Composers Desktop Project Forum

I don't know if it's been tried with the latest version.

Soundshaper already works on Parallels and similar emulations (or so I've been reliably informed). This is surely an easier and cheaper solution than a cheap PC?

I didn't mention financial constraints that are also hindering an OSX port at the moment. I do however have an old PC running Linux and as time permits, I plan to get CDP running on that and then start gradually re-building Soundshaper for Linux. The Free Pascal/Lazarus route is multi-platform, so code adapted for Linux might well cover most of what's needed for OSX. Crucially, the unit which assembles the command-line batch files that run CDP will need to be converted from the Windows CMD language to BASH, which can be tested on Linux and would also be used for OSX. The new player component, using the 3rd-party BASS library, has already been written in Free Pascal/Lazarus. Much of the user interface stuff  - menus, patchgrid and parameter setting - is pretty standard and should port without any trouble. The graph-edit page I'm less sure about. Other supporting pages - CDP Mix page and Data editor - could probably wait until after a first release.

I'm afraid not at the moment. I don't have a Mac to develop it on. In principle, the plan would be to adapt the present code (Delphi) to run in the Free Pascal equivalent (Lazarus), then adapt that to run in Linux and OSX. In practice, there are bound to be Mac and Linux-specific things that will take a lot of sorting out. Secondly, is there much demand for it? I'm not keen to spend months of work to create something that might be used by a handful of people.

You're quite correct: the version of specnu released in 2016 does not seem to have the options rand or squeeze, and specnu slice mode 5 has also disappeared.  These were all present in Release 7.0 in Feb. 2014, but have somehow got lost in the 7.1 upgrade. Rand randomises the order of windows, giving a flutter effect, squeeze reduces the frequency range, altering the timbre, while slice 5 inverts the spectrum, creating dramatically different (usually inharmonic) frequency content. All useful functions which would enhance the CDP suite if they could be restored -- please?

Soundshaper does not currently support the '.amb' suffix, but the substance of ambisonic provision is supported.
For example, apply ABFPAN to a sound (Menu: Edit/Mix | Spatial |  Multichannel | Ambisonic Pan; called AMBIPAN for short) - you don't even need to pan it: you can leave start position and end position as 0. You have created an ambisonic file. Save this as myamb.wav; reload it into another row - it loads OK and it's the same. You could apply FMDCODE to give it multi-channel speaker positions. So the missing provision is just recognition of the .amb suffix in the filename. 

Soundshaper does support all the CDP functions that deal with .amb files, such as ABFPAN and FMDCODE. However, the provision could perhaps be more explicit, such as offering .amb output when saving a file. I'll look into this and report back.

Following some changes to the Csound provision (and other bugs), a revised version (5.04) is now available.
This includes access to the online CDP documentation from the program.   (R.F. 8/05/19)

I've found some issues over filenames in saving patches involving Csound. Will post a revised version a.s.a.p.

The latest Soundshaper update (5.03) adds support for running Csound scripts, as well as users' own Batch scripts. The Csound scripts can either be for synthesis, writing to an output file, or for sound processing, with one or more input files. (Real-time output is not supported at present.)

The inputs and outputs are integrated within Soundshaper patches (process chains), i.e. a Csound process can precede or follow a CDP process, and the overall patch can be saved and recalled. Taken together, CDP and Csound cover a vast range of audio processes and a huge number of Csound examples are readily available, particularly for synthesis, which by comparison is a bit thin within CDP.

The update also includes Csound's implementation of Paulstretch (extreme time-stretching), hard-coded as a "normal" process with parameter control. I will be looking for other opcodes and scripts that would be worth integrating in this way and would welcome any suggestions and feedback.

Soundshaper 5.0 (beta) has now been released. This version has important new features designed to improve workflow:
- built-in streaming player/viewer, with extensive provision for editing and processing part of the sound
- multi-layer patches: patches extended to multiple layers. Embed a patch within a patch; save and load this as a single object within a patch and so on
- revised Process List: supports user-saved parameter settings (single presets) for rapid recall of favourite processes
- improved file-saving
- re-designed Main Page: clearer layout and menus. Support for many new skinned styles.

