posted 18 December 2006 18:30            

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

posted 19 December 2006 08:44            

For example, if you wanted 'g' to have a likelihood of 0.3 and 'b' to have a likelihood of 0.7, you collection would look like this:
('g' 'g' 'g' 'b' 'b' 'b' 'b' 'b' 'b' 'b')

That way, if you select an index into the collection using a uniform random distribution, you are more likely to hit a 'b' than you are to hit a 'g'.

Whenever you select an index, you could *remove* the item at that index from the collection. This would reduce the likelihood of hitting that element next time.

When the collection is empty, you are either finished with the piece (or you could have a check to avoid remvoing the last element).

You could use a Smalltalk Script to generate your random numbers using this algorithm, saving a long sequence of these numbers that you could then use as a CapyTalk array. In CapyTalk, you would simply step through this random sequence, e.g.

posted 19 December 2006 09:22            

That out of say 16 possible options, certain are more likely to occur than others (set by !Faders in realtime), and that once an option has been selected, the likelihood of it being selected again drops down by say 75%, and then if selected again immediately, by another 25%, and then by 25% again (if it were selected again immediately etc.), inversely, after say 5 steps of it not having been selected, its likelihood of selection returns to it's original value. That way the improvisation could go on indefinitely with the same (or different) probabilities towards the end than at the beginning...

I would like each of the 16 options to have a different initial relative likelihood of selection, and during each selection step, to drop in likelihood of selection by a different percentage amount (in other words, some options would drop by 50% the first time they are selected, others by 10%, others by 80% etc.). In fact, it would be great if some options with a very low relative likelihood of selection, once finally selected, actually became much more likely to be selected again for a couple of steps, after which their selection likelihood drops to it's default low value etc.

I realize that I'm describing something that requires some serious programming skill. The question is whether it's about modular skill (building the algorithm piece by piece over time) or whether it requires something a lot more complex in a global sense. Also, whether Capytalk is fit for this, or whether Smalltalk would be the way to go (or perhaps many prototypes connected in a large network), or whether it would indeed be possible to do in Kyma at all?

If not, then perhaps I should start learning C, so that I could build something like this as an external for Kyma or Max/MSP etc. Although I would rather avoid that if possible!

Thanks!

posted 19 December 2006 10:08            

If you wanted to use max, you can find a bunch of objects with a search at www.maxobjects.com. I see there's a markov object in the RTC (Real-Time Composition) library by Karlheinz Essl - I'm using his brownian object in my current project. I'm sure AC Toolbox would have something as well, if you wanted to get into Lisp...

I would indeed love to be able to do this kind of thing directly in smalltalk.

SSC, would it be possible to generate new randomized collections as you are describing on the fly, or would you have to generate them with a script at compile time?

Phil

posted 19 December 2006 10:32            

But I will definitely check out the Max stuff as that does interest me. I have been using Max less and less lately, but this may be a good time to get back into it...

[This message has been edited by JackRosete (edited 19 December 2006).]

posted 19 December 2006 11:07            

Incidentally, there are some markov functions described on pages 276-277 of Kyma X Revealed, although I have not used them yet.

I am getting more and more into using max interacting with Kyma. While I would never want to do a whole project all in max, I do find it useful to process incoming controllers and sending it via flame~ to the capy. My current project has max doing amplitude and pitch tracking (fiddle~ object), processing a P5 virtual reality glove and a Contour Shuttle (hi~ object), a wacom tablet,with 2 pens (wacom~), input from the computer keyboard, as well as generating random number streams (brownian object and others). The only kind of annoying thing is you have to have max in front for some of these functions to work.

posted 19 December 2006 11:23            

Phil, I have actually started building GUIs for Kyma Sounds in Max with the pictctrl object and some of Max's graphical objects. That has been a lot of fun and allows me to construct more complex stuff in Kyma and yet retain a small, neat graphical front end in Max that I can control from the Lemur. I guess it would only be one step further to build some control functions into the Max GUIs I was simply hoping to keep the deeper construction stuff within Kyma. But perhaps by building Tools I will be able to discover a new way of working altogether.

The VCS has some great built-in features like the preset storage, dice, great look etc. But there are also some limitations. I would like to see a better text widget with variable font/font size, copy/paste, easier dragging and an arrow keys nudge feature. Also, if that font/font size selection could be applied to the number boxes, they could be made a lot smaller, and therefore a lot more faders could be displayed more neatly etc. Also the VCS can get pretty slow at times!

p.s. Reaktor 5's graphical features are pretty amazing, I love the concept of layers within the front panel 'control surface'. For example, you might have a row of 16 switches that control the steps of an analog sequencer, above those switches, you could have four buttons for kick, snare, hats, and ride, and when you press each of those buttons, the switches below change to display the steps for each part respectively, making great use of screen space.

posted 20 December 2006 10:46            

quote:

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Originally posted by JackRosete:
I have actually started building GUIs for Kyma Sounds in Max with the pictctrl object and some of Max's graphical objects.

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I'd like to see some screenshots of those! It might give me some ideas, especially since I have to have Max in the foreground anyway.