pjbsynth

SYNPOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
PATCHES
STANDARD CONTROLLER-NUMBERS
NON-STANDARD CONTROLLER-NUMBERS

INSTALLATION
CHANGES
BUGS
AUTHOR
SEE ALSO

NAME

pjbsynth.csd - a Csound script for a low-tech old-fashioned synth

SYNOPSIS

 # after a full install:
 pjbsynth -M 99         # to get a list of your MIDI-device numbers
 pjbsynth -M 6          # connect your MIDI-device 6 to the synth
 pjbsynth               # connects default MIDI-device 0 to the synth
 pjbsynth -O null       # doesn't log to the screen
 pjbsynth -T -F in.mid  # plays the MIDI-file in.mid
 pjbsynth -i in.wav     # in.wav will appear as patch 91
 pjbsynth -h            # read the manual

 # after a minimal install, with copies of pjbsynth.csd
 # and of the *.txt files in your current directory:
 csound -M 99 pjbsynth.csd    # get a list of your MIDI-device numbers
 csound -M 6 pjbsynth.csd     # connect your MIDI-device 6 to the synth
 csound pjbsynth.csd          # connects MIDI-device 0 to the synth
 csound -O null pjbsynth.csd  # doesn't log to the screen
 csound -T -F in.mid pjbsynth.csd   # plays the MIDI-file in.mid
 csound -i in.wav pjbsynth.csd  # in.wav will appear as patch 91
 perldoc pjbsynth.csd           # read the manual

DESCRIPTION

This csound script takes MIDI input and produces audio output. It is still at an early release stage, and is likely to change even in important details like Patches and Controller-numbers.

Channels 0-8 are dedicated to Audio signals. The basic Patches are simple, old-fashioned waveforms like sine, triangle, square, and sawtooth, plus some fractal waveforms, and also live or file audio.

The Channel Controllers for these Audio channels can be set by the normal methods, or one or two of them can be driven by a built-in Low-Frequency-Oscillator by using the non-standard controllers cc20 to cc23, or cc24 to cc27, or by a built-in Attack-Envelope using cc52 to cc53. Other non-standard controllers offer also Ring modulation, Distortion, some unusual types of Loop, etc.

Channel 9 is dedicated to a low-tech percussion-set using simple waveforms like sine or white noise. It is roughly modelled on General-MIDI Channel 9, see http://www.pjb.com.au/muscript/gm.html#perc

Channels 10-15 are dedicated to the Low-Frequency-Oscillators, where MIDI-note number 60 means not middle-C, but 1 Cycle-per-second (i.e. eight octaves lower!).

An example setup1.mid is included, which sets up pjbsynth with a few plausible sounds.

PATCHES

Audio Patches for channels 0-8 (Note-number 60 is middle-C)

  0 = Sine wave       (modulating to triangle)
  1 = Triangle wave   (modulating to spiky triangle)
  2 = 65% Square wave (modulating to 100% square wave)
  3 = Square wave     (modulating to castellated-square wave)
  4 = Sawtooth wave   (modulating to fractalised sawtooth)
  5 = 75%-Sawtooth    (modulating to fractalised 75% sawtooth)
  6 = Sine wave       (modulating to 9 harmonics of a square wave)
  7 = Fat Sine wave   (modulating to a 5-harmonic thin sine wave)
  8 = Buzz            (round modulating to buzzy)
  9 = Sawtooth wave   (modulating to square wave)
 10 = Rectified Sine  (modulating to rectified sine with harmonics)
 12 = Fat Sine
 13 = Thin Sine with 3rd harmonic
 14 = Thin Sine with 3rd and 5th harmonics
 15 = Rectified Sine
 20 = Mild Morse-Thue-fractal-frequency-modulated Triangle
 21 = Moderate Morse-Thue-fractal frequency-modulated Triangle
 22 = Moderate Rabbit-fractal frequency-modulated Triangle
 23 = Rabbit-fractal Triangle wave
 24 = Rabbit-fractal Square wave
 25 = Morse-Thue-fractal Triangle wave
 26 = Morse-Thue-fractal Square wave
 90 = Live stereo audio input (currently unimplemented)
 91 = Live audio input mixed down to mono

LFO Patches for channels 10-15 (Note-number 60 is 1 cycle-per-second !)

The Low-Frequency-Oscillators live in Channels 10 and above, and use Patches 100 and above. Their frequencies are eight octaves lower than the audio Patches, so that Note number 60 means 1 cycle-per-second. These two data-items, the Patch and the "Note", are the only two that Low-Frequency-Oscillators need.

 100 = Sine wave
 101 = Triangle wave
 102 = Square wave 65%
 103 = Square wave 90%
 104 = Square wave
 105 = Sawtooth wave Up
 106 = Intermediate Triangle/Sawtooth wave 90% Up
 107 = Intermediate Triangle/Sawtooth wave 75% Up
 108 = another Triangle wave
 109 = Intermediate Triangle/Sawtooth wave 75% Down
 110 = Intermediate Triangle/Sawtooth wave 90% Down
 111 = Sawtooth wave Down

STANDARD CONTROLLER-NUMBERS

See http://www.pjb.com.au/muscript/gm.html#cc

   1 = Modulation
   5 = Portamento time
   6 = Data Entry MSB
   7 = Channel volume
  10 = Pan
  11 = Expression
  38 = Data Entry LSB
  64 = Sustain pedal
  65 = Portamento on-off
  71 = Filter Q (affects the cc74 filter)
  72 = Release time
  73 = Attack time
  74 = Low-pass Filter frequency
  75 = Decay time
  76 = Vibrato rate
  77 = Vibrato depth
  78 = Vibrato delay
  84 = Portamento from-note
  91 = Reverb depth
  92 = Tremolo depth
  95 = Phaser depth
 100 = Registered Parameter LSB
 101 = Registered Parameter MSB

The Pitch-bend-range is a "Registered Parameter", and should (but see BUGS below) be adjusted by:

 cc101=0, cc100=0, cc6=0..24 semitones, cc38=0, cc101=127, cc100=127

NON-STANDARD CONTROLLER-NUMBERS

cc20-23 connect a controller (cc21) to an LFO (cc20), and cc24-27 connect another controller (cc25) to an LFO (cc24). Similarly, cc52-55 connect a controller (cc53) to an Effect-Envelope launched at the start of each note (which also affects other notes ongoing in the same Channel).

