Can't get into programming the shnth

[ClausF]

$8 is not much, and the book sounds fun, but shlisp looks a bit like lisp (for example brackets and how to set values) but most of the commands are shint orientated and not in lisp. For a short impression of Lisp look here:
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/lisp/index.htm
I would start with existing codes - there are a few examples from Peter and here you find more - analyze them and change them. That should bring you faster to the goal to understand shlisp

[wednesdayayay]

I hope peter guts the tocante series and sells just the solar charger/speaker for some shnth in the woods

I'm a big shnth fan perhaps we could skype/PM if you want some one on one help

[secretkillerofnames]

I'm a big shnth fan perhaps we could skype/PM if you want some one on one help

I find myself using your creations more often than not!

Do you use the Fish editor or type it out in an editor?

Because I'd like to be able to use the visual editor but didn't much further than not being able to get left and right working properly.

[wednesdayayay]

I always use the Fish editor at this point
not sure what you tried but just throw a horn inside of a Left or right



two things that always help me when starting because are putting in a left or right (usually both) then adding bubbles is the enter button


click inside the left or right opcode/fish/box the name should be highlighted blue press enter this adds little annotation bubbles (double clicking them and writing a message always helps when working on patches you want to come back to later or even just todo lists for a particular patch)
however if you click the bottom "handle" of the opcode/fish/box the whole thing should be highlighted blue instead of the name if you press enter now it will add bubble after

this wont help getting sound out but honestly it just helps me create


if you are having trouble with the right and left opcodes try something like this below (it doesn't need the extra bubbles) if that doesn't work let me know you may need to do the orange light procedure (very easy sometimes the shnth just gets confused and needs a reset)




getting used to the drag and drop interface is key knowing the difference between the little green bubble (inside a fish) and the blue bubbles (in front, behind a fish) is a great help



one thing that helped understanding patches was to use references (command F, this will copy whatever is selected but won't show all the guts this way you can keep the modulation stuff outside of the actual sound making patch) for me it makes the patch easier to understand at a glance

at the bottom you see the meta view of the patch then up top is the gutty bits inside


for instance in the patch above I'm using L&R outputs
inside each is a pair of high/lopass filters

In the heart of the filter is where we start

INN- the input is wind (audio in/mic, mono (it does pick up a little bit of the left channel but not much)
q - is a togo or sequencer
rate (frequency of filter) - is another togo sequencer


each filter is inside of a Pan opcode
INN is the filter
place is an
add with two diffferent slews

each of the filters has a final "VCA" being
mul modulated by a Slew

note that the slews are different for all filters, none of the same slew appears in any one filter an the same for the sequencers




or for simpler patches (the one below I'm particularly proud of for its simplicity) it sometimes doesn't really matter how you arrange things



I do enjoy talking about the shnth


[/img]

[secretkillerofnames]

Thanks wednesdayayay - i'll go through your post tomorrow when i've some time to get my head around it.

I'm so used to the (virtual) cable paradigm that the fish way seems very foreign.

[wednesdayayay]

just tried something new out in the middle of my newest shnth excursion

try something like
a swoop for a sound source
place it right it the DAC
not loud enough? abuse it by putting it in a MODO
fun enough there
but to take it to some plumbuttery territory
saw or horn at (126, 126) in the MUL of the MODO
weird ultrasound stuff happening

also my speakers are very very low while doing all this I just tried with regular audio and it was way too much at higher MODO levels

like I said I'm in the middle of another patch but I'm sure it would prove fertile grounds for exploration
mounts, toggles, wheels, slews not even to mention what might happen with a regular sound source

[secretkillerofnames]

getting used to the drag and drop interface is key knowing the difference between the little green bubble (inside a fish) and the blue bubbles (in front, behind a fish) is a great help

This was the main thing that was flummoxing me. Finding how to add both left and right and not have the Shnth lock up requiring the orange button reset.

I've managed to make an annoying noise thing that actual works!!



Thanks for your help - obviously much more to learn but this is a big step for me.
The next major question is how do you move between multiple patches.

