A brief introduction

Consul · Posted: Sun May 13, 2007 6:53 pm Post subject:

Here's what I'm imagining:

1) I go into my DAW.
2) I insert a VST instrument.
3) This VST instrument, instead of being some cartoony-looking thing intended to sound vaguely like a Minimoog, is instead a simple text editor into which I can program using a language just like ChucK.
4) Then I can play this newly-made instrument like any other, using my keyboard, straight into a track in the DAW.
5) Then I can overdub vocals, drums, didgeridoo, and whatever else, even more ChucK goodness.

Now, opening the DAW up just to develop synth sounds would be impractical, so something like MiniAudicle would be perfect for developing sounds and patches which can then be opened up using the VST version within the DAW.

Now, there will always be a place for the better commercial plugin instruments (I especially like Zebra and Truepianos). But something like Chuck usable in the way I tried to describe above would be an oh so wonderful thing.

Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not bashing ChucK at all. I'm rather liking it so far, actually. I'm just dreaming out loud. I can still find ways to use ChucK just as it is now.

Kassen · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 6:27 am Post subject:

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Some years back I tried "silence" which is a VST version of Csound and it was intended to do exactly this. Sadly the only thing I ever got out of it was silence and Live crashes... but it was still a apealing idea.

mosc · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 10:28 am Post subject:

Consul. Rewire is nice but AFAIK programs have to be designed to use it. There is a Jack-like solution for Windows that I've used. Check out VAC (Virtual Audio Cable) http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-9808.html

Consul · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 10:53 am Post subject:

That sounds promising, except ChucK is strictly DirectSound on Windows at the moment, isn't it?

Kassen · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 11:32 am Post subject:

Also; ChucK couldn't support Rewire without severe changes;

Consul · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 11:47 am Post subject:

That VAC thing is WDM. I never did get the difference between WDM and ASIO, or if there even is a difference. Some IT guy I'm turning out to be. Wink

(Though, to be fair to me, my IT experience is almost completely Linux and Unix.)

I do appreciate all of the help and information though, guys. In the meantime, I'm still playing around with the tutorials.

Kassen · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 12:16 pm Post subject:

WDM is basically Windows managing your audio for you. It's easy, generally available and you're lucky if you can get latency as "low" as 50ms.

ASIO is more like the program and the card sorting it out amongst eachother (I think that means amongst other things that you can only have one ASIO client at a time). It's supported by pro level card but there is a asio4all driver that can make it available on more general purpose cards. It's also much, much faster.

Consul · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 1:04 pm Post subject:

Cool, thanks!

A search for ASIO loopback turned up this one:

http://www.dr-jordan-design.de/Downloads.htm

No note of its price, though. That annoys me.

Of course, it still won't work with ChucK, but hopefully that will change soon.

chuckles · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 8:26 am Post subject: CSound silence

Kassen · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 10:33 am Post subject:

I know; I have the Csound book right here but somehow I could never get into it. The book is full of nice and inspirational ideas though, I use it as a kind of reference work.

It's true that ChucK doesn't have a scoring language but ChucK is also much easier to extend. It wouldn't be that hard to write a set of functions that would enable you to write scores in a way very similar to Csound, if that's how you want to write.

Consul · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 7:14 pm Post subject:

I have the CSound book, too. Very Happy

And I just learned that Reaper already comes with an ASIO loopback driver built-in, so all I can say is, Go Go ASIO ChucK! Please

Kassen · Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 3:09 am Post subject:

Reaper has that? I always thought that would be a good idea, I also think MIDI loopback drivers (or at least virtual ports) would be a good idea for standalone softsynths.

About ASIO; I asked for it a few times so I have the gossip;

ASIO is definately on the list and Ge understands why we need it.
It might be a simple issue of setting flags with the library that is used for sound on Win.
Princeton doesn't have a Win-ASIO setup to test with which makes it harder to develop it for ChucK.

That's all I know :¬).

Consul · Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 4:57 am Post subject:

And you know what else Reaper has? This:

http://www.jesusonic.com/forums.html

Think "ChucK for DSP effects processing", complete with a convolution engine. And the version integrated into Reaper can do GUIs for Jesusonic scripts.

I have a lot of interesting ideas floating around in my head right now...

kijjaz · Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 10:19 am Post subject:

hmm.. how about wiring some audios & midi into another computer,
make that another one a chuck machine..
and wire the audio back from the chuck machine..

wow!!
(ah ... i don't have an extra computer for than.. sob)

majutsu · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 7:28 am Post subject:

nice to meet you consul.

good luck!