Soundshaper 5 (PC only, Vista-Win10) can be downloaded from www.ensemble-software.net .

Soundshaper has been run successfully on Mac via Parallels and similar products. Not having a Mac, I can't test this. Apart from hardware limitations, I'm in the middle of upgrading Soundshaper to v.5.0, which has to precede any possible port.

Yes bash is almost identical to CMD. I don't have a Mac, but do have winbash if you're stuck. Try reading Richard Dobson's guide to Terminal, particularly his advice to change directory (cd) to where some sounds are; you'll see his CDP command lines are identical to those for Windows. As I'm sure you know, you no longer need .aifs for Mac, but CDP can handle them anyway, ir you can use COPYSFX to convert them to WAV.  The Terminal document is here:
http://www.ensemble-software.net/CDPDocs/htmltuts/terminal/UsingTerminal.htm

In Windows CMD, you would write a batch script, the core of which is a sequence of CDP statements, something like this:

modify brassage 6 %1.wav %1(brassage).wav 0.7 5.0 100 0 1 0.5 5 5
reverb  %1.wav %1(reverb).wav 0.5 0.5 1 0 0 5
pvoc anal 1 %1.wav %1.ana -c1024 -o3
blur blur %1.ana %1(blur).ana 20
pvoc synth %1(blur).ana %1(blur).wav

%1 is a parameter you're passing to the script, in this case the name of your source file (e.g. "myfile.wav"), which is the common infile for each command line. You save the script to a text file and then change its extension to .bat (e.g. "mybatch.bat"). You then call the bat within CMD by typing:

mybatch myfile

...where myfile substitutes for %1 in the script. You don't need to call it as mybatch.bat, though you could. You mustn't put myfile.wav because that text would substitute for %1 and would become (in the first line):
modify brassage 6 myfile.wav(brassage).wav [etc] which wouldn't work.

For blur, the infile is first converted to .ana using pvoc anal and afterwards back to sound using pvoc synth. Of course we could run a number of spectral commands with %1.ana. We can also delete the .ana files when we're done with them; after the pvoc synth line add:
erase %1.ana
erase %1(blur).ana

We also need to tell CMD where to find CDP programs and our files.  Unless you copy CMD.exe to your project folder, you need to make that folder the current one:
  cd \SNDS\MYPROJ
(or whatever the folder's called) - if it's in the same drive as CMD; if a different drive, put the drive name first, e.g.:
  E:
  cd \SNDS\MYPROJ
 
(for the folder E:\SNDS\MYPROJ)

These statements can be typed at the console before running the script.

To point the script to CDP programs, you need a PATH statement, e.g.:
PATH C:\CDPR7\cdprogs
This can also be typed at the console, or put in the script before any CDP command lines.

The script itself is probably best put in the project folder, beside its infile. If not, the script needs the full path to the infile, e.g. call it as mybatch E:\SNDS\MYPROJ\myfile so that %1 picks up the whole path\filename. (My own preference is to use a single processing folder and copy all sources to that using copysfx, but that's another story.)

Finally, note that CMD takes only parameters %0 to %9, so there's very limited scope for passing values to the script. This is a pain, because CDP typically uses many parameters. The answer to this and other scripting issues would be to run CDP from something like PYTHON, but that solution will need some careful planning first.

A new version for Soundshaper (4.5.05) has now been released for Windows. All users are recommended to download this version, which is available as an update to an existing 4.5, an upgrade to a previous installation of 4.4, or as a full version.

The Mix Page has been extensively revised and repaired in this version. CDP mixes are very versatile, especially for relatively short sounds and the revised page aims to make them as easy to manipulate as possible. A revised Soundshaper HTML reference for the Mix Page is also available for download and is included as a .PDF in the upgrade.

Quick-help documentation for all CDP processes has now been completed and is accessible from within Soundshaper. Other bugfixes repair a number of CDP functions that were not working.   

Please see the thread "How to perform with spectral processes", which raises the same question. The answer is that a single-click is needed when you select the second input file from the grid. One of the replies in that thread describes it in great detail.

I will, however, change the coding in the next version of Soundshaper (or earlier) to interpret a double-click as a single one when the Add Input panel is visible.