[Octal-dev] literate programming / patterns.... let's document our work

[Dave O'Toole]

Steve Mosher wrote:

> hacks though. Are there any good sources on dsp programming? Anyhow, I
> imagine a lot of functions like these would be useful in more than one
> machine (distortion correction and auto-amplifiers would both measure
> amplitude, for example.)

This sounds great!

One algorithm I'm working on right now is the mixing algorithm that gets
applied when you pump two (or more) machines' output to another
machine's input. It's dynamic, and adjusts the volume so that things
don't clip (but doesn't just divide the mixed version by "n" where n is
the number of signals being mixed. This does work but isn't very good.)
I'm trying to mimic the behavior of Buzz's mixing algorithm as closely
as I can, because it sounds good :-) .

Oh, how is this relevant? One thing I was suggesting is that we document
important DSP and other algorithms (for instance, the topological sort
used for ordering unit-generator execution) with literate programming
tools or some other technique, so that this project can eventually
become a sort of free-software catalog of DSP and audio stuff--and
spread the word about high-level unit generator systems. Using TeX for
this also opens the possibility of making both online HTML and published
books (cf. print publication of HOTWO's etc.) 

Donald Knuth did similar things; now when people want to learn about
algorithms in digital typesetting, they read the source to his TeX and
Metafont. I've found very little usable information online about
music-DSP (so much of it is focused on things like VOIP compression and
assembly-line robot control.) One thing we could do is document
everything so that the gap will start to get filled. 

By the way, I have only one more exam, in Theory of Computation (on
monday). Then I am free to devote much more time to finishing the beta
of the OCTAL Tracker. I expect things to move very quickly over the next
few months. 

-- 
@@@ david o'toole
@@@ address@hidden
@@@ www.gnu.org/software/octal