SuperDirtMixer

Extension

Description

This is a mixer ui was created for the sound engine SuperDirt https://github.com/musikinformatik/SuperDirt for the TidalCycles http://tidalcycles.org/ programming language. The main motivation of this mixer was to get rid of using a DAW like Ableton in a live coding setup, because the author just used it for mixing a live setup. This mixer helps to realize tonal depth, clean frequency separation, signal compression and a stereo panorama and makes this easily accessible in SuperDirt.. In general this mixer overwrites the default values of the orbits defaultParentEvents. This means i.e. that it allows to change the value for gain from 1.0 to a different value from 0 to 1.5. These defaultParentEvent values will be used until they get overwritten on the TidalCycles side.

For the EQ of an orbit, this plugin is using EQui (https://github.com/muellmusik/EQui). For this it's needed to add some additional values to the defaultParentEvent to store and change the EQui parameters which will be done during the initialisation of this mixer. The eq functionality was added as a global effect to every orbit. This allows you to change the eq parameters for every orbit and still use all the other filter like hpf or lpf.

You need to initialize the SuperDirtMixer in your startup file and then you are able to access the ui at any time in a separate SuperCollider file.( s.waitForBoot { ~dirt = SuperDirt(2, s); ~dirt.start(57120, 0 ! 14); // More SuperDirt ... // Initialize the SuperDirtMixer ~mixer = SuperDirtMixer(~dirt); // You can adjust parameters before you use the ui ~mixer.setMasterBus(0); // When you added your settings in you startup file, then you should be able to use the ui at any time in any differtent SuperCollider file. ~mixer.gui; } )

Class Methods

.new

Instance Methods

.gui

Renders the mixer ui with all the settings you made before.

UI configurations

.disableMasterPeakRMS

.setMasterBus

Reverb FX

The default configuration uses the native reverb algorithm with a fix room sz value of 0.95. But there is an alternative variant to use i.e. one instance of a VST reverb plugin across all orbits (see the example section). For tonal depth it is recommended to keep every audio signal in the same simulated room and just add the amount of a wet signal.

.setReverbNativeSize

.setReverbVariableName

Communication with TidalCycles

This mixer ui is able to send OSC messages to TidalCycles. This will mainly be used to solo or mute orbits. After the mixer was initialized, it automatically trys to establish a connection on location on the port 6010 (TidalCycles default value).

Preset management

.presetPath

Examples

These are a set of examples to change the mixer ui with osc messages from the outside. To use this properly, you need to have the ui open with SuperDirtMixer: -gui.

If you want to solo or mute an orbit, then use the TidalCycles reference about playback controllers: https://tidalcycles.org/docs/configuration/MIDIOSC/osc/#playback-controllers

But the idea in general would be something like this:( var tidalNetAddr = NetAddr.new("127.0.0.1", 6010); tidalNetAddr.sendMsg("/mute", orbitIndex ); tidalNetAddr.sendMsg("/unmute", orbitIndex ); tidalNetAddr.sendMsg("/solo", orbitIndex ); tidalNetAddr.sendMsg("/unsolo", orbitIndex );)

This is an example of creating a global fx bus for a VST plugin like the free reverb plugin Supermassive Valhalla (https://valhalladsp.com/shop/reverb/valhalla-supermassive/). You need to install the VSTPlugin exension to use the code below (https://github.com/Spacechild1/vstplugin)( var numChannels = ~dirt.numChannels; // This is VST Plugin synthdef example for a global reverb fx SynthDef(\valhalla2, {|out| var size = 14; // This value needs to be hard coded and means that it works for 14 orbits. var dryBusses = NamedControl.kr(\dryBusses, (0 ! size )); var wetReverbs = NamedControl.kr(\wetReverbs, (0 ! size)); // Contains the amount of dry/wet for each orbit. Value is between 0 and 1. var fxSound = size.collect({arg i; In.ar(dryBusses[i], numChannels) * wetReverbs[i]}).sum; fxSound = VSTPlugin.ar(fxSound, numOut: numChannels, id: \valhalla); // out should be a global fx bus for reverb. // With this you could add more of these fx busses without affecting other audio busses. Out.ar(out ,fxSound); }).add; SynthDef(\masterSynth, { |out, fxBus| var size = 14; // This value needs to be hard coded and means that it works for 14 orbits. var wetSound = In.ar(fxBus, numChannels); var dryBusses = NamedControl.kr(\dryBusses, (0 ! size )); var wetSums = NamedControl.kr(\wetSums, (0 ! size)); // Reduces the dry bus gain logarithmically for each orbit based on the // global fx amount. var drySound = size.collect({ arg i; ReplaceOut.ar (dryBusses[i], In.ar(dryBusses[i], numChannels) * (1/(wetSums[i] +1) )); }); // Route the global fx bus to i.e. hardware output Out.ar(out, wetSound); }).add; ) ( var numChannels = ~dirt.numChannels; var masterBus = Bus.new; // Usually this is the output of your sound card (it returns the first bus 0) var globalReverbBus = Bus.audio(~dirt.server, ~dirt.numChannels); var wetReverbs = Array.fill(~dirt.orbits.size, 0); var wetSums = Array.fill(~dirt.orbits.size, 0); var dryBusses = ~dirt.orbits.collect({arg item; item.dryBus}); var globalFXBusses = ~dirt.orbits.collect({arg item; item.globalEffectBus}); // Initilaize the reverb synth // Ensure that this Synth be played at the end of the Synth group ~valhallaSynth = Synth(\valhalla2, [ \out, globalReverbBus, id: \valhalla ], addAction: 'addToTail'); // Namedcontrol to set all the dryBusses for the global fx synth ~valhallaSynth.set(\dryBusses, dryBusses); // Link synth with vst plugin and load it ~valhalla = VSTPluginController(~valhallaSynth, id: \valhalla); ~valhalla.open("ValhallaSupermassive.vst3"); // Test the settings and play around with them ~valhalla.editor // The master synth routes the content of the fxBus to an out bus // i.e. the hardware output ~masterSynth = Synth(\masterSynth, [ \out, masterBus, \fxBus, globalReverbBus, ], addAction: 'addToTail'); ~masterSynth.set(\dryBusses, dryBusses); ~masterSynth.set(\globalFXBusses, globalFXBusses); // Fix this to swich between VST and Native FX ~dirt.receiveAction = { |event| var e = event.copy; var orbit = ~dirt.orbits[e.at(\orbit)]; var reverb = e.at(\reverb) ?? orbit.defaultParentEvent.at(\reverb) ?? 0; var room = e.at(\room) ?? orbit.defaultParentEvent.at(\room) ?? 0; var wet = reverb + room; wetReverbs.put(orbit.orbitIndex, reverb); wetSums.put(orbit.orbitIndex, wet); ~valhallaSynth.set(\wetReverbs, wetReverbs); ~masterSynth.set(\wetSums, wetSums); }; )