[sdiy] Oscillator sampler with sorting capabilities concept

[cheater00 .]

Jim,
it's been quite some time since I've touched pd at all. I don't
exactly remember what things sounded like back then.

Paul,
On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 2:45 PM, Paul Anderson <wackyvorlon at me.com> wrote:
> I think it would probably sound like increasing amounts of static, until you get to the point of a saw. You'd be creating discontinuities in the wave, and those tend to sound like clicks.

I guess it depends which sorting algorithm we're looking at. For
bubble sort, once you've sorted a sample, it's going to be part of a
sawtooth, which ramps down to finally culminate in the rest of the
wave. The rest of the wave will have less voltage than the final point
of this sawtooth. The rest of the wave is most likely going to stay
continuous.

I wonder what other sorting algorithms could sound like. Or other
operations (most likely bijections) that happen on lists..

Idea: convolve slave wave by master wave..

>
> A counter-proposal: Take the derivative of the wave, and use that derivative to control the slope(and hence frequency) of a sawtooth.


Aka VCO->HPF->VCO? :)

Cheers,
D.



>>
>> I don't know if it would sound good, but I'm very interested.   I'm also wondering what happens if you do one iteration of a sort between each cycle of a waveform.  You could start with just noise … it might sound like a boring waveform cross-fade, but it might not :)
>>
>> How far did you get with the pure data implementation?
>>
>> cheers! J.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 18 May 2013, at 09:30, "cheater00 ." <cheater00 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi guys,
>>> I was wondering what you guys thought of this synthesis technique. Has
>>> anyone tried this? Could it sound good?
>>>
>>> Here's a chat log between me and a fellow synthesis fan.
>>>
>>> have you ever tried running a waveform through a sorting algorithm?
>>> That is, take each cycle and sort that. If you sort the waveform fully
>>> you should get something like a saw. But you could limit the amount of
>>> work the sorting algo can perform before the waveform cycle is
>>> released. If you put this parameter on a knob then you could perhaps
>>> have a somewhat-smooth transition from your current waveform to a saw
>>> waveform.
>>>
>>> I think it could even work for analogue synths, you'd just need
>>> somewhat of a buffer
>>>
>>>
>>> you could have a sampler which works like this: it has a sync input
>>> and a wave input from a VCO. when the vco outputs sync, it starts
>>> sampling the waveform until the next sync. Once that's done, this is
>>> called "a wave". Now for the output. Every time a wave is sampled, it
>>> is placed on a queue (fifo). When a vco sync happens, the output
>>> module takes the next wave from the fifo and starts outputting it. As
>>> long as the wave is being output, syncs can be ignored (or instead, it
>>> could jump to the next waveform at index 0, or to the next waveform at
>>> the same index as it currently is). If there is only one wave left in
>>> the queue, and the device is getting sync pulses over and over, then
>>> it could either start outputting silence, or start outputting the last
>>> wave it had in the queue.
>>>
>>>
>>> this way it could work even delay-less (but would mangle the output in
>>> a fun way)
>>>
>>>
>>> Snd of course, while this happens the currently output waveform could
>>> be mangled by: sorting, randomizing, sorting or shaping according to
>>> the current waveform shape in a second sampler, etc.
>>>
>>>
>>> could be fun when run on FM oscillators which change pitch.
>>>
>>>
>>> So what "slaving to another sampler" would mean is that, in the master
>>> sampler you have the sorting algorithm, and it moves sample 4 to
>>> position 1. Then the slave sampler doesn't sort its own samples,
>>> instead it just moves sample 4 to position 1, just like the master
>>> sampler. I think this might only work if the wave are "normalized" to
>>> some length, or alternatively if the waves in the slave get resampled
>>> to the length of the master, or alternatively if the waves in the
>>> master get resampled to the length of the slave. Resampling slave to
>>> length of master would mean we either get a nice low-pass effect (if
>>> the resampling is band-limited) or we get frequency-dependent aliasing
>>> (if the resampling is not band-limited). The aliasing would not change
>>> position in an inharmonic way like it usually happens when you alias
>>> against a static sample rate (like when recording to a low sample rate
>>> interface); instead aliasing would add a timbral quality which would
>>> be constant across the keyboard, and work in a musical fashion.
>>> Because both the master and slave waveforms are sampled at the same
>>> clock rate, this aliasing process is immune to the clock rate of the
>>> samplers.
>>>
>>> You could laso have the master send the current wave to the slave and
>>> you could have the slave use it to wave-shape its wave with that. So
>>> if the master has a rising saw, nothing happens, and if master has a
>>> sine wave, then you get a sine shaper.
>>>
>>> If the master sends a wave, where the voltage level of the nth sample
>>> is instead replaced by the index it has after being sorted, then
>>> "slave sorting" could work simply by wave-shaping the slave wave by
>>> that master "sorting index" wave.
>>>
>>>
>>> Of course you could have the slave have its own sampling input and
>>> sampling sync input, but then have its *output* sync to the master's
>>> sync input or a dedicated output-module sync input. Then if the sample
>>> memory is really long, and the sync happens every now and then, you
>>> could have a stutter effect.
>>>
>>>
>>> You could even have "markers" in the wave, which happen when a third
>>> input is triggered. Then, once the output module get sync, rather than
>>> jump to the beginning of the current wave it could jump back to the
>>> latest marker or skip forward.
>>>
>>>
>>> And if you have a long sample memory then you can just trigger the
>>> input sync once and have a loop play forever.
>>>
>>>
>>> I wonder what everyone thinks of this?
>>>
>>>
>>> This is fairly similar to some of the stuff I did in Pure Data at some
>>> point, but I've only now figured out how this could fit into the
>>> context of a modular synth.
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> D.
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