SONICS

Specialised Operations Notably Implemented in Csound

The UDO files in this directory are a slimmed excerpt from the SONICS collection. The full collection will be made available in the future. SONICS is a framework of frontends, Csound UDOs and PostgreSQL database functionality allowing for easier sound processing, sequencing and live performance. The frontend components consist of elements using SDL, Qt and HTML, while audio engines can utilise Pyo, Puredata and Csound. Data is stored on disk and in databases (of which PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB and SQLite are supported). Only the Csound UDO and PostgreSQL database components are featured in the extract for Partial Emergence, and those are mainly limited to the required functionality for the installation but may have some reuse potential.

Key concepts

Sequencing and time

sequencing.udo contains opcodes to maintain a master clock on which other opcodes rely.

Melodic progressions

sequencing_melodic.udo features a system of chord progression management based around set and stochastic rules. The f-tables defined at the top of the file contain details of the current chord notes.

sequencing_melodic_persistence.udo deals with loading and saving chord progressions to/from disk or database.

sequencing_melodic_portamento.udo makes the current chord note frequencies available in f-tables with an applied portamento based on a time that can be set globally.

Sound DB Extract

soundxdb.udo provides a way to manage sound collections specified in a database extract. The fundamental database access opcodes contained in sounddb.udo are not included in this slim excerpt, as they rely on database plugin opcodes, but will be made available in the future. The SONICS database provides a way to export data and access with the same interface; the export opcodes are provided herein. Sounds are allocated collections which can be of a regular or melodic type. Melodic sounds also have the corresponding MIDI note number stored in the database and thus can then be retrieved based on the requested note. Functions in the database handle the retrieval and calculation of the pitch ratio adjustment required to make the sound match the requested note.

The extract in ../include/soundexport.xdb features such a set of arrays and f-tables that mimic what the database would return. For each sound collection, gixdb_pitchreference stores a reference for all possible MIDI notes (0 to 127) which is accessed by a collection specific offset held in gixdb_pitchrefoffset. The values returned from gixdb_pitchreference then point to the upper and lower bounds in gixdb_pitchnotes and gixdb_pitchadjust which contain the index in gisounddb and the pitch adjustment ratio required in order to match the requested note. This fulfillment of such a request is carried out by sounddb_mel_nearestnote in soundxdb.udo.

Bussing

bussing.udo provides stereo wrappers around chnset/chnget/chnmix opcodes to allow for easier bussing, and a default master bus which has a global amplitude control.

Instruments

While SONICS is mainly a control framework, there are also extension opcodes which use the framework to provide audio processing and generation; the UDO files are prepended with instrument_