ChucKchat

Inventor

I'm so tickled at myself! I've created a thing called ChucKchat which is basically a crude chat program for ChucK. At the moment it does only lower case letters and spaces, and has only been tested talking to itself on the local machine. It does, however have a lot of potential for musical control via chat.

I wanted something that people could get involved with over the electro-music chat environment, and when it dawned on me that this was possible I just had to do it, lol. Now to add some music to the thing...

Les

ChucKchat2.ck

Description:

version 2 of ChucKchat!

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ChucKchat2.ck

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Inventor · Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 10:29 pm Post subject:

Here is version 3 of ChucKchat. I added the ability to remotely control your friend's music. you can set the beep frequency and volume as well as cause a beep. Also there is a looping interface which consists of simply a pitch shifter with volume control. You can control your friend's ptich shift and mix. Presumably friend will be looping on a public port on radio.electro-music.com so you can control your friend's net looper.

wow, this is fun!

Les

ChucKchat3.ck

Description:

version 3 of ChucKchat

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ChucKchat3.ck

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Inventor · Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 11:55 pm Post subject:

Here is version 4, now with boolean sequencer, remotely controllable of course!

Les

ChucKchat4.ck

Description:

version 4 of ChucKchat

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ChucKchat4.ck

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Inventor · Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 3:31 am Post subject:

I wrote a manual for ChucK chat so people would know how to use it, attached.

Les

ChucKchat Manual.pdf

Description:

ChucChat Manual

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ChucKchat Manual.pdf

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Inventor · Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 8:53 am Post subject:

here is version 6. it has a nice sounding BSKS algorith, all controllable from remote commands or local commands. this is really fun! can't wait to test it with the folks at em chat...

Les

ChucKchat6.ck

Description:

version 6 of ChucKchat

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ChucKchat6.ck

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ChucKchat Manual.pdf

Description:

Manual consistent with version 6

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ChucKchat Manual.pdf

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blue hell · Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 4:34 pm Post subject:

Tested it a bit with Les .. it works over the webs too .. couple of quirks to iron out of course, this is going to be nice Smile

Inventor · Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 10:20 pm Post subject:

I have rolled in the changes that Jan wanted and now it's all set for further testing. Oh, one undocumented feature is the friends list. make a file like this:

friends.txt

Inventor · Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 11:56 pm Post subject:

Oh and by the way, the previous version only works with the command line version of ChucK - will not work with miniAudicle.

Les

blue hell · Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 2:08 pm Post subject:

Ok, that works way better Les Smile

Bit of a hassle in windows to set it up for the command line version ... I ended up opening a dos box on the folder that the ck (and friends.txs) was (were) in, and then, at the prompt, entered:

path=%path%;chuck_path\

after which i could finally type

chuck chuckchat8.ck

I've added it to the windows path as well but apparently that needs a reboot ... weird ... it never did I think? and cygwin sees the change perfectly well ... ah well ... this laptop was up for 100 days - can't have a reboot now can we Wink

Inventor · Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 2:15 pm Post subject:

Our ChucKchat session was a big success this afternoon! I went on for a long time playing with the looping features and talking about them, then Jan joined in and remotely controlled my music from his machine across the Atlantic ocean! It was a blast for me, though Jan lost interest quickly. Next thing to do is make it more fun! This is great. I can understand how a command interface just doesn't cut it musically, so I'll do some cool stuffs to make it better...

Les

jwmatthys · Joined: May 24, 2011 Posts: 7 Location: Cincinnati OH

This is a great little instrument for group ChucKing!

I direct a laptop ensemble and we're going to use this. I made a few modifications to the code, mostly to facilitate jamming in which everyone is in the same room. I tried to make changes that wouldn't break any of the functionality of the code as it exists now.

1. I think bs.tempo is inverted; instead of beats per second, the input was seconds per beat. I switched it around so now you can enter:
les tempo 8
2. new identity tag "all" executes a command on everyone's console:
all volume 0.5
3. command "adc" changes the gain of the adc (we need this to prevent feedback when we're all in the same room)
les adc 0.1
4. command "sync" or "bs.sync" pauses everyone's sequencer, then sends an osc message to start everyone more or less syncronously (+/- the vagaries of the interwebs). value is the length of the pause in ms
all sync 1000

I also made some processing sketches to display the chat in a pretty way to be projected in concert, as well as an easy interface to create the friends.txt list for everyone in the group at once. (I hope to do this live with 6-8 laptops). I'll post those soon.

chuckchat10.ck

Description:

chuckchat v. 10

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chuckchat10.ck

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jwmatthys · Joined: May 24, 2011 Posts: 7 Location: Cincinnati OH

Oh yeah, and !! repeats the last command entered.

Processing code attached.

chuckchat.pde is the Processing (processing.org) sketch for projecting the chat messages in concert. Requires OscP5 library. You will need to add the projecting computer's IP to your friends.txt file.

chuckchat_processing.txt

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Processing code. copy and paste into Processing IDE.

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chuckchat_processing.txt

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Inventor · Posted: Wed May 25, 2011 2:19 pm Post subject:

Wow JW, I'm super excited that you've chosen to do all of this! Truth be told, I like to think of myself as a "spark" type person when I create stuff. Some people are wood or air or leaves of the bonfire, and at other time I can be those things also, but when I create I try to make the spark that lights the bonfire.

Well, having a group of performers use my program, and you souping it up for the task, is quite a big bonfire in my eyes. I'd love to hear the music or see the video if / when possible, please!

Oh, and anyone else who wants to modify the code please do so. Maybe we should try to post the latest revision here in this thread so everyone can get it. For my next addition to ChucKchat I'm planning to add support for the Gyration Air Mouse which I just purchased. More on that later, perhaps in a few days (I hope).

