Re: real time?

From: Eric Scheirer (eds@media.mit.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 03 1997 - 11:49:01 EST


Steven Curtin wrote:
>
> I just pulled down the latest release and will be curious to
> see what's new. What is that status of real time output? Your release
> notes state that this version is not real time and "will never be". Is
> there some structural reason that you couldn't hook its generating routine
> up to a callback, such as calculating each instrument one track at a time?
> I'm specifically interested in getting a W95 Wave or Direct Sound interface
> going.

There are actually hooks in place for doing real-time sound output;
they're currently disabled in the distribution. If you want to
add your own, it's quite easy -- just write your own soundOutQueue()
which accepts a buffer of shorts and queues them out. (soundOutQueue()
is called from saol_sched.c).

By "will never be" I just meant that I have no intention of making
this implementation into a real-time tool competitive with csound
or Supercollider. There are fundamental reasons in this
architecture's structure which limit the efficiency and would be
a lot of work to fix. It currently runs simple instruments in
real-time on my Octane, and probably would on a fast Pentium II
also.

> This weekend I downloaded and checked out Supercollider- it's very well
> done, although only for PowerPC. This would be a good model for an MPEG4
> development environment. The ability to add real-time sliders that affect
> instruments as they're played is particularly useful.

Yes, my officemate who's a better composer uses a MIDI slider board
with Csound to develop instruments. I'm interested to know if anyone
is actively planning the development of authoring tools right now?

Best to all,

 -- Eric

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