When being driven by an LFO or an Effect-Envelope in this way, the controller will ignore its standard MIDI Controller-Change commands.

If in one channel cc21 and cc25 both attempt to connect the same controller (this would be an error) then the cc20-cc23 specification takes precedence. But multiple controllers in many channels may be driven by the same LFO without problem.

 20 = LFO-channel (10..15; default 0=off)
 21 = an audio Channel-Controller that the LFO will control
      (cc21=0 is special-cased to mean Pitch-Bend)
 22 = the minimum value of that audio Channel-Controller
 23 = the maximum value of that audio Channel-Controller

 24 = LFO-channel (10..15; default 0=off)
 25 = another audio Channel-Controller that this new LFO will control
      (cc25=0 is special-cased to mean Pitch-Bend)
 26 = the minimum value of that audio Channel-Controller
 27 = the maximum value of that audio Channel-Controller

 52 = Effect-Envelope Attack-Time (0..127; default 0=off)
 53 = the audio Channel-Controller that this Effect-Envelope will control
      (cc53=0 is special-cased to mean Pitch-Bend)
 54 = the initial value of that audio Channel-Controller
 55 = the  final  value of that audio Channel-Controller

There are several other non-standard CC's:

  14 = Choof (unimplemented)
  15 = Clonk (unimplemented)
  44 = Loop Type (0=Echo (default), 1=Loop, 2=Rabbit, 3=Morse-Thue)
  45 = Loop Volume
  46 = Loop Delay 1 (0..4 sec)
  47 = Loop Delay 2
  87 = Overdrive Distortion (modelled on SWH foverdrive_1196)
  88 = Ring Modulator Channel (usually set to Patch 0)
  90 = Tremolo rate (affects the cc92 tremolo)
 119 = Dump current settings to pjbsynth.state.py (unimplemented)
       will use subinstr, srtcatk, fprintks to print non-default gkCC*
       in either muscript, MIDI-Perl, MIDI.py, MIDI.lua, or .mid format

If cc87=0 then Distortion is switched off.

If cc88=127 then Ring-Modulation is switched off. If cc88 points to another audio channel (0..8) then the latter's direct output will be suppressed and the current channel will be modulated with it. Usually, that other channel should be a simple wave-form like a sine, perhaps with portamento.

INSTALLATION

For a full installation, download the tarball: http://www.pjb.com.au/midi/free/pjbsynth-1.22.tar.gz , unpack it, and, as superuser: make install . This puts some files in /usr/local/share/pjbsynth/ and copies a wrapper script to /usr/local/bin/pjbsynth

For a minimal installation, unpack the tarball and copy pjbsynth.csd and the *.txt files into your working directory.

See the SYNOPSIS for the difference in usage.

You will also need csound version 5 installed.

CHANGES

 20130117 1.22 fix two bugs reported by Pete Goodeve on csound 5.19
 20110120 1.21 Loop stuff moved to CCs 44-74; Rabbit and MT2 Loops
 20110104 1.20 standard cc71 means filter Q :-) so get rid of cc89
 20101228 1.19 cc85 and cc86 now do Loop, not just Echo
 20101224 1.18 two more modulating patches
 20101220 1.17 cc11 Expression
 20101219 1.16 tarball includes the up-to-date test_score
 20101219 1.15 fixed cc53=0 Envelope-driven Bend bug; other minor fixes
 20101217 1.14 fixed LFO bug, new modulating patches 0..6
 20101211      disentangled cc53=0 (Bend) from the other cc53 settings
 20101210 1.13 stereo phaser, cc52-55 allow attack-Envelope control
 20101202 1.12 Ring modulator, Distortion, Patch 91
 20101127 1.11 first uploaded to www.pjb.com.au
 20101110 1.10 first working version

 TODO:
  Choof CC using perhaps very mildly filtered pink noise
  Clonk CC using very heavily damped sine at perhaps sqrt of note-pitch
  Note=0 guaranteed silent (used to force a reread of Loop parameters)
  MT and Rabbit CC somehow (two delay params), not just boring old Loop
   (won't need Loop, MT and Rabbit simultaneously; how to express this?)
  A filtered pink-noise patch
  Stereo live audio through, patch 90
  State dump
  Give the Reverb an initial delay, somehow increasing with the reverb time

BUGS

The phaser2 function needs a fast CPU, especially if several phasers are running simultaneously.

The Registered-parameter controllers cc101 and cc100 are handled by csound in some apparently undocumented way. pjbsynth treats a naked cc6 event as setting the Pitch-bend-range, but if you send a cc101 and cc100 first (like you're supposed to) then cc6 produces no effect.

Changes in controller cc45 go unnoticed until a new note is struck in the channel; this is inconvenient if a loop is running and you want to fade it out...

AUTHOR

Peter J Billam http://www.pjb.com.au/comp/contact.html