Thanks again, I'm honored!

Les

Inventor · Posted: Thu May 26, 2011 4:46 am Post subject:

JW, I tried using chuckchat10.ck and it did not accept my commands. To debug, I removed the last line, which is empty, from my friends.txt file but that didn't fix it, then i added a friend (just me and friend) with ip 0.0.0.0 and that didn't fix it. Finally I ran ChucKchat9.ck to see if there was something wrong in my system and it works fine.

If you could provide some insight, that would be very helpful. I'm adding the Gyration Air Mouse Elite support today.

Les

Inventor · Posted: Thu May 26, 2011 2:02 pm Post subject:

Wow I spoke too soon, it must have been some file mismanagement on my part, chuckchat10.ck works just fine for me. Now to add the 3D motion control to it...

Les

jwmatthys · Joined: May 24, 2011 Posts: 7 Location: Cincinnati OH

Great idea! I have a Gyration too. Cool little device!

Inventor · Posted: Thu May 26, 2011 3:26 pm Post subject:

Inventor · Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 5:43 am Post subject:

Last night I tried another variation of controlling KS with the Gyration air mouse, which was vaguely unsatisfying. KS only really sounds like string synthesis in a narrow range of the delay and filter parameters, so all i got was a bunch of percussive clicking or deep bass. Now, I could adjust the range or something, but I felt like moving on to explore another possibility.

Then I coded a short-delay looper to post process the KS sound under mouse control. It did a good job. There's some zipper but it's subdued or maybe melts into the sound somehow. Overall I'm pleased with how it turned out so I'm posting it now.

Les

chuckchat11.ck

Description:

version 11 of chuckchat, now with Gyration Air Mouse control

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chuckchat11.ck

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Inventor · Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 6:11 am Post subject:

Oh, wow, I just discovered that Apple's TextEdit application, the simple text editor that is sort of the Mac version of the Windows Notepad, can save our manual in html format and read it for edit in that format as well. So here it is, open with TextEdit if you have a Mac. Not sure what to do on Linux or Windows, that's up to you.

Les

p.s. note: the forum does not accept html file extensions so I uploaded it as .html.txt file extension, hope that works. I will contact the admins and ask them to add the html file extension (and maybe rtf also while we're at it).

ChucKchat Manual.html.txt

Description:

the chuckchat manual in html format

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ChucKchat Manual.html.txt

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blue hell · Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 6:32 am Post subject:

Inventor · Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 6:56 am Post subject:

Thank you Jan, you are always so very helpful! It is appreciated my friend.

Les

jwmatthys · Joined: May 24, 2011 Posts: 7 Location: Cincinnati OH

Yeah, I haven't been able to access the accelerometer directly. My sense is that the device uses the 3-axis data internally to calculate X and Y values which it outputs to the mouse driver.

I was thinking of running the output through LiSa to do some kind of granular synth thing, with the parameters controlled by the mouse. I'm going to mess around with the LiSa code and try to put something together.

Hey, didn't you and I email for a while a couple of years ago about a hardware ChucK board? I was in Milwaukee then.

Joel

Inventor · Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 2:37 pm Post subject:

Wow Joel, small world eh? I remember now, yes - that was the beginnings of the eChucK project where the e stands for electronic. My idea was to build a bunch of tiny little circuit boards with minimal synth functionality that were modeled after ChucK UGens. Then we could hook them up with wire to create circuits that made synth sounds.

eChucK was to be extremely inexpensive compared to synths due to the use of single-chip simplified versions of the synth modules, the small circuit board size, and so on. I went as far as identifying some key miniature components such as thumbwheel potentiometers, mini switches, and these tiny terminal blocks for interconnect that exist today, but the project stalled due to lack of funds. All of the work that I did is preserved on the eChucK subforum which sits right next to the ChucK forum on this site.

I'd love to work on eChucK again someday, and I have all 24/7 free to myself for such projects, however I have no funds for parts and circuit boards and the like. Even my voltmeter broke, I've been designing music circuits without a voltmeter for half a year now, lol. Whatever - at least ChucK itself is free!

Les

Inventor · Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 3:27 pm Post subject:

Here is version 13 of chuckchat. I replaced the delay line effect from chuckchat11 posted earler today with a second karplus strong loop. The reason I did that is that I built a synth in hardware circuit board form of my own design just like that and it sounded very cool. So good in fact that I was able to sell it to a guy in France for $150.

This version of chuckchat does a very good job of approximating what that synth sounded like. Interestingly I find myself constantly making things in both hardware and software versions of each other. ChucK does the software modeling and I create the hardware. Of course, ChucK is not a circuit simulator so the circuis are simulated from a functional level, not an electrical level. I find this technique very effective since I can usually prototype a circuit in ChucK much faster than I can build it in hardware.

I think, now that chuckchat behaves like this synth that I created, that the basic structure of chuckchat is largely in place for the performance. I will concentrate on documentation and better control features and such now to gradually smooth out this creation and make it complete.

Regarding the Gyration Air Mouse Elite, I read on the Gyration site that it has both a two-axis gyro and a three-axis accelerometer. Apparently the gyro appears as deltaX and deltaY in ChucK, and the accelerometer is hidden. I've posted some to the ChucK Users group about unhiding that thing, as this device would make an excellent controller for future ChucK programs.

Les

chuckchat13.ck

Description:

lucky 13!

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chuckchat13.ck

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mosc · Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 3:31 pm Post subject:

This looks like a fun project.

jwmatthys: welcome

to electro-music.com - Great to have you here.