Re: Those API revisions, plus some thoughts

[David O'Toole]

> is 'generic' now a format (type), and what about 'velocity'? 
> widgets are probably still 'slider','option','trigger' right?

There will need to be several "standard" parameters for a generator, 
if we want the GUI to do nice things like automatically set up MIDI
velocity 
mapping automatically, or draw a high-velocity-hit note in a different
color
than a low-velocity one. The "velocity" type is really just a little
hint that says
"this parameter modifies the volume of the note for this channel."

It will simplify things a lot if we can say that for generators, note is
always param
0 and velocity is always #1. 

Since most generators will have at least a note and velocity, I think
it'll be no 
problem to do that. Anything else that should go into the basic set, or
is that about
it? Patch, maybe? (Wave in a tracker machine, possibly other things in a
synth.)

Notice how those 2 or 3 standard params match up with the input keys on
the 
proposed wave map issue:

get_wave(int note_key, float velocity_key, float user_key); 

> docs are a bit inconsistent 

There are several widgets in the reference docs that aren't implemented
yet.
The implemented ones are listed near the top of machine.h. 

> sorry i am away from my dev machine so i havent got the source yet
> 
> > 2. the "param" typedef is now floating-point, so you may have to stick
> > some (int) in places.
> 
> this is definitely a good thing, since most things are float, it seems 
> (inside octal anyway). 
> now param and samp are the same...

Yes, but, don't mix them up, as we may want to recompile with double
precision samples on a pro audio rack that supports them. 
Speaking of which, we must stop the use of macros to hardcode sampling
rate... I'll add a package function to retrieve environment
info like that. 

> 
> > 3. several minor name changes, plus the new channel thingy
> will look at this... 

There is very little information about how to actually use it yet.. I've
had some discussions with Matt,
and I'd like to polish up that part of the API using SimpleSynth and
then release better docs with those examples.

> how long till we can edit patterns? :))))
> no seriously what is todo on the mixer and do you have any more ideas
about
> how you might implement the sequencer?

As Soon As Possible. The only constraint on my time right now is
education, 
and I graduate in just a few weeks... :-) I can go back
to one of my favorite development activities, which is listening to
techno and programming 
all night with colored mood-lights on. A good chunk of the current GUI
was written that way. 

The sequencer has been on my mind a lot the past month or so... making
sure it
supports a high PPQN (pulses per quarter note, so that we aren't stuck
when we need
to position an event in a particular spot, and for more precise
recording of human playing)
different time signatures, automations drawn by the user, etc etc. Um,
if you would like to 
see some of my ramblings on the subject, I think the file epsilon.txt in
CVS has some of my
notes. (I don't usually put that stuff in, but it got committed by
accident when I did the first
checking of the project, and I haven't gotten around to removing it.)

> its easy to separate 'handlers' for resources by mime types

Ooh, nice idea....



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