Composers Desktop Project Forum

Hi,
These are CDP error messages. The "shift/respace with formants" (CDP: specfnu modes 13,14 and 19) clearly have some pitch-extraction built in (I didn't know this), so as to be able to shift formants, and CDP is saying it can't find a valid pitch with your particular sound. I tried previews with a speech sound and a violin sound and these 'errors' didn't appear; the processing worked fine.

No need to do an explicit PVOC conversion in Soundshaper - it does it for you behind the scenes. The only exception I would recommend is: if saving a patch that has a spectral file at the end of the process chain, then follow this with a PVOC SYNTH before saving.
   

I think you're referring to CDP's FILTER BANK 6, which tunes filters in equal intervals of so-many semitones. I would expect these to be in equal temperament (though the CDP documentation doesn't clarify this). If they were in just intervals, you could soon end up with some pretty "unjust" tunings: for example 3 equal-tempered thirds coincide with the octave, whereas 3 just 3rds piled up give slightly less (125/64 = 1.953125 instead of 2.0).

If you want to set your own frequencies, check out FILTER VARIBANK, which uses a text table of frequencies (or MIDI notes) and amps. You can easily load a text file of frequencies tuned to whatever you want. This is one of CDP's most powerful tools (in my opinion), and it's time-varying.

Hi,
Yes, the search function in SoundThread (typing in name) is very clever - I haven't a clue how this is done, so I'm afraid it's not in Soundshaper.
* * * * *
Frequency Shift is called Strange Shift in CDP, documented under Spectral. (https://www.composersdesktop.com/docs/html/cstrange.htm#SHIFT)

It's in the Soundshaper Menu: Spectral > Pitch/Frequency > Shift > Shift Frequencies, grouped with the related functions from Specfnu (so Spectral > Pitch/Frequency > Shift > Shift / replace with formants) i.e. specfnu modes 13, 14 and 19. (https://www.composersdesktop.com/docs/html/cspecfnu.htm#FREQSHIFT etc., see mode list on left)

All these functions can unfortunately produce unwanted artefacts (depending on the source and settings). This seems especially true of Specfnu (which was probably geared towards speech). I understand that the wavelet transform is cleaner than PVOC in this respect, but that is not available in CDP.

* * * * *
Process Table:
Thanks for reporting the missing Process Table for 'Data' - I'll fix the link in the next version. I personally never use these tables and wonder if they're used at all. Any thoughts on this from users would be welcome.

Robert     

Hello,
That's correct. You will lose the 6.4 added functionality for a time (until I re-construct it) but hopefully you will not have these patch-loading problems now. But I will be checking all these aspects very carefully, which is why I felt a temporary downgrade was better than attempting a quick fix. The missing functionality is 1) no balance option in Previews 2) some changes to Loading patches, especially when the saved source is not included / or no source has been saved.

Hi,
I tried your patch in Soundshaper 6.4 and 6.3. There were two issues. In 6.4, the patch didn't load all the files, so it didn't have the necessary parameter files (.prm). I may have changed the way these files were copied; I'll need to check the coding here. In 6.3 it loaded fine, but failed on FLTVARI and the 2nd SPEED, because the subfolders A_3 and A_4, which should have contained their .brk files, were empty. Again this may be caused by changes in the the way files were copied. They were altered to accommodate running Soundshaper under WINE and appeared to work at the time, but were probably not fully tested. I'll be looking into this more fully before releasing another version. I'm sorry you've had such a bother with this issue, but you've helped to unearth some bugs and I'm very grateful for this.
Robert

Hi,
Thanks for sharing your patch files. Meanwhile, please note that I have had to withdraw the present version (6.4), as I've discovered a very serious bug in it. See my Announce post today. Whether this will cure the problems you've found remains to be seen, but I'll run your patches and see what I find.

I take your point about the old tutorial patches and will update those soon.
Robert

I have found a fundamental bug in Soundshaper 6.4 and have decided to withdraw this version. Do not use it! The bug affects editing and erasing files under certain circumstances.

Users who still have version 6.3 should use that instead. Others should download version 6.3 here:
https://www.ensemble-software.net/downloads/Soundshaper6.3Exe.zip
The replacement Soundshaper.exe should be copied into users' existing Soundshaper6 folder, replacing the previous Soundshaper.exe file.

A previously unpublished version (6.3.1, Dec. '24) supporting WINE is also available:
https://www.ensemble-software.net/downloads/Soundshaper6.3.1Exe.zip
Unless Soundshaper is being run via WINE, there would be no point in using this version.

It is hoped to release a new version (6.4.1) as soon as possible, once the functionality added from 6.3 to 6.4 has been re-instated and re-tested.

My apologies to all Soundshaper users for this inconvenience.

Some further tests have shown there probably IS a bug in LOAD PATCH. I loaded a sound and did a preview and render, then cleared the patch grid. When I clicked LOAD to load another patch, the "patch not cleared" message came up and the old source was still there in TEMP. The patch ran OK, but with the old source! (I think "Include source" was checked, for the patch.)