[wednesdayayay]

or for simpler patches (the one below I'm particularly proud of for its simplicity) it sometimes doesn't really matter how you arrange things

at the top of this patch you can see

srate (which sets the sampling rathe of the Shnth normally it is set to 16 I think)(I need to experiment with srate more as I bet the shnth can output some high frequencies for LZX video synth fun)

next to that is
(jump(tar 1))
so jump allows you to move around your different patches
tar is your orange button (not the maj or minor butts but the singular orange nested in between the bars)
MULing the tar button to 1 means every time your press the tar button you will move forward one patch
you could then also (add) another button MULed to be (-1) so that you could walk forward and backwards through your patches if you wanted

if you wanted to get a bit more silly you could use bend rather than jump and that way you could use something like a bar to move through your patches

[secretkillerofnames]

at the top of this patch you can see

srate (which sets the sampling rathe of the Shnth normally it is set to 16 I think)(I need to experiment with srate more as I bet the shnth can output some high frequencies for LZX video synth fun)

Thanks I'll give that a go. Curious about the values in the srate opcode?

[wednesdayayay]

[srate] normally only has one value
but inside of the [srate] above is a [short]
[short] is like a fine tuning opcode where (big) represents the coarse tuning and (small) represents the fine tuning
this works well in lots of opcodes
like I said normally even if you don't have [srate] in your patch the default is 16

I think the lower the sample rate the more your patch can have in it but I assume you sacrifice some sound quality or something with a higher sample rate I'm assuming it essentially over clocks your shnth
I haven't really experimented with [srate] beyond just making sure my patches don't run sluggishly yet

I'm gonna try modulating the (big) and (small) of a short inside maybe a [wave] this sounds like it could be fun

[VortexRanger]

One important thing to note about srate is if you ever let it hit zero you effectively crash your patch.

[rovadams]

I have a performance set on my shnth with Minor as the trigger in Jump and Minorb inside as the Add. That way you can go in either direction through the patches, as long as they don't use the Minor buttons for anything else. Think I found that in one of the examples. I also did the lights in binary so I can tell which one I'm using.

[bartlebooth]

some good info here. a few other points to add:

- jump needs to have a mul in it to tell it how many bowls to jump.
- you can use any opcode to jump, even audio rate ones like horn or fog. you can also use a mount to clock your jumps, aka a patch sequencer
- bend is like jump on steroids. instead of an orderly, triggered move to the next patch, bend changes patches all the time (well, at the sample rate) based on the data values its receving from its INN. try it with corp to get a feel for it, taring the corp with different amounts of flesh will also give different sounds. - - bend pairs nicely with randuplicate (make a lot of variations on a patch, then bend through them)
- you can use any opcode in srate, like fog, string, salsa, etc..the numeric value of the output will determine the sample rate. true this may crash your shnth sometimes but it also may sound really cool
- basically you can put anything in anything, its made for experimentation

[wednesdayayay]

@bartlebooth
have you tried any ultrasoundy experiments with the shnth?

I have never tried the dogslit synth (don't even know what it is comprised of) but I got some sounds out of the shnth that reminded me of a growl I heard from a dogslit once. Any info about it would be helpful (about dogslit)

I'll post some sounds

will you continue working with peter on forthcoming shbobo instruments? if so do you forsee "nobs" in that particular future

[eclectics]

One thing I've found with fish is that it's easy to nest an opcode too deeply, making it mean something different.

ie In the text version of things that fish generates (which you can look at) it's easy to get something like ((horna)) when you mean (horna) and they mean totally different things.

[wednesdayayay]

https://soundcloud.com/tigerhouserules/ ... xperiments

some ultrasoundy things that I was playing with
the building block here will go through some filtering (all sounds here have
filter but I need to go back to the basic building block and start again)


I'll add the non-linear pulse and swoop control


(need to think about swoop and anti swoop chaining together...I remember bartlebooth wrote something about it but I think it is buried somewhere in the Dark Tower style wasteland that is the Shbobo forum now. I'll search)


and try to have my own baby dogslit on the shnth

[smonkey]

this was in the middle of this thread and needs repeating...verrrry nize shnth-full

here are a couple things I've been working on
I intended to have the ability to jump between patches bet some did not have enough space (the last still is a bit warbly at times) and I didn't want to mess with the tunings

the first uses all 8 buttons
majA&B sound the individual saws
minA&B change the deno
MAJ C&D MIN C&D change the nume in various ways
15 pitches per osc with the nume modulations plus the octave switching allows for decent coverage with just 8 buttons

