a couple screens in the MUSIC TESTBED.  Hardly unworkable, but I do occasionally desire a giant, high-res display for Sound Loom.

The CDP manual often provides examples of text data files within the documentation to use with different processes, and SL knows enough about some text data file formats to give you a template to start from.  However, this is not available for every process, and these templates aren't really intended to be working examples in themselves.

AFAIK, only Soundshaper (for PC) presently comes bundled with working examples/presets for most every process.

No worries!!  You did not mess up the thread.   

I suspect that Sound Loom vexes some people because it is foremost a tool for Trevor, and is therefore built primarily for his needs and workflow.  Unlike an application intended for general consumption, SL may require a new user to "get inside" Trevor's head on some level before it starts to make sense.  I don't know if this is actually true, however, because I did not find SL the giant obstacle to working with CDP that some on this forum apparently do.

I genuinely empathize with their frustration, however.  I've a reasonably technical bent, but I've never been able to get my head around the disjointed workflow of most pro-grade DAW software.  Inundated by functionality that does not come together cohesively in my mind, I could never feel "at home" with any of them, whether it be REAPER, Logic, Cakewalk, Pro Tools, etc.--rote memorization isn't one of my strong suits.  Watching other musicians cruise around their favourite DAW with minimal frustration and without breaking stride leaves me a little bitter about my ineptitude in this respect.