I then decided to repeat all this, but the old source wouldn't re-load (because it was still in TEMP) and Windows wouldn't let me delete it manually ("file in use"). To fix this would mean shutting down the program and then deleting the file.

I'll investigate this further and issue a program update when I think it's sorted.
 

Quote from: Vasilakis on June 05, 2025, 10:44:24 AMthere are indeed some weird folders in TMP named "~X_4" and "~X_11". There are also various .bat files like getenv and mixmany.

getenv.bat and mixmany.bat should not have a preceding tilde (~). Don't delete those. ~X_4 and ~X_11 folders are from your previews. I'll check my mechanism for clearing those -- Windows traditionally wanted folders cleared of their contents before you delete the folder, but now there is a more direct way, which I hope the program is using.

About your side note on .brk and text files:
some are supplied empty (delaytimes is a good example, because the program can't predict what times you will want). You have to edit this data yourself. Similarly, many .brk file defaults are just "skeletons" so the graphic editor has something to load. You're quite right to edit these defaults and save the results for your own use. No need to re-load the defaults.

Hi again,

I ran my version of your patch successfully on another PC which has different paths, but that wasn't an issue in this case. You can download it here: https://1drv.ms/f/c/c99eb976df17b95e/Eodc8wmPlrVLuG2WhHRyjAQBNpGpwUficKOGx8EBx0uEFA?e=2vzXbP
 
Unzip PatchJun4.zip somewhere and copy the .ssp file and its associated folder (Vasilakis) to your PATCHES folder - see Settings if you're not sure where that is.

I hope it will run OK on your system. If not, please report back.
Robert

Hi,

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience for your first attempt to load a Soundshaper patch. Thank you for giving such a detailed account of what happened.

The problem was with the message you got that "previous patch files may not all be cleared". The program checks to see if there are files in the TEMP folder that would stop the patch loading properly, and it found something - and the patch failed. (The report window rubbish was CDP's responses and should not be taken too seriously.) I'm puzzled as to why there seemed to be no parameter file (.prm) for REVERB (it would need that, which is why the parameter page didn't work), but that's not the main issue here.

1) Were there actually any temporary files left in the TEMP folder? - these have a tilde (~) as their first character. If Windows fails to delete these (it does occasionally), the workaround is to open the folder and delete them yourself, not through Soundshaper. I suggest you try this check.

2) Or maybe my CheckPatchCleared function (which triggers that messsage) has some faulty logic - I can't see it, but will work on that, anyway. However, the message is only a warning, so I think this was not the problem.

3) I recreated a patch similar to your one (Source-Reverb-Speed-FiltVari-Speed) and it ran OK. I actually tried to crash this patch (and trigger the message) by leaving a different source file (~A_0.wav) in my TEMP folder, but this didn't stop the patch loading correctly, with its own source. Unfortunately I can't share the patch, as it uses paths specific to this machine.


Hope this may help a little.
Robert

Hi,

I'm afraid I haven't been able to repeat this problem. I used Speed (Transpose semitones) as a test process. I clicked T-V (automation) and edited the default values graphically, then clicked the SAVE CHANGES button and hit PREVIEW. I repeated this several times, editing the values manually in the edit memo. I could go back through the earlier previews and they were still correct. For the final change, I again edited the data graphically.

The important thing is to click SAVE CHANGES before clicking the PREVIEW button. This seems fussy, but the button appears when changes might not have been saved, and disappears after being clicked.

Maybe you (or others) could reproduce my test and let us know if it doesn't work for you.

Robert

Hi,
I'll look into this tomorrow and get back to you.
Robert

Hi,

There can be issues when running a patch with a different source sound. Where the first cell fails, showing "File does not exist", it's often fixed by re-editing the cell (double-click on it to bring up parameters) and then clicking RUN (PATCH) when the cell has rendered correctly.  What was the process sequence and (especially) what was the process that failed?

On your second point, if your source was called "snd1.wav" and you process it (A1- A4) it shows the original filename preceded by an asterisk to show it's changed. If you then save one of those outputs to file, it'll show that filename instead.

~A_4.bat" �Ґ пў«пҐвбп ў�гваҐ��Ґ© Ё«Ё ў�Ґи�Ґ©
Є®¬ �¤®©, ЁбЇ®«�塞®© Їа®Ја ¬¬®© Ё«Ё Ї ЄҐв�л¬ д ©«®¬.
Well that does seem like a bug! I've never seen that before. Again, I'd need further details of what produced the message.

An alternative download is provided at www.soundshaper.net/dloads/html -see the bottom of the page. This is a simple zip file, which you can check in your virus-checker before downloading.

The zip does not contain SoundLoom (at present), and comes in two versions - FULL (including offline CDP documentation) and LITE (no CDP docs, which you can access online when needed). The zip contains a folder CDPR8, which you simply place in a folder or drive of your choice (CDP's default recommendation is C:\CDPR8). The chosen folder should have no spaces in the path - so don't place it in Program Files, for example. (Ignore references in the ReadMe file to "InstallSoundshaper6.exe".) Soundshaper requires a few further settings when first run, which are documented here: https://www.soundshaper.net/support.html under the heading "Configure Soundshaper".