I have several working mutations of this original patch that I may post

in the second bowl I tuned the shnth (using meng qi's max app) to C#3 then I used my strobe tuner and tried to get as close as possible to individual notes

if you want traditional tuning on the shnth this is a pretty decent start

the next bowl is just a foggy musing using these tunings for a C#F# howl

the last bowl adds a third note to the 3rd patch of fog

some of the submodule type workings on the last two patches came from ideas used in the first patch

[salsa [togo]] is an interesting combo
togo'ing togos is used in the horn deno (within the fog) of the 3rd voice in the last patch

the tunings present previously are workable but they are fairly consistently off by -20 cents or so

I'm not sure how much the short opcode adds processing wise though

[Clemdu]

Hello Shnth friends!
I'm looking for tips and tricks with the [lights] opcode... I just started trying this out recently and wondering how you use the binary approach?

[smonkey]

my theory goes...throw some lights in there.... if it blinks a lot, and you play it a lot, the patterns make sense faster than trying to make it signal what you want.

[jimmie]

Hello Shnth friends!
I'm looking for tips and tricks with the [lights] opcode... I just started trying this out recently and wondering how you use the binary approach?

I thought it could be useful for indicating patch number. Tuned out proving I'm not smart enough to memorize binary numbers for past 4 or so

could be used for like an input level meter for wind?

[eclectics]

Something to note is that the shnth lights are backwards compared to binary -- least signficant bit (the 1s) is on the left rather than the right. If you just want to read a value you've output I find it easier to hold it upside down.

And using dirac (-128 - 127) negative numbers are represented by 2's complement; so if 8th led is lit it's negative. arab is 0-255

So if you want a running lights
{
(togo (square (mount 80 2)) () 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 (arab 128))
(lights (togo))
}

For indication of patches if you just have 8 patches you can use successive leds to indicate each one. Or you could use the first 4 leds to indicate a patch bank, and then 2nd 4 to indicate a patch within the bank, giving you 4x4=16 easy to read options, or 25 if you allow blanks.

for a input level meter (while monitoring)
{
(lights (arab (wind)))
(right(left (wind)))
}

[jimmie]

eclectics

Thanks that's a great help!! I have to try them later.
And I actually thought lit order was strange but didn't really think what it actually did

[jimmie]

For indication of patches if you just have 8 patches you can use successive leds to indicate each one. Or you could use the first 4 leds to indicate a patch bank, and then 2nd 4 to indicate a patch within the bank, giving you 4x4=16 easy to read options, or 25 if you allow blanks.

Could you give us the code for those? The bank idea is super It would be great to such a useful code here

[eclectics]

Sure
heres just 8 situations; jump moves between them when you press the tar, and the lights indicates which one you're on.
bar a just plays a sound in each of the patches
multi patch
;demonstrate patch jumping
{
(jump (tar 1))
(lights 1)
(left(right(horn 10 50 (bara))))
}
{
(jump (tar 1))
(lights 2)
(left(right(saw 10 50 (bara))))
}
{
(jump (tar 1))
(lights 4)
(left(right(horn 40 50 (bara))))
}
{
(jump (tar 1))
(lights 8)
(left(right(saw 40 50 (bara))))
}
{
(jump (tar 1))
(lights 16)
(left(right(horn 60 50 (bara))))
}
{
(jump (tar 1))
(lights 32)
(left(right(saw 60 50 (bara))))
}
{
(jump (tar 1))
(lights 64)
(left(right(horn 80 50 (bara))))
}
{
(jump (tar 1))
(lights (arab 128))
(left(right(saw 80 50 (bara))))
}

if you want to have the patch bank idea of 4 "banks"each with 4 subpatches (of course, the patches need not be related) it's the same as above adding extra situations as required, but the lights would be
(lights 17) ;1-1
(lights 33) ; 1-2
so bank 1 values are 17, 33, 65 (arab 129)
bank 2 are 18,34, 66, (arab 130)
bank 3 are 20, 36, 68, (arab 132)
bank 4 are 24, 40, 72, (arab 136)

to work it out the value of each led is
1 2 4 8 16 32 64 (arab 128)
and just add the numbers together for the lights you want on

There is probably a good way of selecting the patch using minor for the bank and major for the subpatch, in combination, that still allows them to be used individually within the patches.

[jimmie]

eclectics
Thank you for your contribution! I'll have to try them.